Long Game 84: A Sel United

[Amanuensis he/him]

Trust =/= "feel pretty good about these slots"

I'm not infallible  I was wrong about you in the Neighborhood game and you basically defeated Town single-handedly. I've been wrong thinking Mat was a wolf and tunneled him all D1 of MR56, and it turned out he was a Village PR. These are just two recent examples among a dozen or so in the last few games I've played. I might be right now and then, but I'm not perfect, and so in every game I operate under the assumption that I'm off about someone.

I can see a reality where Striker is a wolf even if I don't believe it myself. The fact that several people (who all can't be wolves) are saying he is suspicious and they want to kill him means they could see or feel something I'm failing to, which I accept. Mafia is a game of majority opinion, so I'm a firm believer in giving everyone their voice and a choice.

Plus I'm not too worried if we're wrong at this point. We managed to nail two wolves in as many turns, so it's not like parity is a stone's throw away.

Edited April 8, 2022 by Amanuensis

[The Baker]

5 hours ago, Bort said:

(I saw someone comment that they use words in there, not just bread pics)

Spoiler

 

 

[shadow1 she/her]

Also aman, can you explain your 'twtbw' read on striker? What in your mind moves someone from being a wolf to being twtbw?

I don't think I "see or feel something" that you're failing to, I think the reasons to be suspicious of striker are fairly straightforward - he has made three suspicious votes this game. This is one that I flagged yesterday that looks even worse today:

Quote

Araris Valerian. I have been waiting for someone to come up with faulty reasoning on me, and he fits the bill. I’ve been trying to act weird to see if I could get someone to bite for the “easy exe” that is me at all times.

And then his moves at end of day seem purely opportunistic. It's hard to know exactly what his motives are without having everyone's flips, but twice in a row trying to slip in a hammer and on day 1, when he hadn't been engaged in the thread discussion, is just bad for the town.

These aren't small tonal things, his votes are fundamentally problematic. And I disagree that his tone has been otherwise vindicating in any way.

[Amanuensis he/him]

I just feel this is more in line with Village Striker than Elim Striker, based on experience with him; not precisely based on experience with mafia as a whole. Yeah it's sus on a surface level but I don't think it's explicitly sus for him; he knows better.

Ultimately I don't know what to say otherwise  kill him and we'll see. I have no reason to defend him and I get why people want to get rid of him; I just will be more surprised if he flips red than green.

Edited April 8, 2022 by Amanuensis

[StrikerEZ he/him]

…..how have there been no posts in the last 19 hours???

[Mat he/him]

4 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

…..how have there been no posts in the last 19 hours???

Striker

High intensity solving around here

I was planning to look at D2 today and post something but yeah the thread’s pretty slow :P.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

3 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Striker

High intensity solving around here

I was planning to look at D2 today and post something but yeah the thread’s pretty slow :P.

Why’d you unvote me? Not complaining, just confused because you sounded pretty set on me yesterday.

[Mat he/him]

4 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

Why’d you unvote me? Not complaining, just confused because you sounded pretty set on me yesterday.

Because I believe this- :P.

23 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

This is why you don’t make posts during class I guess. I literally said later in the post that I knew my vote would either kill Thaid or not save Archer, even in the event of a tie. Ugh

Didn’t unvote at the time because the other post was fresh in my mind but having sat on it for awhile it doesn’t seem like a legit slip to me.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

Well, thank you for believing me, Mat. 

[Kasimir he/him]

On 4/8/2022 at 11:01 PM, Matrim's Dice said:

Oh yeah, forgot to mention things regarding Devo- as the VC shows, Archer didn’t prefer Thaid over Devo, he preferred to self pres onto the other player with the most votes. Illwei’s vote on me was naked and came immediately after Kas’ so I don’t think it was a conscious decision on Illwei’s part to pick me over Devo, Kas just provided me as an option right when Illwei was there to take it. Therefore that whole argument is invalidated  

Yes I will defend Devo until she flips and possibly even afterwards thank you very much  

You still sold on V!Devo, bro?

[Quivil]

At this point (having finally caught up on the thread so far) I agree with Kas. Striker is seeming sus and his statements don't match up - and they don't-match-up in funny ways.

