Kasimir

This made me laugh Cheers. Ok. One last big push as I try to coalesce my thoughts and come to a decision. Prefacing this with the warning this is long, I try to summarise but I don't really care if people don't read this. I need to think aloud to keep my thoughts coherent, as you can see w.r.t. D1, and it's easier for me to ramble in thread since there are no PMs. -Why Conq? The Conq kill sort of makes sense and sort of doesn't. Conq was pretty much a consensus Village player and noisy, so on the face of it, that's a reasonable kill, but if you dig into it, Conq is not a really great kill target, for reasons I alluded to when defending myself. Conq was a Stick voter and willing to suspect Mat and Silho. Situationally, Mat is the sort of V player you normally expect to have to NK. Conq being willing to suspect Mat and Stick gives the Elims two potential faultlines to exploit for Village division. With Conq's approach to the game being what it is, I'd have expected a Mat or Illwei kill. Perhaps not Mat - living Mat means he gets to lock horns with Conq. Illwei though? Illwei was pushing me, Silho and TUN. I'd consider Stick and Illwei to be the two main drivers behind both Silho and TUN, actually. I don't think Stick was fully on the table for the Elims - again, Conq being willing to push Stick can be exploited. But suppose Conq lives - JNV didn't die (for the Elims cannot have factored this into their planning.) Killing Illwei would remove a threat to TUN and to Silho, and without a flip, Conq clashing with Stick or Mat (remember, he suspected Mat even N2) could have been more detrimental for the Village. Removing Illwei would remove one source of conflict - me-Illwei, but Stick would also still be pushing me and as was clear from N2, I'm not exactly Village read either. Ok. This is too messy. I'll cull this for my own benefit. Noisy player kills: I define noisy player as players making a lot of noise and driving thread discussion. Italicised any views that the player was functionally uncertain about, or willing to give on. Lmk if I made any mistakes - I've read more posts than is healthy today. Ideally, you want to be taking out the noisy people (or going low info kill but that's clearly not how this team plays.) Part of the goal is to get the noisy people squinting at each other where possible. One explanation of the Conq kill could be that Silho is Evil, thus the team killed Conq in order to relieve pressure on Silho. I don't know I quite believe this. I agree with Archer that my sense of how grudgingly JNV was dragged towards V!Silho with some hedging in that highlighted post makes it seem more as though JNV wanted a Silho lynch and finally was sort of pushed away from it by how much Mat and I were defending Silho against Illwei and Stick. As much as I tried to bait the kill last Night, I didn't really expect to be a target - the fact I'm conditionally or directly suspected means there is a useful faultline to exploit there. Getting rid of Conq does take out that brake, so as to speak, so there's no need to waste a NK on me. But really, the point that my alignment was in question means that taking me out helps the Village. I also defended JNV. No go. Getting rid of Stick is similarly odd. I think we can tell from JNV that the Elims did try to push Stick - taking out Stick clears a slot of contention. Again, not a really good option for the NK as a trade-off. The thing is, knowing that JNV is Evil, you'd expect potentially a kill among those who suspected JNV, making it easier to keep JNV alive. But Mat and Stick weren't killed - Mat not being killed is very questionable, because Mat was basically widely Village-read, is a solid Village player, and was pushing JNV. Stick, I'd squint about - with Illwei backing V!Stick loudly, I think a Stick kill would make sense, but given JNV was trying to leave Stick on the tableish, IDK. So what functions do leaving Mat and Stick untouched do? (Note: You can make the same point about Silho - for a Silho-JNV team, the question is why not kill <Illwei, Stick> - Conq does make sense for this team though, as I noted.) My guesses: -Can't do a low activity kill -> last (?) Elim is among the low activity players -Have to be careful with high activity kill -> last (?) Elim is among the high activity noisy players -JNV did not feel in danger: Kas and Illwei backing (?) -Killed for suspicion of Illwei (??? - Conq sort of backed off of it after N1 though.) -Killed as part of JNV's 'Xino train was clean' argument (??? - Doesn't feel right.) -Did not regard Mat/Illwei/Stick as immediate problem. (Why? Their suspicions? Stick existing in enough of a grey area to enjoy a touch more uncertainty?) This points me slightly more towards a high activity partner, TBH. With Conq (IMO, sorry Conq) seemingly largely caught on tangents (based off my V!Mat, V!Silho, and V!Stick credences), I don't see why you take out Conq of the <Illwei, Mat, Conq> triad of Xino voters, especially with the fact that Conq could push Mat, Stick, potentially Illwei, and that Conq would resist a ML of me, based off his reads. The argument could be that Mat was defending Silho, but Mat was also pressuring JNV somewhat, and in the world where JNV has a low activity partner, all the more JNV has to stay alive because they can't count on backup to fend Mat off. And the trade-off is that if you're a low activity team, you really can't control the noisy players except via the NK. I guess you could argue that Mat wasn't an immediate threat, but neither was Conq, and arguably his willingness to push Mat and Stick would be a lot more helpful. TBF, keeping Conq alive means keeping Mat alive - you want that distraction. But then why not shoot Illwei? Because of Illwei's willingness to push me? That could make sense. IDK. But I'm leaning E!Illwei now - I accept Mat's arguments on the votecount issues and can see the possibility there (though I'm not sure this is the natural read still), and the Conq kill makes more sense with E!Illwei than E!Turtle, IMO. On an E!Turtle team, you have beautiful chaos to exploit with Conq alive. -Shift in JNV's Reads D1 JNV: N1: No post from JNV. D2: N2: Main takeaways, aka 'Sir This Is A Wendy's': -Significant use of waffly language when defending Xino and creating reads - this means that attention is automatically drawn to where JNV doesn't waffle. JNV doesn't waffle when: lightly defending Conq (D1), when negatively evaluating Shqueeve's vote on Conq (D1), when negatively evaluating my vote on Mat (D1), Kas positive read (D2), Illwei positive read (D2), TUN negative read (N2), Conq positive read (N2), Illwei positive read (N2), Mat positive read (N2), Kas positive read (N2). JNV does waffle when: questioning the reason for Mat's third vote on Xino (D1), voting Stick (D1), TUN read (D1), Wiz read (D1), defending D1 Stick vote (D2), Illwei read (D2), Conq read (D2 x2), TUN read (D2), Turtle read (D2 x2), Silho read (D2), Stick read (D2), Silho read (N2 x3), Turtle read (N2), Stick read (N2), Wiz read (N2). Of these occasions, I think two incidents stand out to me most: First, JNV shifts from a neutral view on Illwei to a positive read of Illwei within the same post: Exhibit A: Exhibit B: Note that JNV basically bases this read off being helpful and contributing - while Conq and Mat just don't get as positive language despite arguably filling the same niche as noisy threadpeople who also voted Xino. Second, JNV lightly suses Turtle, and immediately revises to a mildly positive read as soon as Turtle posts some analysis. This is a really low threshold: So, Turtle made a pair of posts early into D2: JNV's resulting read on Turtle: There's some sus and waffling on Turtle. Shortly after, Turtle makes a post doing some fairly perfunctory analysis. This is JNV's response where Turtle is concerned: That's still fairly positive. JNV just upped and 180-ed in response to that one post? I'll be fair that this is more analysis that Wiz (correct me if wrong) had put out until EoD D2. And TUN and Shqueeves didn't really do anything. JNV also made the Stick train a three-player train, rather than shuffle elsewhere. tldr; In summation: after agonising and using the thread as my repeated thought scratching post (sorry), where I'm at is between <Illwei, Turtle.> I'm going to be honest. N2-D3 Illwei creeps into TWTBAW territory for me a bit. But since I know my own alignment, I have to note that Illwei smuggled JNV into Village reads D2 alongside TUN (whom she then pushed to kill D3 on N2) despite what is honestly a ??? D2 from JNV. Like yes, okay - you can argue I'm confbiasing and I acknowledge I might very well be since I'm re-reading with knowledge of JNV's alignment. But I don't see how a post reader like Illwei skips past all the raw FUD in JNV's post and @s me about my progression on Mat and her, but doesn't question that happening for JNV. I also think that JNV's willingness to give Turtle a positive read after a brief analysis post doesn't really feel right to me - it feels like the sort of choreographed contact where you get your teammate to show up and then give them a more positive read. But then, I don't know that's the right assessment of the situation - there's no real poke vote, and Illwei is the one who applied pressure to Turtle via a poke vote so IDK if it really feels like distancing me because there's no real impetus - JNV could've just read Turtle more positively from the start since Turtle already showed up in response to Illwei. They're responding to a disconnected post from Turtle subsequently. IDK I feel strongly about this, but I am slightly more inclined to go V!Turtle on this. I recognise JNV willing to be this positive about me is extremely awkward for me I think I balance it with the knowledge that JNV does have a tendency to V!read me, yeah, and as I mentioned, the offer to take the lynch if we need me flipped so we can move on and get down to business to defeat the Huns. Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir. Kas Illwei. So based off the current votecount, I guess I'm down for letting Sart show up to pinch-hit for Turtle. Edited to add 2: Fridge thought, or I guess night ayran thought: I think the better way to express what I'm getting at with the Conq NK - taking out Conq leaves a fairly united group of noisy Villagers. With the exception of me (and a ML of me is fine for the Elims), Illwei, Mat, and Stick don't substantially suspect each other. Sure, Conq V!read me, but apart from that, taking out Conq has a net positive effect on noisy Village unity. Why does JNV think this is a great kill in an E!Turtle world? The simple answer: Village unity isn't really unity. Someone is compromised. And that, IMO, has to point to E!Illwei more than E!Turtle. Edited to add: Kas after reading too many posts and going around in circles trying to figure if he suspects Illwei or Turtle more:

