Orlok Tsubodai

I’m sorry, Monster, but I’m really not well at the moment. I’d hoped to get back to the game today, but it doesn’t look like I’m up to it. I’ll respond to everything as soon as I can.

I’m both really quite unwell right now, and celebrating my election to a Society Committee position. I’ll be back online tomorrow, but am going to prioritise sleep tonight.

I’m actually quite grateful to have been mentioned, Monster. I have been detached recently. I’m not terribly well at all - hence the lack of activity over the last 36 hours. I’ve been in PMs with El recently - she contacted me at the turn of the cycle. I retracted my vote at about 4am. I’d been awake at that point for nearly 22 hours. I didn’t have the energy to replace my vote, and had been trying to sleep for hours at that point. I’m about to go to a Society AGM, but should be online in a few hours, and will do my best to reengage.

I maintain, Fifth, that we wouldn’t have got any more information from continuing to lynch you than that which we obtained. By changing it, we found Survival, and saw who people would vote for under pressure at the end of the cycle. I think that gives us plenty to analyse.

I suspect that as players start dying in the Long Game, we’ll see an uptick in signups here. It may be worth extending signups once again to allow this, but I don’t think giving people two accounts is a viable solution.

To clarify, as it appears I wasn’t clear earlier, my fear is that Cultivation gets used as a viciously effective weapon for manipulation. It will have a high degree of control over PMs that exist, and is likely to end up in the hands of an eliminator. My suggestion was that we reduce that very real risk by having villagers go for it, but I suppose that everyone being very clear that Cultivation (and indeed anyone put in a PM with you) may well be manipulating you serves enough of a purpose. I wasn’t advocating that Cultivation claim, and more pointing out that whilst most people will take two cycles to get a single PM, if they bother at all, Cultivation can get four in that timeframe, and so may well become known simply through people being in contact with them.

@Steeldancer, you did see that Pyromancer claimed Survival? Given the above, I think he’s highly unlikely to be a villager. I’m of the view that it is likely that he remained Survival, but acknowledge that it’s possible that he’s Khriss or Hoid.

I certainly don’t think so, and seriously hope not. I can’t find any posts I’ve made in all caps, and if it did somehow happen to exist, would not have been deliberate. In an effort to keep discussion going, your suspicions in light of Pyromancer’s claims, @Steeldancer? I’d also invite further thought from all players on the danger of releasing Cultivation, given its potential to become a very effective tool of manipulation. If we do decide to release it, I suggest we go for it in large numbers, to try to achieve as high as possible a chance to keep it from the eliminators. That said, I think it might even be counterproductive for a villager to hold, in that whoever holds it will be subjected to significant scrutiny and potentially a mislynch.

@Fifth Scholar, Kas has a very good post somewhere from LG12 that El likes to reference. I’ll try to dig it out, but the important point it makes is that the threat of a lynch with intent to kill is what generates most of the information, as opposed to the lynch itself. Whilst your actions typically shouldn’t clear you (and indeed don’t beyond tonight), the timing of when you made them - just before you went to sleep, and as the US was going to sleep, cleared you to me. I don’t see you making a post like that without knowing that it would be highly unlikely that a lynch would shift off you. It was a gamble I don’t see an early stage eliminator team making, with the higher than normal risk, and the significant payoff of keeping you alive to give control over Shards. With that in mind, we’d already received all the information we could have got from actually following through and lynching you. Keeping the lynch on you removed it’s intent to kill anyone else, and so actually reduced information generation. We can see that when we returned the lynch to being a threat to most players, we got significant amounts of information both from Pyromancer and about who other players would vote for under pressure at the end of a cycle.

Even if we don’t lynch you, there’s value in a lynch discussion, and time left in the cycle yet. TheYoungPyromancer ought to reduce the threshold for a successful counterlynch.

It’s 4:12am, Pyromancer. I’m trying to work out whether you’re simply bluffing, whether you’re Khriss or Hoid, or whether you are indeed Survival.

My apologies - I’d forgotten that that existed completely.

How can you have taken investiture from two Shards as Survival? My understanding is that it is Khriss that has that ability.

If you’re survival, as you claim, what did you do last night cycle that results in your having no charges?

If you’re worried about the lynch being on you, I’d give out whatever information you have that you think will save you. I’d be surprised if the lynch on Fifth continues, given his evident innocence (as of this cycle, to be clear. This is a conversion game, and through being so obviously good he’s made himself an excellent conversion target).

Seven, as of the last point the analysis was updated.

I’m afraid I’m not sure what you’re asking for here. If you add together all instances of mentions of Hoid, Khriss, and all the Shards (at the point to which the analysis is complete), you have 160 mentions. Of these, 37 are of Khriss, 20 of Hoid, and 103 of the Shards. Notably, 59 of those 103 are of Odium.

