Mid-Range Game 47: Conflict of Superiority

[StrikerEZ]

5 minutes ago, Liranil said:

Idk if I should point this out or not, but they rules say that they can't protect the same target twice in a row, so I think we need to anticipate Straw getting killed by the elims this round, unless they try a different tactic.

Hmm...well, that's unfortunate. I guess we'll have to start taking notes of how players are acting now, because one of our own will be turning against us next cycle, assuming we exe an elim now so we can survive that long. 

Best case scenario, we end up with a 4v2 next cycle. Worst case scenario, it's a 3v3. And that's not to mention the vote manipulation flying around out there, which I haven't really been keeping track of. If we're really lucky, SfS might be the elim...dione? Cambric? Which one do we think they have?

[Liranil]

3 minutes ago, Snipexe said:

To be fair, I suspect that the Varvax leader has just been making guesses and finally got lucky. Looking through previous elim kills, there's no real discernable pattern, besides maybe targeting loud players, so there's not much to go off for them. WGG are generally really hard to pull off, and I can't see the elims wasting a kill when they're seemling so close to XoL (Exe or Lose ( I have no idea if that's the right acronym to use lol)). Even more so when you consider that they were losing one of their own. I agree with TJ. I'd bet they panicked and wanted to get a conversion off as soon as possible. 

I definitely think that's more likely, but it could be possible. I know healer jobs are hard (I've played enough IRL mafia to know that), and the Straw one would be pretty easy for the Varvax leader to spot, but it's worth keeping in mind that it could be an elim ploy to save themselves.

1 minute ago, StrikerEZ said:

If we're really lucky, SfS might be the elim...dione? Cambric? Which one do we think they have?

We're pretty certain the elims have a Cambric, because of the two-way tie in the second round. There's another Cambric who voted on Breaker, but we're not sure which side they're on. We know for sure there are two Diones, me and Straw, and there could be more. There are also at least one more each of a Varvax Leader and Heklo (no one said anything about PMs last round, but the last Heklo hasn't died... unless Straw wants to admit whether or not they have Heklo powers from research). We don't really know if there's another figment or tenasi pilot, but at this point, I doubt it.

[StrikerEZ]

3 minutes ago, Liranil said:

We're pretty certain the elims have a Cambric, because of the two-way tie in the second round. There's another Cambric who voted on Breaker, but we're not sure which side they're on. We know for sure there are two Diones, me and Straw, and there could be more. There are also at least one more each of a Varvax Leader and Heklo (no one said anything about PMs last round, but the last Heklo hasn't died... unless Straw wants to admit whether or not they have Heklo powers from research). We don't really know if there's another figment or tenasi pilot, but at this point, I doubt it.

Okay, thank you for catching me up. I have an idea of who the Heklo is. I believe they are the person that I had a PM with back in...either C2 or C3. Near the beginning of the game. They've been the only person I've PM'd. I'm not going to out them, in case they are the Heklo like I believe them to be. If they aren't the Heklo, I would appreciate them coming forward and saying they're not. Because if they aren't, then I wouldn't be surprised if one of Ash or Araris was the Heklo that made our PM. If they don't come forward and dispute my claims, then I will assume they are the Heklo. And I would appreciate getting a PM with them.

[Snipexe]

Just now, Liranil said:

We're pretty certain the elims have a Cambric, because of the two-way tie in the second round. There's another Cambric who voted on Breaker, but we're not sure which side they're on. We know for sure there are two Diones, me and Straw, and there could be more. There are also at least one more each of a Varvax Leader and Heklo (no one said anything about PMs last round, but the last Heklo hasn't died... unless Straw wants to admit whether or not they have Heklo powers from research). We don't really know if there's another figment or tenasi pilot, but at this point, I doubt it.

^This

We would have seen the Tenasi last cycle I'm guessing, if there was one left. It was arguable XoL and there was a pretty safe secondary target in SfS. Then again I could see them balking because of the probability of hitting a villager and ending the game. 

[Quintessential]

10 hours ago, Straw said:

@elims bad move tbh. Instead of removing the village Dione, you essentially decided to shoot your own Dione. Don’t try it again.

I removed the Striker vote btw.

...Straw, did you know Dannex was elim? Or were you just working against what the majority was attempting and hoping it wasn't elim-lead? 

