Long Game 99: Scourges of the Saturated Seas

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

TBB is probably in my top 3 pirates I would be okay with throwing overboard today, but for the sake of diversity I'll nominate Royal Bee Mage to go for a swim.

Along with TBB, RBM is one of the two (living) people I'd flag as Aeoryi bandwagoneers, and I actually kind of wonder if RBM sticks out more in light of how RBM played as a villager in QF70b. I'll confess I have little ability to read RBM especially because newer players are more likely to make bigger adjustments to their play, but village RBM generally felt a little less invested in securing a particular train, compared to RBM in this game jumping on the Aeoryi vote.

Of the people hanging back in the D1 vote, I'd say Faerie most sticks out, which rounds out my top 3 list, but I consider Faerie lower priority to the other two.

Such is the life of a pirate: no prey, no pay

[Aeternum]

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

Thank you so much @Sart 

I'm currently theorising TJ was a Crimson shot FWIW. I think it's possible TJ used his Zephyr if so. Less likely (but not impossible) that it hit one of the PM people.

TJ was the main CW to Aeo - I can't see the Elims willingly flipping the CW since that gives us a lot more info about D1 dispositions. IMO double V on D1 entails high Elim disengagement or bandwagoning. I just don't have the time or energy to work it out at present. Will get back after my presentation, sorry all!

Can I ask what CW stands for? Still getting used to everything.

Does the crimson theory mean that something happened to the elim kill? Or am I getting really mixed up haha.

[Kasimir he/him]

3 minutes ago, Aeternum said:

Can I ask what CW stands for? Still getting used to everything.

Does the crimson theory mean that something happened to the elim kill? Or am I getting really mixed up haha.

CW = counterwagon/countertrain. What I'm saying is that my sense of D1 (I am going to re-read once I'm done with presentation stuff) was that Aeo led a TJ train that gained traction. Other alternatives were not very solid for various reasons. Then I voted Aeo and Royal doubled up on Aeo, and the rest is history. If the Elims flip TJ for us by killing him, we gain a lot of information about the vote dispositions of D1. Specifically because the lead train swung from TJ to Aeo, one might have wanted to test the hypothesis that people bandwagoned onto Aeo to save TJ. Killing TJ and having him flip V for us takes that out of contention - which is something an Elim team would've had to examine. So I don't feel TJ is as likely an Elim kill. (Vote analysis arguments aside, it's also strange they would kill him when he was attracting attention and might have been MLed [=misexed/misvoted out] today.)

Bunch of possibilities wrt the Elim kill:

1. The Elims also hit TJ. Not impossible, since Sart has noted that multiple kills on the same target won't be announced. I don't find this as likely because I think the Elims have little strategic reason to hit TJ. [Note that if I am wrong and the Elims did in fact choose to hit TJ, this implies they have a wildly different view of the gamestate from me - this could point to a largely new to SE team (therefore different doctrine), or a team with ulterior motives, e.g. Aman, JNV, Drake etc who would find it pretty bloody funny to troll me this way  - I would assess the former as more likely than the latter at this juncture but don't want to get too into it as I think 1 in general is just not so likely.)

2. The Elim who was carrying out the NK was RBed. I don't know how likely this is as I feel that the Elims should have picked the teammate with the most spores/spore actions to carry out the kill as padding, if not the one least likely to attract suspicion. 

3. The Elim who was carrying out the NK was redirected. Similar deal to 2. For 2 and 3, we should ask @Faerie Braids and @TheRavenHasLanded who they targeted as they are known to have useful spores here.

4. No Elim carried out the NK. I'll note Sart clarified a Verdant spore explosion at Night wouldn't lead to this outcome, and we are therefore forced to examine the possibility of a highly inactive Elim team. This would include players like Aet and Hairy who haven't been putting in orders, apparently. JNV hasn't really been present but I struggle to see JNV missing a NK altogether - they're normally quite on the ball. TKN is a possibility.

5. Someone else started with a Roseite spore and blocked the NK. They might as well claim this. We know Aeo started with a Roseite spore. There may be one more, or there may not be. Hard to assess in light of the fact there was just one Crimson in supply. There may very well be more Roseite since it allows the user to prevent spore explosion deaths.

P.S. Going for a Sunlight Spore today  

Edited to add: I'll note Raven's been MIA for the later half of D1 and the entire N1 so it's unlikely Raven was involved with the NK, but I'm not expecting useful info to come from Raven either. It does mean Raven is in contention for #4.

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

4 hours ago, Amanuensis said:

According to Aman, I'm supposed to suggest we throw The Bald Brandon overboard today.

For now that is all o7

Oh dang, I somehow missed this. That's kinda rude. I would appreciate it if Aman revealed his reasoning though, Mr. o7.

[Faerie Braids she/her]

The sun had risen on another murder, and Morrigan was blotting away the blood on the deck with a degree of care not usually seen in her actions. After all, if she made a mistake, she would be equal parts blinded, dehydrated, strangled, squashed, and blown overboard by the variety of spores present in the... 

Wait. 

Several of the spores were conspicuously absent from the night before. 

"Awk, thieves, thieves, thieves!" 

Morrigan hissed, scrambling for the spore supply. If the crew was stealing from the supply at night, she would need to match them. That meant more treasure though, so she didn't really mind. Hopefully, it would be enough. 

[Insert subtle bridge into OOC thoughts here]

- RBM sheeping the Aeo train and then parking there, despite admitting that Aeo had made some good points, doesn't feel great ("Even if I unvote you I still don’t know who to vote instead"(I would link this post if I knew how to do so across threads)). General bad vibes, so I would like some pressure there. RoyalBeeMage. 

-To again help consolidate spore grabbing, I plan on taking a Sunlight spore. 

2 hours ago, Kasimir said:

The Elim who was carrying out the NK was redirected. Similar deal to 2. For 2 and 3, we should ask @Faerie Braids and @TheRavenHasLanded who they targeted as they are known to have useful spores here.

I did not target anyone; I didn't feel particularly confident about anyone, so I decided to save my spore for later.

5 hours ago, Kasimir said:

6 grabs, 11 people. Anyone want to admit to getting oversubscription woes? (If TJ used his Zephyr prior to his death, then it's 7 grabs, 11 people.)

While I did not experience oversubscription woes, I mistakenly thought that I could only take a spore during the day OR during the night, so I was one of those 4-5 people who did not grab anything.

