Long Game 75: Alethi Politics

[Flyingbooks]

5 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

Maybe they knew that there would be vote manip? Didn't want to be seen going just for self defense? I'm not sure what his vote on Tani could mean. That throws a wrench in things....

So if Dannex flips elim, we can assume that the elims most likely have a vote manipulator and we'll need to take that into account, especially during the in-ties-everyone-dies event.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

Just now, Flyingbooks said:

So if Dannex flips elim, we can assume that the elims most likely have a vote manipulator and we'll need to take that into account, especially during the in-ties-everyone-dies event.

I mean, yes, if Dannex flips elim, I'd say it's pretty safe to assume they have a spokesperson, or whatever the vote manip role is called this game.

[Elandera she/her]

19 minutes ago, Archer said:

They voted Tani, which I don't think make sense for an elim to do. 

To be fair, it doesn't make sense for a villager either. I see villagers cast self-pres votes more often than elims because the villager can only trust that they are village, not the other candidate. At the same time, elims have teammates who can vote for them (and maybe do vote manip), so there is usually less incentive for immediate self-preservation.

 

[Archer he/him]

You're correct, (Elandera). To expand on that point, here's why a Dannex info kill doesn’t make sense.

Optimal elim strategy is to survive at the lowest cost. To save elim!Dannex, your elim!options are:

-Have the team vote for other candidates earlier in the round so your teammate is never in danger. If this was done, how’d they end up being up for exe?

-Vote in self-preservation when you’re in danger. Dannex didn’t do this. Perhaps they felt it would be read as elimy. If that’s the case, they were counting on the Spokesperson on their team to save them from the tie, and hoping no one else would vote. Striker and Ashbringer made it 4-6 against them at the end there. There was no elim team response. They couldn’t have known v!Stiker would switch back to a tie. Were they written off by that point?

-Have your teammates vote to save you late in the cycle. This is blatant, so it’s usually a last resort. It also didn’t happen, unless e!Striker planned to vote Dannex with 30 minutes to go, then unvote them with 5 minutes to go. That makes no sense, it’d be easier to just vote for Illwei from the beginning.

-If they have the spokesperson, they can count on them to remove a single vote. This risks revealing their alignment. Counting on them only works if you are in a tie. If you’re in a 4-5 situation, it only gives a 50% chance of survival. And remmeber, the village has a vote manipulator too, and if they move the right vote, they can make a 5-5 tie into a 4-6 one, out of the hands of Spokesperson manipulation. 

I don’t believe the elim team would allow Dannex to be in the situation they ended up in. I believe they are more competent than that. Relying on a tie to emerge, the village vote manipulator to not act, and using your elim vote manipulator to save them makes less sense than simply having Dannex or a teammate stick a vote on Illwei. 

Whysper and others pushing a Dannexe doesn't make sense to me. 

[dannnex male]

11 minutes ago, Archer said:

Dannexe

This man is a genius. 

And I guess I join him on Whysper.

Also, @Matrim's Dice, vote count please?

I have nothing else to say reguarding my defense for the Dannexe, Archer basically said everything I would’ve said, but he made more sense. I might end up roleclaiming as a last resort, but at this point I’m hoping I won’t have to do that. 

[Mat he/him]

6 minutes ago, Dannex said:

Also, @Matrim's Dice, vote count please?

• Dannex (4): Elandera, Quintessential, Whysper, StrikerEZ
• TJ Shade (1): Araris Valerian
• Whysper (2): Archer, Dannex

[StrikerEZ he/him]

...Archer I'm so conflicted about that post of yours. I was village reading you and now you're defending one of my elim suspects? Confusion.

[dannnex male]

Just now, StrikerEZ said:

...Archer I'm so conflicted about that post of yours. I was village reading you and now you're defending one of my elim suspects? Confusion.

Wait you actually think I’m Elim? I thought most everyone was just infokilling me. This is good, I can defend against that. Why do you think I’m Elim?

[|TJ| he/him]

Hi, I'm here. I haven't caught up with the thread yet, have to yet go through posts from the last few hours of D1 till now. I thought I'll do that after posting rollover, but I'm tired, and thinking of going to bed. I'll catch up and post my thoughts before the rollover.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

12 minutes ago, Dannex said:

Wait you actually think I’m Elim? I thought most everyone was just infokilling me. This is good, I can defend against that. Why do you think I’m Elim?

