Mark IV

@_Stick_, your interactions with Devo seem designed to distance yourself from her, from memory. I wouldn't be surprised if Devo tried to bus another teammate last cycle, given she already kinda bussed Illwei. Which makes me think you, _Stick_ might be the last elim. Sorry I've not said a thing this cycle. I meant to post yesterday but just been busy. :/

But why? Then who do you think is the most likely solo elim, if we consider that possibility for a second? Or do you strongly suspect that there are indeed 2 elims? And what's your rationale for saying I'm not likely to be an elim if there's just one left? If I perform the same analysis, Devo really is the only one that could be paired up with Xino or Stick in my opinion, and is also the likely elim if there's just one solo elim left. She's just the common denominator for me right now, as I see it. (I know what mine is, but I'd like to hear your rationale first, Devo). Seems like the Monday Blues are hitting everyone hard today. XD

Sorry about my silence. I've had some OOG reasons I've not been able to look at the thread at all over the past 24 hours. I don't think I have the time to look at the thread this during what's left of this turn either. Rotten time to be caught up in affairs, but that's just how it is. I think part of the issue is that Illwei didn't really leave many obvious breadcrumbs to follow, either false or true. Sticks analysis of Devi's posts seems helpful, at least. However, I have no read on Stick themself, so I don't know to what extent I should trust the points Stick's laying emphasis on and, more importantly, what they're omitting (talking specifically about the possibility of an e!Stick here). Stick's analysis shines a more positive light on Devo, esp the vote tie. The only issue I see is that I don't see a Xino + Illwei team given their play styles this game. Sure, there could be a third person, but then that's one of Stick or Devo (given my reads on Conq and Shining). Regardless, I'm retracting my vote for now, but I will be coming online later to place it towards the end of the cycle. (Mostly because I don't have the time to analyse right now, unfortuantely). Devo Also, this kinda sticks out to me (no pun intended) Either this is a v!Stick expressing their woes or an e!Stick subtly hinting that they're Village, imo. Not sure which though

Haven't reread C1/2 yet, but I just realised it was Xino who voted for you, not Illwei. I keep getting confused between the two for some reason. :/ Not much to say yet, but I thought I'd point it out.

I guess the last minute train really caught the elims off guard, given that Illwei was an Odd Favoured, which means she could have protected herself if she had submitted the order. Which means that either she was just inactive toward the end of the cycle and submitted no orders or had both orders for looking for coins. Either way, last cycle's vote was realy informative, especially the way it swayed around. Devotary. Yours was the last vote on Illwei. Given that Illwei didn't put in her self-protect order on (odd) cycle 3, I assume Illwei wasn't online at the time. So, (and this is now hypothesis), an e!Devo decided to capitalise on it and voted for Illwei to gain some credibility once it was clear that the 3v1v1 VC wasn't going to flip again. If Illwei had finally come onine, she'd have had to submit a self-protect order anyway, regardless of your voting on her. To me, an e!Devo + e!Illwei team seems possible. Illwei's random votes on you could have been a bold distancing tactic, possibly? The issue is that Illwei didn't really contribute much to discussion C1 and early C2. I'd have to reread C2/3 to see how you two have interacted though. My vote for now is somewhat incorporeal given I don't have concrete evidence linking you to Illwei, but, as mentioned, I intend to reread C2/3 and I'll leave my vote here until I do so, if for nothing but the sake of discussion. That aside, @_Stick_. Idk, just poking you again. Any comments on last cycle? I know it's a lot to catch up on, but we're at a crititcal cycle now. If there are in fact 2 more elims as Conq suggested, then we could possibly reach parity next cycle (though someone had mentioned that the elim win condition is to outnumber the villagers, not reach parity?). But, it'll be terribly hard to win if we are, in fact, at parity. Also, the vote cancellation on Mat is interesting. E: @Devotary of Spontaneity, because vote on you

Ah, well, do dice feel dice in their heads? I meant, claim if you think losing your role would really hurt the village.

Oh, Conq My bad. VC: Mat (3): Stick, Conq, Devotary Conq (3): Mat, Shining, Mark E: I don't think Conq knows we're voting for him, possibly? @Conquestor, because might as well, what with the variable roll over.

