Quick Fix Game 8: The Steelway Express

[leiftinspace]

Bridge boy, what are your suspicions about shallan? she already gave some explanation as to what happened.

[Elithanathile]

Just what she does seems off. Jain right above you stated the majority of my issues, and she seems to be doing a lot of pointing fingers without a lot of actual voting. I'm new to this, so I don't know for sure, but it seems like the kind of thing that a CC would do.

[Shallan]

Well, personally it doesn't see like that to me. The thing is, just voting on one person, even with a good explanation, isn't going to promote as much discussion as explaining your suspicions for everyone.
Also, Jain, you aren't the target anymore. Right now it's going on Gamma though I still can change it. I don't really have time to explain, but looking back through the thread one should see why. I will in a minute, once I'm off mobile. So right now, we're lunching neo. I was originally looking for a poke vote on him, but I don't have a problem with going after him, especially with the reasoning others have expressed.
Jain- I'm not "controlling" the assassinations. I am a passenger with enough coins to take care of it for today. I didn't even have the assassin yesterday. Tomorrow, if there is one, it will be someone different again. It is good to mention that later in the game, many more people will be able to afford the Vault car, so although this makes me sound like a CC, wait, they can buy the Vault car too! Never mind then.

Edited June 24, 2015 by Shallan

[Orlok Tsubodai]

Once again, I apologise for not being more active this cycle.

I am going to use my vote to call out Grind . He is a very experienced, and often vocal player, yet has spent much of this game hiding in the shadows - now either this is due to activity in carriages - which would serve to reinforce my idea of not holding discussion in carriages as suspicions are much harder to come by when interaction is limited, or it is Gamma trying to avoid notice. From a balance perspective, further, I would imagine there to be at least one experienced Coinshot - which could well imply Gamma.

[neodymium]

That seems like quite the bandwagon that has jumped on me in the last few minutes.  With fewer villagers left now, it could be much easier for the CC to control a vote.  As to my accusations:

 

You accuse me of playing different than other games, but I have really only played 2 games (Didn't get a chance to pay much attention to the last QF)  You accuse me of posting just enough to get by, but I have been accused of that in both of the other games.  Truthfully, I am more of an analyzer of what others post than posting long analyses of my own.

 

If you all don't lynch me today, I will pay to be in the caboose every cycle until the end of the game.  That way I can still contribute as a villager (and we don't have many left), but prove that I am not CC by being role-blocked.  

 

I do not want to be lynched, and I think that (Orlok) Shallan is looking suspicious.  Who better to immediately speak up and become our "appointed" assassin director than a CC?

[Zas678]

See, I think if she was evil, she wouldn't have tried to only use one coin- she would've used her considerable amount to make sure that no one else grabbed it. Not doing so made it so that it was potentially anyone's hire, and a potential assassin could go down- but now my suspicions are becoming stronger with you Neo. I think you're a cultist. 

[Burnt Spaghetti]

the only issue I see with saying "who better to be the one buying thr assasin than a CC" Is that means instant suspicion on anyone who is open to buying the assasin. Any of us had the potential to do so: Shallan actually stepped forwsrd. By saying youll buy the assasin, your potebtially makng yourself a target for the cc, and yes sure Shallan messed up, but in my eyes its a honest mistake. Its a big ask to willongly give up 10 coins, so I dont blame shallan for trying to pay less.

we seem to keep lynching innocents for flimsy reasons, so I just dont want a repeat of that

[Shallan]

This was originally part of my previous post, and almost all was written before anyone else replied.

I changed my mind, instead of Penguin I want to target Gamma. I don't think he's been posting very much, but can someone confirm that that's not his style? I'll still change it, but until I get some explanation I'll keep it there.

Explanation for:

Roleblock that saved Adamir, although Adamir was a villager. Was this explained already? Yes, it was, never mind.

He did argue against posting the lists of people in each car, saying that this helped the Coinshot Clan more, but I believe we've shown that it doesn't

NINJA! HYA! HYA! Also, everything Orlok said that I forgot to. But also this

Gamma thought Phat was saving for the Assassin, based on that they were in the Passenger car twice. ? Why indeed?

Unrelated, but it was Gamma's post that Phat responded to with his mistaken count that got him lynched.

Gamma also voted for Phat.

