Long Game 95: The Fire of Ado's Light

[DeTess she/her]

Okay, looking at yesterday, I feel confident TJ wasn't part of team Hoid, but could still be team Khriss (no real suspicion for that, just something that can't be ruled out). Same goes for Szeth and TBB.

Elandera starting up a CW definitely looks sketchy, but the comment about being roleblocked by Archer would suggest they aren't on the same team. Of course, why would team!hoid!archer be roleblocking someone instead of going after shards? So might be on the same team and that whole interaction was faked. 

Mat's move onto Wizard feels more like a move form archer's team-mate, as it comes with packaged in distancing as Mat kinda waffles back and forth on Archer without ever really stating they think Archer is village before joining the wizard train.

So I'd be up to execute both Elandera and Mat tomorrow, but I'd like to start with Mat and I'd really appreciate it if we could just get it done in a single cycle for a change?

Also, voting turnout was a paltry 42% this cycle. So you know, to the 10 people that didn't vote, reminder that the game is still going on! You've been poked in the opening post for this thread already, so don't feel like @ing you again.
 

[Kasimir he/him]

43 minutes ago, DeTess said:

So I'd be up to execute both Elandera and Mat tomorrow, but I'd like to start with Mat and I'd really appreciate it if we could just get it done in a single cycle for a change?

I admit I chuckled a bit.

At least there's no insanity this time?

43 minutes ago, DeTess said:

Elandera starting up a CW definitely looks sketchy, but the comment about being roleblocked by Archer would suggest they aren't on the same team. Of course, why would team!hoid!archer be roleblocking someone instead of going after shards? So might be on the same team and that whole interaction was faked. 

I have a suspicion about this but I don't think I can articulate it publicly. Suffice to say I do think the roleblock claim is a lie. Worth keeping in mind Elan has been defending Archer from the start and did have a few strange votes that aren't consistent with her stated suspicions. (Thinking about her take on Szeth v. Xino here.)

43 minutes ago, DeTess said:

Also, voting turnout was a paltry 42% this cycle. So you know, to the 10 people that didn't vote, reminder that the game is still going on! You've been poked in the opening post for this thread already, so don't feel like @ing you again.

Yep. I think Village-side, we need to be careful with our charges, but may eventually need Nalthis if they are continuing to just exist in the game but refuse to vote. Otherwise, the voting gap will continue to increase. There's a temporary ceasefire with Aut but quite frankly I don't envy our chances against Elims and and a three-vote swing. We really need those people back in the fight* if they're Village.

*There's a case for Endowment or denying the Elims Endowment but it's very likely we'd regret Endowment's Intent wincon, and I think it's very clear that the Village obtaining Endowment and staging a mass dead doc jailbreak would be a huge red line to all three Elim factions, which is not, in my view, a position we can defend convincingly at this point of the game.

I'd put Araris on the table as well. I think an Araris-Archer team is fairly plausible, and when I asked Araris via PM for his view on Archer, he used more or less the same line as Elan and claimed a Village read of Archer.

Edited to add:

On 6/16/2023 at 7:15 PM, Archer said:

They almost certainly were village then, since the elim teams can't afford to lose a player to neutrality. 

I keep coming back to this statement since IMO this was almost certainly a perspective slip. And - pardon me if this sounds just a tad too arrogant, but I feel like there's only one player a consideration like this would be seriously germane for. Well, two, but one of them is GMing this game.

So yeah, among other things (Araris's defense of Archer, quiet sniping between the two of them that never amounted to anything serious), this is what makes me put extra weight on an E!Araris world.

I also feel there's more inconsistencies in Elan's arguments that make me feel they're about convenience rather than necessarily a consistent worldview:

(1)

On 6/16/2023 at 9:15 PM, Elandera said:

I also tried to siphon Mercy last night to steal it from elims, but got RB'd. Makes me wonder if the elims have had more trouble converting than assumed. Otherwise there's no way they shouldn't have broken out a shard last night.