Ugh, why do you have to make sense. The zero resistance is still fine because of how fast it happened. My earlier theory was that the elim team was Mat + Xino (idk, there could be a third, but I'd prefer to not think about that for now). If that's the case, neither Xino nor you had any time to really stop the train after Shining and I shifted my votes. However, your point on Conq does raise my suspicions about him again. I'm wont to chalk it off to a mistake though - same as you thinking Me + Shining would be a viable team given that I have been the second vote on Shining for a while now and it doesn't make sense for e!me to wait until the last minute to pull a weird stunt to pull the votes off of Shining when I could have just not voted on him in the first place. However, it still makes me want to reconsider my read on Conq. I'm half tempted to remove my vote and let Conq and Mat tie to see what happens though. But, it is now officially past my bed time and I can barely remember why I do or don't trust whom I do or don't trust. I will analyse Conq though, if you do turn out to be village. If you're claiming an important role, then just say it, at this point, I think. We'll worry about verifying it next cycle. E: You know what? @Archer Mat. Do you feel the dice rolling in your head, Mat?

I did already mention this in my post *shrug* (Maybe it was an elim doc convo? )

This is what I'm thinking too. I have a feeling lynching a v!Mat would be a fatal mistake, especially in the late game. But an e!Mat seems like a distinct possibility. Unfortunately, I really don't have the time to go back to C1 and re-analyse. If no one's voting Xino, then I might as well solidify the lynch on Mat. Don't want vote manip to mess things up (I'm more afraid of it now because it's about time we saw some elim vote shenanigans, but we've been voting for villagers so far, so they had no reason to do it yet. If e!Mat, then they're likely to play their hand if they indeed have vote manip). Getting the post out for now. Don't know when the cycle will end. I'll provide more justification tomorrow if req. Good night to everyone.

This is an emergency announcement to inform you that I am no longer suspicious of Shining. In fact, I have a strong Village lean on him. We have settled our differences over a nice private cup of tea. I'm not entirely sure I can say why though - it seems somewhat risky to. That said, I don't want to leave the vote to a tie either, partly because vote manip and because of my aforementioned lean on Shining. Mat. I'm sorry there's not much you can do to change my vote now. The issue is mainly that if you're not elim then I have to revaluate my reading on Conq and Devo. I.e., you're the lowest I was originally going to vote for Mat, but I think there's more to be learnt from keeping him alive, esp if he's village. As such Xino. The only other vote candidate is Illwei, but I have a slight village lean on her as well. So, I'm forced to vote outside the pool. It is possible (but rather unlikely) that Shining has tricked me. But, if he has, then I'd much rather just give up (based on the implications). So, I'm going to assume what we spoke of was, in fact, correct. E: Inb4 this comes off as a last minute elim tactic - e!Mark and e!Shining being forced to make up bad reasons to save e!Shining from the vote.

Oh, I'd hate it if I got a disappear too! Just posting to say, in signing off for the day. While I'm less confident of my Shining vote now than I was before, Shining is still my primary suspicion (because v leaning Devo and Conq, no info on Xino, Illwei or Stick and I keep flipping on Mat as well). Just a thought, but could a Mat +Xino/Illwei pairing work? I'll have to see tomorrow. Also, Shining seems rather composed about his impending death. That's somewhat interesting. I guess we'll find out if it means anything after rollover.

@_Stick_ Anything to say? Have you been able to catch up? We basically know nothing about your/Tani's role. Just mildly poking you cause I'm going to be signing off in a couple of hours and I'd like to see what you have to say about things before the cycle ends.