Confident in what sense?

Yeah apologies, trying to work out what I think, and I trust you on posts more than I trust me on posts, so appreciate the input Have to dash off myself, so more thoughts in a bit.

Had a post and lost it. Joy to the world. I'll get back later. @_Stick_ - Had more thoughts on the JNV-TUN situation but will reply in a short while. I need a quick break before I retype. In case you're not on again, could I ask for your view on Turtle's posts? 1. N1 seems very perfunctory to me. - No real alignment indications and that is half-taken back; unclear what the purpose of people who joined Xino train last minute is for. - Not sure Turtle has much reason to fear NK or lynch at that juncture? 2. Consistency on Shqueeves -Flags Shqueeves as inactive D1 but that's not actually the case - still, Shqueeves ends up in the distancing list. -Has Shqueeves listed as a null: In context, this reads like Turtle's lowest tier. I'm sympathetic to not having many E reads because I've spent some recent games doing PoEs for Elim players. But both Conq and Illwei being in lowest tier D2 and me and Silho being highest tier D2 seem just odd to me. It makes me question if Turtle and I are playing the same game - I just have difficulty fitting this view of the game to an alignment, seeing that Turtle doesn't really do anything with those reads. This is posted very shortly before or after Illwei votes Turtle. Turtle does move to V!Illwei later on, and to the claim most of the Xino train is V, which is fair and what most people would think. But that's at least a step behind thread consensus, which had already reached that point. But doesn't vote Shqueeves despite having consistent Shqueeves ??? I am struggling to get a clear read on Turtle - Turtle's now gone solidly back into null for me, but as I understand the situation, Ash is looking for pinch-hitters so IDK if Turtle is a D3 problem. Ok, now I'm going to step out and take a cup of tea before I go back to fighting the editor and replying on JNV. Ah soddit I'll do it now. To be fair, it might be revealing of my own risk profile as an E player: I think it's circumstantially high risk, for one - you're already raising TUN's profile by amplifying calls from two leading Villagers to have TUN killed or to place TUN as a major candidate the next day. Players running off the thread mood and willing to go with the louder voices will regard it as a potential consensus point. Besides the manufacturing of a seeming thread consensus, you also have the fact that Illwei and you are fairly solid were fairly Village-defended last Night. We tell players not to sheep, but the risk exists. Given the possible prevalence of one-shot Coinshots (since they're really less powerful than standard Coinshots), anyone you put on the chopping block is someone you have to be prepared to lose. On a low activity two man team (with Xino down), that feels more risky because the consequences are harsher - 7 v 2 is doable if very hard. 8 v 1 is Die Hard. I'm also not convinced JNV really wanted TUN qua TUN dead. I think JNV wanted to blend in, and that meant a lot of hedging. I think TUN was raw opportunism, since they saw a chance to back a train from you and Illwei. I think that TUN is a fairly low-hanging fruit lynch - he doesn't care to really participate and he just does whatever he wants, which means there's always the temptation to just flip him and be done with. But that also means that anyone actively pushing TUN without a decent case gets a certain amount of scrutiny for opportunism. I don't think JNV had a case for TUN - both because (duh!) they're Evil, and because having not really said much, there's nothing strong to push about TUN, really. The other issue is that if V, Illwei is just tricky. That single statement - sure, let's just sign on to lynch TUN tomorrow, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, smells fishy. Standard good V doctrine says that we cannot bypass discussed lynches - the discussion is not optional at all and is crucial for refining suspicions. Signing on to that statement with no real idea why V!Illwei wants TUN dead doesn't sound like a good idea. The 'open to re-evaluation' is performative padding, meant to allow a climbdown if there's a chance to lynch someone else the next day. I think you basically have to say this no matter what unless you are a Villager with something up your sleeve. Refusing re-evaluation and predeciding a lynch looks awful. Like, the more I read JNV's post, the more all I'm getting out of it is they tried to play FUD x10000 as their strat: Please appreciate this guys. I don't do post analysis. I suck at post analysis. I suffered .__. But also, okay. My main takeaway, and every thing I've highlighted in this post is how much waffling JNV does. They're allergic to drawing any real conclusions. They accept the low activity team hypothesis but just can't seem to decide who they're suspicious about - the highlights show every single time JNV says something and then squirrels around or half-takes it back or expresses uncertainty, and I can't help but feel that's deliberate. Perhaps partly because JNV doesn't really have the bandwidth to fabricate suspicions, but also partly potentially because JNV wants to stop any consensus from coalescing or real read progress (if so, @_Stick_, this might be a point in favour of someone Evil between <TUN, Turtle>.) Here's who JNV has strong opinions about: -V!Illwei -V!me -V!Mat - TUN ("The Unknown NOvel well I dont really know theyre just sorta there but I dont like their recent statement about Silhouette not that I disagree cause I agree somewhat but the way they just mention the Kasimir argument wahtever especially coming after Kasimirs good rebuttal seems like its sorta riding coattails if you know what I mean saying something easy to say just to seem like youve said something and overall they havent said much at l" -This is fairly unvarnished. They accuse TUN of being opportunistic.) Here's who JNV moderately waffles over: -Turtle ("honestly so leaning kind of hmm for them but like theyve been trying thats nice thats good I feel like thats a good change" - IMO, the nicest thing JNV has to say of anyone in the low activity pool is basically to Turtle. That faint praise at the end.) -Silho ("my mind says probably vllage my heart is protesting " - this reads to me as a reluctant switch after consistent Silho arguments and defense, FYI, given JNV's opinion has changed on Silho far too many times in the single post.) Here's who JNV waffles thoroughly over: -Wiz (Wizard well Wizard says a lot of things and doesnt say why and that bugs me but they do that as village too but also I dont know if Ive encountered evil Wizard honestly dont know - refuses a coherent Wiz read altogether) Suppose you're JNV. You have to plan for your play next cycle, or make some attempt at doing so. You wouldn't know Wiz is preparing to smite you. I submit that of the entire list, JNV looks like they're preparing (just as they mentioned wrt to the airstrike - to push for Wiz and TUN the next day. At the moment, they've refused a coherent Wiz read, so they'd more or less be forced to go on TUN first. It could be distancing, but given thread mood with Illwei and Stick? IDK.) Leaving TUN aside, I'll say that there are two possible reads here: A. JNV's teammate is Illwei, and so JNV spends the most time sowing FUD in the low activity bracket and accepting the low activity hypothesis in order to misdirect the Village and leave everyone marinating in confusion. B. JNV's teammate is one of <TUN, Turtle> and so JNV faintly praises Turtle to push them slightly above the waterline in JNV's suspect pool, or distances from TUN by IDing suspicions about TUN. I feel like JNV could've expressed more uncertainty about TUN if they were trying to distance - it's a straightforwardly negative read, past the hedgy language that saturates their post, and I'm not sure I am on board with E!TUN still. (To be fair, I will also admit I'm making a stronger case for V!TUN here than I really necessarily feel because I'm trying to feel for the cracks on my thought process and yours, to determine where to go this Turn. I think I've talked myself out of Archer, and I'm definitely against Silho, but I guess now it's <Illwei/TUN.>)

