Quick Fix 64: Spies in Starsight

[Haelbarde he/him]

5 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

@Haelbarde @_Stick_

...Do you get the feeling you are just there, watching a three-way Duel of the Fates?

Because kinda yes rn :|

Somewhat, though I'm still reeling and/or exhausted from last cycle so feel like I'm barely language processing. Well not quite, but I'm gonna be out of service for the next few hours for sure. I did the mini painting in the wrong order today I think >> 

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

Just now, Kasimir said:

@Matrim's Dice, @Fifth Scholar, @Amanuensis:

I want clarity on where your views of each other currently are.

AFAICT, Aman E!reads Mat. Where do you stand on Fifth?

Fifth E!reads Aman and V!reads Mat.

Mat, what are your reads?

E!read Aman, ambivalence on Mat actually because I think there’s an outside chance he and Aman are paired and tried to pull an MR33 with the votes, but given how they’re going at each other hammer and tongs right now I’m gonna say that yeah, he’s probably village, and if this is some master distancing plan, they fooled me.  More willing to examine Mat in light of a v!Aman flip but I find that likelihood low, and I also feel like I’d get shrekked before him in that world anyway >>

[Amanuensis he/him]

Aman.

Good luck Village o7 I got my one.

[Mat he/him]

23 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

To clarify, I strongly feel I'm more responsible for the Silver yeet than most.

RIP Stick, Kas, and Hael who actually made the flip happen, the guy on Nerdy indeed was the reason Silver flipped. Like— where does this come from when iirc your vote went mostly unnoticed and in the end wasn’t even there?

23 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

Look how long it stuck:

At the risk of being overly repetitive— I don’t think how long it stuck has anything to do with anything. I care where it ended.

21 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

 

AFAICT, Aman E!reads Mat. Where do you stand on Fifth?

Fifth E!reads Aman and V!reads Mat.

Mat, what are your reads?

Did you just. Miss my massive response to Aman or what  

I e!read Aman. His voting last turn and his rapid and blatantly false casing of me only adds to that read. Fifth is a lot more of a ? but I think I lean village.

Edit: ‘Got your one’ nothing, what >>

And I’ve gotten so tired of being anti-self vote like I just cannot see it as anything other than AtE. Like the turn started an hour ago at best? This can’t be an honest fold.

Edited December 20, 2022 by Matrim's Dice

[Kasimir he/him]

Cycle One:

Quote

Kas (3): Dannnnnex, Nerdy, Xino
Dannnnnex (6): Kas, Aman, JNV, Silvereye, Hael, Bookwyrm
Mat (1): Fifth
Stick (1): Mat
Fifth (1): Devo
No Vote (5): Insanity, TUN, Almond, Stick, Wiz.

Cycle Two:

1 hour ago, Szeth_Pancakes said:

Nerdy (3): Xino, Bookwyrm, Aman
Silver (5): Wizard, Devo, Hael, Stick, Kasimir
Aman (3): Insanity, Fifth, Matrim
Xino (2): Nerdy, Almond
No Vote (2): TUN, Silver

K let's at least look at raw EoD because this is going to bug me if I don't. Known alignments coloured in.

The fact Silver checked the thread at least twice but didn't vote, not even to self-pres IMO shows a calculated decision to appeal to inactivity, which means I want to look at those pushing that narrative. It also suggests some degree of faith that he had teammate(s) willing to cover for him. Tbf there's an argument he wasn't in danger either, but not self-presing or just voting elsewhere tends to be kind of kayana. Either really busy or the latter - lean to the latter being true even if he's really busy.

If I colour in my credences:

Cycle One:

Quote

Kas (3): Dannnnnex, Nerdy, Xino
Dannnnnex (6): Kas, Aman, JNV, Silvereye, Hael, Bookwyrm
Mat (1): Fifth
Stick (1): Mat
Fifth (1): Devo
No Vote (5): Insanity, TUN, Almond, Stick, Wiz.

Cycle Two:

1 hour ago, Szeth_Pancakes said:

Nerdy (3): Xino, Bookwyrm, Aman
Silver (5): Wizard, Devo, Hael, Stick, Kasimir
Aman (3): Insanity, Fifth, Matrim
Xino (2): Nerdy, Almond
No Vote (2): TUN, Silver

It is technically possible that Devo bussed but my gut doesn't buy it.

I could see an Insanity/Aman team. Insanity's vote had a bit of a poke vote feel to it and there was no danger at that time. Similar eh vibes about Almond.

I don't think two Elims on the Danex train under the circumstances is impossible. Neither are Elims on side-trains.

Bah.

Xino While Xino could hardly vote himself, I continue to feel the Nerdy train wasn't pure, Aman has two votes anyway, and I am honestly not necessarily convinced that the me-train was pure.

Edited to add:

13 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

RIP Stick, Kas, and Hael who actually made the flip happen, the guy on Nerdy indeed was the reason Silver flipped. Like— where does this come from when iirc your vote went mostly unnoticed and in the end wasn’t even there?

At the risk of being overly repetitive— I don’t think how long it stuck has anything to do with anything. I care where it ended.

Did you just. Miss my massive response or what :P.