[Kasimir he/him]

So bracket 2, 3, 5.

Think we're looking at a 1 or 4 world, which bewilders me/offends my game sense. Spore claiming comes last on OoA so theoretically TJ could've gone for Roseite and gotten killed from the backlash but that's an option I hesitate to suggest because even if this is true, we still are forced to contend with a missing E!kill, which doesn't resolve our problem.

In 1-world, we're looking at a team that made the decision to kill TJ. As I've spelled out, I think this is an intuitively ??? decision because TJ had gained some suspicion from D1, and would always have been a natural target on D2 due to suspicion that Aeo bandwagoners were trying to save him. In addition, anyone with a crimson spore was likely to shoot TJ N1. I can large see two team profiles here:

A. Hyper Confident - Choosing to kill TJ is one hell of a decision. It implies the team isn't particularly concerned with control kills because they chose to kill someone suspicious instead. To me, this points to a team with sufficient confidence they can control thread discussion or the exe discussion. Likely also a team that isn't too concerned about crimson vig shots.

I'll note that my predominant candidates for this team would be in <Drake, Aman, JNV, Faerie>.

I rule myself out for obvious reasons including the fact the main reason I stayed in this game was to play with TJ and Aman, so most times I would not countenance a N1 TJ shot.  I rule out JNV because - honestly I just V!read them a little. I feel E!them tends to be more performative/demonstrative, as they've made clear in the QF. As the resident Quokka Whisperer, I stand by this read but not strongly. I'll need a bit more time to form a better read of JNV. JNV remains in here asterisked because if I presume I am correct in my tentative V reads of Drake and Aman, then the Elims chose not to kill Aman, myself, or Drake, which is also a Choice.

I rule out TKN here because his kill MO tends to be aggressive and he goes for the jugular. I asterisk Faerie because Faerie appears to favour a more aggressive kill MO and has wanted to kill me enough times that, coupled with my D1 push on Faerie, would probably mean killing me is reasonable for E!Faerie. 

Bracketing my Drake and Aman V!thoughts as I am doing pure profiling here, I'll note Drake and Aman are exactly the sort of screwy mindgames players with the confidence needed to choose vengeance - sorry, I mean, to kill TJ, requiring me to avenge my bro in their blood

B. Untainted - A predominantly untainted team might simply just not share my read of the gamestate, which implies anyone with a vastly different kill meta here, or just a vastly different read of the gamestate. 

My predominant candidates for this team would be in <Royal, Hairy, Aet, Raven>. Maybe, if I squint, with a Faerie side - I don't think I am highly confident in my profile of her and it's possible she leads a team with a different playstyle I guess.

The main issue is that you frankly can't get a team from <Royal, Hairy, Aet, Raven>. It's possible but risky and players should never make this assumption but be drawn to it. It's too early to go there. There's a second level problem which is that if we suppose the team was two in <Royal, Hairy, Aet, Raven>, then there had to be someone else, and then you can fairly question whether that additional teammate would or would not have overridden their kill preferences. IMO, it's likely that the teammate would've done so. So we just have a problem here too.

In general, for 4-world, I think we have to conclude that the team would be pretty similar: <Aet, Raven, Royal, Hairy.> It's extremely unikely for JNV and Faerie to miss a kill. We know Raven wasn't on. Potentially Hairy since TKN nagged him. Royal was on, but I include Royal since we don't know Royal's proclivities. IDR seeing Aet show up, but might have I suppose - similar concerns as with Royal. Drake and Aman would absolutely not miss a kill. I guess I could maybe see TKN being busy enough that it slipped past him but it's italicised at best - if TKN can nag Hairy to login, then TKN would just have made the kill, simpliciter.

Raven for the moment. Considering Faerie as well.

[RoyalBeeMage he/him]

7 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Let's work out the delta.

Triple Verdant grab last Night. Zero Zephyr grab. The extra Sunlight likely came from TJ. No, I'm a fool.

@Sart Where does Spore use occur next to the NK/Crimson kill? Asking whether TJ could have used his Zephyr prior to his death, according to OoA.

-3V, -2R, -1M = 6

6 grabs, 11 people. Anyone want to admit to getting oversubscription woes? (If TJ used his Zephyr prior to his death, then it's 7 grabs, 11 people.)

i grabed a verdant spore. no whiplash from that

5 hours ago, DrakeMarshall said:

TBB is probably in my top 3 pirates I would be okay with throwing overboard today, but for the sake of diversity I'll nominate Royal Bee Mage to go for a swim.

Along with TBB, RBM is one of the two (living) people I'd flag as Aeoryi bandwagoneers, and I actually kind of wonder if RBM sticks out more in light of how RBM played as a villager in QF70b. I'll confess I have little ability to read RBM especially because newer players are more likely to make bigger adjustments to their play, but village RBM generally felt a little less invested in securing a particular train, compared to RBM in this game jumping on the Aeoryi vote.

Of the people hanging back in the D1 vote, I'd say Faerie most sticks out, which rounds out my top 3 list, but I consider Faerie lower priority to the other two.

Such is the life of a pirate: no prey, no pay

QF70b? humm. i was still trying to wrap my head around QF70a. i had(and still mostly) have no idea what i am doing. 

42 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

So bracket 2, 3, 5.

Think we're looking at a 1 or 4 world, which bewilders me/offends my game sense. Spore claiming comes last on OoA so theoretically TJ could've gone for Roseite and gotten killed from the backlash but that's an option I hesitate to suggest because even if this is true, we still are forced to contend with a missing E!kill, which doesn't resolve our problem.

In 1-world, we're looking at a team that made the decision to kill TJ. As I've spelled out, I think this is an intuitively ??? decision because TJ had gained some suspicion from D1, and would always have been a natural target on D2 due to suspicion that Aeo bandwagoners were trying to save him. In addition, anyone with a crimson spore was likely to shoot TJ N1. I can large see two team profiles here:

A. Hyper Confident - Choosing to kill TJ is one hell of a decision. It implies the team isn't particularly concerned with control kills because they chose to kill someone suspicious instead. To me, this points to a team with sufficient confidence they can control thread discussion or the exe discussion. Likely also a team that isn't too concerned about crimson vig shots.

I'll note that my predominant candidates for this team would be in <Drake, Aman, JNV, Faerie>.