This might be an indicator of the team's overall strategy. Though Araris swapping to Xino and Conq joining really killed any efforts to keep the train in motion. So. The thing is, I feel your issues with Silho emerge from: A. Those posts B. Reading JNV. I'd note that I am less confident in reading JNV than you are, but I'd like to ask (I have already, but I imagine you might not want to return to see a longpost) how you account for this: You might remember as you flagged this - but basically, Illwei takes her vote off Mat, so Xino and you are the two lead trains. At this point, JNV flags Silho's vote, and Silho...leaves his vote there despite saying he could be persuaded onto another train. He then heads off for the night. In an E!Silho/E!JNV world, what is the point of this interaction? If anything, you'd think it'd provide a pretext for Silho to pull his vote off Xino, especially with JNV heading off for the night. But this doesn't happen. Why doesn't it happen, if E!Silho? It does read like a V/E interaction to me, in light of JNV's alignment. But also, Silho says this: He could very well easily take his vote off Xino, both in response to the challenge, as well as citing the fact he thinks a tie is bad. As far as he knew, this would put Xino out of the danger zone, as this post was made nearly an hour to rollover. Not acting leaves the decision in the Village's hands (as it turned out.) So why does E!Silho do this? Anyway, that aside. I promised I'd look at everyone's posts within my narrow pool. Technically I should look at Illwei's too, which I will do later tonight :| Note: This is probably late as I think I see a ping and I have no idea if someone ninjaed me but I don't want to lose this post so whee posting blind. 1. Archer/Symph (Un)enviably for Archer, this is all Symph says. Symph doesn't come back to the game. I will say that disengagement could be being busy, or it could be picking up an alignment Symph just doesn't know what to do with. Symph, as I understand, is a new player. My only previous game with Symph was the QF that just ended - QF62 - where Symph was Village!Feanor. So, Symph has subsequent posts in other RP threads (great!) but makes no further SE appearance. After this, Archer comes in with the counterclaim to Wiz. Which - I'm understanding Stick's MR56 comparison here because as I pointed out, there's no real incentive to do that. There's nothing functionally achieved in-game that hasn't already been achieved by fakecounterclaiming Wiz. So I don't see why V!Archer wants to do this. Mat's counter is that the play for E!Archer is to come into this game and try to secure a Village read by conventional play. I don't strongly disagree with this, but I also feel that a 1v8 is rough odds anyway. Maybe it's fine for a 2v7 but I struggle to see how Xino dies in a team of four world. But okay. Let's pathwalk. To recap: Wiz claims, Archer fakecounterclaims. What is the expected play for E!Archer here? What does E!Archer expect to gain from this? There are three considerations I want to point out. First, it's difficult to see a way out of this for E!Archer. Suppose the best case scenario - we lynch Wiz, Wiz flips V!Coinshot. E!Archer is dead next cycle. So if we want to see this being a successful play, there has to be some way out of it for E!Archer. I guess the best way out would be if Archer was aware that multiple kills on the same target are not written up as being multiple kills. In all fairness, I don't think this is something that is typically done on SE, so it is not a difficult assumption to have made without asking. I don't know how much of a risk that is. So the best play goes something like this: E!Archer fakecounterclaims the kill, Wiz challenges him, we flip Wiz, Archer argues hard that: A. multiple kills were possible, B. no Elim would fakecounterclaim because obviously the Elim runs two risks - if disbelieved off the bat, we kill the Elim, if disbelieved after Wiz flipped, we kill the Elim, we believe Archer as a result of this line of reasoning and V!read him. That is pretty risky. Archer is known for strong risk appetites. (Cf. MR56 polar bear.) The other reason I think the 1v8 world matters is because it shifts the risk-reward calculus for Elims. But does it make sense? Well, it's hard to say. This didn't play out because Wiz pointed out that Symph wasn't even on, so Archer couldn't have submitted the vig kill. Second, there's the question of whether - if playing the fakecounterclaim game, Archer would at least have checked the activity of the player he was replacing. I get the sense he didn't, that he posted off the cuff when entering the thread, and that meshes a little poorly with the notion that this was a calculated gambit. Sure, Archer, Mat, myself, Devo, have all made reckless plays on both teams without checking the rules. But still, there is that. Third, it's difficult to see why V!Archer would feel the need to do this. But again, it'd be more weird for any player not Archer. I've noted time and again that Archer is the king of big plans and risky plays. He plays flashy and loud and I can't quite say that it would be out of V!Archer's profile to do this, even though I'm still stymied because I don't see a functional reason for V!Archer to fakecounterclaim either. I don't see a clear way the reaction test would work, but I'm reminded of Ash's LG and V!Experience, so I guess that's possible, though Experience has a different profile from Archer as well. All in all, I can't rule out the world in which E!Archer does gambit with this. But I agree that for this to be a working gambit for E!Archer, it requires a pair of risks, rather than just one. I would probably weight the counterclaim E!gambit a bit higher if it had been a kill claim, rather than a kill counterclaim, since E!Archer would know Wiz is telling the truth, whereas you can at least gamble on inactivity or low activity in the kill claim world. So I guess I'm back to indecision, but probably, maybe not gung-ho on Archer immediately. Honestly I think I just don't really strongly feel Archer-Illwei - in the sense I don't feel they are Village but I am not sure I have a strong preference and am also not sure I think one is more Village than the other. IDK, if Archer makes more posts in the interim since I've been writing this, this would be good. This is longer than I'd like. I'm just going to post this and go read Turtle and edit in Turtle because I think this is too long (sorry) but I need to think aloud. Edited to add: And I did get ninjaed. Sorry for the double, Stick I was working on this for a longer time than I should have been. But that's the thing. At that point, there's no reason for a bus. I'd argue bus point only came after Conq. I don't recall Araris particularly giving reason for you (will check) and JNV's reason boiled down to the thing about your being contradictory, which wasn't by my lights a good reason either. That's aroud half an hour in which Shining didn't take the bait. And this is Shining's...third game? Like...in an E!Shining world, both the JNV tag and the 'I'll vote someone else, just give me reasoning' are prompts to the Village or to a teammate to get him off Xino. If he's that ready to bail that he's paving the way for it, why doesn't he take the climbdowns given, or why doesn't the last teammate manufacture one? It's just a very odd attitude. I can't see that working for E!Silho. At some point, E!me will be seriously screwed over by V!me's relative recklessness and willingness to embrace death as compared to how conservatively E!me plays. I could point out E!me tends to underreact to suspicions in order not to attract attention and I don't recall seriously gambiting as an E player apart from the one time Orlok talked me into it, but I don't think that's very helpful if my alignment is in question anyway Perhaps we have different risk appetites - I find it risky because the last thing you want is a lost, quiet Coinshot trying to hit TUN. The thing is I don't see it as people taking JNV's advice - Illwei was already pushing for a TUN kill, and you were also pushing TUN. If anything, I see JNV as opportunistically trying to climb onto the TUN sus and to up the ante by suggesting someone take a potshot at TUN/Wiz. Still, unsure if JNV has that sort of risk appetite. You were teammates before: what do you recall of it?