I e!read Aman. His voting last turn and his rapid and blatantly false casing of me only adds to that read. Fifth is a lot more of a ? but I think I lean village.

At the time I was typing it, you were going back and forth on Aman and I wanted your explicit views on Fifth. I don't know what Aman thinks about Fifth. The way I see it, you and Fifth are both pushing Aman, Aman is pushing you. I suspect there's some implicit ? about Fifth as he's not directly trying to convince Fifth yet, which is a bit interesting but at the same time, I suppose he doesn't really need to try to splinter that front yet if he's Evil. If he isn't, and thinks Fifth is persuadable, then a bit surprised that hasn't happened yet.

I don't know it's extremely useful but I do want a sense of where people stand with regard to each other, just to try to ID any oddness.

Edited December 20, 2022 by Kasimir

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

1 minute ago, Kasimir said:

Cycle One:

Cycle Two:

K let's at least look at raw EoD because this is going to bug me if I don't. Known alignments coloured in.

The fact Silver checked the thread at least twice but didn't vote, not even to self-pres IMO shows a calculated decision to appeal to inactivity, which means I want to look at those pushing that narrative. It also suggests some degree of faith that he had teammate(s) willing to cover for him. Tbf there's an argument he wasn't in danger either, but not self-presing or just voting elsewhere tends to be kind of kayana. Either really busy or the latter - lean to the latter being true even if he's really busy.

If I colour in my credences:

Cycle One:

Cycle Two:

It is technically possible that Devo bussed but my gut doesn't buy it.

I could see an Insanity/Aman team. Insanity's vote had a bit of a poke vote feel to it and there was no danger at that time. Similar eh vibes about Almond.

I don't think two Elims on the Danex train under the circumstances is impossible. Neither are Elims on side-trains.

Bah.

Xino[/color.] While Xino could hardly vote himself, I continue to feel the Nerdy train wasn't pure, Aman has two votes anyway, and I am honestly not necessarily convinced that the me-train was pure.

What is giving you v! Bookwyrm credence? I’m cool with a Xino Exe even though I would really prefer to resolve the Aman situation, but I thought Book would be under review for the Nerdy vote if nothing else.

[Kasimir he/him]

Just now, Fifth Scholar said:

What is giving you v! Bookwyrm credence? I’m cool with a Xino Exe even though I would really prefer to resolve the Aman situation, but I thought Book would be under review for the Nerdy vote if nothing else.

My sense of his meta. I've laid out my thoughts on why I feel his response to Stick feels rather pure. I do think you are getting hung up on the weirdness of his playstyle, but that's just...kind of Bookwyrm. He does sus things. I do think he tends to try to be a bit less sus when Evil, if anything, which is a counterintuitive statement, but I laid it out in I think two longposts: the short is he had sus, opportunistic votes as a Villager and in his Evil game, he always keeps on emphasising his votes are subject to change in a way that raises the hackles, and he just...does really new player things. But the one thing I've noticed that so far differentiates his Evil game and his Village game is that Evil him played a tad bit more meta, with reads lists and phrasing that's conventional, check this out:

Quote

Okay, I'm apparently famous for retaliation votes because of a certain Day 1 in LG: 90.

And of the two people who are currently voting for me, the most suspicious is Silhouette.

To be honest, I have legitimate suspicions on Sil anyway. While their vote, as far as I can tell, don't warrant too much suspicion, there's something about their general tone. They said last cycle here:

  Quote

Here's a rule of thumb: if you find yourself not liking my tone, I'm V!Silho. If I'm feeling really vil to you but my actions seem off, I'm E!Silho. Cause it's actually been true every game so far I think :P.

Silhouette's posts have actually seemed pretty Vil to me, but like the example they gave above, there's something...off about them. It seems to me like they're deflecting suspicion.

If you want to respond to this, @Shining Silhouette (man, I can never spell Shining right on my first try), then please do. This is just based on my current understanding of the game, and will likely change it in the future.

And...I should probably go analyze other people a little more deeply...

He frames this as an up and up tone read. This is his Evil game. He also posts this:

Compare to more ??? Bookwyrm posts here, from the recent LG in which he was Village.

I accept you don't have the time to engage with deep meta, but I think the tonal difference is very striking. He just is a lot less conventional when Village which suggests to me he pays more care to how he is perceived when Evil than when Village.

Quote

GAAAAAH this is frustrating.

I voted Mat because he saw something suspicious from his POV, and I had a hard time empathizing. He's doing the exact same thing I did, so my vote isn't really justified.

You all keep posting faster than I can keep up!

I need to re-read this thread so I know what the heck happened, and so I can make my own reads that are based on more than a flimsy assumption.

These just read more weird and off the wall to me. I get that same pure vibe from his response to Aman. Maybe if Aman flips E I might reconsider, but I'm happy with my V!Bookwyrm read right now.

And:

Bro it's barely an hour and a half, Silver's and Wiz's corpses are not yet cold, I've not yet done the big re-read I've promised and will do. If you are Evil, I hope to find you. If you are Village, I hope to exonerate you and go onto Aman. I am not going to narrow discussion to you or Aman or Mat and you should know better  There's plenty of time for my vote to shift and Xino could do with some friendly stabbing right now.