By the way, Zas; not every evil person sacrifices people. Coinshot=/=Cultist i always make that mistake too

 

SO many people voted between when I began editing this and when I finished! I instead will just copypaste the new parts to a new post.

Thanks, burnt, you 'ed me also. But at this point I think roleblocking Jain, lynching Neo, and Assassinating Gamma is a pretty good combination.

Edited June 24, 2015 by Shallan

[Aanwolf]

OK, here is the basic gist of what I am thinking.  We have had three full rounds of voting, accusations, lynches, and kills, plus 1 assassination.  I'm thinking there is a good chance some careful analysis of what has transpired will reveal some patterns.  Also, we can do some probability calcs to evaluate various strategies.  One of the calcs I started on was to see what the chances were that any particular room would have no CC in it.  But this depends quite significantly on how many coinshots there are.  I've seen the numbers 4 and 5 suggested as possible numbers of CC.  So, my first question is whether this is based on past games or design guidelines or just a guess.  I saw one of the sticky threads is about game design, so perhaps it is a suggestion in there. I didn't read it, I'm betting some people here have. If not, we can check it out.

 

The thing is, if it is based on past games, and if there are no strict guidelines in game design, then how many CC would be appropriate for a given game will depend on the games mechanics.  (I'm assuming Renegade considered this as there was obviously a fair bit of thought that went into the rules for this particular game.)  In particular, if there are mechanics that make this game easier or harder for the villagers (such as no detective-type roles) then that would make a shift from the commonly used ratio or calculation.  So, my first question is if any of the experienced people can say something about how this game compares and whether that is significant enough to shift the estimates.  So far, I've considered pushing the 4-5 range out by 1 in each direction to make it 3-6, which I am more confident will contain the correct answer or at least show trends towards it.

 

Here is a simple table I made, with the original intention of analyzing the chances of a particular room being free of CC...

 

There are two things you can do with this.  First, you can use the table to figure out what the chances are that your room has CC in it by reading across on the main table and choosing the row based on the numbers in the two left columns you think are right for whichever round you are analyzing.  That may not be all that useful, since rooms are not totally random and can be influenced by spending coins.

 

However, the fact that we have had 3 bad lynches in a row can say something useful about the number of CC, and possibly about their behavior.  I calculated the probability that random lynches in the first 3 rounds would not catch any CC.  Now obviously the choice of who to lynch is not random.  However, if that decision is based on suspicious activity, then we can improve the model by considering the chances that someone will do something suspicious.  Does that get influenced by whether or not someone is CC? Yes, because the CC have different goals and are hiding information and have access to info that others don't.  That means that there is more potential for slip-ups.  Any motivations to not appear suspicious should apply equally to both groups.  Assuming the selection of CC members is random (which I think is a safe assumption) then they are no more or less likely to make mistakes when working with the same material.

 

The numbers I used assume CC will make mistakes as often as innocents, so that who gets lynched ends up being random.  To the extent that we can force mistakes, our chances of identifying CC improve.  If you think we have done a good job of that and CC are more likely to make mistakes, then you can adjust the probability by looking a little lower on the chart (i.e. it effectively means that the CC count more when estimating the chance of a mistake, so it is mathematically equivalent to there being more CC, say by adding 0.5 to the number of CC for a better probability calc).

 

Now, what to do with that.  If this leads you to revise your opinion of how many CC there are, then it does change your estimate of how likely certain other scenarios are, like there being no CC in a room, the chances of correlations in votes being significant, etc.

 

The other thing it led me to consider is that if those numbers at the bottom seem unlikely to you, then either we are just unlucky, or at least some of the CC are using a strategy to avoid detection that improves their odds.  The most obvious one to me is posting less, or posting on less relevant topics.  Another is voting in a way that seems to be motivated more by drawing less attention than by helping the cause of the innocents.  Other thoughts on this are welcome, as it may give us something to look for.  The tricky part is that to be a pattern that helps us find the CC, it shouldn't be just based on avoiding suspicion, as everyone wants to avoid suspicion.  Rather, it should be something that avoids suspicion at the cost of helping the innocents in a way that should be obvious to the player.  If we don't have anything in that category, then we fall back on looking for general suspicious behavior.