 

Ed1t: You're welcome for this *sarcasm begins* extremely helpful and game-focused post. *sarcasm ends*

Edited April 9, 2022 by Tani

[Mat he/him]

5 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

You still sold on V!Devo, bro?

Pretty much. I like Aman’s view of this being a team game, if enough people want to flip her etc but I do think Devo will flip village.

[Kasimir he/him]

4 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Pretty much. I like Aman’s view of this being a team game, if enough people want to flip her etc but I do think Devo will flip village.

Because I'll be honest, I'm not really sold on Devo as much anymore, but can you walk me once more through why you think Devo is Evil?

Sorry for my absence, guys. Arelon is on 129 pages now but I think I'm getting a better sense of the game.

Edited to add: @Matrim's Dice - Not Evil, sorry, tired.

Edited April 9, 2022 by Kasimir

[Mat he/him]

2 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Because I'll be honest, I'm not really sold on Devo as much anymore, but can you walk me once more through why you think Devo is Evil?

Sorry for my absence, guys. Arelon is on 129 pages now but I think I'm getting a better sense of the game.

Edited to add: @Matrim's Dice - Not Evil, sorry, tired.

I don’t believe that Devo bussed Archer. When she self pressed, it was tied between Archer and Thaid and she preferred Archer. There was an argument made that maybe Devo had a good role, but Illwei seemed to be the elim PR (and also e!Devo with a good role could still have voted Thaid?) so to me there’s no reason e!Devo kills Archer there, the credit gained wouldn’t be worth it imo if they can keep going with Archer’s thread control alive. His exe happened suddenly and wasn’t a given for D2.

That plus vibes from the doc resolve to a pretty solid village read.

I also don’t agree with the line of thinking that Archer and Illwei both preferred the non-Devo option- in Archer’s case Thaid had more votes so of course he preferred Thaid, and in Illwei’s case she immediately followed your vote on me with a reasonless vote on me so it was outside of preferences altogether.

[Orlok Tsubodai]

Apologies, all, for taking so long to become current with this game. It appears to be becoming a habit of mine, and one I’m not proud of.
I continued my post by post analysis through most of D1, to find a grounding in the game, and have read through the rest of the game in full, albeit in lesser depth.

It’s always interesting going through the early game with some knowledge of alignments; it gives a different perspective on interactions. Keeping Archer’s alignment in mind, I’d ask you all to look again at this post, and to think carefully about it:

Quote

 

    “-Unvoting Thaid because although they seemed a little more direct than usual in response to my made up pressure, they didn't panic or anything so I'm not getting a strong read on them either way. 

-Disagree with Mat that Striker isn't e-e with Thaid because extra unexplained votes can scare villagers off a train because they suspect elim bandwagoning. 

-I'd like to know how Kas learned Shadow's gender. 

-JNV is clearly evil. Using math is an obvious elim tell. :P. (Cool outcome though!) 

-Skimmed the thread, but I just realized I might not be on tomorrow morning, so my voter's moving to Aman. Here's my pitch. In the Teo doc I felt they oversold their belief in e!Thaid, fourth vote can be e-e for the same reasons as a fifth, they suggested in our doc that we assume our doc has no moles and have been fairly pro information sharing. 

I also found them asking Mat for exactly five reasons was an odd request, and trying to double vote seemed weird too. 

Aman (Thaid lad)”

 

Setting aside the first half (although I think interactions around Thaidakar are worth thinking about themselves, I’d like to focus on Archer’s case about Aman. I think the case can be summarised as follows:
1) Aman oversold his pitch of e!Thaidakar in the Teo doc.
2) A fourth vote can be e/e, therefore Aman’s fourth vote on Thaidakar can be e/e.
3) Aman suggested acting like the Teo doc had no moles, and has been pro-information sharing.
4) It was odd of Aman to ask Matrim for five reasons for his view.
5) Double voting seems weird.