(2)

On 6/17/2023 at 0:23 AM, Elandera said:

Archer has a good point. He's a terrible conversion target, and I don't really see the evidence of him being elim at the beginning. We're focusing in the wrong places. I'd like to vote Szeth for the N0/D1 reasons I mentioned last cycle, but I can see there isn't likely to be a ton of support there. So instead I turn to potential conversions. Low profile but active enough.

Wizard.

Note to self: potential Mat-Elan team over Szeth? Unsure.

(3)

On 6/17/2023 at 2:30 AM, Elandera said:

I would argue that it's difficult to apply this tactic of finding conversions to D1 or D2 due to the low number of conversions at those points, which would take out Sart and Alpha as failures of this. As I stated before, I did not pursue Xino as a convert target, but a OG elim, removing him as well. Last turn was the first potential opportunity for full elim teams, which I don't think actually happened considering the lack of containment breaks. This is the first turn where we likely have all of the converts in place, when we can really be looking at good convert profiles. I don't think Archer fits that, nor does he fit OG elim, hence the suggestion to look elsewhere. Somewhere new. On a player that hasn't been looked at seriously yet, because they'd make a good convert.

I'd note also that both Archer and Elan advocated a similar strategy of ignoring vocal players and looking in a category I'll abbreviate as LPLA (low profile, low activity.) In the first instance, it does feel like raw opportunism, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was also a way of shielding either majority of the team from scrutiny, or at least key members. I don't think doing so is prima facie mistaken but it should be revelatory in light of Archer's flip and (quite frankly) the fact Elims will obviously respond to where thread attention is going and we were quite obsessed with LPLA from N0-N3.

...I will also be quite annoyed if I'm the only vocal player left who is a Villager and the rest of y'all are just faction sniping at each other but no, this is not a request for conversion, shoo or I will Intent Convert with great and intense prejudice like the pyres of Borleias.

Edited to add 2:

43 minutes ago, DeTess said:

So I'd be up to execute both Elandera and Mat tomorrow, but I'd like to start with Mat and I'd really appreciate it if we could just get it done in a single cycle for a change?

Has anybody told you about the tragedy of Darth Araris the Flamingo?

I thought not.

Roshar, ignore this - I had to crack the joke, this is not intended to be my indicator.

Edited June 18, 2023 by Kasimir

[Walin he/him]

I don’t have anything to say, really, since I committed to read through previous posts but have not actually done that yet. Also, I’ll be busy for the rest of tomorrow so I’ll probably not post in-thread. But I will confirm I’m on Silverlight, if that helps any factions make decisions about whether to kill me or otherwise take an action.

——————

Trukal sipped on an algae smoothie, cultures from the Elantrian moss on Sel. It supposedly increased ability to process foreign Investiture, much like how certain intestinal bacteria were responsible for breaking down given foods. He was still coming down from the headaches from the lab incident earlier, and suspected he might soon be exposed to Stormlight or another Investiture that chose to disagree with his biology.

He had talked to another researcher a few hours ago, but the details of the conversation slipped his mind. All he knew was that it wasn’t relevant to the situation about the Shards, so he could file it away in a copper ring for later. He couldn’t spare the trouble to try and remember that manually even if it was personally important, because he had to first be alive to respond to it.

[Kasimir he/him]

2 hours ago, Walin said:

I don’t have anything to say, really, since I committed to read through previous posts but have not actually done that yet. Also, I’ll be busy for the rest of tomorrow so I’ll probably not post in-thread. But I will confirm I’m on Silverlight, if that helps any factions make decisions about whether to kill me or otherwise take an action.

What do you see as being the point of this statement if you are a Villager?