I rule myself out for obvious reasons including the fact the main reason I stayed in this game was to play with TJ and Aman, so most times I would not countenance a N1 TJ shot.  I rule out JNV because - honestly I just V!read them a little. I feel E!them tends to be more performative/demonstrative, as they've made clear in the QF. As the resident Quokka Whisperer, I stand by this read but not strongly. I'll need a bit more time to form a better read of JNV. JNV remains in here asterisked because if I presume I am correct in my tentative V reads of Drake and Aman, then the Elims chose not to kill Aman, myself, or Drake, which is also a Choice.

I rule out TKN here because his kill MO tends to be aggressive and he goes for the jugular. I asterisk Faerie because Faerie appears to favour a more aggressive kill MO and has wanted to kill me enough times that, coupled with my D1 push on Faerie, would probably mean killing me is reasonable for E!Faerie. 

Bracketing my Drake and Aman V!thoughts as I am doing pure profiling here, I'll note Drake and Aman are exactly the sort of screwy mindgames players with the confidence needed to choose vengeance - sorry, I mean, to kill TJ, requiring me to avenge my bro in their blood

B. Untainted - A predominantly untainted team might simply just not share my read of the gamestate, which implies anyone with a vastly different kill meta here, or just a vastly different read of the gamestate. 

My predominant candidates for this team would be in <Royal, Hairy, Aet, Raven>. Maybe, if I squint, with a Faerie side - I don't think I am highly confident in my profile of her and it's possible she leads a team with a different playstyle I guess.

The main issue is that you frankly can't get a team from <Royal, Hairy, Aet, Raven>. It's possible but risky and players should never make this assumption but be drawn to it. It's too early to go there. There's a second level problem which is that if we suppose the team was two in <Royal, Hairy, Aet, Raven>, then there had to be someone else, and then you can fairly question whether that additional teammate would or would not have overridden their kill preferences. IMO, it's likely that the teammate would've done so. So we just have a problem here too.

In general, for 4-world, I think we have to conclude that the team would be pretty similar: <Aet, Raven, Royal, Hairy.> It's extremely unikely for JNV and Faerie to miss a kill. We know Raven wasn't on. Potentially Hairy since TKN nagged him. Royal was on, but I include Royal since we don't know Royal's proclivities. IDR seeing Aet show up, but might have I suppose - similar concerns as with Royal. Drake and Aman would absolutely not miss a kill. I guess I could maybe see TKN being busy enough that it slipped past him but it's italicised at best - if TKN can nag Hairy to login, then TKN would just have made the kill, simpliciter.

Raven for the moment. Considering Faerie as well.

i don't think i quite follow your reasoning for why you think option b is more likely than option a

[Kasimir he/him]

2 minutes ago, RoyalBeeMage said:

i don't think i quite follow your reasoning for why you think option b is more likely than option a

For the moment, I think Drake and Aman are V. I base these off a meta-read to do with E!Drake being low effort and content to let the Village murder itself. (See QF70a where he didn't even bother to offer the Village VCs despite running his own, though to be fair, his attention was elsewhere.) I've played offsite with E!him as well, and there too, he mostly spent the time sitting deep and refusing to do very much cross-examining with the Village - you can sort of describe it as 'bare minimum.' It's certainly true that E!Drake might still very well do the VC and sharing coordination of grabs, but I take this to be something I am willing to lean V on for now as he could just as easily leave us disorganised and just drop thoughts.

I also base the Aman read in general off E!Aman's tendency to be stunlocked and the fact that I can't see Aman going TJ over Drake even in hyperconfident world. Solving early off the bat, or trying to, is a good look for him. Profiling should also be responsive to reads. My reads make me consider A to be less likely. To some extent, I also think Drake and Aman would in particular be aware of the strategic considerations, so suggesting they are hyperconfident enough to disregard strategy almost certainly requires there to be a reason for it. Can Aman, at this volume, sustain that sort of control, much less secure his team buy-in? I have my doubts.

Edited to add:

I will caveat this - especially if I die this cycle - that these aren't high confidence reads, but I am content with them for the moment and would not personally revise them until after seeking out my other set of hypotheses.

[Ookla de los Cuervos he/him]

16 hours ago, Kasimir said:

CW = counterwagon/countertrain. What I'm saying is that my sense of D1 (I am going to re-read once I'm done with presentation stuff) was that Aeo led a TJ train that gained traction. Other alternatives were not very solid for various reasons. Then I voted Aeo and Royal doubled up on Aeo, and the rest is history. If the Elims flip TJ for us by killing him, we gain a lot of information about the vote dispositions of D1. Specifically because the lead train swung from TJ to Aeo, one might have wanted to test the hypothesis that people bandwagoned onto Aeo to save TJ. Killing TJ and having him flip V for us takes that out of contention - which is something an Elim team would've had to examine. So I don't feel TJ is as likely an Elim kill. (Vote analysis arguments aside, it's also strange they would kill him when he was attracting attention and might have been MLed [=misexed/misvoted out] today.)

Bunch of possibilities wrt the Elim kill:

1. The Elims also hit TJ. Not impossible, since Sart has noted that multiple kills on the same target won't be announced. I don't find this as likely because I think the Elims have little strategic reason to hit TJ. [Note that if I am wrong and the Elims did in fact choose to hit TJ, this implies they have a wildly different view of the gamestate from me - this could point to a largely new to SE team (therefore different doctrine), or a team with ulterior motives, e.g. Aman, JNV, Drake etc who would find it pretty bloody funny to troll me this way  - I would assess the former as more likely than the latter at this juncture but don't want to get too into it as I think 1 in general is just not so likely.)

2. The Elim who was carrying out the NK was RBed. I don't know how likely this is as I feel that the Elims should have picked the teammate with the most spores/spore actions to carry out the kill as padding, if not the one least likely to attract suspicion. 

3. The Elim who was carrying out the NK was redirected. Similar deal to 2. For 2 and 3, we should ask @Faerie Braids and @TheRavenHasLanded who they targeted as they are known to have useful spores here.

4. No Elim carried out the NK. I'll note Sart clarified a Verdant spore explosion at Night wouldn't lead to this outcome, and we are therefore forced to examine the possibility of a highly inactive Elim team. This would include players like Aet and Hairy who haven't been putting in orders, apparently. JNV hasn't really been present but I struggle to see JNV missing a NK altogether - they're normally quite on the ball. TKN is a possibility.