I don’t think it’s controversial to say that this case both is, and feels extraordinarily weak. Addressing each point in turn:
1) Aman’s vote on Thaid, and subsequent placement of him as his sole low tier read felt strongly like a pressure vote. If this was a genuine pressure vote, then it is entirely consistent of Aman to model the same pressure in the Teo doc, or Thaid’s potential teammates would alert Thaid that the pressure wasn’t genuine.
2) A fourth vote can be e/e, but isn’t necessarily e/e, and Aman’s vote seemed a clear pressure vote.
3) Being pro-information sharing is a strategy, and I don’t think it’s necessarily alignment indicative, and if it is, it certainly  isn’t strongly alignment indicative.
4) I’m not sure it was (although interestingly, it certainly fits within the Guide to Openwolfing Aman linked here: #18: A Practical Guide to Open Wolfing (by Mantichora) (mafiauniverse.com)
5) Just a very shallow engagement with what Aman is doing.

I didn’t find Archer’s argument compelling, and nor did anyone else, it seems, for it generated no further votes on Aman, and was refuted or rejected by Aman, Kasimir (and here), Shadow, and Devotary. Beyond this, Archer’s argument apparently actively misrepresented what Aman had said in the Teo doc, which was verified by Experience and later JNV.
Archer, apparently, misrepresented Aman’s comments from a public space, in an easily verifiable manner.

I’d ask you all to think about this - to actually stop and think about this. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know for myself that thinking about trying to lynch Aman produces a visceral response. I know my mind anticipates a threadbrawl of great intensity, and that I should expect to see everything I’ve said in the post and the game challenged. When I, as a villager, truly believe there is a strong case for e!Aman, I still hesitate. As an eliminator, I would treat voting for Aman as akin to suicide. He has a silver tongue, a sharp mind, and the thread presence to guarantee he could execute a counter-train.

I imagine that this feeling isn’t unique to me.

Holding this in mind, consider Archer’s post. He, as an eliminator, makes a scattered series of weak or verifiably false arguments for e!Aman. To borrow a phrase from the Rationalist community, I noticed I was confused. It seems not just odd, but implausible that a rational e!Archer, trying to win, would vote for Aman for what were, as Aman himself describes “really bad reasons”.

There are two explanations for this. 

The first of these is that we assume Archer made an extraordinarily bad decision, and then executed it woefully. I do not think this is reflective of the skill Archer has shown in the SE games I’ve played with him. It is an easy explanation, but not one I think is can be a true explanation. 

The second of these is that e!Archer made a weak argument claiming e!Aman deliberately. 

I will acknowledge that there might be other reasons for this, and would welcome them, but the clearest reason I can think of for making such a play is that Archer went after Aman so directly, yet so poorly, because he wanted Aman to catch him, and therefore to gain strong village credibility.

My contention therefore is that catching Archer felt too easy, because it was intended to be so.

---

I don’t think the case for e!Aman ends here, however. I think the argument is tripartite. For me, the most compelling evidence is that which I’ve set out above, that:
1) I simply cannot reconcile Archer’s attack on Aman with v!Aman and  e!Archer genuinely trying to win
Beyond this, however:
2) I think Striker is an eliminator, and that Aman has been defending him as a teammate throughout the game, and;
3) That there is a host of circumstantial evidence suggesting Aman is an eliminator, and that the Archer/Aman interaction was not natural, nor v/e.

I’m aware in writing this that we face time constraints, and so am not going to set out the e!Striker arguments at length; I think they can be summarised as Striker’s vote on Thaidakar being exactly what it appears - an attempt to save (or appear to save) e!Archer, followed by Striker expressing a series of self-contradictory reasons for making that vote. Kas identifies that this:

Is a clear misrepresentation of Striker’s actual vote on Archer, here:

TJ identifies that Striker claims here:

that his vote was intended to kill both Archer and Thaidakar, but that this cannot be true because ties did not kill at this point. I don’t buy that a villager would misrecall their rationale for voting in a way that simply cannot have been true. It feels strongly to me like a post-hoc justification for his vote, because he doesn’t have a true explanation of his vote to recall beyond voting to save a teammate.

Beyond this, his response to Araris voting for him on D2 is the ludicrously implausible “I’ve been trying to act weird to see if I could get someone to bite for the “easy exe” that is me at all times.”: 

Matrim calls this out at the time as odd, and Kas this cycle articulates the point more strongly - Striker cannot hope distinguish between votes on him from villager who have noticed he was acting suspiciously, or from eliminators looking for an easy lynch.

Beyond this, I don’t think Striker was trying to act suspiciously - his most suspicious act of D1 was to vote to save Archer, which could only have been deliberately suspicious  if Striker knew Archer’s alignment. Either way, this alone ought to have triggered alarm bells.