[Mat he/him]

I guess I’d say that if I’m teamed with Archer, we did a pretty horrible job distancing and I’d argue that LG94 is evidence we can do better. Like, I joined a Wiz train of one when Archer had like five. Realistically Archer was never going to not be exed. A smart teammate thing to do is to bus right there, which is definitely what I would have done had I been Archer’s teammate in that situation cause last I checked I’m not an idiot, just out of it :P. Again, I didn’t vote Archer at first cause I legitimately didn’t know what the e case was, and no one explained it to me, but I did see signs of him openwolfing so there you go

Also like what the heck was Archer’s last post if we’re teamed like that just draws unnecessary attention to me, it’s completely useless and baseless and all of those things 

[Kasimir he/him]

53 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I guess I’d say that if I’m teamed with Archer, we did a pretty horrible job distancing and I’d argue that LG94 is evidence we can do better. Like, I joined a Wiz train of one when Archer had like five. Realistically Archer was never going to not be exed. A smart teammate thing to do is to bus right there, which is definitely what I would have done had I been Archer’s teammate in that situation cause last I checked I’m not an idiot, just out of it :P. Again, I didn’t vote Archer at first cause I legitimately didn’t know what the e case was, and no one explained it to me, but I did see signs of him openwolfing so there you go

Also like what the heck was Archer’s last post if we’re teamed like that just draws unnecessary attention to me, it’s completely useless and baseless and all of those things 

Honestly I am not sure I see you teamed with Archer, contra DeTess. I think Elan could be, but I think Araris is a better teammate in this world.

I do think you might be from Khriss's faction though, and I kind of have a feeling that we ended up smack in the middle of an inter-faction tussle last Day.

Edited to add:

Actually, what about this: who then do you see teamed with Archer potentially?

Edited June 18, 2023 by Kasimir

[Mat he/him]

31 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Actually, what about this: who then do you see teamed with Archer potentially?

I could see DeTess’ opening vote as being a failed distancing attempt (failed in the sense that his train took off like a rocket). It had the appropriate amount of hedging but voting anyway, while leaving plenty of room to back off later. Additionally, DeTess made that random post about not liking Elan all of a sudden which also could reflect a desire to get a train going elsewhere.

TBB also works imo, he hopped onto the train late at about prime bus time. Also, I totally think that Hoid!TBB would question Elan regarding the quality of an Archer conversion in the way we saw :P.

Or, like you mentioned, Araris and Elan could work. Though the latter definitely wouldn’t be with DeTess or TBB, I don’t think.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

Sorry everyone, was at a wedding/bachelor party the last couple of days and traveling in-between. I'll be getting home by (super late) Monday and should be able to start playing the game for real if I'm still alive then. Looks like I should have read past Archer's D1 when deciding on him.

[Kasimir he/him]

1 hour ago, Araris Valerian said:

Sorry everyone, was at a wedding/bachelor party the last couple of days and traveling in-between. I'll be getting home by (super late) Monday and should be able to start playing the game for real if I'm still alive then. Looks like I should have read past Archer's D1 when deciding on him.

Hope you had fun!  

Edited to add:

1 hour ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I could see DeTess’ opening vote as being a failed distancing attempt (failed in the sense that his train took off like a rocket).

Don't disagree this is possible, but DeTess has been consistently banging on Archer each cycle, which is probably why Elan said we'd been arguing over Archer every cycle when it's mostly just DeTess and a bit of you (this one being the one where Archer asked you to just go for him.) I will say I'm a bit surprised DeTess 180-ed on you so quickly because that was a Village lean last cycle, and I'm not fully sure even last cycle would have persuaded me to reverse a V lean that way. But maybe it's a DeTess thing, IDK.

IDK, I guess it's a blindspot for me because part of me wonders why DeTess has been apparently left unaffected by conversion, but also I vibed very hard with this post because:

Pretty much Elan's post rang alarm bells for pretty much everyone in Roshar. Hard to say for TBB because of timing, but I slightly V!lean TBB so that's not the biggest deal. We might have been riding a huge Archer tunnel at that time, but I do think it's a relatable viewpoint that that post just read bad to us, and that seems to me then to be a fairly natural reaction.