5. Someone else started with a Roseite spore and blocked the NK. They might as well claim this. We know Aeo started with a Roseite spore. There may be one more, or there may not be. Hard to assess in light of the fact there was just one Crimson in supply. There may very well be more Roseite since it allows the user to prevent spore explosion deaths.

P.S. Going for a Sunlight Spore today  

Edited to add: I'll note Raven's been MIA for the later half of D1 and the entire N1 so it's unlikely Raven was involved with the NK, but I'm not expecting useful info to come from Raven either. It does mean Raven is in contention for #4.

I have been kinda out, I took no actions since I’m in Florida right now, sorry

[Aeternum]

10 hours ago, Kasimir said:

So bracket 2, 3, 5.

Think we're looking at a 1 or 4 world, which bewilders me/offends my game sense. Spore claiming comes last on OoA so theoretically TJ could've gone for Roseite and gotten killed from the backlash but that's an option I hesitate to suggest because even if this is true, we still are forced to contend with a missing E!kill, which doesn't resolve our problem.

In 1-world, we're looking at a team that made the decision to kill TJ. As I've spelled out, I think this is an intuitively ??? decision because TJ had gained some suspicion from D1, and would always have been a natural target on D2 due to suspicion that Aeo bandwagoners were trying to save him. In addition, anyone with a crimson spore was likely to shoot TJ N1. I can large see two team profiles here:

A. Hyper Confident - Choosing to kill TJ is one hell of a decision. It implies the team isn't particularly concerned with control kills because they chose to kill someone suspicious instead. To me, this points to a team with sufficient confidence they can control thread discussion or the exe discussion. Likely also a team that isn't too concerned about crimson vig shots.

I'll note that my predominant candidates for this team would be in <Drake, Aman, JNV, Faerie>.

I rule myself out for obvious reasons including the fact the main reason I stayed in this game was to play with TJ and Aman, so most times I would not countenance a N1 TJ shot.  I rule out JNV because - honestly I just V!read them a little. I feel E!them tends to be more performative/demonstrative, as they've made clear in the QF. As the resident Quokka Whisperer, I stand by this read but not strongly. I'll need a bit more time to form a better read of JNV. JNV remains in here asterisked because if I presume I am correct in my tentative V reads of Drake and Aman, then the Elims chose not to kill Aman, myself, or Drake, which is also a Choice.

I rule out TKN here because his kill MO tends to be aggressive and he goes for the jugular. I asterisk Faerie because Faerie appears to favour a more aggressive kill MO and has wanted to kill me enough times that, coupled with my D1 push on Faerie, would probably mean killing me is reasonable for E!Faerie. 

Bracketing my Drake and Aman V!thoughts as I am doing pure profiling here, I'll note Drake and Aman are exactly the sort of screwy mindgames players with the confidence needed to choose vengeance - sorry, I mean, to kill TJ, requiring me to avenge my bro in their blood

B. Untainted - A predominantly untainted team might simply just not share my read of the gamestate, which implies anyone with a vastly different kill meta here, or just a vastly different read of the gamestate. 

My predominant candidates for this team would be in <Royal, Hairy, Aet, Raven>. Maybe, if I squint, with a Faerie side - I don't think I am highly confident in my profile of her and it's possible she leads a team with a different playstyle I guess.

The main issue is that you frankly can't get a team from <Royal, Hairy, Aet, Raven>. It's possible but risky and players should never make this assumption but be drawn to it. It's too early to go there. There's a second level problem which is that if we suppose the team was two in <Royal, Hairy, Aet, Raven>, then there had to be someone else, and then you can fairly question whether that additional teammate would or would not have overridden their kill preferences. IMO, it's likely that the teammate would've done so. So we just have a problem here too.

In general, for 4-world, I think we have to conclude that the team would be pretty similar: <Aet, Raven, Royal, Hairy.> It's extremely unikely for JNV and Faerie to miss a kill. We know Raven wasn't on. Potentially Hairy since TKN nagged him. Royal was on, but I include Royal since we don't know Royal's proclivities. IDR seeing Aet show up, but might have I suppose - similar concerns as with Royal. Drake and Aman would absolutely not miss a kill. I guess I could maybe see TKN being busy enough that it slipped past him but it's italicised at best - if TKN can nag Hairy to login, then TKN would just have made the kill, simpliciter.

Raven for the moment. Considering Faerie as well.

What you're saying makes sense, but this is off the assumption there was no kill from the elims, right?

Option B there does also make sense. I don't like option B because it implicates me  . I'm kind of just keeping to myself because I feel way out of my depth next to y'all. TJ kill seems like bad decision from elims to me, but no kill from the elims would be surprising imo, there's three of them and I doubt the team is made of only inexperienced people.

[Kasimir he/him]

Day One Voting:

Spoiler

Aeo opens with a vote on Aet. Nothing important happens today.

Quote

Aet (1): Aeo

Subsequent shift to Raven for claimed performativeness.

Quote

Raven (1): Aeo

Raven immediately shoots a retaliatory vote at Aeo.

Quote

Raven (1): Aeo
Aeo (1): Raven

This isn't unusual for Raven IMO but what's unusual is the parking, I think. I'm also squinting at Raven's general (subsequent) disengagement here.

Aman notes he thinks the retaliatory vote looks Village - Aman, why so?

Relatively alright start from TKN. Mech talk is fine, it feels a bit faster than TKN sometimes does I think. This vote state continues to stay stable - it's a fairly sluggish start.

Aet showing interest in taking/taken spores but not solving.

Faerie making the post I felt eh. Non-committal read on Raven but depressed Aeo read as well feels couched to keep options open. Like the Aman read however, no hedges there. More interest in spores than D1 voting? Contributes to sense of low tempo IMO.

Drake votes for TJ. Second Villager becoming a train. Also offers reads - Drake, what affects the shift in your Royal read as you are voting Royal today?

Quote

Raven (1): Aeo
Aeo (1): Raven
TJ (1): Drake

Raven backs TJ up in pressing the question on performativity but doesn't challenge Aeo himself - why?

Aet doubles up on TJ for aggression. TJ is now a lead train. This vote is probably underscrutinised.