Returning to the case for e!Aman, a strong belief in e!Striker is relevant for two reasons. We have first the clear point that Aman has been defending Striker throughout the game, from here onwards. Interestingly, this retraction is in response to Striker’s post here, which I do not find convincing in the slightest - my own notes on it are:

D1

53

StrikerEZ

Replies to Matrim, disliked Matrim's post Aman quoted, for reasons Aman provided. Disliked Aman thinking one empire doc was definitely not compromised. Thought Aman was trying to set up a plan where faction eliminated, then elim claims faction and says they think the whole faction was village. Votes on Matrim as suspects him more than Aman, voted on Thaid because it was funny

Matrim

Thaidakar

Strong dislike of parroting Aman, no original thoughts. Specifics of paranoia about Aman seem fabricated - immediately disproven by trye faction member of elim claiming that faction

Moderate evil

Votes on Matrim

The second reason why e!Striker is highly relevant to Aman’s alignment is the end of D2 lynch. 

The argument for v!Aman I find most compelling is his involvement in Illwei’s lynch, where he requested Matrim vote on Illwei, taking the vote count from this:

Devotary of Spontaneity (3): JNV, The Sibling, Araris Valerian
Matrim's Dice (3): Illwei, Kasimir, |TJ|
Illwei (3): The Baker, Bort, Amanuensis
StrikerEZ (3): Matrim's Dice, StrikerEZ, shadow1

To this:

D2:

Illwei (4): Matrim's Dice, The Baker, Bort, Amanuensis
Devotary of Spontaneity (3): JNV, The Sibling, Araris Valerian
Matrim's Dice (3): Illwei, Kasimir, |TJ|
StrikerEZ (2): StrikerEZ, shadow1

Resulting in Illwei’s lynch. If Striker is an eliminator, however, that movement prevents both e!Illwei and e!Striker dying in a tied lynch, and instead only leads to one of their deaths. 

In my view, the credit Aman should get from Illwei’s death (even ignoring a deliberate Illwei-bus world) is challenged sufficiently by Striker being evil, which I think is highly likely, and note that Aman's own defence of a Striker is suspect in itself.

I had hoped to include a third part to this post, setting out observations on Aman’s posts throughout the game, and will still do this, but noting the time left in the cycle, will post this as is.

As such, Amanuensis.
 

[Kasimir he/him]

Here are my own thoughts on the matter:

• Aman’s reasons for casting suspicion on me boil down to: A) I have too many Village reads within Arelon, and B ) There must be an Elim within Arelon, or <Shadow, me, TJ, and Orlok> are a Village powerhouse. I think this is patently ridiculous coming from someone whose evidential basis for defending Striker for a decent chunk of the later part of this game has been that Striker appears too Evil to actually be Evil! I point out that I have a healthy play history with Orlok and TJ and can therefore be expected to read them fairly well based off in doc interactions. Meanwhile, my evidential basis for V!reading Shadow pertains to her voting history, on top of in doc interactions. These in my view are respectable grounds for Village reading a player and I’m not inclined to see why I should be suspicious for being epistemically honest with where my evidence takes me. Aman, too, uses an assertion of Shadow’s Evil meta to rule her out as being the more likely Arelene Elim, which is downright laughable when you consider that he’s also trying to sus me for using meta for players I’ve worked closely with and have deep friendships with outside the game! In fact, given that I do think my current credences commit me to an uncompromised Arelon, I have a very straightforward answer to what balances that out: you being Evil, Aman. It’s that simple.
   
• Look. This is itself odd. Two Elims down. We have a massive advantage. So why is he pushing for multiple deaths. We control the tempo here. Why the sudden impatience to clear the slate? What happened to “I don’t want to ML Villagers” or “I want to give Villagers the chance to prove themselves?” Why Mat, Devo, me? First, he says Mat is very likely cleared for the Illwei vote - then he wants Mat dead again. V!Devo performed well in the QF. Why is he specifically looking to take down loud, helpful Villagers (or players if Village.) How Village does that seem to you, when the Village actually has an advantage over the Elims right now? Wouldn’t that make a double bus trade worth it?
   