Roit. I meant to say Illwei in that paragraph. Mixed up Xino and Illwei as I was writing. Ugh, I meant you trusted Illwei and her v lean on Mat. I do want to vote, but I don't know what to vote for really. On the one hand, Shining's actions do seem suspicious at first glance. But, the reason's he's offering are just vague enough that they could be genuine C1/2 lack of info/gut reads rather than elim manipulation. I agree that Shining's trust in Mat after saying he was wary of him C1 is somewhat weird, especially this: Well, he defended me, so that was nice Honestly don't really know at this point. Will do some more reading, but I think it's relevant enough to mention that his activity levels are much lower here than they were in the QF game. Personally, I'd be somewhat suspicious of someone defending me so strongly so early on (it was strong by C1 standards by any rate). But, it's possible that Shining simply didn't think it suspicious or that an e!Mat's manipulation worked on Shining. I just don't know when to stop giving the benefit of the doubt, I guess. My primary issue is that, ideally, if I vote for Shining I want him to be able to defend himself. And for that, I need to have concrete allegations or something specific to point to that he would be able to counter properly if he were village. However, none of the cycles so far have been ideal and I don't think I can afford to wait around for concrete evidence either. Conq's right, this cycle's been rather tepid so far. And, I have a feeling I'll end up voting Shining by the end of the cycle if nothing changes anyway. (I'm not sure if I broke the nested quote box, but I managed to insert text into the header. Also, it's now showing me 6 of Devo's profile previews at the bottom of my page. That face is scary >.<)

Welp, having read from C1 to now, Devo certainly wins the award for most interesting posts in my book. She got 3/6 star marks!! First, just a little overview of my reads after rereading the game - I'm heavily leaning village on Conq. Their posts seem like their just genuinely pursuing whatever leads they find and it just feels vill in general. I can't put it into words well. I'm leaning somewhat village on Devo as well, though it does waver a little at times. But, overall, they tend to make points I agree with (on reread, at least) and some good observations as well. Illwei is just confusing . Their normal posts don't have much info or analysis. Their Wiz vote on C2 is mirrored by their Wiz vote on C1 as well. So, while it is still odd, it's not as unexpected as I initially thought. Conq apparently trusts Xino and Xino trusts Mat and Shining so Conq trusts Mat (to an extent). Xino made a cryptic post C2 about the "meaningless votes on Devo" meaning something about Wiz. My initial reaction was to think they meant that the Devo votes were elim votes to save an e!Wiz. But then I realised one of the Devo votes was Xino themself, which just confused me even more. *shrug* What I had initially called as Mat tunnelling on Wiz between cycles was, as Mat later pointed out, not Mat tunnelling on Wiz between cycles. Interesting Posts: C1: C2: I don't see why you couldn't have just not voted if you felt neither target was suspicious enough to vote for? I might be misunderstanding here, but if JNV was less suspicious than Mat to you, then shouldn't your vote have been either on Mat, or on someone else or on no one, but not on JNV, even if it might not have made a difference to the vote? Maybe it was time pressure; you did mention you had no time to analyse that close to end of cycle. But I'd still like to ask this. My primary suspicion is still Shining, mostly due to his voting pattern on C1 and the Wiz vote on C2. I'm not going to vote right now as I've not typed out my reasoning yet and I'm not going to type out my reasoning right now because it is well past my bed time, and I might as well let Shining respond. Tomorrow is Saturday, so I should be able to post a little earlier than this. Inb4 Elims are Xino and Illwei, the two people whom I have 0 reads on. >.< Also, Dannex's last minute vote retraction was something. XD