Well, it's more just that I think all of the evidence with the votes and the timing of the votes (like with you voting for Tani instead of self-pres, or when Araris/Elan voted for Illwei over you) makes it seem like there was an effort to save you. Especially if there's an elim spokesperson and you all knew there was going to be a vote removed from you. And then you came on and mostly just bashed infokilling, which, at this early of a point in the game, isn't all that bad, rather than try and give suspicions of someone else in defense of yourself. So, yeah, I'm elim reading you, I'd say.

[dannnex male]

7 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

Well, it's more just that I think all of the evidence with the votes and the timing of the votes (like with you voting for Tani instead of self-pres, or when Araris/Elan voted for Illwei over you) makes it seem like there was an effort to save you. Especially if there's an elim spokesperson and you all knew there was going to be a vote removed from you. And then you came on and mostly just bashed infokilling, which, at this early of a point in the game, isn't all that bad, rather than try and give suspicions of someone else in defense of yourself. So, yeah, I'm elim reading you, I'd say.

1. I wasn’t on at the end of the cycle, so I couldn’t change to a self pres.

2. I have no control over who other people choose to vote for.

3. I didn’t bash infokilling, I bashed the fact that there’s literally no defense for infokilling, other than just arguing that it won’t give info. Edit: and even if I did bash infokilling, that’s just a playstyle/game meta preference. How is that AI?

4. I haven’t shared any suspicions because I don’t have all that many that aren’t somewhat biased. I’m suspicious of all the people jumping on me, since I really don’t think it makes sense, but saying that wouldn’t really do anything, cause that’s obviously a biased opinion. 

Edited March 28, 2021 by Dannex

[StrikerEZ he/him]

6 minutes ago, Dannex said:

1. I wasn’t on at the end of the cycle, so I couldn’t change to a self pres.

That's fair, though it was tied between you and Illwei when you voted for Tani.

6 minutes ago, Dannex said:

2. I have no control over who other people choose to vote for.

That is also fair, and I won't hold you to their votes.

6 minutes ago, Dannex said:

3. I didn’t bash infokilling, I bashed the fact that there’s literally no defense for infokilling, other than just arguing that it won’t give info. Edit: and even if I did bash infokilling, that’s just a playstyle/game meta preference. How is that AI?

Okay, I'm sorry for saying you bashed it. I'm not necessarily saying the comments about infokilling are AI, but more the fact that all you chose to do to defend yourself was comment about it, if that makes sense.

7 minutes ago, Dannex said:

4. I haven’t shared any suspicions because I don’t have all that many that aren’t somewhat biased. I’m suspicious of all the people jumping on me, since I really don’t think it makes sense, but saying that wouldn’t really do anything, cause that’s obviously a biased opinion. 

Do you have anyone that you trust?

[dannnex male]

2 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

Do you have anyone that you trust?

I trust archer, but again, that’s pretty biased. I kinda trust Quinn too, but not super sure about that one.

[Quintessential she/her]

1 hour ago, Archer said:

You're correct, (Elandera). To expand on that point, here's why a Dannex info kill doesn’t make sense.

Optimal elim strategy is to survive at the lowest cost. To save elim!Dannex, your elim!options are:

- Have the team vote for other candidates earlier in the round so your teammate is never in danger. If this was done, how’d they end up being up for exe?

-Vote in self-preservation when you’re in danger. Dannex didn’t do this. Perhaps they felt it would be read as elimy. If that’s the case, they were counting on the Spokesperson on their team to save them from the tie, and hoping no one else would vote. Striker and Ashbringer made it 4-6 against them at the end there. There was no elim team response. They couldn’t have known v!Stiker would switch back to a tie. Were they written off by that point?

-Have your teammates vote to save you late in the cycle. This is blatant, so it’s usually a last resort. It also didn’t happen, unless e!Striker planned to vote Dannex with 30 minutes to go, then unvote them with 5 minutes to go. That makes no sense, it’d be easier to just vote for Illwei from the beginning.

-If they have the spokesperson, they can count on them to remove a single vote. This risks revealing their alignment. Counting on them only works if you are in a tie. If you’re in a 4-5 situation, it only gives a 50% chance of survival. And remmeber, the village has a vote manipulator too, and if they move the right vote, they can make a 5-5 tie into a 4-6 one, out of the hands of Spokesperson manipulation. 