You can rephrase it as: of the people on the Nerdy train, Xino is the guy I have no reason to V read at all, and Aman is under pressure so it doesn't fundamentally matter to me right here and now.

[Stick. she/her]

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

@Haelbarde @_Stick_

...Do you get the feeling you are just there, watching a three-way Duel of the Fates?

Because kinda yes rn :|

Lmao. There is at least one Elim involved yes

I actually don’t think I want to clear Nerdy - Mat moved off that train and Fifth avoided it. If Aman flips elim then Nerdy is a villager but for now, no. 

[Kasimir he/him]

Just now, _Stick_ said:

Lmao. There is at least one Elim involved yes

I actually don’t think I want to clear Nerdy - Mat moved off that train and Fifth avoided it. If Aman flips elim then Nerdy is a villager but for now, no. 

I'm cool with softclearing Nerdy for the moment, at least. My view is the more promising pool is <Aman, Mat, Fifth, Xino> right now.

P.S.

Imagine if the dead doc commented on SE games like World Cup. CR idea for anyway who wants it, feel free.

"Hael. And Stick has the ball! What a feint! WHAT A FEINT! That swift pass with the left foot to Kas who taps it in. The goalkeeper had no chance!"

Look I'm in withdrawal ok.

[Stick. she/her]

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

The fact Silver checked the thread at least twice but didn't vote, not even to self-pres IMO shows a calculated decision to appeal to inactivity, which means I want to look at those pushing that narrative.

I think Aman brought up the willingness to pursue more active and responsive exe targets  But to be fair Silver could have simply read that post and taken it as incentive to not respond. 

4 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

I'm cool with softclearing Nerdy for the moment, at least. My view is the more promising pool is <Aman, Mat, Fifth, Xino> right now.

P.S.

Imagine if the dead doc commented on SE games like World Cup. CR idea for anyway who wants it, feel free.

"Hael. And Stick has the ball! What a feint! WHAT A FEINT! That swift pass with the left foot to Kas who taps it in. The goalkeeper had no chance!"

Look I'm in withdrawal ok.

That does sound like a fun CR xD

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

As promised, here are my elim reads:

Fifth feels the worst, but Aman’s talk with Mat makes him seem much worse. I'm willing to vote either of them, and while I very well might end on Aman, I'm going to vote Fifth.

Now for the main event. Yes, I am very suspicious of Kas... just kidding. I was worried c1, but these last two have felt very in v!Kas' meta. I just liked it for the meme format.

[Kasimir he/him]

1 hour ago, _Stick_ said:

I think Aman brought up the willingness to pursue more active and responsive exe targets  But to be fair Silver could have simply read that post and taken it as incentive to not respond. 

Mm. I note that this is possible for Mat too, with regard to the "isn't this too inactive." But I doubt as well. Customarily as an Elim you don't want your direct thumbprints on this, at least I don't recall that being in Mat's MO.

Edited to add: I guess what I would say is that it is simultaneously too direct/assertive for E!Mat's typical MO (cf. his thread control in LG90) and also too ineffective, IMO.

1 hour ago, Ookla the Unknown said:

I was worried c1

I try to play more aggressively in QFs tbf, and have a bad case of overcompensation for Mat FUDing me nonstop in QF62.

Edited to add 2:

Good look for Devo IMO:

Quote

Not going to be around for the rest of the cycle so I am going to vote for Silvereye. I don't see much reason for e!Nerdy or Xino to vote for Kas especially when Dannex is village. Kind of would expect e!Silvereye's teammates to have noticed that I didn't list his vote though. Not opposed to TUN but don't feel that strongly.

The opposition makes me believe that the Elims likely weren't interested in further padding the Silver wagon. Devo jumping on (at this current point, her Shard login shows she was last on five hours ago) with no ability to change her vote is a very reckless move for an Elim. That also runs against what I know of how E!Devo thinks and works.

I'm fine with V!Devo.

Edited to add 3:

@_Stick_ - Yes but IMO we come back to the problem with being absent. You're very reliant on the Village choosing to blink, which is a gamble. I don't see an Elim doing that without having teammates on who can cover for you, or work thread control. TUN's commitment to not voting makes it unlikely he would be that teammate (he could, but Elims tend to feel more bound by their thread promises than Villagers.) Which is a long way of me saying that this takes us back to our consensus that there is at least one Elim in <Aman, Mat, Fifth.>

Edited to add 4:

This is what I mean by Mat selling the 'it's too quiet' narrative, rather than the Silvereye V!read:

It goes hand-in-glove with Silver's play which is what makes me wonder about Mat. But it still feels a tad too on the nose for Mat's Elim play. He could have changed but E!Mat has difficulty being assertive in the thread.

Edited to add 5: 

I will say this. I kind of want to give @Fifth Scholar credit for no explosion play - the timing between his initial Silver vote and his Xino vote is about twenty one minutes. You could argue that Fifth saw there were no takers and jumped to another train, hoping to bait more people. But IDK. It feels a bit sincere to me. 

@Fifth Scholar What motivated the Xino to Aman jump when you initially said you don't expect to build a shrek case against him in an hour based off gut?