• Why is Aman adopting reads of convenience like in MR57? He didn’t even stick by his Archer read! Check this out:
   

  Quote

  “This leads me to believe that A) Archer is E/E with Thaid or B: Archer knows Thaid is Village and is using my Thaid reaction test to make me look bad for some reason? There is a C possibility in which this is Village paranoia but... I really don't buy it at this juncture”

   and
   

  Quote

  “They might've looked less bad from like, a not knowing for sure if I'm Village perspective?
  
  But from my PoV, it looked misrepresentative and reachy with multiple holes in logic + the conclusion was just wrong, so I had to decide if this was v!Archer being paranoid and pushing a bad yeet or e!Archer trying to keep me from becoming a loud village voice in thread and doc. I really thought it was the first too haha, but other people decided I was right and voted him out while I was sleeping haha
  
  My only regret is that I'm not an elim too because that would have been such a fun D1 gambit xD”

   
• Why is he at one moment saying this clears Mat and then saying “Sorry Mat lmao I think I still want your slot checked?” Why is he consistently insisting I might be Evil, then Village, then going back to an Evil Kas claim the cycle Baker shows there might be Evil Kas appetite? Why is it he ignores all my arguments pointing out why I can’t be Evil?
   

  On 4/7/2022 at 4:02 AM, Amanuensis said:

  @Matrim's Dice well I'm pretty sure you're cleared now, Illwei voted you and you voted her so good enough for me. Sorry for doubting you I just get really weirded out by players who seem to Village read me before I do enough to prove it

  
  and then
   

  On 4/8/2022 at 8:57 PM, Amanuensis said:

  If someone put a gun to my head right now and I had to kill three players...

  It'd probably be Devo, Mat, and Kas tbh (sorry friends). Just because I feel you three give the most info + have the greatest possibilities of being a deep wolf this game.

  
  Why the frick does Village Aman want Mat dead when he just said N2 he's pretty sure the voting cleared Mat? There is no sense to this.
   
• This post here essentially fails to engage in any significant way with my post except to assert he still wants to flip me, Mat, and Devo, for no apparent significant reason.
   

  On 4/8/2022 at 8:57 PM, Amanuensis said:

  I'm at the point where like, I kinda just want us to clear out half the players with a big tied yeet and pray? xD

  
  Why is this a natural response for a Villager. Reality check, guys. We have exed two Elims. There are likely two to three left. Why is it then that we are being sold what should be a desperation move? Why are we 'at that point', when our lynches have been extraordinarily successful? Where is the natural evolution to this state of mind?
   
• He’s not engaging in good faith. His reads / thoughts shift opportunistically - just like in MR57. I agree he’s not putting out Hyena energy but I don’t like his actions. I just don’t.
   
• I'm the Last Son of House Urbain. I know paranoia. This isn't it. Paranoia doesn’t work that way. Paranoia proceeds in small or sharp spikes. It is either embraced or recedes, and results in general seesawing. The modulations here are simply too lukewarm to be paranoia driven. Consider also that Aman in QF59 claimed that E!Kas was identifiable—as did Orlok and Stick. And if Aman is genuinely paranoiding on me, why does he express zero interest in my arguments that I’m Village? Because I was interested in finding out whether TJ was Village or not; that’s what prompted my re-reads and my desire to engage with TJ. So why is Aman simply ignoring arguments that might affect his convenient worldview?

Aman.

Arelon stands.

I see your suffering, and I am here to end it, as I swore.

[Mat he/him]

I don’t see why Aman would bus two teammates to be village read when he already was being largely village read. What’s the gain there? I think by your train of thought Striker should be the kill here, not Aman, but sure I guess :P.

[Kasimir he/him]

8 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I don’t see why Aman would bus two teammates to be village read when he already was being largely village read. What’s the gain there? I think by your train of thought Striker should be the kill here, not Aman, but sure I guess :P.

Why does he Village read you but still claim you should be killed? Why does he want multiple deaths in a game where the Village has already a significant advantage over the Elim team?

The counterpoints:

First, Archer and Aman are high-risk gambit players. Archer has also gone on record as stating he wants to C1 E/E threadbrawl a prominent teammate and get the survivor hardcleared for Village credit, in the AG8 dead doc:

Quote

“Imagine if I end up Evil with you and with them =) got it. We will fight in thread and kill each other (tie the exe C1, whoever loses the coinflip dies). Whoever is left will have enough village cred to win the game. That’s the only realistic approach. “No elim team would be kayana enough to bus both kel and iguana”?”