Also, I think I know why the elims attacked you: in terms of actual physical votes gained or lost, it's the same to them whether you live or die. However, the DS doesn't count for parity so the votes you give them while you're alive don't get them closer towards winning, whereas once you die the votes do count towards the elim win-con. Additionally, there are either 4 or 5 villagers left and it appears that two of us are vote-manipers, so there's either a 40% chance or a 50% chance that the random villager gained when you die is a vote-maniper, which would increase their tally by 2 while decreasing ours by 2 (rather than an increase of 1 for them and a decrease of 1 for us), and would probably ensure victory no matter whom we exe this cycle.  

Edit: Also, I'm very glad that whoever the Varvax Leader was realized the elims would probably target Straw anyway. Listening to Straw last cycle, I thought the elims would never attack him; honestly as Varvax Leader I would have protected Liranil.

Edited December 31, 2020 by Quinn0928

[Straw]

1 hour ago, Quinn0928 said:

...Straw, did you know Dannex was elim? Or were you just working against what the majority was attempting and hoping it wasn't elim-lead? 

I wasn't hoping to influence the vote. I just wanted to prove that I did have a Dione vote manip.

1 hour ago, Quinn0928 said:

However, the DS doesn't count for parity so the votes you give them while you're alive don't get them closer towards winning, whereas once you die the votes do count towards the elim win-con.

The elim win condition is to reach a point where they can no longer be stopped. Assuming I loyally support the elims (which I will, since they can kill me), I am functionally on their side. Therefore, I count just as much towards their win condition.

1 hour ago, Quinn0928 said:

Additionally, there are either 4 or 5 villagers left and it appears that two of us are vote-manipers, so there's either a 40% chance or a 50% chance that the random villager gained when you die is a vote-maniper, which would increase their tally by 2 while decreasing ours by 2 (rather than an increase of 1 for them and a decrease of 1 for us), and would probably ensure victory no matter whom we exe this cycle.  

Hmm, I'm not sure how well that holds up. Let's say there are five villagers and two village vote manipulators.

If they kill me:
40%: +2
60%: +0

If they kill a villager:
40%: +2
60%: +1

The issue with accounting for village vote manipulators is that it also increases the value of just killing a villager.

[Quintessential]

26 minutes ago, Straw said:

The elim win condition is to reach a point where they can no longer be stopped. Assuming I loyally support the elims (which I will, since they can kill me), I am functionally on their side. Therefore, I count just as much towards their win condition.

@Elandera does Straw count for parity if he sides with the elims?

27 minutes ago, Straw said:

Hmm, I'm not sure how well that holds up. Let's say there are five villagers and two village vote manipulators.

If they kill me:
40%: +2
60%: +0

If they kill a villager:
40%: +2
60%: +1

The issue with accounting for village vote manipulators is that it also increases the value of just killing a villager.

I don't honestly think you're correct about you counting for parity, because you aren't an elim, you're a neutral. You have a completely different win-condition than the elims, and that won't change just because you've stated in the thread that you want to help the elims. So now, looking at the numbers for the case where you don't count for parity, see the following:

Assuming there are five villagers (including a Dione and a Cambric), and there are 2 elims left with one being a vote manipper, then village-elim-DS is 7-3-2 right now. 

If the elims kill you and they get RNGd a non-vote-manip villager, that becomes 6-4-0, which is a +2 for them.

If they kill you and get RNGd a vote-manip villager, it becomes 5-5-0, because the village loses 2 and the elims gain 2, so that's a +4 for them.So killing you has a 40% chance of a +4 and a 60% chance of a +2, essentially. 

Conversely, consider the case where they kill a villager; they know Liranil is Dione, but since everyone knows that, the Varvax Leader will almost certainly protect Liranil this cycle. So the elims won't target her. That means that they have four villagers to choose from, and of them, only one is a vote-manipper. Unless they somehow know which one, their odds are 75% chance of a +1 and 25% chance of a +2. So the worst outcome for them if they kill Straw is the same as the best outcome if they kill a villager. Additionally, the best outcome from killing Straw is more likely than the best outcome for killing a villager.

I figure it's probably safe to put this here, without worrying that it'll tell the elims anything new, because if they realized last cycle that it was worth killing you then I doubt they would change their minds this cycle. Obviously if Elandera says that you count for parity, your numbers will be correct, but I don't think that she will because you could always change your mind at any time, so how would you count for parity? 

[Elandera]

17 minutes ago, Quinn0928 said:

does Straw count for parity if he sides with the elims?

PAFO

[Ghanderflaffle]

Ok, so I don’t have much. If there’s one thing I learned this game, it’s that I have a heck of a time with vote-manipers. Aaaanyways, what are the reasons for the SfS vote? I might be missing something, but from what I’ve seen I don’t like this vote.