Here's my problem. Let's look at the train dynamics at the time Fifth is moving:

Quote

(4) Silver: Kas, Wizard, Aman, Devo, 
(3) Nerdy: Xino, Mat, Bookwyrm, 
(3) Xino: Nerdy, Almond, Fifth. 
(1) Aman: Insanity, 
(1) TUN: Stick,

Courtesy of Aman, thank you Aman.

I've vanished. As far as people know, they DK if I'm gonna return. Wiz has gone to sleep, Devo says she won't be around. If Aman can't be lured off Silver, then a CW must be > Silver. The dynamic shifts in an E!Aman world but right now we are tacitly assuming E!Fifth.

There are three voters who haven't committed at this stage: Hael, TUN, and Silver. E!Fifth knows E!Silver won't show up.

The jump to Xino looks a bit good to me TBH. Aman hasn't gone onto Xino at any point, so it's not clear to me how E!Fifth expects to bait Aman apart from hope. Stick has defended Xino enough it doesn't seem like a good sell. Bookwyrm has been unreliably around, as has Xino. I guess he could hope to bait Mat but Mat has also said he'd rather wait C3/C4.

I feel like it makes more sense for E!Fifth to jump to Aman straightaway. You could argue that he didn't want to instigate a fight with Aman if he didn't have to, but what did it matter? He jumps at around half an hour to rollover, then goes onto Aman fifteen minutes to rollover. If he wanted an easy consensus CW, TUN would probably be a better shot.

FWIW, Fifth also isn't an explosion play guy IMO - that's more Araris's wheelhouse. Fifth either busses or tries to tempt you.

Edited to add 6:

There's a lot of raw dgaf energy in this Hael vote, and it looks rather Village to me.

Edited to add 7:

3 hours ago, Amanuensis said:

You're going to have to walk me through on how Silver and I are teamed, cause I feel that's a huge stretch considering everything above.

Long story short - votes. I think E!you is okay with mid-cycle endangerment: for potential Silver teammates, I'm basically looking at whoever ended up on or promoted a side-train that opposed Silver. As Nerdy and you are the main CWs, I'm adding as potential Silver teammates all the active side-train EoD people.

The late flurry of activity combined with Silver's non-response is indicative of two things, IMO: A. a strong thread controller teammate and calculated inactivity (less strong on this point but I feel this is quite likely anyway), B. Elim choice to go for a late save.

If I look at the late side-voters, this is the state of the votes at your swap:

Quote

(4) Silver: Kas, Wizard, Aman, Devo, 
(2) Nerdy: Xino, Bookwyrm 
(2) Xino: Nerdy, Almond
(2) Aman: Insanity, Fifth
(1) TUN: Stick,

And your swap makes it a tie:

Quote

(3) Silver: Kas, Wizard, Devo, 
(3) Nerdy: Xino, Bookwyrm, Aman
(2) Xino: Nerdy, Almond
(2) Aman: Insanity, Fifth
(1) TUN: Stick,

In your case, I'm a bigger proponent of vote analysis, because that's how I found you in that Evil game, rather than post analysis. I'll note that if you're Village, you'll probably prefer I do vote analysis anyway because I MLed you the last time I ignored vote analysis and went on posts and tinfoil crack.

For similar reasons to why I consider Fifth and Mat potential teammates, I think you could be teamed with Silver. I agree you may be trying to test Fifth, but your vote also has a protective effect on Silver, and I think votes ultimately show where a player's priorities are. The whole reason we are considering an E!Mat and E!Fifth world, or at least that I am considering an E!Math and E!Fifth world after all is precisely because I dislike their EoD voting or at least feel that falls within grounds for suspicion.

Edited December 20, 2022 by Kasimir

[Stick. she/her]

3 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Which is a long way of me saying that this takes us back to our consensus that there is at least one Elim in <Aman, Mat, Fifth.>

I agree. Ultimately I am okay with exeing any of these three today.

This is Mat's last post from C2:

Quote

Weirdly enough I think I prefer this to Nerdy rn because Nerdy can be resolved later and I do think I see something in an Aman/Silvereye connection since Aman drew no attention to my dislike of the Dannex train yesterday and has drawn attention to my dislike of the Silver train

Does this not give off a hint of TMI regarding Silvereye's flip? It almost sounds as if Mat is ready to pounce on Aman as soon as the next cycle is up.

Point in Mat's favour is that Aman's Nerdy vote in hindsight looks really bad, though I'll admit that in that moment I was not super excited for a Silvereye flip either and was briefly considering other avenues as well (i.e. my TUN vote). I will be surprised if Mat and Aman are E/E but at the same I wouldn't put it past them. I think.

Point in Aman's favour is that I am having trouble seeing E!Aman say this:

5 hours ago, Amanuensis said:

To clarify, I strongly feel I'm more responsible for the Silver yeet than most. I deliberately kept it in the lead until the end to bait Silver's teammates.

And Fifth...idk >> I just finished rereading the EoD and I think some of his posts sound pretty decently genuine, but there are others that kind of don't, like this one:

Quote

I will say this is the second cycle in a row where I don’t like the Exe. Very much my fault this time around for not being in the loop for most of the cycle

 but still

 do we want to make a last minute push onto Hael or Aman or TuN 

 I might be willing 

Might take a quick look at an E!Fifth game - only one that comes to mind is LG74 but it'd be nice if there was one more recent.