Quote

Raven (1): Aeo
Aeo (1): Raven
TJ (2): Drake, Aet

Hairy votes TBB and vanishes. Agreed it could be new player syndrome but I'm wary as well of a sidetrain vote in a landscape where a Villager is comfortably set to die in 2/3 cases.

Quote

Raven (1): Aeo
Aeo (1): Raven
TJ (2): Drake, Aet
TBB (1): Hairy

I vote Aeo.

Quote

Raven (1): Aeo
Aeo (2): Raven, Kas
TJ (2): Drake, Aet
TBB (1): Hairy

This ties Aeo and TJ in the lead. We now know these are V/V trains.

Almost an hour later, RBM joins me on Aeo. It's a bit ??? because there wasn't a strong reason there and you arguably should not vote Aeo unless you think I am both Village and correct. It's the first assumption that makes me feel ??? about the sheep - I'm questioning if Royal got there too directly.

Quote

Raven (1): Aeo
Aeo (3): Raven, Kas, Royal
TJ (2): Drake, Aet
TBB (1): Hairy

TJ votes Aeo. We know TJ was Village so this was a sincere vote.

Quote

Raven (1): Aeo
Aeo (4): Raven, Kas, Royal, TJ
TJ (2): Drake, Aet
TBB (1): Hairy

TKN does not like Aeo's post and notes he is close to voting Aeo. I'm...hmmm about this in retrospect.

Aeo self-votes.

Quote

Aeo (5): Raven, Kas, Royal, TJ, Aeo
TJ (2): Drake, Aet
TBB (1): Hairy

It's interesting RBM stays on Aeo btw and mentions he wouldn't know who else to vote for if not Aeo. I'm surprised because indecisive new players will often just...not vote?

TKN decides to go for Aeo. This makes an unneccessary sixth vote onto Aeo. This is the bit where I kind of feel like TKN is probably doing it because he's aggravated because E!TKN usually doesn't like to stick his neck out, and really if he didn't intervene, it wouldn't look odd + TJ would be the sus most recent vote on Aeo and the CW? A good place to be.

Faerie shows up at EoD but doesn't vote. Why?

Aeo votes Royal.

Quote

Aeo (5): Raven, Kas, Royal, TJ, TKN
TJ (2): Drake, Aet
TBB (1): Hairy
Royal (1): Aeo
Non-Voters (): Aman, JNV, Faerie

And that's it.

Notes/Thoughts:

-Immediate retaliatory vote on Aeo from Raven not unusual for Raven but parking and subsequent disengagement feels ???
- @Amanuensis, you mentioned believing it seemed more Village on balance, why?
-RBM asking in-thread about rules issues: no doc discussion or?
-Aet showing interest in spore claims but not solving.
-I feel most of Faerie's reads apart from Aman still feel hedgey.
-Drake voted Royal today and had Royal as a decent read D1. What's the shift?
- @RoyalBeeMage - You mention you wouldn't know who else to vote for if not Aeo. Did you consider not voting?
- @The Bald Brandon - Why the D1 vote?
- @Faerie Braids - Why no D1 vote? Saw you were on and content and let the Aeo issue play itself out.
- @Aeternum - Why the TJ vote?
- The votes were pretty low tempo at the start until the Aeo train gained momentum but it was also poorly contested, which obviously suggests little sense of threat/endangerment.

Quote

Aeo (5): Raven, Kas, Royal, TJ, TBB
TJ (2): Drake, Aet
TBB (1): Hairy
Royal (1): Aeo
Non-Voters (): Aman, JNV, Faerie

Working off personal credences for now. I expect to be wrong somewhere, but I have nothing to use if not my own credences.

I'll weakly exclude Raven for inactivity reasons - he could still be E but he wouldn't have made the NK decision. At this moment, I think I'm going to Aet which is going to be awkward given my subsequent post but oh well. I am concerned I am tunnelling on Faerie, Royal has enough pressure, and I think parking on TJ is a good place to be in light of the Aeo 5-train.

-

4 minutes ago, Aeternum said:

What you're saying makes sense, but this is off the assumption there was no kill from the elims, right?

No - that's only 4-world where we assume crem happens or something and the entire team did not make a kill. I'm forced to consider this more likely than I normally would buit less likely than 1-world variants - A and B are two possibilities under 1-world. It just so happens that the B team profile in 1-world is similar to the profile in 4-world.

I'm saying that given no claims to a protect, block, or redirect right now, we are forced to consider these possibilities:

1. Elims killed TJ -> Why? -> A. Hyperconfidence, B. Foreign Meta/Assessments
2. Elims did not put in an order -> Why? -> C. Low Activity

There is a strong overlap in membership between sets B and C, but this is largely because the players in Hyperconfidence are, for the reasons of set membership, also the people who wouldn't miss kills. Or to put it another way - if you are the sort of guy who can control the thread to the point you are down with shooting TJ, you are definitely not going to miss a kill.

10 minutes ago, Aeternum said:

TJ kill seems like bad decision from elims to me, but no kill from the elims would be surprising imo, there's three of them and I doubt the team is made of only inexperienced people.

That's my issue, yes. I don't really expect the correct answer to be pure A or B or C, I just think it's a question of which profile is dominant, with asterisks.

[Aeternum]

TJ vote was mostly because I thought I had to vote and just went with one of the other voters. Was told first day votes were generally just pointing fingers at random, as wel. Terrible excuse, I'm aware.

[RoyalBeeMage he/him]

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

You mention you wouldn't know who else to vote for if not Aeo. Did you consider not voting?

I wasn’t aware that you could not vote after voting. 

 

45 minutes ago, Aeternum said:

TJ vote was mostly because I thought I had to vote and just went with one of the other voters. Was told first day votes were generally just pointing fingers at random, as wel. Terrible excuse, I'm aware.

That’s kind of what I was doing 

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

55 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

I'm saying that given no claims to a protect, block, or redirect right now, we are forced to consider these possibilities:

1. Elims killed TJ -> Why? -> A. Hyperconfidence, B. Foreign Meta/Assessments
2. Elims did not put in an order -> Why? -> C. Low Activity

I dunno what 4-worlds or 1-worlds or whatnot are but yeah basically this.

Anyways, y'all might reasonably be wondering why Kas is so convinced TJ wasn't the elim kill.

