Long Game 84: A Sel United

[|TJ| he/him]

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

@|TJ|, I know you pull timestamps with more fine-grained detail than that. Is it possible to get a comparative timestamp of my post and Archer's? If Archer's comes too close after, Archer deliberately voting Thaid becomes that much more of a possibility.

I need web browser, which in turn requires laptop access, bro. Give me some time (or i can just tell you the steps in the doc).

[Kasimir he/him]

Sometimes you have to be your own bro. I'm sure there's something profound here, but anyway:

Wrote a quick script to pull the timestamps for myself. All in UTC:

Quote

Ash's 0253hrs post: 2022-04-03T18:53:14Z

Kas's 0257hrs post: 2022-04-03T18:57:17Z

Shadow's 0257hrs post: 2022-04-03T18:57:48Z

Archer's 0258hrs post: 2022-04-03T18:58:42Z

Striker's 0300hrs post: 2022-04-03T19:00:05Z

Quick notes:

• Striker's post indeed comes five seconds after rollover. RIP.
• 85 seconds between my post and Archer's, which likely entails Archer did have time to process my switch, or at least we can't rule it out.

And ninja-ed by TJ, it's fine bhai, I've been my own bro :|

Edited to add:

2 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

I was going off of Ash’s count. My Thaid vote was never intended to save Archer, it was intended to kill Thaid too. Assuming you’re talking about my last minute D1 vote that didn’t go through. Otherwise I might be mixing things up in my head.

This is true, but you also expressed an intention to save Archer:

Quote

Anyway, not a fan of this Archer exe appearing out of nowhere. I like Archer’s posts. Thaidakar since a Devo exe isn’t happening.

It's true you could argue you were really focused on Thaid, and at some level it's semantics, but the point I'm getting at is that you did express positivity towards Archer and wanted to kill Thaid, at least in your post. 

Edited to add 2:

@StrikerEZ: You never addressed this.

@Matrim's Dice:

17 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

You have to remember that Bort voted Illwei before Illwei was in any danger at all and wasn't at EoD to do anything if he wanted to. So his Illwei vote isn't a reason to v read him, imo. Bort would be my choice for a shot- fits the 1 elim per doc theory as well. Next choice would be Sibling, but idk if there's any doc stuff that would make you not want to shoot them. I know in my doc we discussed the timing of Sibling's vote being right after Tani retracted from Illwei- basically, Illwei was in danger temporarily, and then the second she wasn't in danger anymore Sibling showed up to vote Devo.

Thoughts on Bort and Striker now?

Edited April 8, 2022 by Kasimir

[Amanuensis he/him]

I'ma be sad if Striker is an elim that pocketed me by open wolfing  but hrm, that would mean his interactions with Illwei were E/E on that subject? Idk probably just v!Striker imo

Edited April 8, 2022 by Amanuensis

[Kasimir he/him]

10 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

I'ma be sad if Striker is an elim that pocketed me by open wolfing  but hrm, that would mean his interactions with Illwei were E/E on that subject? Idk probably just v!Striker

Ngl I'm just waiting for @shadow1 to come in here given her views on Striker...

Does anyone have in-doc reactions to the Exp bait to report? I can add them to the typologies as secondary data. Might help, might not. I do think we had clearer Evil typologies in AG8 than here, just from the looks of it, but the fact that Archer likely forewarned his team does confuse things somewhat.

[Bort he/him]

Striker

I really don't like how Striker has, on both day cycles, tried at the last second to ensure that others died alongside the elims. By the sounds of it, the only reason he hasn't succeeded yet is because of website loading lag.

Given the extraordinary timing of the final D1 votes (as in, right before the end of the cycle), I do also wonder if there was any communication between Archer and Striker.

And then, this cycle, changing his reasons for his D1 vote.

[Kasimir he/him]

@StrikerEZ - One additional question from me, since you're already on top of everything else, and since Orlok has me re-reading MR56 anyway :|

The things I do for my bros.

How did you expect to be behaving more suspiciously, and why did you expect only Elims to bite on it? What is this specific sort of suspicious behaviour you are referring to? You say:

On 4/6/2022 at 1:48 AM, StrikerEZ said:

Okay maybe I phrased it in a weird way. It wasn’t that I was just trying to look suspicious, it’s that I was trying to do it in specific ways that I thought only elims would bite. Things that others could see and not necessarily think suspicious while elims might see it and see me as an easy target.

Mat points out rightfully I think that:

On 4/6/2022 at 0:10 AM, Matrim's Dice said:

If you’re trying to act suspicious, is it hard to believe a villager will read you as suspicious? :P.