I don’t believe the elim team would allow Dannex to be in the situation they ended up in. I believe they are more competent than that. Relying on a tie to emerge, the village vote manipulator to not act, and using your elim vote manipulator to save them makes less sense than simply having Dannex or a teammate stick a vote on Illwei. 

Whysper and others pushing a Dannexe doesn't make sense to me. 

59 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

...Archer I'm so conflicted about that post of yours. I was village reading you and now you're defending one of my elim suspects? Confusion.

Seconding Striker here (again...) I've been trying for a little while now to come up with a concise way to respond to this, and basically what I've come up with is:

You frame this at the beginning as an argument for why we shouldn't infokill Dannex, but really it sounds more to me like you're arguing that no elim is ever going to come close to being exed on D1, which I can say from first-hand experience is not the case (Aman in MR46, Lotus in QF50, and myself in AG7 all come to mind). The fact is, elim teams aren't perfect, and the village has some agency of its own that the elims just don't control.

That doesn't mean that Dannex is elim, but it means we can't rule out the possibility. Or at least, we can't rule it out based on the idea that the elims wouldn't have let him get so close to dying. The elims don't control everything, after all.

36 minutes ago, Dannex said:

4. I haven’t shared any suspicions because I don’t have all that many that aren’t somewhat biased. I’m suspicious of all the people jumping on me, since I really don’t think it makes sense, but saying that wouldn’t really do anything, cause that’s obviously a biased opinion. 

As to this, everyone's suspicions are biased by one thing or another. Whatever yours are, the most useful thing village!you can do in this situation is share them as specifically as possible so that we have that--and everyone else's reactions to it--to work from next cycle. (future me here: ninja'd by Dannex sharing his trusts, but I'd still like to hear more specifically who you're sus of)

Edit: Also wait @Matrim's Dice where did Araris vote TJ?

Edited March 28, 2021 by Quintessential

[Mat he/him]

8 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

Edit: Also wait @Matrim's Dice where did Araris vote TJ?

Here:

16 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

The elim kill does seems to show that elims are happy with the thread's status. That suggests to me that we should broaden the POE, and I'm thinking of Gears, Ash, and TJ right now. TJ gave elim reads on Dannex and Books (while voting for Randby). Gears casually defended me. Nothing much from Ash at all (for ILR reasons, it seems). These players all seem to fit with the kill profile while also lying a bit lower than they otherwise might. My vote is on TJ for now, but I'd like to hear from all of the above three players.

Look carefully, it's only two letters  

[Quintessential she/her]

2 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Look carefully, it's only two letters  

ah, thank you  I went over that post like three times before I asked and somehow still missed it... 

[dannnex male]

27 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

As to this, everyone's suspicions are biased by one thing or another. Whatever yours are, the most useful thing village!you can do in this situation is share them as specifically as possible so that we have that--and everyone else's reactions to it--to work from next cycle. (future me here: ninja'd by Dannex sharing his trusts, but I'd still like to hear more specifically who you're sus of)

Well, I’m specifically suspicious of Whysper. Here, look at this. 

Quote

okay

hi

I'm here

yay.

Not a ton of thoughts yet, but I'm kinda surprised at how many misunderstandings there have been. I found the rules to be rather clear. excluding the highstorm/Highstorm thing.

maybe all the 'mistakes' and 'misunderstandings' are part of a meta elim tactic to spread confusion? to waste time n stuff? probably not. but maybe. 

This is the post that started all of this. I really don’t see anything here worthy of reading me as Elim. And it seems most of you thought the same, as nobody really said anything about it until Whysper did.....24 hours later.

Quote

Dannex

Getting a bit of an Elim vibe from this. He pops in with this post that basically shades people for the misunderstandings. And in a hedging way at that. And then nothing more from him. I don't think Elims would draw such attention with a tactic like this since misunderstandings are easily cleared up by other players and by the host.

It should be noted that a ton of other discussion had happened, and Whysper themselves had posted many times. And they hadn’t brought this up before. Also, they start with a vote. They don’t say, “hey I kinda think this post is sus”, they jump straight to “this singular post is exe worthy”, and I really don’t think it was.
It’s weird too, because they downplay it by saying “getting a bit of an Elim vibe”, as if they only had a mild suspicion of it, but then they place their vote in that same post, before saying anything else. The juxtaposition of the intensity of their actions and mildness of their verbal accusations seems really strange. Like an Elim who already knows I’d flip village.