It still makes sense to me? 3 single votes == less activity == poke vote inactive players == poke vote Tani. While it is true that it seems counterproductive to increase 3x1 votes to 4x1, if it had had the intended effect and Tani had replied, you would have (likely) removed the vote anyway. *shrug* Okay, we are down to two-thirds of the players that we started with. I guess I'll start with Mark for now, but we'll see what happens. Sorry I didn't reply earlier. EoD is really in the middle of the night for me, so I can't respond to those posts in time. While I can read the thread during my daytime, right now is really the only time I can properly reply. Coming to your post last cycle, yes, I did try to analyse the JNV-Shining situation as I saw it and yes, I was very hesitant about my vote on JNV. Truth be told, I don't like voting D1 because I don't really have any solid reads on anyone, which is why I was as hesitant as my post made me out to be. I did also mention, as you point out, that I was voting for JNV mostly for information purposes and that I didn't exactly have a solid read on them and would have possibly changed my vote if they had replied and made new points. However, to be fair, I don't see how anyone is supposed to be sure of their C1 votes. The only difference here is that I expressed my hesitation the way I did. As for my silence last cycle, I was somewhat against the votes on Wiz last cycle. But to me, it looked like the reasoning behind those votes was primarily Wiz's change in behaviour from his past games, which I had no way to evaluate, which is why I didn't say much towards the end of last cycle; I felt it would be better to observe instead. I did wonder if I should make a post before signing off for the day saying I don't want to vote for this reason, but decided against it. I don't have much more to say in this regard. At the moment, I have a gut feeling about Shining and Mat. Mat's early defend for Shining and subsequent crosshairs on Wiz still seem somewhat off to me, but I'll have to reread C1/2 for that. Sure, while it may not exactly have been tunneling, it still rung some bells at the time. Again, I'll have to reread C1/2 to find out/remember why. As for Devo, idr my reasoning at the time. Though, yes, it has been 2 cycles now, I think I can get onto doing bad analysis now. I think my earlier reluctance was mostly because everyone felt like a blank slate at the time and I didn't want to read into things just for the sake of finding something. While I have a gut elim read on Shining, his C1/2 actions still make me think he's village when I think about it. His flip from danex to JNV, knowing now that both are village, and his later questioning of Change of mind - rereading the last cycle still makes me think Shining could be evil? Shining's last quarter vote broke the tie between Devo and Wiz. This was followed by Devo voting for Shining saying she didn't like his response to voting/not voting for Mat. Idk right now, really. I feel like I've forgotten most of C1/2 already. I think I'll reread C1/2 and then post an analysis. @Conquestor Anything else you'd like me to answer? I know my answers are mostly "I don't remember" and "I wasn't sure", which is not very informative and an easy out for an elim. There's not much I can do about not having been sure about stuff at the time, but I intend to post again once I've reread C1/2 with special focus on Mat, Shining and Devo. Also, what was Xino's vote on Devo last cycle? Conq also mentioned it. It felt much more like a C1 thing to do. @xinoehp512 was there really no reason for your vote Devo? E: Oh, also, welcome, Stick! Long time!

I'm writing a post! Give me some time! XD I keep getting distracted and start doing other things and then come back and forget my line of thought.

12 hours tho XD While I'm not saying there was a lot to do C1, all Mat did do (in terms of player analysis) was read Shining and then justify why he thought Shining was village. While I'm willing to give Shining the benefit of the doubt for the confvil plan idea, I don't see why that clears Mat? While I can't really comment about Wiz's behaviour this game (vs their behaviour in other games), I found both Wiz's and Shining's gut votes right after JNV's post were reactionary enough to give me village vibes on them. Shining did later explain his reasoning for voting for JNV and Wiz did mention he was looking for targets other than JNV to try and unbias himself, which I expect might seem like he was defending JNV instead (not voting for them even though JNV was acting fishy at the time). To me, it's really Mat's fixation with Wiz from last turn that's interesting, but I don't really know what to make of it.

Wot Illwei, Mat, Shining elims confirmed!

Surely, a small chance for primary role block is worth the risk of a few PMs (especially in "inactive role" cycles")? I assume this mechanic is balanced by the fact that roles can be even/odd and the only other primary action available is a coin search, which is a jackpot anyway. This might also hint at what (even/odd/unfiltered) type of role someone has, possibly? Though, I guess, if you really value your role that much, who am I to say otherwise? ^This is me quoting myself, emphasis mine. I just remembered I guessed at TUN having an important role. This might also be why the elims chose them for the elim kill; the kill could possibly have been based on similar reasoning like this. Not sure what this tells us really, but I thought I'd point it out now that I saw it. E: Oh, and I forgot to add - The writeup's really nice XD

Are C1 kills not always low-info kills? From when I was an elim, we'd usually not target active or vocal players on C1 cause it just leads to a less active mid and late game in general. Plus, I'd expect elims don't want to give away too many connections too quickly, unless it'es really worth the risk to silence someone (possibly for misdirection). At least, that's my take, and why I feel there's not much point reading into the low-info kill this early. Maybe it might tell more late game though, idk. Might have been wrong either way. :/ I personally suspect the vote doubler was village. (Leaving aside the possibility of a very paranoid e!Mat for a moment) Elims have no reason to double their vote so early into the game and reveal their abilities. And besides, the vote was stacked 4 vs 2 vs 1 vs ..., which might make a village Influencer think it'd be a safe occasion to announce their presence, because strengthening their vote on a candidate already two in the lead is very likely not going to change the outcome. One might, on the other hand, consider the possibility of a paranoid e!Mat, cause they were second in line with 2 votes on them, and an Influential on Mat and Slanderer on JNV could have possibly changed the outcome (though the scenario is unlikely, but I am assuming a paranoid elim team here). However, it's just too blatant and unlikely that this is indeed what happened here. I'd think there'd be better ways of counteracting this possibility for the elim team. And it's also unlikely that the elim team is this paranoid (at least, not yet?). So, I'm rather inclined to believe that the extra vote came from a village odd/unrestricted Influencer. Egg Egg I feel like I had something more to say, but eh, can't remember it now.