Araris isn’t the first person to mention suspicion on you, either.

P.S. I note that while I haven't raised it specifically, your citing your being on two Elim teams with me as decreasing your confidence in your ability to read me just rings odd to me. That stint increased Orlok's confidence, not decreased it. The obvious rejoinder is, of course, that you're not Orlok, but you'd also get a sense for how I think when Evil and what Evil Kas looks like.

I'm going to be honest that your behaviour kind of looks like MR56 V!Striker but there are things that don't seem right to me, and which I need to get a clearer sense of.

[Amanuensis he/him]

55 minutes ago, Bort said:

Striker

I really don't like how Striker has, on both day cycles, tried at the last second to ensure that others died alongside the elims. By the sounds of it, the only reason he hasn't succeeded yet is because of website loading lag.

Given the extraordinary timing of the final D1 votes (as in, right before the end of the cycle), I do also wonder if there was any communication between Archer and Striker.

And then, this cycle, changing his reasons for his D1 vote.

If you could vote out 3 players today (2 more on top of Striker) who are the others and why?

[Kasimir he/him]

Wait a second.

5 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

I was going off of Ash’s count. My Thaid vote was never intended to save Archer, it was intended to kill Thaid too. Assuming you’re talking about my last minute D1 vote that didn’t go through. Otherwise I might be mixing things up in my head.

Bro.

Quote

Anyway, not a fan of this Archer exe appearing out of nowhere. I like Archer’s posts. Thaidakar since a Devo exe isn’t happening.

If you are going off Ash's votecount, and the only votecount he posted was at 0253hrs, see below, how do you know a Devo ex is not happening?

Quote

Archer (4): Amanuensis, shadow1, Experience, Devotary of Spontaneity
Devotary of Spontaneity (3): StrikerEZ, Kasimir, Araris Valerian
Thaidakar the Ghostblood (3): Matrim's Dice, The Baker, |TJ|
Experience (1): Thaidakar the Ghostblood
Amanuensis (1): Archer

 

[Bort he/him]

9 hours ago, Amanuensis said:

...that all said, I STILL DON'T GET WHY I'M ALIVE. Elims banking on me tunneling you out and organizing a mass village grave? I must trust one of them when I shouldn't or else they'd want me gone ASAP.

So, I suppose the best question to ask here is... Who do you trust? And which of them do you think is most likely e!them, and why? Also, what makes you trust them?

As for who else I'd lynch, I'm not sure. Maybe Tani - no great reason other than I get a slightly different feel from her posts than in her other games. Possibly Baker. His posts provide very little information, and I think his latest e!Kas post raises eyebrows. Mine at least.

I would like to know how active these people are in their respective docs, given how infrequently they post in thread (except Baker, they're here for another reason):

Orlok

Baker (I saw someone comment that they use words in there, not just bread pics - any ideas on their e!Kas logic since we'd likely get another bread pic in reply)

Shadow

Sibling

I'm also kinda torn on the others in my Empire. I have mild reasons to both trust and suspect both of them, and while I'm half expecting one of them to be elim, I will be mildly surprised no matter which it turns out to be.

Edit:

I would have had you on the list there too Aman, but Mat gave a convincing argument as to why you're likely village.

Edit 2: If Mat is elim, then I think Baker is not, or vice versa - they've been voting together so far this entire game so it wouldn't make sense for them to be teamed up - too obvious. Out of the two though, I have less reason to trust Baker, so he'd probably end up in my #2 lynch spot behind Striker.

Edited April 8, 2022 by Bort

[Amanuensis he/him]

53 minutes ago, Bort said:

I would have had you on the list there too Aman, but Mat gave a convincing argument as to why you're likely village.

Oh?  I'm very curious to hear that argument

53 minutes ago, Bort said:

So, I suppose the best question to ask here is... Who do you trust? And which of them do you think is most likely e!them, and why? Also, what makes you trust them?