This makes me think that one of two things was happening.

1. An Elim was currently up for the exe, so they had to find another target for the exe and landed on me.

or 

2. they just saw that post and figured they could use it for an easy misexe

I’m trying to look at the votes for that cycle and see who was up for the exe when Whysper posted that, and I think it was Archer, who I currently trust, but now I’m not sure. It does seem kinda weird that they were defending me so much. Maybe they know I’ll flip village and want to seem like they were defending me? Gain village trust? And they are currently voting their Elim teammate Whysper because they know it’s safe because everyone else is voting me?

That might be a bit too tinfoily, but I’m no longer sure of how much I trust Archer. 

[Quintessential she/her]

9 minutes ago, Dannex said:

I’m trying to look at the votes for that cycle and see who was up for the exe when Whysper posted that, and I think it was Archer, who I currently trust, but now I’m not sure. It does seem kinda weird that they were defending me so much. Maybe they know I’ll flip village and want to seem like they were defending me? Gain village trust? And they are currently voting their Elim teammate Whysper because they know it’s safe because everyone else is voting me?

As it happens, I have a VC from right before she voted:

Illwei (1): Archer
Archer (3): Araris, Striker, Quinn
Randby (1): TJ
Whysper (1): Illwei
Tani (1): Elan
Araris (1): Tani

You're correct that it was Archer who was in the lead. Additionally, I'll note that after that, things progressed with Forge voting Illwei, which put her one behind Archer, and then Illwei voting you in self-pres (more or less). The next two votes on you were Tani (for no stated reason) and myself (because at that point I thought Illwei was village).

So, in essence, Whysper's vote allowed you to become a scapegoat : P 

I don't know that I agree that Whysper's vote itself was suspicious, though; I doubt she actually meant it to become a leading exe train, and it certainly seemed at the time like it wouldn't do so. I can definitely relate to putting a vote on someone who's a little bit suspicious but not necessarily exe worthy, to see how they react more than anything which is what I did with Illwei... that turned out great

Edited March 28, 2021 by Quintessential
spelling

[Archer he/him]

1 hour ago, Quintessential said:

Seconding Striker here (again...) I've been trying for a little while now to come up with a concise way to respond to this, and basically what I've come up with is:

You frame this at the beginning as an argument for why we shouldn't infokill Dannex, but really it sounds more to me like you're arguing that no elim is ever going to come close to being exed on D1, which I can say from first-hand experience is not the case (Aman in MR46, Lotus in QF50, and myself in AG7 all come to mind). The fact is, elim teams aren't perfect, and the village has some agency of its own that the elims just don't control.

That doesn't mean that Dannex is elim, but it means we can't rule out the possibility. Or at least, we can't rule it out based on the idea that the elims wouldn't have let him get so close to dying. The elims don't control everything, after all.

Sorry, I gtg soon so this is a hurried post. I appreciate this response because it’s pretty reasonable. I’m working off of the same information as you are, and getting very different conclusions, so I'm at least glad y'all's position is defensible. 

It feels like we're sticking with two C1 gut wagons based on not great reads. I believe Dannex is village. I think it was QF50 actually where they were widely mis-read and later mis-exed for playing a defensive playstyle. QF50 did have an early elim exe, or attempt at one, but that one had second lives. And a lot of last minute vote switching that made the thread hard to control from the shadows. This game is simpler. 

I don’t see any signs of elim intervention here. And the lack of self-pres vote has convinced me of their innocence. 

I think the mis-exe of Dannex will tell us very little. Just because someone secretly breaks a tie doesn’t mean the tie was e/v. I’d prefer to get out of this tunnel and widen our net to get some actual elim reactions.

@Dannex are you the Spokesperson? Due diligence and all that.

52 minutes ago, Dannex said:

That might be a bit too tinfoily, but I’m no longer sure of how much I trust Archer. 

good distancing, they'll never know we're elim teammates now  /s

Edited March 28, 2021 by Archer

[Elandera she/her]

You know, I'm increasingly suspicious of Archer trying so ardently to protect Dannex.

48 minutes ago, Archer said:

I don’t see any signs of elim intervention here.

Unless you're that elim intervention...

I'd be willing to switch to Archer if anyone has misgivings about a Dannexe.