[Kasimir he/him]

Sorry for the double-post. Aaaand ninjaed.

1. I don't expect to have too much bandwidth tonight, due to the need to keep on finishing the report. I've at least done the promised once-over for the thread and my impressions are listed up there.

2. I don't want my post to become incredibly long.

This is one last pass. Something Fifth said makes sense to me and I want to capture this properly:

6 hours ago, Fifth Scholar said:

Also I’m not letting this historical revisionism go unchallenged  Stick and Kas’ votes were pretty much hammers. “No need” to switch back isn’t something you’d have had a ton of time to actually decide on. You ended with a vote on Nerdy, the main counter-wagon. Also, my Silver vote lasted for about five minutes. If I was intending to shotgun the shrek ahead of everything else and make panic, I had no reason to immediately rescind and make it close with a Xino vote almost immediately thereafter. I’d have stayed on Silver. It doesn’t work otherwise  

I ran a script I wrote for LG84 and refined for LG90, that's designed to extract timestamps from posts. The reason I like it is it gives us timestamps down to the seconds, which can be useful in a fast-paced EoD situation.

Here's a proposal I have for anyone who is feeling lost by the game, or a sort of methodology I have in mind:

Look at the votes. Often, players' votes show where their priorities are. Because no matter what your role is, your vote is your one concrete way of affecting the game state, and furthering your wincon. I've gone on record before as saying that a silver-tongued Elim can turn day into night and good into evil. But the voting data is a good starting point.

(To be fair, once you identify odd votes, you then have to do further analysis. But one step at a time.)

I start on p.7. It's an arbitrary cut-off but I don't feel like running my script and sifting two pages of posts. We'll note Fifth's movement from Xino to Aman directly before that, that's fine. So:

Fifth swaps from Silver to Xino at 1229hrs. I'm highlighting the vote for clarity. 

Quote

Silver (4): Kas, Wizard, Aman, Devo
Nerdy (3): Xino, Mat, Bookwyrm 
Xino (3): Nerdy, Almond, Fifth
Aman (1): Insanity 
TUN (1): Stick

FWIW, I am okay with this shift - as I mentioned, I don't really see a point in trying to go for explosion play at this point, and that's not really Fifth's MO, despite the vote staying stable for twenty one minutes. Silver remains in the lead train: it feels like E!Fifth had better options than to just go on Silver and then off again.

At 1245hrs, Fifth then swaps to Aman. If he's shopping for a CW to Silver, this is risky. The other main guy who vocally expressed suspicion of Aman is Mat, Wiz and Devo have indicated they're done for the night, and he's not going to reasonably get Aman to vote on Aman. Even if Mat joins him, he can at most expect to create another three train CW. This is a fairly pointless move for an E!Fifth looking to make a Silver CW. TUN is a better consensus CW IMO.

Quote

Silver (4): Kas, Wizard, Aman, Devo
Nerdy (3): Xino, Mat, Bookwyrm 
Xino (2): Nerdy, Almond
Aman (2): Insanity, Fifth 
TUN (1): Stick

At 12:47:20, Aman shifts to voting for Nerdy. This effectively elevates Nerdy to lead train and takes Silver out of the lead. Aman's vote stays stable on Nerdy for the next approximately thirteen minutes in a very chaotic EoD.

Quote

Silver (3): Kas, Wizard, Devo
Nerdy (4): Xino, Mat, Bookwyrm, Aman
Xino (2): Nerdy, Almond
Aman (2): Insanity, Fifth 
TUN (1): Stick

At 12:47:49, or twenty nine seconds later, TUN posts and votes for Szeth. This is sort of TUN's usual MO, so I don't have a strong comment, except to note that it is possible, but IMO just a tad tough to swallow that E!TUN decides to leave his teammate to hang over his non-voting commitment. (Some Elims do feel that way, it's true.) That being said, I wouldn't apathy-clear. (Dingo!) A later problem.

Quote

Silver (3): Kas, Wizard, Devo
Nerdy (4): Xino, Mat, Bookwyrm, Aman
Xino (2): Nerdy, Almond
Aman (2): Insanity, Fifth 
TUN (1): Stick
Szeth (1): TUN

At 12:51:06, around six minutes after his Aman vote, Fifth decides to vote for Hael instead. Given that Nerdy is already the lead train, I don't feel E!Fifth has much theoretical pressure to go train-shopping at this juncture. Honestly I read it as a kayana paranoia vote. I have no idea what he was trying to achieve with that. Fifth who wants padding sticks to a main train, especially with little expressed appetite for Hael among anyone. 

Quote

Silver (3): Kas, Wizard, Devo
Nerdy (4): Xino, Mat, Bookwyrm, Aman
Xino (2): Nerdy, Almond
Aman (1): Insanity
TUN (1): Stick
Szeth (1): TUN
Hael (1): Fifth

At 12:51:30, Stick basically goes wtf at the chaos and votes for Fifth. Which, I don't blame her, I was sorely tempted to do myself.