TBH I basically trust no one right now xD everyone is kinda floating around in this soupy "I have no idea" mess

Like, for reasons that I'm not sure I can articulate in a convincing way, I feel pretty good about these slots:

1. Bort (lol this one is just tonal really, you don't feel as rigid as you did in MR57)
2. Tani (I'd be really surprised if their interactions with Illwei were E/E)
3. Striker (just so blatantly weirdChamp that I'd be surprised; plus there's like, something I've noticed he does as elim that might be a tell and I haven't seen it this game - very possible that he's adapted since I've kind of mentioned it before in MR57, just without calling it a tell)
4. Baker (it's possible they dropped a vote on partner!illwei and let it sit but idk, that's not the feel I get from them, with or without explanations)

Of these four, I could only see e!Striker or e!Baker keeping me alive. Beyond them, I could see e!Kas not wanting to kill me so I can put him out of his misery  and tbh, I'm at the point where I do think he's the most likely elim from his Empire (Shadow/Orlok/TJ) but their doc could very well be uncompromised, so not willing to pursue that right now. JNV technically has incentive to keep me around so he's not alone in our Empire doc (Sibling is barely active) but I'd imagine the elim doc would scratch the same loneliness itch - that said, Archer does say doing math is an elim and he even said it this game about JNV IIRC, which could maybe be a partner distancing thing but idk.

Has anyone gone back to look at Araris' suspicions? I don't recall him really having any beyond Bort/Striker but... I also don't really see him being killed to relieve pressure. It was either a role phishing kill or a low info kill because someone more high profile wants to blend in (or for the aforementioned keeping me around to protect them).

TBH I think we should just yeet Devo and Striker today and hope for the best.

Edited April 8, 2022 by Amanuensis

[Kasimir he/him]

38 minutes ago, Bort said:

Orlok

Very active. Our doc is on 81 pages now and counting, which admittedly isn't that much, and a decent chunk of it is my fault, but. We've been discussing reads and posts and so on. Orlok's problem is essentially that he's catching up, and wants to post another huge mega-table but as I stated in thread N2, and am happy to once again reiterate, my V!Orlok read is fairly strong at this stage. I've seen how Orlok was faring over two back-to-back Elim games with him, though one was as his GM. I'm also familiar with it for other reasons. Given the composition of this Elim team, and that he would be playing for a team which had just lost two members in two consecutive cycles without doing anything about it— (and we're not even mentioning the composition of the team; I have thoughts and assessments of this but I probably can't say them without annoying the hell out of Orlok so.)

Simply put, he's too sane, having fun, and engaged in solving for me to buy that. He could be a very good actor, in which case, well played, Orlok, but I don't see that right now. I also would like to think that having worked fairly closely with him in AG8 and QF59, with cooperation in MR56 and early LG83, it would take more effort for Orlok to fool me. Then again, pride goeth and all. I am always open to revising my credences if necessary.

38 minutes ago, Bort said:

Shadow

Moderately - checks in to see if people have thoughts to discuss, but we did discuss Devo and Archer D1. Orlok and I are probably taking up most of the doc's discussion space, followed by TJ and I, and then Shadow and I. (If the implication is that I'm inordinately talkative, then yeah, but I've been more or less spamming my raw thoughts there and keeping a running tally of my notes, so...)

My sense of her activity might be distorted by the fact that discussion with Orlok/TJ is hyperactive.

It's curious to me you think of Shadow as low activity because in my view, she's not. She's left a decent impact on the thread, pushed Archer, pushed Striker.

@Amanuensis - Though, speaking of the fact you think there's an Elim in <me, TJ, Shadow>, and your earlier comment about wanting to lynch Devo to get a better sense of my alignment: is there a reason, apart from your ambivalence on Devo, and your V!read on Striker, that you don't want to do that to get a better read on Shadow? What's the difference here?

Same question for you as Striker actually, but more pointedly because of Orlok. Why is it that given Orlok believes I am eminently readable as Evil, and has felt less paranoia about me as a result of the QF (as compared to him @ me in the MR [Edited to add: This should read LG83]), you don't seem to share the same view? I would consider both of you to be on the same tier as players. I'm really unable to shake the feeling that I'm being set up for a ML here, which is probably paranoia on my part, but all the same.

Bort, with regard to your Aman comment - I'm always ready to revise if necessary but given he initiated the Archer train and was crucial to the sealing of the Illwei train with Mat, I'm happy to have him as Moderate Village on my reads right now. He's consistent as well with our playstyle discussions in MR57 and I think it's quite apparently he was not stunlocked and he's approaching this game in a different mode. Not impossible E!Aman feels the need to switch up due to the likelihood the MR57 Elim doc would be released mid-this game, but given his voting history and the fact that Illwei's role and just losing a second Elim so soon after the first was likely painful for their team, I think Moderate Village is a fairly sensible read for the moment. (Sorry Aman, same deal - respect you too much as a player not to always be ready to re-evaluate if necessary.)