I count at least one vote.

I was thinking along these lines too. What would "allied" mean here exactly? From what I remember, D1 elims defending villagers were usually trying to gain trust (the meta might have changed since, idk). If that's the case here (and I'm not saying Mat is an elim for doing so, just that if they were an elim, then) Shining and Mat are more likely to not be on the "same team" (if that's your definition of allied here) (that's discounting the possibility of both being elims, ofc, but that seems a little too risky a strategy, imo). I can't seem to make sense of the vote chain that's going on right now, mostly because I keep getting confused who's who and all. Looking at individual posts though, JNV's post followed by Shining's switch stand out to me a little, but I can't seem to decide how to read it. On one hand, JNV's post is a little random and echoey without adding any substance to the discussion, really, but that's not saying much in itself. It is C1, and there really isn't much to be said (or wasn't at the time anyway). The vote seems a little bandwagon-ey to me as well but doesn't read e!JNV for the same reason danex doesn't read elim - it's too random and "loud". That being said, Shining's switch seems somewhat abrupt. The first possibility I see is they're voting for JNV because of an elim read, which also makes sense given they had voted for danex before for what was essentially a weak but consequential vote (poke vote vs echo vote now) (there's probably other reasons for an elim read, ofc). But I'd like to hear from Shining themself what exactly their reasoning was. I know I said JNV's post doesn't seem elim to me because of the random vote, but I'm flipping between analyses of his post - if I assume for a minute that JNV's vote wasn't random, then it is possible they voted to break the 4-way tie at the time between Mat, Devo, danex & Tani. Given the vote on Tani had been cast not long before JNV's (so a possible elim team wouldn't risk revealing themselves by breaking the tie yet) and that JNV themself voted for danex, that leaves mat and devo as the possible "rescue targets". If JNV does turn out to be elim, it'd be worth revisiting this, I guess. I don't entirely feel confident analysing if Mat or Devo give me an elim read or not this early into the game. Final notes: JNV mostly for more C2 information. I wasn't initially going to vote, but might as well. I might remove the vote before I go to sleep, based on what discussion happens in the next few hours. I won't be awake at rollover. Someone please double check my vote tallies right before JNV's vote. It is possible I might have missed something. And I'm sorry if my post seems a little incoherent. Most of my thinking happened as I wrote it and my opinions might have changed from the start to the end.

Surely, a small chance for primary role block is worth the risk of a few PMs (especially in "inactive role" cycles")? I assume this mechanic is balanced by the fact that roles can be even/odd and the only other primary action available is a coin search, which is a jackpot anyway. This might also hint at what (even/odd/unfiltered) type of role someone has, possibly? Though, I guess, if you really value your role that much, who am I to say otherwise? Is white text still a thing? I'm just kidding here, guys. Don't kill me for this. >.< I know this is basically a poke vote with context, but I guess I'm inherently uncomfortable with this sort of vote. I would agree with Mat here really, the vote seems kinda forced and with little scope of it being removed after any reply (because of said context). Of course, someone also mentioned that danex has done this before/does this often, so it's not terribly suspicious. But still. It just makes me somewhat uncomfortable. I don't intend to counter vote though. At least, not yet. A poke vote without teeth does seem somewhat useless though? I mean to say, shouldn't a poke vote have teeth by default? </semantics>

Ah, no problem. I'm sure playing the MR will be welcome enough Thank you, person I do not know and have not met before. Eh, there's always next time. Let's see if I still remember the old tricks. Mark Was it brackets or was it <>? <color=#1111dd> Mark </color> Wasn't there a preview post function?