Edited to add 2: For TBB it's a weak read - vibe/tone mostly, and ran a comparison to LG81. I'm fine with being talked into it if there's an E!TBB case.

Edited June 18, 2023 by Kasimir

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

2 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I could see DeTess’ opening vote as being a failed distancing attempt (failed in the sense that his train took off like a rocket). It had the appropriate amount of hedging but voting anyway, while leaving plenty of room to back off later. Additionally, DeTess made that random post about not liking Elan all of a sudden which also could reflect a desire to get a train going elsewhere.

TBB also works imo, he hopped onto the train late at about prime bus time. Also, I totally think that Hoid!TBB would question Elan regarding the quality of an Archer conversion in the way we saw :P.

Or, like you mentioned, Araris and Elan could work. Though the latter definitely wouldn’t be with DeTess or TBB, I don’t think.

?

I was third vote I believe, and voted about the earliest I could have (rollover is just before I go to sleep, so I don't get to see the next cycle). And there was some decent working up to it the night and day before.

Also, as I have been corrupted by the Roshar doc, a relevant meme:

Spoiler

 

[|TJ| he/him]

not hoids team - kas, tess, szeth, wiz
most likely to convert archer - drake, araris, tbb (tiiiny bit suspicious of distancing similar to d1 of lg94)

most likely to convert fifth - kas, araris, tess, mat

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

I will say I'm a bit surprised DeTess 180-ed on you so quickly because that was a Village lean last cycle, and I'm not fully sure even last cycle would have persuaded me to reverse a V lean that way. But maybe it's a DeTess thing, IDK.

i can relate to this (to detess), which is why i said ive got a gut feeling that elandera was converted during n3. 

9 minutes ago, The Bald Brandon said:

I was third vote I believe

nope, twas tess, me then kas. 

2 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I could see DeTess’ opening vote as being a failed distancing attempt (failed in the sense that his train took off like a rocket). It had the appropriate amount of hedging but voting anyway, while leaving plenty of room to back off later. Additionally, DeTess made that random post about not liking Elan all of a sudden which also could reflect a desire to get a train going elsewhere.

this is suspicious because mat seems to want tess in a spotlight, when detess was on archer since d1. feels malicious and not genuine.

[Elandera she/her]

Well, sorry everyone for yesterday. Until Archer's hop to TBB, I honestly didn't read him as elim. Part of me wonders if that last vote was attempted distancing since his exe was a forgone conclusion. 

8 hours ago, Kasimir said:

I also feel there's more inconsistencies in Elan's arguments

I'm not sure how those were inconsistent arguments. If all conversions were perfect, elim teams would have been full D3. I don't believe they were, considering no new shards broke containment N3. Which would suggest the earliest for full elim teams was D4, hence my argument that D4 was the best statistically for finding an elim, even at random. But please, if my math is wrong, let me know. It's never been a strong suit (re: balance of protection/kills in LG94).

[Mat he/him]

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

I will say I'm a bit surprised DeTess 180-ed on you so quickly because that was a Village lean last cycle, and I'm not fully sure even last cycle would have persuaded me to reverse a V lean that way. But maybe it's a DeTess thing, IDK.

That’s part of it for me, too, it feels like they just want to take advantage of my bad play last turn and the turnaround doesn’t feel organic to me

13 minutes ago, |TJ| said:

this is suspicious because mat seems to want tess in a spotlight, when detess was on archer since d1. feels malicious and not genuine.

Um… no? I was answering Kas’ question. I’m unsure what I could have said there differently. I’m not trying to put anyone in the spotlight, I’m talking about reads and unlike DeTess on me, I’ve been eh about them for most of the game.