Edited to add:

16 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

I could also see e!Kas not wanting to kill me so I can put him out of his misery  

I'm not sorry to say this, but you'd have been N1ed or N2ed if I were Evil. Appreciate it sets a bad precedent since you should be allowed to live longer, but just no. You caused me no end of stress in QF59, and for the sake of my mental health alone if nothing more, I'd have been pushing aggressively for your death just so I don't have to spend another Evil game with ten levels of stress and mental breakdowns.

Edited April 8, 2022 by Kasimir

[Amanuensis he/him]

Oh yeah, I don't trust Shadow much more than I do you Kas  but I do think she's pragmatic enough to have killed me last night over Araris tbh. Also that she really did nothing to stop Illwei from dying. Granted, it might have looked bad if she tried and Illwei flipped later, but I think e!Shadow could have talked herself out of any suspicion and thus would have made sure they didn't lose a second teammate - especially the roleblocker.

The problem is, I'm slightly apprehensive believing that You, Me, Orlok, and TJ are all Village, especially with three of you in a doc together. If one of you isn't evil, then your Empire is a clear village powerhouse, and I'm somewhat amazed that the elims don't seem concerned about letting that continue? The fact that you're vouching for them all is probably what concerns me the most about you.

Like, what elims balance out a V!Aman/Kas/Orlok/TJ distro? I feel like Devo is a good fit alongside Archer and Illwei, which is part of why I don't know if I'll ever stop tunneling her, but who else? Mat isn't a bad counter either, but that would mean Illwei volunteered to die so Mat could regain some cred after me pressing him since D1 and others jumping on board...

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

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.

But I'm just one guy with one vote and rn I'm keeping it on Devo.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

6 hours ago, Kasimir said:

It's true you could argue you were really focused on Thaid, and at some level it's semantics, but the point I'm getting at is that you did express positivity towards Archer and wanted to kill Thaid, at least in your post. 

Oh huh. I don't remember saying I trusted Archer.

6 hours ago, Kasimir said:

@StrikerEZ: You never addressed this.

Didn't have time to. Going to tomorrow.

2 hours ago, Bort said:

I really don't like how Striker has, on both day cycles, tried at the last second to ensure that others died alongside the elims. By the sounds of it, the only reason he hasn't succeeded yet is because of website loading lag.

D1 I was trying to bring it to a coin toss between Archer and Thaid, since the tie rule wasn't even in place yet. It was only D2 that I was trying to get another player to die alongside an elim.

2 hours ago, Kasimir said:

How did you expect to be behaving more suspiciously, and why did you expect only Elims to bite on it? What is this specific sort of suspicious behaviour you are referring to? You say:

I expected to be behaving more suspiciously because I don't have as much time and I knew my responses were going to be less thought out and more on the cuff. And I'd be saying whatever just comes to the top of my head, which is usually what makes people suspect me in either alignment. So after a few posts, I decided to lean into it even more. I couldn't tell you exactly when it was. And I was being a bit optimistic when I expected to be able to catch elims off of it. And a bit conf-bias-y. I realized soon after I said this that it didn't make much sense and have basically dropped it since.

But I do have another goal for it.

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

If you are going off Ash's votecount, and the only votecount he posted was at 0253hrs, see below, how do you know a Devo ex is not happening?

You'd unvoted Thaid and switched to Archer and Archer had switched to Thaid just after Ash's VC. Archer vs. Devo was at 5-2 at that point and Thaid was at 3. I wanted my vote to matter but didn't want to kill Archer. And also wanted to try and go for a tie if I could.

Devotary of Spontaneity (2): Kasimir, Amanuensis
Kasimir (1): The Baker
JNV (1): StrikerEZ
StrikerEZ (1): Bort

[|TJ| he/him]

8 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

My Thaid vote was never intended to save Archer, it was intended to kill Thaid too.

Kill Thaid "too"? All tied vote deaths weren't a thing when you voted Thaid in D1. Which means you're lying about your intentions. Striker

[Mat he/him]

7 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Thoughts on Bort and Striker now?

 

 

Feel a bit better about Bort due to rereading doc interactions, but I think I still read him more negative than positive. I’d pick him out of the two for an elim. I agree with the TWTBAW read Aman assigned to Striker.

2 hours ago, Amanuensis said:

Oh?  I'm very curious to hear that argument

TBH I think we should just yeet Devo and Striker today and hope for the best.

Tonally different from the MR, pushed Archer extremely hard, voted Illwei late. Your Monk claim was on the list as well but that doesn’t apply anymore :P.

I think that would kill two villagers though :P.