[Quintessential]

6 minutes ago, Ghanderflaffle said:

Ok, so I don’t have much. If there’s one thing I learned this game, it’s that I have a heck of a time with vote-manipers. Aaaanyways, what are the reasons for the SfS vote? I might be missing something, but from what I’ve seen I don’t like this vote.

Everyone's been mildly sus of SfS since C2, iirc. During C2 they acted kind of overly defensive about being put in one of Ashbringer's initial pools of "people who might have suggested an Araris kill" even though, as it turns out, SfS was only in the pool because Ash started off with the list of all players and winnowed it down based on things like activity (SfS wasn't active during the first cycle, and was removed). Also, Liranil pointed out that SfS seemed to know or assume that Matrim was village before Matrim died, though that was a minor thing and could easily have been that SfS was reading Matrim as village and assumed we would remember that in reading the post. All in all, not a lot to go on, but then we don't have a lot to go on for anyone else either.

Edited December 31, 2020 by Quinn0928

[Ghanderflaffle]

Ok, I remember the defensive thing and I agree that was a little odd. At the same time though, they could just be a defensive player and misunderstood that the starting list was just the player list. I understand being a defensive player, I dropped an entire PM conversation for a little bit of suspicion in the last MR. I feel like we need to find someone else, but at the same time my reads have been off lately, so I may be wrong.

[Straw]

45 minutes ago, Quinn0928 said:

Obviously if Elandera says that you count for parity, your numbers will be correct, but I don't think that she will because you could always change your mind at any time, so how would you count for parity? 

I cannot change my mind because the elims can make me lose if I do not side with them.

[|TJ|]

I think Straw meant that he counts as elim because his votes are elim siding, so even if he can't align himself official, all his votes will side with elims so he's like an unofficial elim himself. 

Also, if SfS is elim, my next suspect is almost definitely Quinn. Just go read last cycle again, it seems that she tried to prevent the elimination of SfS. She was on Liranil for most of the cycle (when tied with SfS). Only after staying on Liranil deemed suspicious (after Straw confirmed her to be the Dione) did she retract. Then Liranil suggested Dannex, and I suspect Quinn went for it, bussing Dannex, a vanilla teammate, to protect SfS, the Cambric elim.

Of course, all this would matter only if SfS flips elim. 

I have a sneaky suspicion that Dannex outed his entire team in his last read post. So, my guess for the elim team is - SfS, Quinn and Snipexe. 

Please do remember this post if I die and SfS flips elim. 

Edit: @Straw, think I asked you this before. Aren't you close to your wincon by scanning? How many successful scans have you had?

Edited December 31, 2020 by TJ Shade

[Quintessential]

10 minutes ago, TJ Shade said:

Also, if SfS is elim, my next suspect is almost definitely Quinn. Just go read last cycle again, it seems that she tried to prevent the elimination of SfS. She was on Liranil for most of the cycle (when tied with SfS). Only after staying on Liranil deemed suspicious (after Straw confirmed her to be the Dione) did she retract. Then Liranil suggested Dannex, and I suspect Quinn went for it, bussing Dannex, a vanilla teammate, to protect SfS, the Cambric elim.

Ah. I... realize in retrospect that it looks kind of like that, yeah. I was on Liranil because there was a clear argument for her being elim--that it was unlikely that Ventyl's train had no elims on it--and as far as I can tell all we have against SfS is a general tone of defensiveness and a possible slip-up. I didn't think that was enough to exe someone if there was someone else with actual solid reasoning against them. But once Liranil said she was the Dione who had removed the vote from Breaker (and nobody contradicted her), her being elim seemed much less likely, since if she hadn't then Breaker would have died along with the other two. So at that point I wasn't sure whom to vote for, because at that point SfS had the most votes but I was (and am) still unsure about them. Liranil correctly pointed out that Dannex had odd posting patterns, so I chose to vote for Dannex instead; that's because Liranil was, in my mind, the most confirmed villager of everyone, so I thought it was less likely that she would intentionally lead us into a mis-exe, whereas for all I knew the suspicion on SfS had been started or supported early on by an elim who noted their defensiveness and wished to take advantage of it. Since a mis-exe was and is the last thing we want, and may very well have lead to a village loss, I decided to go with Dannex instead. And that payed off, obviously. That doesn't mean that SfS isn't elim, but I'm still not sure there's enough against them to merit voting them off... so I'll hold off voting for now, I think. I'll go revisit the earlier cycles and look more carefully at SfS and the rest of us who are still alive.