Second, if you look at the votecounts:

Quote

Devotary of Spontaneity (3): JNV, The Sibling, Araris Valerian
Matrim's Dice (3): Illwei, Kasimir, |TJ|
Illwei (3): The Baker, Bort, Amanuensis
StrikerEZ (3): Matrim's Dice, StrikerEZ, shadow1

You were going to self-pres anyway, because you were already dead otherwise, and realistically, if you did, the only realistic train would have been Illwei, given your views going back and forth on Devo. All he did was to ask you to do something you were likely to have already done. You were the decisive vote on Illwei. Why are you giving him Village credit for something you did, that should give you Village credit?

Mat. Honestly. Do you think you could at least read through Orlok's arguments and my arguments and at least consider them, given what happened in MR57?

Edited to add: @Matrim's Dice - How much of a moron do you think Archer is? How much would you, as E!Mat, love to get up in V!Aman's face D1 with a bunch of bad D1 arguments? What do you think of your life expectancy if you did that? 

I'm getting LG83 vibes all over again. Archer's penultimate post theorising an Aman-Exp team and asking Devo to swap to Exp with him just seemed so kayana and so laughably bad. So why is Archer making such moves? Is he a moron, or is he not? And if he's not an idiot, then what's the calculus?

Edited April 9, 2022 by Kasimir

[shadow1 she/her]

Amaneunsis

For crimes against Sel!

Arelene has talked this over extensively and I support the kill today.

I would add a few of my own reasons:

• Aman's interactions with striker are suspicious. I can't pry apart the 'twtbw' read from what should be a wolf read. And I don't usually find it hard to follow aman's reasoning.
• Aman's style of questioning here is consistent with a very insultive style for scum play. Asking people hypothetical questions and then quietly judging them on the answers is not transparent. I know it's a good scumstyle because I used to play like this to hide as scum, and Aman and I seem to have very similar playstyles so I don't think I'm projecting a lot to extend that inference. This is also different from the style I observed from them last game.
• Paranoia - aman's great at this and is not going to be easy to catch or slip up incredibly obviously, so I have higher standards. I also haven't really trusted aman this game on tone (especially recently) which is not really what I would expect if we were v/v.

I don't have time to make a megapost-case like my empire friends due to having to write my final papers but I am glad to engage here.

I also support striker kill today, either/both in my view. I don't want either making it to the end of the game alive.

[Mat he/him]

4 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Why does he Village read you but still claim you should be killed? Why does he want multiple deaths in a game where the Village has already a significant advantage over the Elim team?

I just came off of an MR where I village read everybody, so I can sympathize with that. The circumstances are very different, though, as you point out, and I can’t really argue against the second point.

8 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Mat. Honestly. Do you think you could at least read through Orlok's arguments and my arguments and at least consider them, given what happened in MR57?

You say this like I didn’t read your post or Orlok’s post (which I did) and like I’m not considering it (which I am) smh

I just haven’t been in the Arelon doc and this is the first I’ve seen if this discussion. Sorry if I didn’t immediately agree xD

I’m not going to stop this exe. Probably won’t help it, but I’m not going to stop it because it does make sense.

10 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

How much of a moron do you think Archer is? How much would you, as E!Mat, love to get up in V!Aman's face D1 with a bunch of bad D1 arguments? What do you think of your life expectancy if you did that?

Of course I don’t think Archer’s a moron, but I don’t see why that has to make Aman evil. It certainly could, but I still don’t understand why that bus would need to be necessary- at that point in the cycle, Aman was village read and Archer wasn’t a candidate, iirc.

Again, not going to vote to save Aman. The case holds within itself and makes sense. I don’t really agree, but guess we’ll see. How’s TJ feel about this?

[Kasimir he/him]

6 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

You say this like I didn’t read your post or Orlok’s post (which I did) and like I’m not considering it (which I am) smh

Sorry bro, I mentioned that because the "why would he bus two teammates" bit is addressed in Orlok's post, I believe. Either that or it was in one draft of it. Arelon didn't get to 129 pages for no reason....We were arguing this among ourselves a lot, which again, explains our lack of thread presence earlier. Sorry we're late guys.