Well, I took a Crimson Spore yesterday. I suspected TJ. You do the math

Hence why "where the heck was the elim kill???" is the million dollar question right now.

Because it apparently wasn't on TJ, or at least, there's an explanation for TJ dying that doesn't require the elims to have done it. And it seems farfetched that the elims doubled up with my Crimson Spore shot, both because that's quite a coincidence and because TJ is inherently an odd pick for the elims to want dead.

So where the heck was the elim kill???

This is why, if you used a Verdant Spore last night, it would greatly help everything if you spoke up about it. It would answer the question, and furthermore it would catch an elim. I cannot really think of any significant downside to revealing this information.

I'm guessing though that there's no Verdant Spore user, since nobody has stepped up yet.

So where the heck was the elim kill???

I don't think they killed TJ, I really don't.

So to me, the plausible options that remain are:

1) The elims forgot to put in a kill. I don't believe this is necessarily quite as strange as you're making it out to be. An elim team can talk with each other about who to kill but just... never quite close the loop on submitting the order. It can feel awkward to be assertive on group decisions like that. I've been on teams that did this, and they weren't necessarily all inactive. It's why I make a habit of submitting placeholder orders early and changing them later as needed, because I perceive it as a real possibility on any team where I'm not doing that.

2) What if TJ used Zephyr to redirect an elim onto another elim? This is clearly what v!TJ would be trying to accomplish with a redirect (you might prefer to redirect an elim onto themselves, but Sart clarified that you can't use redirects in that way), so it's not that outlandish that he'd succeed at it. What if TJ redirected an elim Verdant user into roleblocking a second elim who was carrying out the elim kill? This would actually explain a few things about our situation: 1) it explains why there's no elim kill, 2) it explains why there's nobody claiming to have blocked the elim kill, and 3) it explains why my action wasn't interfered with even though imo a known Crimson Spore holder is a good target for interference -- maybe the elims tried, but TJ knocked their roleblock off course. I know this requires something oddly specific to have happened (TJ pulls off a prescient redirect that indirectly blocks the elim kill) but it just neatly answers every question I have about our current situation, idk.

Anyways, there's only so much we can accomplish by worrying about it. We should probably focus on putting one foot in front of the other and voting. It's the only way the village can village.

Vote Tally
RoyalBeeMage (2): DrakeMarshall, Faerie Braids
The Bald Brandon (1): Amanuensis
Aeternum (1): Kasimir

Not a lot of voting happening so far, is there?

I think TBB is less likely than most to miss a kill or to double on TJ, so I would personally put TBB suspicions on the backburner.

I think a RBM vote is still valid, as is a Faerie one.

While I'd probably take Aeternum out of my slight village read category and back down to neutral, I do think Faerie or RBM is preferable.

[Ookla de los Cuervos he/him]

3 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Day One Voting:

  Reveal hidden contents

Aeo opens with a vote on Aet. Nothing important happens today.

Subsequent shift to Raven for claimed performativeness.

Raven immediately shoots a retaliatory vote at Aeo.

This isn't unusual for Raven IMO but what's unusual is the parking, I think. I'm also squinting at Raven's general (subsequent) disengagement here.

Aman notes he thinks the retaliatory vote looks Village - Aman, why so?

Relatively alright start from TKN. Mech talk is fine, it feels a bit faster than TKN sometimes does I think. This vote state continues to stay stable - it's a fairly sluggish start.

Aet showing interest in taking/taken spores but not solving.

Faerie making the post I felt eh. Non-committal read on Raven but depressed Aeo read as well feels couched to keep options open. Like the Aman read however, no hedges there. More interest in spores than D1 voting? Contributes to sense of low tempo IMO.

Drake votes for TJ. Second Villager becoming a train. Also offers reads - Drake, what affects the shift in your Royal read as you are voting Royal today?

Raven backs TJ up in pressing the question on performativity but doesn't challenge Aeo himself - why?

Aet doubles up on TJ for aggression. TJ is now a lead train. This vote is probably underscrutinised.

Hairy votes TBB and vanishes. Agreed it could be new player syndrome but I'm wary as well of a sidetrain vote in a landscape where a Villager is comfortably set to die in 2/3 cases.

I vote Aeo.

This ties Aeo and TJ in the lead. We now know these are V/V trains.

Almost an hour later, RBM joins me on Aeo. It's a bit ??? because there wasn't a strong reason there and you arguably should not vote Aeo unless you think I am both Village and correct. It's the first assumption that makes me feel ??? about the sheep - I'm questioning if Royal got there too directly.

TJ votes Aeo. We know TJ was Village so this was a sincere vote.

TKN does not like Aeo's post and notes he is close to voting Aeo. I'm...hmmm about this in retrospect.

Aeo self-votes.

It's interesting RBM stays on Aeo btw and mentions he wouldn't know who else to vote for if not Aeo. I'm surprised because indecisive new players will often just...not vote?

TKN decides to go for Aeo. This makes an unneccessary sixth vote onto Aeo. This is the bit where I kind of feel like TKN is probably doing it because he's aggravated because E!TKN usually doesn't like to stick his neck out, and really if he didn't intervene, it wouldn't look odd + TJ would be the sus most recent vote on Aeo and the CW? A good place to be.

Faerie shows up at EoD but doesn't vote. Why?

Aeo votes Royal.

And that's it.

Notes/Thoughts:

-Immediate retaliatory vote on Aeo from Raven not unusual for Raven but parking and subsequent disengagement feels ???
- @Amanuensis, you mentioned believing it seemed more Village on balance, why?
-RBM asking in-thread about rules issues: no doc discussion or?
-Aet showing interest in spore claims but not solving.
-I feel most of Faerie's reads apart from Aman still feel hedgey.
-Drake voted Royal today and had Royal as a decent read D1. What's the shift?
- @RoyalBeeMage - You mention you wouldn't know who else to vote for if not Aeo. Did you consider not voting?
- @The Bald Brandon - Why the D1 vote?
- @Faerie Braids - Why no D1 vote? Saw you were on and content and let the Aeo issue play itself out.
- @Aeternum - Why the TJ vote?
- The votes were pretty low tempo at the start until the Aeo train gained momentum but it was also poorly contested, which obviously suggests little sense of threat/endangerment.

Working off personal credences for now. I expect to be wrong somewhere, but I have nothing to use if not my own credences.