Quote

Silver (3): Kas, Wizard, Devo
Nerdy (4): Xino, Mat, Bookwyrm, Aman
Xino (2): Nerdy, Almond
Aman (1): Insanity
Szeth (1): TUN
Hael (1): Fifth
Fifth (1): Stick

Here's something interesting which isn't a vote: Aman's last post for the cycle is edited, i.e. it has two timestamps associated with it.

The first timestamp is 2022-12-20T04:55:49Z; the second is 2022-12-20T05:05:19Z. Translating it into my timezone, as I've been analysing on that basis, we have 12:55:49, and 13:05:19. Which IMO, shows Aman was more or less delayed or stunlocked for a decent chunk of that final EoD, since the post edit was recorded as coming in fairly late. I don't know how Village I want to read this given how much yelling and trainhopping at least three presumed Villagers were doing.

Anyway.

At 12:56:02, Fifth decides he hasn't been indecisive enough, and abandons Hael for the safety of Aman. That was an utterly pointless hop, and one I feel is more likely to come from a Village perspective than Evil perspective.

Quote

Silver (3): Kas, Wizard, Devo
Nerdy (4): Xino, Mat, Bookwyrm, Aman
Xino (2): Nerdy, Almond
Aman (2): Insanity, Fifth
Szeth (1): TUN
Fifth (1): Stick

At this point, I want everyone to take note: Nerdy has been the stable lead train for at least nine minutes. There is no real incentive to care on the part of E!Fifth.

At 12:56:39, or thirty seven seconds after Fifth, Hael is unnerved by the votestate and jumps onto Silver. This is an exceptionally Village move, IMO - it brings the Silver train back into contention and means that Silver and Nerdy are now tied. Solid Village on Hael.

Quote

Silver (4): Kas, Wizard, Devo, Hael
Nerdy (4): Xino, Mat, Bookwyrm, Aman
Xino (2): Nerdy, Almond
Aman (2): Insanity, Fifth
Szeth (1): TUN
Fifth (1): Stick

At 12:57:20, or slightly a minute after Hael, I vote Nerdy. I've explained my reasons, but coming onto a cycle late and trying to understand things is rough. I break the tie, making it 3/5 in favour of Nerdy. In this world, Silver's teammates rest easily...for the moment.

Quote

Silver (3): Wizard, Devo, Hael
Nerdy (5): Xino, Mat, Bookwyrm, Aman, Kas
Xino (2): Nerdy, Almond
Aman (2): Insanity, Fifth
Szeth (1): TUN
Fifth (1): Stick

I then notice Hael's shift at 12:58:11, and edit in a curse/screaming as I try to decide whether or not to defect back to Silver.

At either 12:58:13 or 12:58:52, which we don't know about, because Mat did the annoying thing of potentially editing his votes in, he swaps back from Nerdy to Aman. This is just absurdly nonsensical in an E!Mat world, in my view, given the volatility. He is better off staying put and just flipping Nerdy. There's no reason to go for train dilution and is consistent with his persistent suspicion of Aman across the cycle.

Quote

Silver (3): Wizard, Devo, Hael
Nerdy (4): Xino, Bookwyrm, Aman, Kas
Xino (2): Nerdy, Almond
Aman (3): Insanity, Fifth, Mat
Szeth (1): TUN
Fifth (1): Stick

Nerdy is still the lead train. No need to panic or intervene.

At 12:59:19, Stick votes Silver. Again, this is a profoundly Village move, in my eyes. It ties Silver with Nerdy and once more brings Silver into contention, even via a tie.

Quote

Silver (4): Wizard, Devo, Hael, Stick
Nerdy (4): Xino, Bookwyrm, Aman, Kas
Xino (2): Nerdy, Almond
Aman (3): Insanity, Fifth, Mat
Szeth (1): TUN

At 13:00:02, I vote Silver. I was slowed down by the fact I forgot we couldn't edit votes in and had to c/p into another window, but I made it before the GM post so my vote counted. I've listed my reasons for voting Silver, and this kills Silver.

Quote

Silver (5): Wizard, Devo, Hael, Stick, Kas
Nerdy (3): Xino, Bookwyrm, Aman
Xino (2): Nerdy, Almond
Aman (3): Insanity, Fifth, Mat
Szeth (1): TUN

So I agree with Fifth: Stick and I essentially voted so late it was like a hammer. I'd be surprised if there was sufficient time to process and respond. Too, a risk-friendly Elim team might be happy with a 50-50 shot at a flip. Things became vastly different when I made my switch, but Szeth closes the cycle five seconds later. There's just no time to respond.

I don't like Aman's stability on Nerdy in all that EoD chaos. I think we have an EoD where Silver was rarely under threat until the very end, and almost never unacceptably so. But it does explain little incentive to go off Nerdy.

@_Stick_ - In short, that's my answer to you. Vote analysis looks worse on Aman than the other two. If you want an E!Fifth game, I suggest looking at MR59, which is also an E!Kas game. That being said, I think LG74 is better as Fifth gets I think C2ed in absentia in MR59, and any other game is a bit too backdated. I don't really see E!Fifth in this game, and I've argued multiple times this is not E!Mat's MO. I also genuinely do not see E!Mat making the opening post he does. It's too FAFO for an Elim, and too rude to your team for them to wake up to finding that you accumulated three votes on yourself (if this had backfired badly) because you felt like getting cute in thread as an opener. E!Mat is careful. I don't see this recklessness coming from him. 