6 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Of course I don’t think Archer’s a moron, but I don’t see why that has to make Aman evil. It certainly could, but I still don’t understand why that bus would need to be necessary- at that point in the cycle, Aman was village read and Archer wasn’t a candidate, iirc.

Would he have calculated on remaining Village read, given my MR potentially re-igniting suspicions of him, given how he was committed to playing in it? Remember that he would have been juggling this with an Evil game in the form of MR57. And Aman is used to facing paranoia, particularly after a successful Evil game. And if you agree Archer isn't a moron, then what explanation do you have for Archer committing suicide-by-Aman?

Because that's the one place you're at. You say there's no reason to do it for Aman, but you ignore that Archer has absolutely no reason to do it either. Why doesn't that factor into your calculus? Why is it acceptable for Archer to make a move that makes zero sense for an Elim, on your worldview, but unacceptable for Aman to do the same?

6 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

How’s TJ feel about this?

@|TJ| Let's find out!

6 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Again, not going to vote to save Aman

I can respect non-intervention, and on my part, am perfectly willing to take responsibility if I'm mistaken. But by this point, I really don't think so.

Edited April 9, 2022 by Kasimir

[StrikerEZ he/him]

I think you guys are giving way too much credence to Archer playing in the exactly optimal way for an elim and it seems like you guys have convinced yourself that Archer must have been intentionally trying to make a faulty argument when it really could have been an argument he was trying to push. I know from first hand experience (on either team) that I can make a post that feels really good and right and then get slammed for it by the thread. And @Orlok Tsubodai I am confused how you went through all of that analysis and decided that Aman is the better exe than me. I was expecting a vote for me at the end and was very surprised there wasn't one.

As for my oddness this game, I already explained the bit where I messed up my reasoning for voting on Thaid. Later in that same post I said what it actually was. I have a very faulty memory and forgot that the ties killing everyone weren't implemented D1 for a moment, and literally remembered it later in the post.

Current VC:

StrikerEZ (3): Bort, TJ, Tani
Amanuensis (3): Orlok Tsubodai, Kasimir, shadow1
Devotary of Spontaneity (2): Amanuensis, StrikerEZ
Kasimir (1): The Baker,

Edited April 9, 2022 by StrikerEZ
Forgot to add the number of votes Aman has on him

[Mat he/him]

11 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

And if you agree Archer isn't a moron, then what explanation do you have for Archer committing suicide-by-Aman?

Because that's the one place you're at. You say there's no reason to do it for Aman, but you ignore that Archer has absolutely no reason to do it either. Why doesn't that factor into your calculus? Why is it acceptable for Archer to make a move that makes zero sense for an Elim, on your worldview, but unacceptable for Aman to do the same?

What Striker said, essentially. I don’t think making a case against Aman should be defined that way, and I think that Archer’s reason to make the case was the same reason any elim makes a case against any villager, any time. Maybe controversial opinion, and I was skimming at this point in D1, but when I read Archer’s case my first thought was not about how bad it was, it was mild disagreeing but I didn’t actively think the case was bad. Idk, just seems weird to me to base this case off of something that would normally suggest v!Aman just because it’s Aman.

[|TJ| he/him]

1 minute ago, Matrim's Dice said:

How’s TJ feel about this?

We've been discussing Aman for like 24 hours and I'm probably the least convinced out of the four of us, so I've been playing the role of devil's advocate. And honestly, they have a response for any issue I've brought up and I've come up empty more than a few times at things that show e!Aman, their reasonings make sense. I don't sense any maliciousness in their arguments in the doc. It doesn't seem to come from an elim mindset i.e. it doesn't feel like a witch hunt. I'm very very sure that Kas is village, a bit less sure about Orlok but I'd say I'm 80% sure he's village. And since I trust them, there are no better players to read Aman accurately than them. So I'm backing them in this, I trust their ability to read Aman more than I trust mine. 

[StrikerEZ he/him]

@Amanuensis You have anything to say about this?

I don't like how this feels. I think a lot of their argument makes sense, but it all relies on an underlying assumption that Archer intentionally made a faulty argument, which I just can't get behind.