Touche. Says a lot about my Elim meta I guess Ngl, from a pragmatic perspective, I'd rather just give Archer time since with his rate of content production, he's easier to read than when we're running off Symph-near zero. Though pragmatics is a very bad basis on which to vote. Especially since we're not near the mid-cycle mark yet. I will sleep on it and come back to this. I think the current state of the votes is something like: I am leaning towards Illwei if only for the pragmatics, I will admit. But I need to do my trademark thing and go over everything and fret again.

That's why in my head at least, it's fundamentally an Archer v. Illwei fight at the moment. I would be willing to vote either but am trying to get it right. I agree with Silho and you on TUN (good catch, Silho!) and my own notes from the votes D1 still push me towards TUN very marginally. [Edited to add: To be clear, towards V!TUN.] I could bring Turtle in as well, it's true, but I also do have a very, very mild reason to see Turtle as Village re: the Araris post. Will go back and read the <Turtle, Archer, Illwei> posts again later after sleep So that sort of leaves me with the <Archer, Illwei> pool for today. It's true, but I notice that all side-trains were really fundamentally single-vote, so if Xino wanted to self-pres, those were the only options, hence I questioned the use of 'outing.' What's at stake is less you - I ask you as well because you and Illwei were on, and Illwei later highlights it repeatedly as outing, and unlike you, she didn't have the immediate incentive of being voted on by Xino So I guess I would say the question here is whether Illwei was pushing a bit more definitively than she should be in identifying Xino's vote as an 'outing vote.' That's why I was asking you about your thought process, as a comparison. Ok, I can accept that, I guess. This is what I go to and fro about. But I ultimately do agree that the moment Xino voted you in self-pres, he was dead. The thing I'm struggling with is more - like, they're teammates right? In this world we're considering. So why does Xino vote you? Why isn't it coordinated with Illwei? Because I can't see Illwei signing off on that, due to you being around. Much less the way Xino did it. I guess the counterpoint to that might be that Xino just posted, but that kind of seems fairly like going rogue. That and Xino's lack of attention to the votes (mistaking the votes on Stick) makes me wonder if the team isn't really high activity at all. I will give you this though - suppose Illwei is E. This is a world where I could see the Araris kill making marginally more sense than if JNV made the call for Turtle/Symph. I don't deny an Araris kill seems in JNV's meta (I'll check this) by killing the player everyone is more certain is Village, but the thing is, Araris was the one who kept insisting that the votes only really clear you and him. He kept on refusing to agree it cleared Illwei. In that light, I could see Araris being killed because he was simply going to be troublesome.

Question for you. Why do you see the Xino vote as an outing vote? My view is self-pres is basically NAI - the most is I would suggest voting on you specifically is odd and shows an Elim's disregard/desire to take out an active player but I think that other than that, the naked self-pres isn't weird and I would expect that from a Villager as well. But I think it's implied in thread that both you and Illwei consider it an outing vote. The thing about this that doesn't make sense to me is Xino going onto you. I guess in the world you're proposing, E!Illwei sees you on and sees the Mat vote, and realises that there's no way in hell you're not self-presing or retaliatory voting Xino, and so buses Xino? Edited to add: @Matrim's Dice - Second question. This is the state of affairs right before Illwei pulls off Araris and joins me on you. Why does E!Illwei do this? It exposes Xino by making him one of the lead trains in a three-way tie D1. After that, we have this: To sum up, Illwei moves off Araris, exposing E!Xino. She then goes onto you, joining me in voting. After that, she pulls off you. This is a bit before Araris's key vote, which is at the one hour to rollover mark. Why does E!Illwei expose Xino like this?

In a world where you're the solo Elim left though, isn't it basically go big or go home? I could see a normal play if it's a 7 v 2 but in an 8 v 1 world, your chances aren't great anyway. Would be interested in hearing them. I can't say I'm strong V on Illwei but I've outlined why I go there. RIP, take care too. I just got off a bad week of stuff so I feel your pain.

He's complaining that TUN and Wiz can't be read, i.e. 'black boxes', you can see their outputs and inputs but can't see their inner workings. Wouldn't disagree with your take - being willing to call an airstrike on your teammate does seem a bit out of it. I will say part of me is resigned to V!Illwei always having a paranoia jerk onto me just as V!me and V!Mat usually paranoia shuffle squat each other. But I'm happy to be perfectly upfront that this is a bit of a gamble - from an optimisation perspective, it obviously doesn't help the Village if I agree to be lynched like this, knowing I am a Villager, since we really don't want to be lynching Villagers. My sense however is that we basically can afford this, a number of people have mentioned procrastinating on me or keeping me in neutral and then coming back to me, and I think it's a distraction and the actual pool we should be looking at is <Turtle, Archer, TUN.> Happy to throw in <Illwei> as well but I'm not really feeling E!Illwei right now. So all I'm really doing is forcing the issue and saying - if you need me gone, I will self-vote and vote-manip to seal my lynch. I don't expect there to be a conclusive defense of my D1 or D2 because I agree my D1 was off and I voted JNV then unvoted, and led the Shqueeves pivot, so if the flip is necessary, sometimes that's the best thing you can do for your team. I can see that perspective. If so, I expect you all to focus after my flip and to please go refine your suspicions. Also hopefully relook at some of my thoughts with knowledge of my alignment. If you've decided not to, then let's please stop going back in this circle - the paint hasn't even dried on N2 - and get down to business. I don't want us to be repeatedly circulating this and missing where I feel the correct suspect pool is. I could be wrong, of course, but that's the point of thread discussion. So that's sort of my thought process rather than annoyance - impatience, I guess. Obviously I don't propose this if I'm not fine with either outcome, but my current calculus is I don't want to be dealing with this repeatedly and we can afford this, so I'd rather force the issue and force a decision and then accept whatever decision is made and throw as much thoughts as I can in the process for everyone to bounce off.

How would you interpret it?