[|TJ|]

Yeah, I figured you'd answer with some sort of answer like this. It's not exactly a defence. But that's why I want to wait till SfS flips, to talk about this issue. 

And I'm more sure of SfS because of Dannex's hesitancy to vote for him. Like I said, I think he's the elim Cambric. And I don't think I'm ready to vote out anyone else this round. Striker and Liranil, I read them very much village. Straw is the Spy. You, well, I'd rather see SfS flip before voting for you. That leaves Snipexe and Ghander. I'd rather eliminate SfS at this point. 

Edited December 31, 2020 by TJ Shade

[StrikerEZ]

I don’t know how I feel about Quinn. I’ve been trusting them quite a bit, ever since it became pretty obvious that Straw’s the spy. Their work in making that obvious (along with Liranil) makes me Quinn is village. An elim who knew that Straw wasn’t elim would try to get Straw lynched. I’m thinking that Ghanderflaffle and SfS are two of our last elims. If we’ve lynched them and the game is still going on, then we revise our opinions. Especially because next cycle Straw will be dead and one of us will convert to an elim. 

That reminds me. @Elandera if the Spy is killed the same cycle that they scan and get their last research thingy, does the Spy leave the game before they can be killed?

[Straw]

13 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

Especially because next cycle Straw will be dead and one of us will convert to an elim. 

Don't encourage them to kill me.

[Liranil]

18 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

I don’t know how I feel about Quinn. I’ve been trusting them quite a bit, ever since it became pretty obvious that Straw’s the spy. Their work in making that obvious (along with Liranil) makes me Quinn is village. An elim who knew that Straw wasn’t elim would try to get Straw lynched. I’m thinking that Ghanderflaffle and SfS are two of our last elims. If we’ve lynched them and the game is still going on, then we revise our opinions. Especially because next cycle Straw will be dead and one of us will convert to an elim. 

That reminds me. @Elandera if the Spy is killed the same cycle that they scan and get their last research thingy, does the Spy leave the game before they can be killed?

I was rereading the main thread and actuallly just got to the order of actions section. Spy research (Detritus/Figment) comes first in the order of actions, before the elim kill, so yeah, if they get their last clue, they should be safe (but Elandera should probably confirm that).

[Elandera]

21 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

That reminds me. @Elandera if the Spy is killed the same cycle that they scan and get their last research thingy, does the Spy leave the game before they can be killed?

Correct. They would escape Starsight and the kill would fail.

[Liranil]

Okay, so I've been rereading the main thread, and I got tired of that, so I decided to just read through Dannex's posts and write my own summary. There's not a whole lot to go off of, but I basically summarized Dannex's posts, reads, and votes (or lack thereof), and added a few side notes about people who mentioned they were sus of him or who voted for him. Sorry for the really long post, but since I wrote this all out, I figured I might as well post it, and maybe somebody will notice something I missed.

Cycle One: Pretty quiet. Didn’t say a lot, other than having a hmmmm feeling for some people. When poked about that, Dannex said it was just a few people (namely Snipexe, Breaker, and Striker) who were new to them and Matrim, because they thought Matrim was doing more poke votes than usual (which they rescinded a little later, realizing Matrim had only poked them). Quinn seemed to be pretty suspicious of Dannex then, and questioned them a lot, although that could, of course, be an act. Dannex started the sus train on Archer because of their “I have an elim suspicion that I’m not going to say yet” post, but this wasn’t the round where Archer died.

Cycle Two: Dannex was notably part of Ashbringer’s list of suspects for those who could have led the elim kill on Araris. It is unknown whether or not Dannex was the one who led the kill on Araris, but they certainly could have been, which makes Ash’s list less helpful. Of the others listed, Quinn, Snipexe, and Striker are the only ones still alive, but keep in mind that that list was just a “who might have killed Araris” not a “who are the elims” list. Matrim did their own version of Ash’s post, lowering it even more, but the only other person alive on their list was Snipexe. A little while later, Dannex sussed/voted Matrim for subjective reasoning. Quinn put Dannex on their Neutral list. Dannex removed their vote from Matrim about 20 minutes before the end of the cycle. Blue text: busy with Christmas stuff. Seemingly confused about ties and vote on Breaker. (Dannex was silent for almost a whole cycle, and I will be looking to see if anyone else was uncharacteristically silent during that time, for possible elim doc communication). Dannex threw a little sus on Breaker at the end of this round, too, and presumably played up their confusion to hide it.