I’m certainly not in favour of a Fifth lynch at this point - although I suppose it’s a viable strategy to claim to want to be lynched as he’s done, the way he’s put it nearly clears him in my mind and takes away any advantage of lynching him for information. @Elbereth, I apologise. I’d meant to say “most normal games”, which is true. 25% is the highest point of the range we see, and is very rare in my recollection anyway - we typically see closer to 20%. 27% is high compared to that, and is made more dangerous by it being conversion, and so a team with higher cohesion. Not only that, but the Shards take a lot of the focus away from the eliminator factions. When my analysis was last updated (admittedly quite a few hours ago, it now being 3:22am here), Hoid and/or Khriss had been mentioned in only 36% of posts mentioning either them or any Shard. Given a large proportion of the time both were mentioned together, the actual attention given to them is much less than is indicated by that number. This being the case, I think my trying to draw attention to the eliminator factions is entirely warranted. I’ll address the rest of the discussion later if I continue to be unable to sleep, but will restate that I think a lynch on Fifth at this point would be counterproductive.

TheYoungPyromancer, is your reason for not revealing your plan invalid, as you say in the first quoted post, or do you have another plan necessitating keeping it quiet? You seem to be contradicting yourself here when challenged.

Would you care to reveal it, then, if your reason for withholding it is invalid?

If you’re happy revealing your plan in a PM, why wouldn’t you reveal it in the thread? Anyone could PM you, making them no less secure than the thread. Why restrict that information? With both of them converting, that gives six eliminators, and an overall percentage of eliminators at 27% - much higher than normal games. I’d imagine they’re converting early, which reduces the likelihood of them hitting Shards. I provided good reasons for that in my earlier post. If the eliminators acquire Cultivation, they’re able to use it to great effect for manipulation through controlling the majority of PMs in the game.

Would you state your reasoning for wanting Cultivation alive in a PM? I’m not sure why you consider the conversion factions a lesser threat than Shards. The Shards work independently, rather than in concert, are much less likely to have anti-village win conditions if they ever acquire them, and aren’t the only sources of kills. We’ve only had one true serial killer victory if Steeldancer is correct, with Mage and my victories being in no small part the results of overpowered roles. Conversion factions can handpick their teams, and it’s entirely possible that they can handpick their Shards as we move later into the game. Your thoughts on the potential of a Cultivation to manipulate the village? Which Shard did you go for last cycle in order to now have no investiture? @Fifth Scholar, I’d first address the point you made about Headshot believing two conversions occurred. I agree with Headshot entirely on this. Although sacrificing the potential of receiving a Shard N0, Hoid and Khriss both dramatically increase their ability to take Shards N1 through converting N0 (and Hoid particularly). They also alleviate the risk of the D1 lynch hitting them, and wiping out their entire faction. I think for now I’m going to vote for Jondesu. @Jondesu is downplaying the likelihood of success of this lynch in a way that strikes me as suspicious, given we’ve had games with a similar ratio of eliminators before, and given the ratio will only increase from 4/22 to 6/22.

I’m not sure that I agree with your assessment. Our odds are likely already 4/22, and will only grow to a maximum of 6/22. Not lynching this cycle on those odds seems strange, when we’ve had games starting with a similar eliminator ratio.

Right, hence “nearly all”. I am interested in the apparent change in tone between these two posts, though. You first indicate reliance or desire to keep Cultivation alive. After I point out the likelihood that it’s used for manipulation, you profess total lack of reliance on it. Would you explain your views in the first post I quoted?

Thinking on this, I’m not sure Cultivation helps the village significantly. I’d be surprised if Hoid and Khriss didn’t convert during N0, given the advantages a convert gives them in their ability to take Shards N1. That being the case, both Hoid and Khriss have pretty good shots at Cultivation in the coming night cycle. As such, we could well end up in a situation where nearly all our PM access comes from an eliminator team, which strikes me as a situation ripe for manipulation. I’m not sure what can really be done about this. Khriss’ team should be able to take two investiture from Cultivation, and the same from Hoid, although Hoid can lower the requirement to two. We’re unlikely to get enough villagers going for Cultivation today to give us a significantly greater likelihood of holding it than that of Hoid or Khriss - even with four villagers, we have only an even chance. One option might be for all villagers to refrain from taking Cultivation’s investiture, to give us certainty that it’s held by an eliminator. If Cultivation is released, they won’t get investiture anyway, and I think there’s a high chance that Cultivation is used to manipulate the village. That said, I do think this requires far too much cooperation to be plausible, and I don’t like the idea of restricting players’ choice, so would just advise wariness from players contacted by Cultivation, or indeed players placed in any PM.