@Turtle To be fair, Archer already clarified he was bluffing. See, my main issue with the counterclaiming thing is - there's no reasonable world in which E!Wiz fakeclaims this anyway without committing suicide. A V!Coinshot active enough to shoot JNV is active enough to dispute the fakeclaim in thread. The best E!Wiz hopes for is a 1v1 with the actual Coinshot, and if we lynch the actual Coinshot, Wiz is dead. If not, then Wiz dies immediately. Ggwp. So where is the incentive to lie? Why is this something that even 'needs' a test in the first place? @The Unknown Novel Just to make sure, you did not shoot JNV, right? Sure, it could be a reaction test. But in the bigger picture, why was there a need for a reaction test in the first place? What does it really, functionally achieve that wasn't already achieved by the lack of a challenge to Wiz? Edited to add: I will accept that Archer is probably screwed if he challenges Wiz and Wiz is flipped, though I suppose Turtle isn't wrong that multiple kills might be the line played if Wiz hadn't pointed out the sign-in times. But I don't see the incentive for a reaction test either, and I'm wary of the polar bear.

Right. Apologies for the double-post: as this is long, I do not want to edit this into the previous post. Also because I'll probably get ninjaed before I'm done with this. Current state of my thoughts: D1: D2: Summary: -On D2, main movements at the end came from my two strongest Village reads. I am inclined to think that apart from the train staying stable on JNV for 3/4 the cycle, no Elim really came under serious pressure. This explains why the cycle felt stable and low temperature. I think that this still inclines me, contra some of the thread, to look at the low activity bracket of <Turtle, TUN, Archer> for our Elims. -From a vote movement perspective, Illwei going on Silho doesn't look that great. But I also feel that the timing of Illwei going on Silho happened when JNV put Stick in the lead. I don't really see it as train dilution. I also think Illwei vehemently underscoring V!Stick was crucial in changing the thread mood towards Stick. So I would if pressed to give my read on Illwei this instant lean V instead of E. On top of the D1 vote considerations already. -I think Silho looks fairly V from D1 - you'd expect JNV-Silho contact to have been choreographed in the doc, and Silho's refusal to move a vote that left the Xino train viable in response to a teammate's prodding feels very V to me. Also worth noting I get a N2 Village vibe from engagement with Silho, though I'll be the first to note Silho always tonally fools me. Nonetheless, I am okay with V!Silho. -I don't see how anyone can look at D1 and D2 and not accept V!Stick. JNV is happy to vote at 2.5 hours to rollover to kill Stick. D1 JNV voting on Stick would be bringing a teammate into contention with the other lead trains - a risky move in any game without consistent vote manip. (Cf. LG74.) I am okay with this read. -At this juncture, I am going to read the posts of <TUN, Turtle, Archer/Symph> for more thoughts. -I don't really know why Archer feels the need to challenge Wiz to test Wiz's conviction though. Like, suppose you're Village. The mere fact that no one else is contesting Wiz's claim and everyone has checked in or will check in (in my case) should be good enough. So what is the point of this challenge? It feels superfluous and like an easy climbdown from an attempt to bluff. Happy to hear thoughts on this as I'm not sold on my view, but I don't really see the whole 'could not have put in the kill' deal and tbf, while I have very, very thin and fallible grounds to V!read TUN and Turtle (mentioned previously; TUN's retraction and Turtle's unnecessary shade on Araris), I don't have anything on Archer at all. Since JNV could have put in the kill, I don't really consider it an exoneration. I agree Archer should've checked first, but Archer is hardly the only player who doesn't check first, hi Gnoandngdujeoindingdong @Matrim's Dice, @Devotary of Spontaneity, @Kasimir. This is where I'm at. Thoughts, comments, questions?

Works for me, happy to stick with V!Wiz. Need to play catch-up and update vote analysis now that I'm back from classes and the wonderful world of having passed an exam by throwing out everything I knew about farming sims. Let's see: off the top of my head, the two I'm then strongest committed to as V would have to be Mat and Wiz. In a four team world with E!Mat and E!Illwei, Xino doesn't die. (I am leaning hard three member now because I can't quite see a four man team so I think the initial balance thoughts from distro match.) Again, Araris kill doesn't really make sense with E!Mat. So moving on. Maybe JNV has D1 implications but I'll relook them later. Wiz because no challenge plus challenged Archer. Plus, that D1 vote. Works for me. Can't JNV have put in the kill? No real read on Archer right now, but don't know if I'd see E!Archer as pulling that bluff. If there was one Elim left, sure, but all kills are simultaneous so it should not make a difference that JNV was killed. I'm not terribly fussed. I think it's reasonable to assume one to two more Elims, so in the worst case I don't actually care if we need to flip me this cycle to get people to stop repeatedly obsessing about me. I think we more or less have a numbers advantage so if that's what it takes to get me out of people's systems, then go for it. Kas. Here, I'll help out with all three votes. 8-1 7-2 7-1 / 6 -2 There's a decent buffer so I don't especially care. I should note that Conq is a bloody stupid kill for me to make, in the first place - in a game where I'm decently active in the thread, E!me kills Illwei because Illwei will always eventually go onto me and is a bother to wrangle. In fact, killing Illwei sets Conq free to paranoid on you and Stick, I exploit that fracture line in thread the next day because I need a divided Village, and Conq was fairly robustly-committed to V!me. In an E!me world, Shining is E and I can reasonably count on Stick pushing Shining again. [Edited to add: I'm tired - in an E!me world, Shining is V, so I would allow a Shining ML.] There's no strategic and sensible reason to go for Conq. This on top of everything else I've said about how this makes no sense with my E play. But sure, if we need to be getting this out of our systems, then I will do the necessary. Going to look at the past two cycles now and rework my reads - I will be disappointed if no one bothers to engage with them at the very least after I flip. Edited to add 2: Hell, I just realised. Why the hell would E!me sign off on a C1 kill of Araris either, knowing what Araris experienced in the previous QF, either? I consider playing with him a real pleasure and given his early death, and the fact he wasn't pushing me or my purported teammates and willing to sus Illwei should mean there's really no reason for E!me to be cool with killing him. Damn, y'all really like to think I'm bloody ruthless. Let's just be clear - in an E!Xino, E!JNV team, there's no way E!Kas does not get to say "I don't like Araris as a kill."