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

Very active. Our doc is on 81 pages now and counting, which admittedly isn't that much, and a decent chunk of it is my fault, but.

What do you mean we have like 12 xD

6 minutes ago, |TJ| said:

Kill Thaid "too"? All tied vote deaths weren't a thing when you voted Thaid in D1. Which means you're lying about your intentions. Striker

Oooooooh maybe forget everything I just said about Bort and Striker this alone flips the script

Edited April 8, 2022 by Matrim's Dice

[Amanuensis he/him]

Quote

Devotary of Spontaneity (2): Kasimir, Amanuensis, 
StrikerEZ (2): Bort, TJ, 
Kasimir (1): The Baker, 
JNV (1): StrikerEZ, 

This wagon formation always catches-

Ahem.

Memes aside, I'm fine with thi-

Oh. Ninja'd by Mat voting Striker.

Quote

StrikerEZ (3): Bort, TJ, Matrim's Dice, 
Devotary of Spontaneity (2): Kasimir, Amanuensis, 
Kasimir (1): The Baker, 
JNV (1): StrikerEZ, 

@StrikerEZ wanna add your vote to Devo for a tie?

 

[Mat he/him]

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  

[Bort he/him]

32 minutes ago, |TJ| said:

Kill Thaid "too"? All tied vote deaths weren't a thing when you voted Thaid in D1. Which means you're lying about your intentions. Striker

This is something that he used as a defense too.

 

1 hour ago, StrikerEZ said:

D1 I was trying to bring it to a coin toss between Archer and Thaid, since the tie rule wasn't even in place yet. It was only D2 that I was trying to get another player to die alongside an elim.

 

[StrikerEZ he/him]

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

[Amanuensis he/him]

26 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

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

So what you're saying is we should flip you?

[Mat he/him]

Just now, Amanuensis said:

So what you're saying is we should flip you?

No no no how is that the underlying message that came through  

[StrikerEZ he/him]

Devo because I expect a train to form on me and I will soon be leaving for at least 8 hours or so.

[Mat he/him]

1 minute ago, StrikerEZ said:

Devo because I expect a train to form on me and I will soon be leaving for at least 8 hours or so.

PSA to everyone that the cycle ends tomorrow since it seems like a lot of people think that it ends in 3.5 hours when it in fact ends in 27.5 hours  

[StrikerEZ he/him]

Just now, Matrim's Dice said:

PSA to everyone that the cycle ends tomorrow since it seems like a lot of people think that it ends in 3.5 hours when it in fact ends in 27.5 hours  

Oh I know when it ends, I’m just letting people know I won’t be around for awhile. And leaving a vote on Devo now ties it up. And gives people the choice which train to join rather than just everyone hopping on the bigger train. 

[shadow1 she/her]

4 hours ago, Amanuensis said:

Oh?  I'm very curious to hear that argument

TBH I basically trust no one right now xD everyone is kinda floating around in this soupy "I have no idea" mess

Like, for reasons that I'm not sure I can articulate in a convincing way, I feel pretty good about these slots:

1. Bort (lol this one is just tonal really, you don't feel as rigid as you did in MR57)
2. Tani (I'd be really surprised if their interactions with Illwei were E/E)
3. Striker (just so blatantly weirdChamp that I'd be surprised; plus there's like, something I've noticed he does as elim that might be a tell and I haven't seen it this game - very possible that he's adapted since I've kind of mentioned it before in MR57, just without calling it a tell)
4. Baker (it's possible they dropped a vote on partner!illwei and let it sit but idk, that's not the feel I get from them, with or without explanations)

Of these four, I could only see e!Striker or e!Baker keeping me alive. Beyond them, I could see e!Kas not wanting to kill me so I can put him out of his misery  and tbh, I'm at the point where I do think he's the most likely elim from his Empire (Shadow/Orlok/TJ) but their doc could very well be uncompromised, so not willing to pursue that right now. JNV technically has incentive to keep me around so he's not alone in our Empire doc (Sibling is barely active) but I'd imagine the elim doc would scratch the same loneliness itch - that said, Archer does say doing math is an elim and he even said it this game about JNV IIRC, which could maybe be a partner distancing thing but idk.

Has anyone gone back to look at Araris' suspicions? I don't recall him really having any beyond Bort/Striker but... I also don't really see him being killed to relieve pressure. It was either a role phishing kill or a low info kill because someone more high profile wants to blend in (or for the aforementioned keeping me around to protect them).

TBH I think we should just yeet Devo and Striker today and hope for the best.

If you trust striker, why do you think we should yeet them?