E!Fifth may gambit but he's decisive. There's no reason to be this noncommittal. Suggesting he's performative doesn't cut it because he went on particularly ineffective trains for shopping. And if E!Fifth is comfortable, he stays put.

Edited to add: Open to if you have counterarguments or other thoughts but de facto I have to work, so do not expect to be with much bandwidth. I'll likely be on again, I just decided to put my vote there because it's sort of odd that I'm already making an E!Aman case by my analysis and not wanting to go there, if you know what I mean. IDK how much pressure that really exerts on Xino.

Edited to add 2: To be clear, @_Stick_ and anyone else interested, this is the final sequence of timestamps:

12:59:19, Stick votes Silver
13:00:02, I vote Silver
13:00:07 Szeth shuts the cycle.
13:05:19 Aman locks in that edited post I linked - likely he forgot he had it open.

I think my thought is: you voted Silver. He had the same amount of time I did to react. Everyone did. I was the only one who reacted. He stayed on Nerdy. Because Nerdy is CW to Silver, or because you tied Nerdy and Silver, I am more wary of votes on Nerdy than I am on people who remained on other trains.

I don't know if I'd agree with Aman's account of events that there wasn't a need to intervene: there was time to lock it in solidly after your post and vote. But it fell to me to do it. I can accept people got stopped after the 13:00:07 mark, but that and the fact his prior vote was on Nerdy just feels eh to me. Also I kind of feel that if you're baiting out Silver's teammates, great, time to swap now at EoD and get that flip?

I agree I am saying this with more certainty than either of us felt at EoD. But Aman is painting his vote as bait, which indicates he had respectable E!Silver credences, as he indicated throughout the day. And since my vote came so late into the day, such that another GM might have ruled it out (I would not, for the record), isn't that awfully late to leave it to? It feels like he's trying to get credit for the Silver vote despite being a stable CW presence. I really don't like it.

Edited December 20, 2022 by Kasimir

[Stick. she/her]

With my vote being cast 41 seconds before rollover and yours 5 seconds before Szeth's post, I do wonder about Aman's comment regarding not feeling the need to switch back to Silvereye. That's a good point, in that it does not leave a lot of time for processing the votes in the first place. One could argue that my vote would've given him some reaction time because 41 seconds is a lot by EoD standards - but like you point out, my vote only tied the votes and didn't actually put Silvereye in the lead. Aman could not have anticipated your vote switch.

6 hours ago, Amanuensis said:

I only swapped to Nerdy to see how Fifth would react

I take this to mean that you would not have been alright with a Nerdy/Silvereye tie?

Edited December 20, 2022 by _Stick_
spelling

[Kasimir he/him]

7 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

With my vote being cast 41 seconds before rollover and yours 5 seconds before Szeth's post, I do wonder about Aman's comment regarding not feeling the need to switch back to Silvereye. That's a good point, in that it does not leave a lot of time for processing the votes in the first place. One could argue that my vote would've given him some reaction time because 41 seconds is a lot by EoD standards - but like you point out, my vote only tied the votes and didn't actually put Silvereye in the lead. Aman could not have anticipated your vote switch.

I take this to mean that you would not have been alright with a Nerdy/Silvereye tie?

That's the part that trips me up:

1. No need to switch to Silvereye prior to you? It'd've been a Nerdy lynch without you. I don't know Nerdy's alignment but I currently theorise it is Village, and if it isn't, what the hell is with this EoD anyway. As you said, 41 seconds before rollover, though pragmatically, a tiny bit more than that since Szeth only posted the STOP seven seconds after official rollover time.

2. There was just enough time between us for me to post and vote, and no one else would have known I would have been coming for Silvereye, given I'd just gone to Nerdy. There was room for anyone to beat me to it, or people to vote Silvereye after me (this would be variances in decision and voting speed, i.e. they'd've been moving at more or less at the same time as me to break the tie, but have hit post later, or whatever.) In that window, nothing.

3. Given 1 and 2: his vote was on Nerdy, the CW tie. 2 gives weak reason to believe he was fine with it. It doesn't make him Evil for certain sure but it does make me feel sus under the circumstances, and anyway in a game without a Seeker, I will never speak of certainty.

Edited to add: One more question. If your first post of this cycle expresses surprise, doesn't that indicate you are on a V!Silver train as well? So how does that match with...basically everything else?

Edited December 20, 2022 by Kasimir

[NerdyAarakocra They/Them]

I think I can safely vote Xino. Kas does a good job of explaining his argument, and I follow the same logic in addition to my suspicions from C1. I'm also willing to vote Aman, if y'all can convince me that he's more worrying than Xino.

[Exotic Almond he/him]

Based on what I have read I think it's: Aman

[Stick. she/her]

10 minutes ago, ExoticAlmond said:

Based on what I have read I think it's: Aman

If Aman was not an option for today, who would your second strongest lead be? 
 

edit:

@NerdyAarakocra what makes Xino particularly worrying? 