That's what I struggle with. I feel Illwei and Stick basically require conservative play, or I suppose a gamble that Xino could self-pres, but that doesn't quite fit with his player profile. Do you think that not getting E!Silho exed and in turn, drawing attention to Xino might count as a reward? Are you saying that E!you wouldn't do that? FWIW, I don't know - this is why I'm asking Mat (especially) and other players to weigh in. I dislike the fact that the vote analysis and post analysis tug in opposite directions and I think the whole point of this game is to collectively solve. And out of curiosity, what is your response to Illwei and Stick's point about your posts emerging from an Elim mindset? I'm least worried about that, because I think that's very easy to ascertain via a pattern of behaviour, by allowing players enough rope to hang themselves. Thread control is important in this game. So much thread control that an E!Coinshot died D1? And...somehow this leads to the inference that there's at least one Elim on the Shqueeves train? Question for you. Suppose you lynch me or someone kills me. Grant me, even if it stretches credulity, the proposition that I flip Village. What's your gameplan from there? Who do you flip next on the Shqueeves train, if you think at least one of the Shqueeves train is Evil? Ah yes, someone has to introduce me to this fellow Kas, who has a significant amount of thread control and is universally trusted and not at all suspected So...I'm suspicious because you don't think anyone suspects me, despite people mentioning they have me as a potential Elim - despite Illwei mentioning last cycle that she had reservations about me, despite Mat and Illwei being more or less being universally considered Village and also not being suspected, and also having reservations about me. And in fact, I'm so suspicious that you want to put me on the table 'just in case', but need to go re-read my posts to look for ammo against me. Ok, that checks out What thread influence? I put my ideas down. Illwei and Stick are A+ post readers - if I try anything sneaky, there is a good chance they'll catch me. V!Stick has caught E!me very early on at least twice. V!Mat has too (yes yes Mat, if I don't acknowledge this, I suppose you'll never let me live.) People can agree or disagree with them, e.g. Illwei and Stick disagreeing with my take on your voting patterns. My job is to put my thoughts down and to keep discussion flowing because Village needs discussion. That's it. If anything, E!me doesn't like to do this because trying to force discussion is uninteresting and suffering. Do you think Illwei has thread influence? Mat? Conq? Do you think they're driving agenda, influencing reads? So where does this picture of me having unrivalled and unparalleled and uncontestable thread influence emerge from? Kinda smells funny. I would be the first to disagree. I show up. And I will agonise and revise my reads to the last second granted me, which is admittedly something E!me doesn't do and I struggle to disguise (see: Maili calling E!me out for read confidence.) Sure, the fact I will revise ad infinitum is good because I usually get to the right answer in the end, but that's only by virtue of kicking the thread into action and being willing to rethink a gazillion times. It's also a weakness, as you and Shining discovered by ruthlessly FUDing me last game. If you're V, Stick is V, Conq is V, and Illwei is V (which seems a bit extreme, so I do question it, even though I don't feel inclined to revise those reads just yet), the Village has an analytical powerhouse, you'll all more than exceed anything I can do, so I don't have significant worries on that front if it takes flipping me to get there. I don't really know if E!me should be resolved fast just because it's E!me compared to basically the principle Es should be resolved fast, but it is what it is. All my E games have felt like an uphill struggle. Like...is it possible to sort of explain it? Yeah, I guess. But at the same time, like Mat says, the expected reward there just boggles me and I don't know. I would probably apply pressure there, that's for sure. I admit I regret holding fire though Well, that and the theorised Shining train, but also just - the fact that there was such a consensus about where the Elims were hiding and the fact there was little real contestation or vote activity (not in a high temperature way early) makes me wonder if it was because the consensus pool was 'comfortable' and wrong. I don't know. I need to go think through that. That's not happening tonight, unfortunately. And yes, for the record, it could imply we need to look outside the <Shining, JNV> set and I'm more than perfectly okay with that. Not for the first time, I point out I'm not much of a post-reader Maybe TJ can ID teammates from posts but I really can't reliably do that. Which means that I'm reluctant to try, but I flag it anyway in the hopes someone more able at that form of analysis than me can take a crack at it. Oh, fair point about QF61. I'll go look it up. I don't blame you, it was a very ersatz C1 for me and I accept the implications I think I've been fairly upfront about my thought process so far as soon as I've been able to get back into the game, even if it has been all over the place, so hopefully that will also be helpful in allowing people to read me or to try to find/formulate suspicions. Something I'm hesitating to say but kind of just want to, since there seems to be widespread ignorance about my meta - if I'm E, Xino doesn't die C1 without a fight. There's no point at all in thread control if you can't use it to defend key players on your team when they need it, and letting go of a Coinshot is a painful trade. It's a comment I've made before about how Evil players sometimes get too caught up in trying to appear Village and not in asking what good that does for their team, and I've been sympathetic to Illwei's rants on that front. I absolutely have always been willing to sacrifice myself for my team, and I held on for what, three cycles? Four cycles? As a solo Elim trying to protect Orlok despite more or less suffering a mental breakdown trying to fight Aman, Mat, and Illwei at the same time. I wasn't present for Fifth, but I was present around EoD, as I mentioned, if silent because I was distracted by RL. But no matter how RL makes me feel, I do not put my feelings over the needs of my team if I can at all help it. Xino would have needed me. I would have answered. Not going to say too much about what I'd have done - I have some ideas, but that distracts from the thread. What's key is if you think I have that much thread control and am that dangerous, then you likely assent to the proposition I could have at the very least thrown significant friction into Xino's lynch. Take it for what it's worth. Obviously, I could be Evil. But V!me and dead!me have been fairly consistent in sketching out my meta across docs and games, and this is basically up my alley. I take one for my team, whether Village or Evil, and I'd rather take the exe or NK than let my teammates die, if I can possibly help it. In Xino's case, the strategic implications definitely point towards keeping Xino alive where possible. No particular reason to be saying this, and it does violate what Araris and I consider a cardinal rule of play, but the collective ignorance about my meta after all this time is rather astounding, and I've never been very good at not running my mouth off, so take this for what it's worth, and I'll see you on the other side of rollover, or in the dead doc, whichever happens

I don't know I'd agree with that profile, but @Matrim's Dice worked with Shining in both Shining's games, so I think he'd be a useful barometer. My observation from playing against E!Shining as a Villager is that Shining thought a good play in a cycle (C4, for anyone who wants to refer to QF62) where the Village was going to lynch E!Mat was to commit hard and come in late and support Mat staunchly - Refuge in Audacity, if you will. He gambled that if he supported Mat extremely strongly, we wouldn't read him as Evil for it. My view is that the conservative play is to distance and to bandwagon. I'll also note that Shining basically tried to play the derpclear / new(er) player bluff, though not in the traditional way, so that's very much within his repertoire. To me, that indicates flexibility. He definitely had me indecisive on the basis of his tone. (Not necessarily relevant here, but I'm bringing the profile up since we're on the topic - I'd say flexible player with a decent amount of risk-positivity, but I cannot definitively rule out conservative play in this instance. I presume your theory then is that you more or less picked up his actual considerations vis-a-vis what kept him off defending Xino.) He also explicitly paid attention to how players were trying to clear other players as Village and to use those reasons - so it was an explicitly targeted sort of blending in. I'll probably go back and look to see if that shows up in any posts, but that's a later problem. Now, could the game have had an effect? I'd expect so - people usually learn from experience. It's possible that Shining decided that it didn't work and went back to being conservative, since he got lynched the cycle after Mat. 1. Agree in that I don't see a break as being explicitly V/E-indicative, but believe the Es have more incentive to sit back, as tie-breaking could draw unnecessary condemnation - late vote movements tend to draw attention. Relying on the fact that Vs would likely break the tie no matter what, and if it is a V/V tie, then you have no investment in how it is broken, only that it is broken. I note that Wiz has a tendency to E!read late vote movements (cf. Elan's recent MR) so I do not know if E!Wiz would try to use it on a meta level. Don't think we substantively disagree on assessment of the situation post-Mat (in a V-V world) and on Wiz. 2. As I said, my issue with Shining right now is I feel the votes and the post reads point in different directions. I accept I prioritise votes more, as I presume you and Illwei prioritise the posts more, but it bothers me that they don't talk to each other at all, because they come from the same player and alignment! I will concede it is probably easier to reconcile the votes than the posts, but even so. But I would agree that in an E!Shining world, that vote shift would explain things, but also: Two things on my akan datang list due to time (I just got back from night classes, it is 12:30AM, I have class tomorrow, w00ts.) I list them because someone else can do them as well and I'd probably encourage it but will still do it myself: - Evolution of lynchlist across D2 - Vote progression analysis I recall noting at some point about how much people are agreeing on the <JNV, Shining, Shqueeves> shortlist in the cycle. It was late, and a brief impression, so I didn't have the bandwidth to chase it down, but it's something I want to look at. I'm not sure how often strong agreement occurs and I think it could be noteworthy (though how to interpret?) if suspicions have coalesced so narrowly. It's also very blatant and showy, though. Does E!TUN do that? I presume that at some point, an Elim will actively exploit the dgaf = Village line of reasoning, but I can't help but think an Elim team with one member down doesn't play around as much. Easier to simply not vote at all. Also - for TUN, it's a weak Village read, on the basis of him unvoting when tied with Wiz: This is the situation. And TUN simply unvotes and doesn't put his vote elsewhere. Sure, it's insanely early in the cycle, but it doesn't really cost him to leave his vote there. The counterpoint could be: it's early, and also that at that point, TUN felt certain his teammates would protect him. This is fair depending on your theorised team and if you believe Wiz and Mat are Village, (also Stick I guess) since that's two potential trains capable of taking off. But it still seems a counterintuitive move for E!TUN to make, I suppose, so that nudges me a bit towards V. I did entertain E!TUN insofar as: Half takes it back, and then votes on another train other than TUN, further diluting the votes and making the tie even more stable. Slight ??? of TUN here from Xino's attitude - I don't consider it as damning as vote dilution but I think it's definitely a bit more friendly to TUN than I'd expect off his comments. TUN for now I guess I can change it or roll a die for it later on. Yes I know sorry I quote myself because it is late and I am CBA tired and past!me probably was thinking better than I am now, just let me do it. Basically that flag of TUN and half-taking it back is kinda weird, especially since Xino...has voted alongside TUN in the same post. But I don't really know how to read it, other than that it could be perfunctory softballing to distance from a teammate. But I don't really feel it since he didn't vote there. IDK. Your thoughts? I think my main worry is that it's like LG73. (Like, how do you want to think about the Elim team? If you want to think Ash will nudge team compositions to make sure at least one active is on, then I'm in a quandary because one reason I was not sure about Stick was simple PoE - I had strong V reads in you and Mat, somewhat less but still there in Illwei, Araris flipped Village, I sure as hell know I'm Village so who the hell is left in that profile? But ok - suppose Stick is Village. Then I'm more or less committed to what consensus already is, that the team is hiding in low or semi actives. Though I suppose it's less of a problem for you because you suspect Mat ) We've had games before when the Elims had low vote control, a low activity profile and Devo just ruthlessly bussed every single one of her teammates. We probably only found TUN via map hoarding or something like that. It felt like that game was just hunting for needles in a haystack and I don't recall how we did it, but we did have to ruthlessly vote despite low information. Not saying we have to do it here. I could be badly wrong about the profile of the Elim team. I think my thought just is that if that's where reasoning and arguing with people and adjusting your evidence takes you, then sometimes it do be that way.