I'll weakly exclude Raven for inactivity reasons - he could still be E but he wouldn't have made the NK decision. At this moment, I think I'm going to Aet which is going to be awkward given my subsequent post but oh well. I am concerned I am tunnelling on Faerie, Royal has enough pressure, and I think parking on TJ is a good place to be in light of the Aeo 5-train.

-

No - that's only 4-world where we assume crem happens or something and the entire team did not make a kill. I'm forced to consider this more likely than I normally would buit less likely than 1-world variants - A and B are two possibilities under 1-world. It just so happens that the B team profile in 1-world is similar to the profile in 4-world.

I'm saying that given no claims to a protect, block, or redirect right now, we are forced to consider these possibilities:

1. Elims killed TJ -> Why? -> A. Hyperconfidence, B. Foreign Meta/Assessments
2. Elims did not put in an order -> Why? -> C. Low Activity

There is a strong overlap in membership between sets B and C, but this is largely because the players in Hyperconfidence are, for the reasons of set membership, also the people who wouldn't miss kills. Or to put it another way - if you are the sort of guy who can control the thread to the point you are down with shooting TJ, you are definitely not going to miss a kill.

That's my issue, yes. I don't really expect the correct answer to be pure A or B or C, I just think it's a question of which profile is dominant, with asterisks.

Again, spring break hasn’t been the nicest to me in this regard.

[Kasimir he/him]

3 hours ago, DrakeMarshall said:

2) What if TJ used Zephyr to redirect an elim onto another elim? This is clearly what v!TJ would be trying to accomplish with a redirect (you might prefer to redirect an elim onto themselves, but Sart clarified that you can't use redirects in that way), so it's not that outlandish that he'd succeed at it. What if TJ redirected an elim Verdant user into roleblocking a second elim who was carrying out the elim kill? This would actually explain a few things about our situation: 1) it explains why there's no elim kill, 2) it explains why there's nobody claiming to have blocked the elim kill, and 3) it explains why my action wasn't interfered with even though imo a known Crimson Spore holder is a good target for interference -- maybe the elims tried, but TJ knocked their roleblock off course. I know this requires something oddly specific to have happened (TJ pulls off a prescient redirect that indirectly blocks the elim kill) but it just neatly answers every question I have about our current situation, idk.

The easiest way to resolve this is if anyone claimed Zephyr last Night. The delta is zero so if there's even a single Zephyr claimant, the delta can only be accounted for by TJ dying with his spore unused. This doesn't really help us wrt the case where an Elim claimed Zephyr, but since a positive here immediately rules this world out, it's worth asking for.

3 hours ago, DrakeMarshall said:

Anyways, there's only so much we can accomplish by worrying about it. We should probably focus on putting one foot in front of the other and voting. It's the only way the village can village.

Basically I think it's a good set of profiles to begin from but it has to go back to reads/basic D1 work, yeah. At some point given the paucity of information here we just have to accept this is what we've got and we're probably not making further progress with this.

3 hours ago, DrakeMarshall said:

While I'd probably take Aeternum out of my slight village read category and back down to neutral, I do think Faerie or RBM is preferable.

I'm starting to worry I'm tunnelling on Faerie but have no issue with the Royal lead thus far. I'm content with Aet pressure for the moment, however, but this is more due to vote profiling concerns. I think wrt Faerie it's also true she's been a more decisive E!voter so far, so Faerie's diffidence here feels ??? - but if I bracket the player meta issue, then yeah I don't really like Faerie's D1 with the hedginess + desistance wrt Aeo as it felt more like a combination of leaving options open and not wanting to be stuck on an E!train.

Reconsidering Aman mildly for reasons but would not push Aman today.

3 hours ago, RoyalBeeMage said:

I wasn’t aware that you could not vote after voting. 

Awkward position for me because I generally feel you should vote no matter what but also am trying to understand your mindset there as it's rare for players to feel they absolutely have to vote.

Edited to add:

@The Bald Brandon Did you grab Zephyr last Night?

Edited March 13, 2024 by Kasimir

[Amanuensis he/him]

6 hours ago, Kasimir said:

- @Amanuensis, you mentioned believing it seemed more Village on balance, why?

"It's a very weak read, and I did add the caveat that I don't know how Raven plays when elim. My thought was basically that it seemed unnecessarily combative for an elim, as it's my view that villagers tend more toward "no you're sus" reactions whereas guilty parties appease or de-escalate. Mat is a fairly good example of this phenomena. At least that is what I would say if I was Aman, and not a character simply being roleplayed by him."

For now that is all o7

Edited March 13, 2024 by Amanuensis

[Kasimir he/him]

Spelling it out for the last time:

The reason why it's helpful to know if there was a Zephyr/Verdant/Roseite action last Night:

1. The spore is a one-off. It's not like you can use it again.
2. It either helps us resolve the mystery of TJ's death in a way that identifies suspects for us, or it helps us very weakly clear a player (RE: Verdant - Verdant precedes Zephyr so anyone who roleblocked a player basically guarantees that player could not have made a kill last Night. It doesn't make them not Evil, but there are ten players left in this game, and neither Raven nor Hairy were online for all of N1. This creates a starting pool of eight that a roleblock and some analysis can further narrow.)
3. In the case of Roseite, given overall reluctance to claim, it is likely to entail a softclear of the player you protected.

I slightly disagree with Drake in that I actually think that the fact we've been asking until we're blue in the face for a claim and there's been no claim should entail that there is just no such action to be postulated, but I also do want to spell it out to remove the possibility someone just doesn't realise why it is - not crucial, but important - to resolve this issue.

My current stance is I just think we can't really postulate that, unfortunately.

I have a slight theory FWIW on Zephyr interactions. @Sart What happens if a Zephyr user redirects another? Suppose TJ is redirecting Faerie to Bee. Meanwhile, Faerie redirects TJ to Aman. How is this resolved?

Adding I am not going for a spore today after all. I like my PMs, thank you  

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

5 hours ago, DrakeMarshall said:

2)

This feels so perfect, but it has to be too neat.

I'm inclined to believe 1) though. Lack of execution is a serious concern for me as an elim. 

For Team comp based on a supposed lack of a kill, I'd guess at least one newbie, plus a less assertive vet. JNV fits that mark to me, and they've been pretty low activity too. 