Cycle Three: Dannex did a summary post. Pretty much easily discernible facts. Says that Matrim’s gut reads might have been from their figment scans. TJ joins the thread, says that they are suspicious of Dannex, somewhat because they removed their vote off of Matrim, but also for “other reasons” that they’ll share later, which I believe was their mention of Dannex trying to appear village by talking but basically not saying anything new. Quinn says they saw Dannex as a slight elim read. New post: Dannex playing up their unsure-ness.

Their reads: Breaker – Village, TJ – Null-Village, Quinn – “confused” Null, SfS – Elim, Me (Liranil) – Elim, Ghander, Village (says gut read), Striker – Village, also gut read. Votes Liranil.

I claim I’m not too sus of Dannex, forgetting my earlier suspicions. TJ questions Dannex about their lack of sus on Breaker. Striker puts Dannex on their elim-sus team (with Somebody, Liranil, and Breaker). I begin rereading this and become more suspicious of Dannex. Striker says Dannex is a hunch/gut when asked. Dannex does not say anything else this turn, and their vote on me stands (and is their first vote).

Cycle Four (probably the most helpful tbh): TJ reads Dannex as village (states they could have brought Matrim into the tie in C2). I mention a gut read sus of Dannex. Dannex post: says they’re not sure of SfS, think it’s possible they’re an elim but not enough to risk it. Votes Liranil. Defends SfS’s defensiveness. I sus Dannex, but don’t want to spread the vote by switching. Quinn votes Dannex, emphasizing the lack of info we have to go on (hmm…) and asks TJ and Striker if they would change. Striker switches vote to Dannex, telling me to use my dione vote removal on Dannex (basically. There was a little confusion, but anyway, I’d already used my vote removal on Dannex by that point). SfS votes Dannex, citing self-preservation. I change my vote to Dannex, realizing their vagueness and lack of voting (or final votes at least). Dannex post: Not intentionally mostly speaking at beginning, doesn’t get how that would benefit an elim. Cites past games as proof of tendency to not vote early.

And then Dannex’s main “Final Words” post. Believes Straw is the spy.

Village reads: TJ, Me, Ghander, Striker. Ghander and Striker both have “Village because reasons” as part of their reasoning, which seems odd. Says TJ’s reads make sense and they haven’t done anything sus and says they were just “projecting” their own suspiciousness onto me.

Elim: Quinn, SfS, Snipexe (Quinn – starting the train on them, SfS – defensive, Snipexe – not saying much)

I mostly wanted to compare Dannex’s final reads to their reads early on, before they were under suspicion, but they didn’t have a lot. Dannex seemed to be keeping quiet a lot and not saying much or adding anything new when they did talk. Their main read post was the one in C3, which didn’t include everyone. They didn’t flip a lot from that one, other than switching me to village. They did change their opinion in-cycle of SfS supposedly, and they switched Quinn from null to elim. They didn’t change their reads of TJ, Ghander, or Striker. Snipexe is the only one who is still alive that wasn’t on Dannex’s C3 reads list. Dannex did say in C1 that they had a hmmmm feeling about Striker and Snipexe, but that’s not much to go off of.

At this point, I feel like I’ll probably just ignore Dannex’s last post, because it’s a little too IKYK for me, and I don’t really trust it. This analysis has been a whole lot less helpful than I thought it would be, but I’m going to go back to rereading the whole thread. Dannex didn't really start anything on anybody except me. For now, I guess I’ll place a vote on Somebody, but I’m really not sure. I should finish reading the main thread tonight and have more thoughts by then. I will admit, I'm slightly more suspicious of Quinn based on the reading I've done so far, but not a lot. 

[StrikerEZ]

I feel like I should let the thread know (and @Elandera if she doesn’t already) that Somebody from Sel has been banned from the 17th Shard because they’re under 13. Not sure what this means for the game. This information came out on the SE discord server.

[Elandera]

 As for now, we will continue this turn as if nothing has changed. I'll start looking for a pinch-hitter, just in case.

Also, @Quinn0928, you had asked a question earlier about parity. While the answer to your specific question is still PAFO, I will restate the win conditions. The game ends when either all of the DPS are removed from the game, or when there is no chance for the DSI to win.

[Quintessential]

@Elandera could I get a vote count?

[|TJ|]

It's just 4 votes to SfS. Me, Striker, Snipexe and Liranil.

Edit: Are you trying to hammer?

Edited January 1, 2021 by TJ Shade

[Quintessential]

23 minutes ago, TJ Shade said:

Edit: Are you trying to hammer?

...what does that mean? I've heard it used in a bunch of different circumstances so I'm kind of confused as to what it refers to : P