This is still my main issue with E!Silho, and I'd like to know how @Illwei or @_Stick_ account for Silho staying put in E!Silho world. I feel like the vote analysis and the post analysis currently just talk past each other. Like...I agree that given E!Coinshot has one extra free kill, willingly surrendering that when the goal is just to survive one Turn is just weird decision-making, and Silho was in a position to affect that. I guess it's not impossible that Silho thought that swapping a vote was too risky, and that a tie was fine/Xino could self-pres, but IDK. Risk appetite question? I suppose the counter to that is that if we think there has to be an Elim on the Shqueeves train (why? - if V!Stick, V!Shqueeves, either train is fine for the Elims - there's only an issue if you hypothesise E!Silho and the train swing was to pad away from Silho.) - leaving that parenthetical aside, if we think there has to be an Elim on the Shqueeves train, then I'm more or less committed to Silho. But I'm not really sure I am committed to that view yet. Akan datang. Vote analysis later. @Illwei - You mentioned you think Wiz might be E. Why? I'm of the view that Xino trying to put a distancing vote on E!Wiz that early is odd - I guess one could say it's early and Xino always planned to withdraw, but it is a fairly blase way of calling attention to a teammate. My other thing about Wiz is that as far as I can tell, the vote situation would've been a tie, causing no one to die, before Wiz intervened to vote Shqueeves. In an E!Stick world, this is obviously bad. (I guess? Or is the theory that the Elims are so far down they have to force a ML? But basically almost anyone could've done it anyway.) In a V!Stick world, this is...unnecessary for E!Wiz. It's possible there's some level of meta-play there, but Stick intuitively feels like the better ML for the Elims - Shqueeves has historically never been very active in any game not QF30 (Devo can feel free to correct me there as I believe they have playhistory.) Skimmed the thread but I'll do the vote analysis for last Turn later if I'm not dead knackered after class tonight. If not, I'll do it after class tomorrow .__. Impression is of the last minute swing - but if V!Stick, then that just seems odd. Elims have no particular reason to gaf about the Stick-Shqueeves brawl, so how does it get swingy? If E!Stick, swinginess is obvious. No assessment until I get the time to look through the vote progression. Intuitive theory has to do with nascent JNV/Silho trains in a V/V ShTick world.

Yeah, but I do think that matters, you know? Not to the kill, but it's why I was pretty willing to sorta go V!Mat and then commit after the vote analysis. I think it's no secret that Araris does comment a bit about being killed when afk, and I also think that you're a decent sort, and given that you did push to kill him D2, and knowing his dead doc reaction about it, I can't really see E!you committing to back-to-back early kills of Araris. Just doesn't feel like it's in your character. Like, if Araris was really problematic? Sure. But it's not like the circumstances absolutely force an Araris kill, and Araris was pro-V!Mat anyway so all the more you don't have reason to do it. Edited to add: I'm going to keep my vote where it is and go sleep. I don't think I can make it back before rollover but okay, one last try. People I am not down for voting today: <Mat, Illwei, Wiz, Conq, TUN> I'm going to ignore this pool. Reasoning laid out in my posts across this cycle, but I am comfortable with it for the moment. People I am okay with voting today: <Stick, JNV, Symph, Silho, Turtle, Shqueeves> Of the people in this list: -Stick doesn't seem aware of the vote counts last cycle. I'd kind of expect more awareness - I feel as though Elims should've been tracking closely given Xino was endangered. I guess it could explain why Xino went onto Mat though, if the team wasn't aware. @Conquestor - FWIW, rereading again makes me a bit more sympathetic towards your position. Nothing I can really put my finger on, just Stick reading/feeling a bit more passive than usual. -JNV seems strangely incurious about the votes on them. I don't know how Evil that is - given the loss of Xino, which puts E!JNV's team one player down, I'd feel that they'd at least be conscious of that, but they don't seem to be, which is ??? I guess they could be doing the meta play, which is to studiously ignore and just conceal don't feel, IDK. JNV especially not reacting or even registering they're getting voted on is odd - where's the self-pres? Why isn't there any? JNV just shows up, comments, and doesn't even vote? -Turtle N1 seems strangely unaware of how obviously clearing Araris's vote should be. I feel like E!Turtle doesn't need to do that - just kill Araris? But Turtle's takes are also...odd? A kinda a bit adjacent to the thread. IDK. -Symph is on some form of inactivity warning. @Ashbringer - When will Symph be replaced, if she falls afoul of the filter? Depending on Ash's answer, I'm fine with leaving Symph to be replaced or filter-killed, rather than going there right now. -With Silho, there's the whole thing Mat pointed out about how E!Silho just listens to JNV and moves off. Which happens, to be clear, at this point of the votes: Just four minutes later, Araris makes that pivotal swap from Stick to Xino. He does so at almost an hour to EoD. I think I agree with Mat's take here. E!Silho should take the chance to retract or just cook up some reason to get off Xino and cause a Stick ML. As it stands, Xino is one of two lead trains. An hour to EoD isn't the time to dig your heels in. So adding Silho to the list of players I don't want to vote for this cycle and moving on. -For Shqueeves, I don't really like this post, and I'm not sure why: There's also my earlier thought about Shqueeve's only Conq vote, which boils down to: Wow, quoting myself now, I guess I'm really tired and CBA. I think I'm fine staying on Shqueeves for now. No guarantees will be around for rollover but if people can inject more clarity into the mess of my thoughts, will be grateful.