Edited December 20, 2022 by _Stick_

[NerdyAarakocra They/Them]

6 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

@NerdyAarakocra what makes Xino particularly worrying? 

See Kas's post earlier in this cycle, and my reasoning last cycle.

Also, the Aman train looks kinda sus.

[InfiniteInsanity she/her]

Okay so I'm going to try to read through the past couple of cycles but my brain is one big pool of gibberish so it's likely nothing I say will make much sense. I'm getting tested for the flu (I think) later and then who knows what will happen.

[Stick. she/her]

11 minutes ago, NerdyAarakocra said:

See Kas's post earlier in this cycle, and my reasoning last cycle.

Also, the Aman train looks kinda sus.

Your reasoning was:

Quote

The fact remains that I have no idea how play this, but Xino seems kinda suspicious after his posts in C1

As Mat pointed out, Xino only really made one post

I don’t disagree that Xino looks a bit suspicious but I just wanna understand your train of thought better. Kas’ post today is based off vote analysis but you’ve been suspicious of Xino since last cycle. 

[The Bookwyrm he/him]

44 minutes ago, NerdyAarakocra said:

I think I can safely vote Xino. Kas does a good job of explaining his argument, and I follow the same logic in addition to my suspicions from C1. I'm also willing to vote Aman, if y'all can convince me that he's more worrying than Xino.

I still don't understand why you're gunning for Xino so hard. Yes, he may be somewhat suspicious, but he isn't the best option solely for the fact that he's posted twice this entire game. That's mildly suspicious, but there are other people that are a lot more suspicious. Xino hasn't said/done anything incriminating.

Now I just need to figure out who of those more suspicious people are the most suspicious.

[Kasimir he/him]

I'll be honest, this is not what a guy wants to sneak back to halfway through his report of hell :|

44 minutes ago, The Bookwyrm said:

That's mildly suspicious, but there are other people that are a lot more suspicious.

Okay, question for you Bookwyrm: who are these other people you are sifting through to ID the most suspicious?

1 hour ago, InfiniteInsanity said:

Okay so I'm going to try to read through the past couple of cycles but my brain is one big pool of gibberish so it's likely nothing I say will make much sense. I'm getting tested for the flu (I think) later and then who knows what will happen.

Good luck and take care of your health first!

Ngl Nerdy is making me consider an E/E train world >>

Largely because I don't really fully think Xino and Aman are teamed but this 

Which...

Uuuuuuuuggghgghhhhhhhghghghhghghghhh I guess it would point to the dgaf people, lynch the dgaf people probably. 

@_Stick_ @Haelbarde pls talk sense into me, this feels like unwarranted paranoia.

Sigh.

E!Nerdy / E!Silver? How kayana is this?

In that world, Aman looks better for staying on Nerdy tbh.

IDK. Part of me is sorely tempted to flip Nerdy first because what. Also technically order of priority because V!Nerdy strongly implies E!Aman. Part of me really thinks this is too kayana: it's highly likely one of <Aman, Mat, Fifth> is Evil and we just need to figure out which one of them it is.

Okay deep breath.

1 hour ago, NerdyAarakocra said:

I'm also willing to vote Aman, if y'all can convince me that he's more worrying than Xino.

Define worrying?

44 minutes ago, The Bookwyrm said:

but he isn't the best option solely for the fact that he's posted twice this entire game. That's mildly suspicious

1. Why only mildly?

2. 

44 minutes ago, The Bookwyrm said:

Xino hasn't said/done anything incriminating.

Did you see the Xino donut chart of Evil from LG91 that shows based off his playhistory that 80% of the time when Xino is quiet, he is Evil?

3. You are aware E!Xino was very quiet in LG91? Does this influence or change your view in any way? If not, why not? (I'm not saying you should change your view on Xino here, I'm trying to understand where you are coming from.)

Edited to add:

1 hour ago, NerdyAarakocra said:

See Kas's post earlier in this cycle, and my reasoning last cycle.

Isn't there just a fundamental inequality there.

I write an entire longpost arguing why the voting looks worse for Aman than it does for Mat and for Fifth.

My argument for Xino 'earlier in this cycle' boils down to:

9 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Xino While Xino could hardly vote himself, I continue to feel the Nerdy train wasn't pure, Aman has two votes anyway, and I am honestly not necessarily convinced that the me-train was pure.

"Maybe an Elim voted for me, I guess I think Nerdy is Village, so it's got to be Xino"

"Also I don't think the Nerdy train was pure and Aman is a ? and there's Xino so let's vote for him."

Are you...seriously saying that an argument with that many gaps in it proves to you Xino is much more worrying than Aman?

I don't understand where you are coming from, and this almost feels like motivated reasoning here, to avoid voting Aman.

Though that's weird too: in an E!Aman world, I'd fully expect him to encourage a bus.

Edited December 20, 2022 by Kasimir

[Stick. she/her]

Nerdy has consistently avoided voting on the main trains every cycle 

I don’t think it’s unwarranted paranoia, I’ve been prodding Nerdy for precisely the same reason