 

But either way, it should motivate us to encourage more significant participation, which is participation that is likely to reveal inconsistencies, suspicious voting patterns, or access to information that is guarded by the CC.

 

Unfortunately, I need to take a bit of a break from math analysis (though I will post my comments from the car I'm in) so I can read through the recent comments and make an informed accusation based on current behavior...

[Gamma Fiend]

Bah, okay, just woke up and hopefully will have some more time to write up a proper defense before I get lynched because I was working/sleeping. >.>

 

Is that honestly the only suspicions people have of me? Because I've been 'hiding in the shadows' (AKA, spending my only actual hour or two of free time every day actually getting on here when I can).

Because why are we ignoring Shallan and the whole Assassination Bid? I honestly think it was a bluff, that was apparently properly called out by Leif.

Shallan made it such a big deal in thread and caboose that she was for SURE going for the Assassination plot. But then she didn't. I'm thinking it was some sort of bluff, to try and trick people into bidding more for it and potentially having us waste more coin.

 

Now, not only was it the bluff of the Assassination that threw me. It was the fact she was declaring she was for sure going after Jain with it, but last cycle in the Caboose, she also still voted for Jain as well. So: Why does the same target need to be Assassinated and Role-blocked? Unless of course that target really wasn't being assassinated. (As we all know now).  If I've been so suspicious, why not throw a vote on me in the Caboose last cycle as well?

[Aanwolf]

Umm... does the conversation in my car count as a PM and mean I can't copy-paste it?  If I can, I will, but if not, here is the main argument.

 

I am in the passenger car. Apparently the strategy in that car has been for the publicly declared count to leave a little bit of wiggle room.  At first I thought this was to avoid mistakes, but the better motivation is to make deliberate sabotage more expensive.  My original arguments didn't take this into consideration, but our particular car occupant count and coin limit means our wiggle room is only 1 coin (assuming even distribution of bets - there are 5 of us and the limit is 11), so I think that is less of a deterrent than there has been in the past.

 

My suggestion was to make the public count go right up to the limit.  Why?  If everyone "knows" that there is wiggle room, that tempts everyone to bump their bet by 1 coin to get a bit more.  Maybe a CC is more likely to do that, but the point is that if there is no wiggle room, then there is *no* motivation for innocents to bet more.  If there is any motivation for innocents to bet more, then you run the risk of more than one person doing it and everyone losing out without it being caused by CC.  If any deviation at all would draw suspicion, then the only reason to do it would be to hurt everyone at the risk of giving solid confirmation that the car contains CC.  What I am trying to avoid even more than losing coin is losing coin for a reason that leads us to draw inaccurate conclusions.

 

In our case, the wiggle room is only one, so the argument becomes stronger in the sense that it only takes two innocent people taking otherwise justifiable actions to cause the vote to fail, while leaving the wiggle room in place only raises the cost to CC by 1.

 

However, I'll be the first to admit that this kind of strategy might hinge a lot on making our best guess as to how many CC are likely to be in the car, which is what my previous post was about.

 

I think the only other relevant thing I said in the post is suggesting that Zas get the extra coin since he got stiffed last round by the lynchee betting all his coin to get revenge.

 

An interesting side note is that, since we wand to generate more significant discussion (as defined in my previous post), forcing a vote on who gets the extra coins forces that kind of participation most likely to reveal CC.

[Shallan]

Just so you all know, Gama has put a second first vote on me in the caboose, tying me with Jain(Lightsworn Panda). If I am roleblocked, then the CCs are basically guaranteed the Assassin.

Sorry, was the first vote. Carry on.

Edited June 25, 2015 by Shallan

[Aanwolf]

I'm worried that time is running out, so I will post fast and explain as quick as I can in the next post.  I'm calling out leftinspace.

[Shallan]

I notice leftinspace is reading this...

Right now I am bidding 8 coins for the Assassin. Do you all think it should be more? I'm worried that some Coinshot will have more... I can go as high as 12, but maybe that's too many. Thoughts? For now, I'll go with 12.

Edited June 25, 2015 by Shallan

[leiftinspace]

Hi shallan!

[Shallan]

Funny how one's always around when one's being talked about! What do you think about my bid for Assassin? 8, 12, or in-between?

[leiftinspace]

I'm worried that time is running out, so I will post fast and explain as quick as I can in the next post. I'm calling out leftinspace.