Not at all a final vote here, just where my thoughts lie currently. I'm not really opposed to voting a newbie, though it definitely feels a little early.

7 hours ago, Kasimir said:

@The Bald Brandon - Why the D1 vote?

I was confident in Aeoryi. Kinda (in hindsight) confbiased their annoyance as being a sign of guilt. I was content to just be uneasy at their first few posts, then they just kept triggering alarm bells.

Edit: No, I did grab something last night, but I'd rather leave a little ambiguity for an elim team I don't think is paying much attention. 

Edited March 13, 2024 by The Bald Brandon

[Faerie Braids she/her]

9 hours ago, Kasimir said:

@Faerie Braids - Why no D1 vote? Saw you were on and content and let the Aeo issue play itself out.

That was my own mistake. I came home from school, popped on to see if anything absolutely major had happened, considered saying something, decided to eat dinner first, lost track of time, then returned after rollover.

-

Regarding NK's, setting aside the possibility that TJ was targeted, with a lack of people claiming to have messed with targeting/protection/roleblocking, Occam's razor implies that the elims simply forgot to submit the NK. I take this with a grain of salt, but it means that the elim team could be characterized by inactivity, making the pool of <Aeternum, Raven, JNV, Hairy> worth looking at. This might be a weird question, but is there any way in which deliberately not submitting the NK is strategically sound? 

If the elims also targeted TJ...weird. TJ was the other top suspect, and the the elims could easily have let us spend more time sussing, and even misexeing, him. The paranoia in me wonders if E!Raven NK's TJ (who had a lengthy argument with Aeo over whether or not Raven was being suspicious) to cover himself. Otherwise, I have nothing constructive to add.

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

5 minutes ago, Faerie Braids said:

This might be a weird question, but is there any way in which deliberately not submitting the NK is strategically sound? 

It is technically possible, but it would be very odd for n1. And it would suggest a very high-risk team (me, Aman, probably Drake, not sure other than that)

[Kasimir he/him]

14 minutes ago, Faerie Braids said:

but is there any way in which deliberately not submitting the NK is strategically sound? 

It's happened deliberately in a game Drake GMed, but I can't see it as a first choice scenario here.

17 minutes ago, Faerie Braids said:

The paranoia in me wonders if E!Raven NK's TJ (who had a lengthy argument with Aeo over whether or not Raven was being suspicious) to cover himself.

I would be more inclined to consider this but I did a check of account timestamps prior to Raven showing up. Raven and Hairy both last logged in at some point after Rollovet on D1 and missed all of N1. Not impossible Raven was on on the doc but I expect less doc presence in that landscape - TJ too was arguing jn favour of Raven, against Aeo. That's not necessarily the sort of kill that makes sense there for cover.

I do have a theory TJ got deliberately killed because the Elims wanted to take out someone with Zephyr, but the problem with that theory is that the Elims don't seem to have bothered with claiming Zephyr at Night at all. Unless the theory is something like this: they prioritised a Zephyr kill because no one claimed Verdant in the Day, and then at least one of them made a Verdant grab at Night. I'm guessing they would not have all made a Verdant grab, too risky. Which means at least one of our Verdant takers was Evil.

36 minutes ago, Faerie Braids said:

Regarding NK's, setting aside the possibility that TJ was targeted, with a lack of people claiming to have messed with targeting/protection/roleblocking, Occam's razor implies that the elims simply forgot to submit the NK.

To me, parsimony here simply entails we accept TJ was targeted, or that the Elims forgot to submit the NK. Which...I agree with Drake that it is often more possible than one thinks, and often less likely to be what happened than one expects.

2 hours ago, The Bald Brandon said:

JNV fits that mark to me

JNV doesn't miss kills when Evil. They came on at Night, therefore would have put in a holding order. If there's a player I have confidence in meta-reading at all, it's probably JNV. I don't say this because I think they're in danger now, but I just want it solidly there if I'm dead tonight since I think they are readable.

Repeating until I am blue in the face:

I have said this before and will say it again. Some of you have also acknowledged I am right on this score and then promptly used it to misread JNV in QF70b, which was actually sad >> JNV has high WiM when Evil and low WiM when Village - I will never issue a high certainty JNV Village read prior to C3, but will also say they are in their Village low activity/inactivity meta for the moment. The high WiM shows up in things like unnecessarily performative presence posts, e.g. in QF70b C1, where they essentially made a 'nothing post' that had no real analysis but presence, and didn't remotely bother to vote. (I'll note their lack of a vote did throw me off, but the showiness was what stuck out to me  )

Cf. Misreading JNV Meta Exhibit A:

On 2/15/2024 at 8:49 AM, DrakeMarshall said:

Idk what MR67 was but as far as I've seen JNV hasn't yet departed from the meta of tending to be more laid back when village.

Besides, do you really think the best D1 vote in a game with this pacing is someone who's posted once.

Yes for the record I am defending JNV here, commence IKYK, etc etc.

Misreading JNV Meta Exhibit B:

On 2/15/2024 at 4:30 AM, Archer said:

I'm gut v on JNV for doing their own thing. V!they like the shadows. 

It is absolutely possible they are throwing me off and this will end very badly for my correctly reading JNV streak. But I want to point out that the whole reason the tell has been resilient is the fact they have the mirror image of my Village tell, which is that the WiM inevitably means E!they can't stop themselves from just showing up and doing things, whereas V!they won't really show up unless they force themselves. This WiM issue is also why their tell has been fairly resilient so far: it's just hard to eradicate when you have differential motivation. This is why nothing posts stick out more especially when it was an active Day with voting and JNV had nothing to add to it at all.

Just KIV as I am expecting to be next on the kill list tonight, and also partly busy. Watch for a pattern of engagement or disengagement, by C3. At that point they are basically pretty readable.

[Kasimir he/him]

The vote scattering here makes me wonder about the state of the vote. Royal.

I don't like the fact this means I'm voting with Faerie but I think it's better to get vote responses earlier than later.

[RoyalBeeMage he/him]

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

The vote scattering here makes me wonder about the state of the vote. Royal.

I don't like the fact this means I'm voting with Faerie but I think it's better to get vote responses earlier than later.

what are the pros of voting me instead of faerie?

[Amanuensis he/him]

Aman spent our PM on Bee so atm he'd rather I vote elsewhere. Maybe Faerie. 

For now that is all o7