[Kasimir he/him]

27 minutes ago, |TJ| said:

most likely to convert fifth - kas, araris, tess, mat

It's interesting to me you don't seem to consider Elan such a candidate, given that Elan and Fifth also very clearly have non-trivial playhistory.

20 minutes ago, Elandera said:

I'm not sure how those were inconsistent arguments. If all conversions were perfect, elim teams would have been full D3. I don't believe they were, considering no new shards broke containment N3. Which would suggest the earliest for full elim teams was D4, hence my argument that D4 was the best statistically for finding an elim, even at random. But please, if my math is wrong, let me know. It's never been a strong suit (re: balance of protection/kills in LG94).

Fair on the first part, as I misread the first quote; but nevertheless, if you believe conversions are statistically full and best run with on D4, then wanting to go after Szeth (as noted in the quote, a supposed converter profile) seems like a very strange choice since, again, if we're running on purely statistics, you believe we have a better shot going for potential converts since there's now a full roster.

I'm also still not over the fact you posted a NAI read of Xino and a negative read of Szeth but voted Xino. That just seemed like a rather odd decision and potentially suggestive that the vote was motivated by reasons apart from the read. You could certainly argue this is a weakened argument since I actually believe V!Szeth, but the misalignment still doesn't seem right to me, and I have some suspicions of what was going down with Szeth which dovetail nicely with the projected conversion failures.

Edited to add:

3 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

It's interesting to me you don't seem to consider Elan such a candidate, given that Elan and Fifth also very clearly have non-trivial playhistory.

Or, notably, STINK, who also has non-trivial playhistory with Fifth, including LG74  

Edited June 18, 2023 by Kasimir

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

28 minutes ago, |TJ| said:

nope, twas tess, me then kas. 

Apparently I was Fifth. No, not that Fifth.

But I still stand by that point. Earliest I could get on to vote (timestamp is pretty close to right now, which is when I wake up), and a clear progression. 

[Elandera she/her]

2 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

I'm also still not over the fact you posted a NAI read of Xino and a negative read of Szeth but voted Xino.

Oh, that was because my AI read of Xino came from the end of D2, which I hadn't gotten to rereading for that post.

4 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

then wanting to go after Szeth

Though I still wouldn't mind, I also have to trust some of the people I read as village and who are better at tracking and remembering posts than me, all of whom seemed to agree on a v!Szeth. This is, after all, a team game where majority opinions matter, and it would be foolish of me to not listen.

[Kasimir he/him]

3 minutes ago, Elandera said:

Oh, that was because my AI read of Xino came from the end of D2, which I hadn't gotten to rereading for that post.

Hmm. Fair enough.

[DeTess she/her]

2 hours ago, Kasimir said:

 

Don't disagree this is possible, but DeTess has been consistently banging on Archer each cycle, which is probably why Elan said we'd been arguing over Archer every cycle when it's mostly just DeTess and a bit of you (this one being the one where Archer asked you to just go for him.) I will say I'm a bit surprised DeTess 180-ed on you so quickly because that was a Village lean last cycle, and I'm not fully sure even last cycle would have persuaded me to reverse a V lean that way. But maybe it's a DeTess thing, IDK.

 

So, my Mat village lean was mostly due to a combination of non!e!mat start+ effort +no real red flags as far as I could see. But I consider joining the wizard wagon here a major red flag, which caused my turnaround. 

[Kasimir he/him]

22 minutes ago, DeTess said:

So, my Mat village lean was mostly due to a combination of non!e!mat start+ effort +no real red flags as far as I could see. But I consider joining the wizard wagon here a major red flag, which caused my turnaround. 

Is there some reason you're prioritising Mat over Elan? Not sure I have a particular read strength difference, though I do E!read both of them in general to approximately interchangeable degrees given the choice of CW, and the general opportunism synch.