[Quintessential she/her]

53 minutes ago, Archer said:

I think it was QF50 actually where they were widely mis-read and later mis-exed for playing a defensive playstyle. QF50 did have an early elim exe, or attempt at one, but that one had second lives. And a lot of last minute vote switching that made the thread hard to control from the shadows. This game is simpler. 

I mean, not exactly XD from my POV as elim, Dannex was widely misread and later misexed because I was actively driving the debate to center on him (rather than on my teammate, Lotus, who'd been the actual C1 exe target and had survived). What's funny is that the controversy around him continued after I got exed and flipped elim, even though I'd been pushing so hard for his death xD

But, that aside, the mechanics up to the actual end of the cycle were basically the same in QF50. Yeah, we didn't feel as urgent a need to try to save Lotus, but there also wasn't really much we could do to save her either (without exposing ourselves; I could have voted Dannex but it woulda looked weird given my earlier insistence that it didn't make sense to do so).

53 minutes ago, Archer said:

I think the mis-exe of Dannex will tell us very little. Just because someone secretly breaks a tie doesn’t mean the tie was e/v. I’d prefer to get out of this tunnel and widen our net to get some actual elim reactions.

I mean, the misexe of any one person in this game at this moment will tell us essentially nothing. So unless you're saying you already know it'll be a misexe... 

Edit: ninja'd by @Elandera and I have to say I 100% agree with you if Dannex flips elim : P I'd been reading Archer village last cycle but the defense is... it just feels off. Which obviously doesn't mean much if Dannex is village, but if he flips elim I will probably be voting Archer next cycle 

Edited March 28, 2021 by Quintessential

[+Whysper she/her]

5 hours ago, Dannex said:

This is the post that started all of this. I really don’t see anything here worthy of reading me as Elim. And it seems most of you thought the same, as nobody really said anything about it until Whysper did.....24 hours later.

First of all, being 24 hours later means nothing. People take the time to go over the thread later and notice things they didn't at first. Secondly, Gears posted like 2 minutes after me with his wallpost going over everything in the thread so far and he had the same thought.

Quote

27. Danex: Exists, confusion = elim? [Noted for implicating everyone over what amounts to nothing.]

Quote

[ninja'd by Whysper, how dare you]

94. Whysper: Votes Danex for shading people. [I agree with this. Since I disagree with the Archer X, especially since they died C2 in the MR, I would be willing to kill Danex here.]

Current thoughts on people:

Danex: Stands accused of causing wide-spread paranoia and incentivising finding NAI things suspicious.

So again to my first point, after going through the thread carefully, someone else picked up on it.

5 hours ago, Dannex said:

It should be noted that a ton of other discussion had happened, and Whysper themselves had posted many times. And they hadn’t brought this up before. Also, they start with a vote. They don’t say, “hey I kinda think this post is sus”, they jump straight to “this singular post is exe worthy”, and I really don’t think it was.
It’s weird too, because they downplay it by saying “getting a bit of an Elim vibe”, as if they only had a mild suspicion of it, but then they place their vote in that same post, before saying anything else.

You seem to be nitpicking the way I posted as a defense. I put my vote first before anything else so it was easier to pick out and notice that's what the post was about. Also, it was a singular post because you hardly did anything else! And that was part of my point and something you leave out. My point was that you threw up this comment shading a bunch of people, then basically left and did nothing else. I thought it was worthy enough of a D1 vote to see where it went. At least this was more than a bunch of the poke votes getting thrown around.

 

Edited March 29, 2021 by Whysper
Fixed up quotes from Gears

[Quivil]

13 hours ago, Elandera said:

I'd be willing to switch to Archer if anyone has misgivings about a Dannexe.

People have already stated their misgivings about a Dannexe.

@Matrim's Dice Does Dalinar know who Elhokar is?

 

@Matrim's Dice Also Whysper because ikyks exist and also elim gut read

 

Also you'll know when im in a hurry cuz ill discard capitals and grammar maybe and also proper spelling maybe and also sometimes whole words.

Example: that ^^ sentence.

Edited March 29, 2021 by Tani

[Mat he/him]

1 hour ago, Tani said:

@Matrim's Dice Does Dalinar know who Elhokar is?

They do not.

[Elandera she/her]

5 hours ago, Tani said:

People have already stated their misgivings about a Dannexe.

This is a direct contradiction to Archer's statement that no one seems to be defending Dannex. The only people I recall who have stated hesitations are Archer, you, and Dannex (understandably).