I think he's Village, and I'm more willing to think he's Village than I am to think you're Village, relatively. I've spelled out my thoughts in the massive vote progression analysis post I did on the first page of this, but to summarise, I don't think E!Mat does the two vote bump to Xino here: There's basically no reason to do it, and it calls unnecessary attention to Xino, even if Araris is currently in the lead. I don't think you, Mat, and Xino are all Evil together - it's an odd gambit world, sure, but I'm not going to go there until/unless there is a long string of MLs. And ngl if you guys consciously bussed your Coinshot, I won't actually mind losing to you for pulling that off. Xino basically has no reason to vote E!Mat because Xino is savable, so that distancing theatre makes zero sense. Without Mat, and before you joined, it is a three vote train, so similar reasoning to the one I've had for Conq. Why bother with ersatz distancing? Conversely, E!Mat doesn't last minute vote Xino alongside you - it's not implausible he reacted extremely quickly because he knew the maths the moment you voted Xino, but I still find it a bit too fast a reaction for a bus realisation. So on both sides, it doesn't seem right to me. Sure, but funny enough, as much as my gut read off those posts was V!Mat (more engaged and solvy that in the QF), I also only associate early sus of V!me (if it's Mat) with E!Mat - V!Mat has tended not to do that. If Mat really is V, perhaps there are other reasons for it, but that was enough for me to switch, and I just wanted to see what I could get out of more pressure on Mat. It didn't help that his reasons for his sus on me were framed in the same vague way he'd tried to sus me in the last QF where he was Evil. So basically was all over the place, and decided to go hit Mat and see what happened. It's also worth pointing out that I was extremely distracted and not playing the game properly until I sat down in this mega-post and tried to properly think through - I hadn't even read after my last D1 post and just half-skimmed everything before that mega-post happened. That marked the first time I sat down and seriously tried to analyse or think things through. I can't say more about why - but I wasn't very functional at that point. Doing better now. I'm just going to leave it at that. Edited to add: @Illwei - Missed one and the reason I have higher credences in V!Mat than V!Illwei: I also don't see an Araris N1 kill as coming from any E!Mat world. Not when Mat was responsible for pushing an Araris D2 ML when Araris was afk in the last QF. There's no paucity of targets, e.g. you, Conq (ok maybe not Conq, since he was NKed pretty early, but you get the picture.)

I guess what I'm trying to say is I find it odd that an E!Stick-E!Xino argument...convinces you to go off the strong E!Mat take you've been having. But I also really don't think your voting history makes sense for E!Conq which is what I've been arguing in the thread, so that's good enough for me Nah, Devo is deadly. But I'll say the mid-cycle issue was to a significant extent (IIRC) pushed by players like Araris, and Araris and Devo called me out on this in AG8 when I was expecting the Elims to make incriminating late tiebreakers, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It's entirely possible the meta has shifted as the general crowd has also changed from those games somewhat. Simply put, I was really half out of the game until I forced myself to sit down and do vote progression analysis even if I really didn't feel like it Had to do with the fact I didn't want to get Ash to waste a pinch-hitter on me when he might actually need the pinch-hitter elsewhere and I felt I could at least try to give the minimum level of activity that I signed up for. So I am sort of kind of getting back into it, and I guess it's like inertia. Which is to say it's easier once you force yourself to do it, and at least I won't die feeling as though I let people down because I will have tried and done more than half-heartedly lurking because of RL stuff. Also because I don't really think the confbias comes up except for the Stick argument. IDK if I'd call the Mat/Illwei ones confbias, I'd just disagree with them.

Conq moves, xino last-second votes as self-pres. Could point to xino, but IMO, self-pres votes tend to be NAI, so having xino be the saving vote on himself is invaluable. And as Illwei points out, when you have a one-shot Coinshot, just being able to survive that one Turn it takes to bring about a Village death is good. There's no reasonable world in which an Evil vig doesn't immediately kill at Night, I think. Very few Village players, given only one shot at a protect, would choose to protect in the first Night - too risky. So killing N1 is the smartest move. Just a raw comparison - in which world are they better off? This world? Or one in which one of <Mat, you (if Village), Araris> is dead, they get two free kills at night, and potentially lose Xino the next day?

Does this imply that there was likely no one in the doc to have noticed that? Or at least poor doc tracking? Or that someone in the doc had to point out to him that Mat wasn't a saving train? Devil's advocate is fine and good, Melkor, just probably not a rabbit hole I want to go down right now >>

Your vote at that point was on Xino, so if your vote was moveable, that's basically confirming that Xino could be saved. But no, what I mean is, again, look at this: If E!Conq votes on one of these bolded trains, with Xino, he forms a three vote train. This is pretending the last teammate doesn't exist. Even in a world where your vote isn't moveable, Xino doesn't die. And as he points out in the post where he votes on Xino, He posts thirty-two minutes prior to rollover. It's not unreasonable to expect a certain amount of stability, even if it is also wishful thinking IMO. Doesn't that just mean you or Araris are Evil Edited to add: @Matrim's Dice - I note that also, in a world where your vote is moveable, given your vote was on Xino, that's only all the better for them. Even had Conq attracted a vote or two, what of it? Doesn't matter, he had zero, splitting the vote never hurts and sometimes is your best bet. I don't know if it is an Elim play/risk appetite thing here - it really feels like a 'he'd have to be gambiting' kind of call to make. Agree Conq is nowhere near a line I want to pursue at this point.

Yeah, but not on page 1. And you've been playing since then: have you seen that happening? By early, I usually mean maybe mid-cycle - as opposed to the convention that last minute (say, three hours to rollover thereabouts) tie-breakers are Evil, which used to be dominant pre-2021. Eh, that's almost not a bus already, and more a gambit I feel. Bussing when you can't save a teammate is one thing. Bussing a Coinshot when you could have otherwise saved them is a whole different meta from just bussing. Edited to add: @Conquestor - I should add, not on page 1, not five hours after a forty-eight hour Turn just began, and not in response to a single player's poke vote. This feels a tad like confbiasing at this point. Edited to add 2: @Matrim's Dice - You played with E!Xino in Ash's MR. Any recollection of how opportunistic or protective Xino gets?

Why so? Sticking point for me is Conq being fourth voter on Xino. Noted it could be bus territory by that point but IDK - Conq mentioned getting off for the night, and I'd think the last place you put your vote is on your teammate if you know you can't get back, and your teammate could be saveable otherwise. I think the main challenge an E!Conq world has to address is: this is the state of the votes shortly before Conq moves on Xino. I can kinda see this being a bus, but Xino feels intuitively saveable if E!Conq had just stacked up on one of <Stick, Araris, Mat> at that point in time. (Ignoring a third teammate - as far as they know, they get to three votes, which means a tie, if Conq just votes one of these, and Xino self-preses, as he'll later do.) So it's an odd choice to make, bussing. Edited to add: Ouch