I do think that Mat has a point, that given my vote heralded a triple bloc-vote from Roshar, it was probably clear that wasn't moving anytime soon. At the same time, I do find the quick diminishing of the Wiz train actually just as strange. I think if you get into the weeds of it, I could see a player genuinely convinced of E!Wiz arguing that the meta case isn't that decisive: there are departure points that are a tad harder to judge due to Wiz's rampant inactivity.

I do think the ongoing strawmanning of the Archer case does also make me read the Wiz train more negatively, that being said.

Edited June 18, 2023 by Kasimir

[|TJ| he/him]

1 hour ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Um… no? I was answering Kas’ question. I’m unsure what I could have said there differently. I’m not trying to put anyone in the spotlight, I’m talking about reads and unlike DeTess on me, I’ve been eh about them for most of the game.

Hmm not exactly what I meant. I just don't like the way you seem to construe deTess' vote on Archer as being distancy when she's been suspecting Archer since D1.

55 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

It's interesting to me you don't seem to consider Elan such a candidate, given that Elan and Fifth also very clearly have non-trivial playhistory.

Ah my bad. In my head, Elandera is slotted in as "converted in N3" so I didn't even think to consider her, but yes she fits in the in the group. 

57 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Or, notably, STINK, who also has non-trivial playhistory with Fifth, including LG74  

And I totally forgot about STINK. 

 

[Kasimir he/him]

4 minutes ago, |TJ| said:

Ah my bad. In my head, Elandera is slotted in as "converted in N3" so I didn't even think to consider her, but yes she fits in the in the group. 

One more question: you mentioned several times that you see her as a N3 conversion. What're the factors driving this conclusion? I ask because I half wonder if she's Hoid.

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

the factions do be factioning

@docbros not sure what the current status of Grand And Epic Plans™ are, skimming I'm not seeing anything that looks like y'all really agreed on anything while I was gone ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

probably for the best tbhh

TBB's clean

anyways back to being a pacifist

Edited June 18, 2023 by DrakeMarshall

[Kasimir he/him]

4 minutes ago, DrakeMarshall said:

@docbros not sure what the current status of Grand And Epic Plans™ are, skimming I'm not seeing anything that looks like y'all really agreed on anything while I was gone ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Bro there's a literal section with a header marked Meme Code for you to indicate - we're running with that, TBB and I have already indicated our votes. I'll go PT if you don't wanna go OT.

Edited to add:

Thought you'd appreciate a more elegant memes of communication for a more civilised age tbhhh :eyes:

Edited June 18, 2023 by Kasimir

[Mat he/him]

I don’t see why the Wiz thing is such a big deal. I’m not involved enough to have seen either the apparently obvious e!Archer or the not e!Wiz early on, and I like countertrains as an idea, and always have. At the start of last turn Wiz/Archer were about equal in my eyes, so I chose the countertrain. Once y’all explained everything I changed my mind but I don’t see why I’m suspicious for needing my hand to be held. I’ve made clear that my engagement in this game is low so I didn’t consider or think of DeTess’ consistent Archer pushes or Wiz’s meta from ages ago.

And on the triple bloc Roshar vote. I think you guys forget how hard it is to follow consensus when you’re missing the majority of the conversation :P.

[Kasimir he/him]

2 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

And on the triple bloc Roshar vote. I think you guys forget how hard it is to follow consensus when you’re missing the majority of the conversation :P.

Rather, I'm saying that I agree with you that given it was clearly a voting bloc, it would've been harder for E!you to push back on that one, so arguably earlier bus or wagon innovation rather than just hopping on and seeming pretty disengaged /shrug Maybe. Not sure I fully buy that but I was considering an E!you world for other reasons, so.

Edited to add:

@DrakeMarshall - Put it this way. My view is the code is pretty clearly demarcated. It was meant to handle the Night without the Roshar doc. If you don't wanna, then you clearly don't wanna, whether due to just not being in the mood for it, or whatever but I'm finding it a bit hard to believe that you skimmed it and missed a bright green box and the section  And memes.

Edited June 18, 2023 by Kasimir