Please do. I think I've been pretty transparent in my actions and motivations, but ill be interested to hear your thoughts

[Aanwolf]

Argghhh.. as I was typing up my reasons, I saw some holes in my arguments.  That's what I get for trying to do a quick analysis at the end of the cycle.  Originally, I was going off the idea that he might be in league with Shallan, and they had concocted this situation to allow for a cheap kill of an outspoken person (and leftinspace was called out strongly by metal here, something that seemed to have been forgotten).  But, that organization would have to have taken place in a single PM between them, so if it did happen it would have been fairly crude.

 

Note however, that we have no proof that either of them bid what they did on the assassin.  Now, either leftinspace really did bid innocently on Metal, or he is CC.  After reviewing things, I'm not as convinced of the former as previously, but I still find the vote unusual at least.  Why 6 coins?  That assumes Shallan would bid lower than advertized.  Either this was a shot in the dark (which is certainly possible) or he could have known via other means that shallan would bid low.  In the latter case, that would mean both were CC and then we don't even know if he bid 6... it could have been 1, or even better, it might not have been organized ahead of time, shallan wanted to change her target, and knew she could get another CC to "confess" in a semi-plausible way.

 

Like I said, there are some holes in this and a few assumptions, but I realize my argument only holds water if both shallan and leftinspace are cc, so it seems most reasonable given previous arguments to call out  shallan instead.  Leftinspace won't get lynched because it's too late in the cycle, but shallan is on target for that, though within range of it tipping.  If I turn out to be wrong, then that eliminates my reasons for suspecting leftinspace, but we'll find that out soon enough.

[leiftinspace]

Funny how one's always around when one's being talked about! What do you think about my bid for Assassin? 8, 12, or in-between?

if you're asking my opinion, i would do in between. I'm not bidding though.

[Shallan]

Aaaand now I think I'm getting lynched.

With that in mind, I will use my full 12 on the assassin.

Edited June 25, 2015 by Shallan

[Renegade]

There are still 58 minutes left, by the way.

[Shallan]

Haelberde, leftinspace, dowanx, could all of you vote for Neo please?

[Haelbarde]

Haelberde, leftinspace, dowanx, could all of you vote for Neo please?

I am Train. Train want to SMASH puny humans, but can't. Can only kill everyone by smashing into things, but tracks won't let me.

 

Edit:

I just want to be super clear. I am a spectator. This was a once off post, meant to be an amusing response. 

Edited June 25, 2015 by Haelbarde

[the winter system]

I am track. I will serve. I will not Smash. 

 

That is not serving.

[leiftinspace]

Argghhh.. as I was typing up my reasons, I saw some holes in my arguments. That's what I get for trying to do a quick analysis at the end of the cycle. Originally, I was going off the idea that he might be in league with Shallan, and they had concocted this situation to allow for a cheap kill of an outspoken person (and leftinspace was called out strongly by metal here, something that seemed to have been forgotten). But, that organization would have to have taken place in a single PM between them, so if it did happen it would have been fairly crude.

Note however, that we have no proof that either of them bid what they did on the assassin. Now, either leftinspace really did bid innocently on Metal, or he is CC. After reviewing things, I'm not as convinced of the former as previously, but I still find the vote unusual at least. Why 6 coins? That assumes Shallan would bid lower than advertized. Either this was a shot in the dark (which is certainly possible) or he could have known via other means that shallan would bid low. In the latter case, that would mean both were CC and then we don't even know if he bid 6... it could have been 1, or even better, it might not have been organized ahead of time, shallan wanted to change her target, and knew she could get another CC to "confess" in a semi-plausible way.

Like I said, there are some holes in this and a few assumptions, but I realize my argument only holds water if both shallan and leftinspace are cc, so it seems most reasonable given previous arguments to call out shallan instead. Leftinspace won't get lynched because it's too late in the cycle, but shallan is on target for that, though within range of it tipping. If I turn out to be wrong, then that eliminates my reasons for suspecting leftinspace, but we'll find that out soon enough.

I appreciate that. I actually bid before shallan said she was going to, and didn't bother rescinding it cuz i figured i would be outbid so i would get my coins back anyway. And i was in an area with limited service for my phone, so it wasn't worth the time to rescind it anyway.