Haelbarde

Wonders about a game where the elims have the same incentive

The woes of the vastly different time zone (while keeping normal hours for said timezone. ) But heh, for all that stress, the thread didn't end up mattering Ah well. Was fun putting in the work. Been a moment since I've gotten as engaged in a game. EDIT: Out of curiosity, did the threatening droid avatar have any effect on your reads?

They may have been more dangerous if active I suppose, but then equally more vulnerable. I think an extra IC would have been valuable, though I think you'd still need some change to the spying to avoid having a silent IC doc.

Having people to analyse would have been preferable. Not that I relish the thought of going up against you all at the same time. Depends on how kind you were with night kills, as far as keeping the talky people alive.

@Szeth_Pancakes Thanks for the game. I actually had a lot of fun, and ended up more active and engaged than normal It was an interesting problem to attempt to solve if nothing else, if it maybe didn't run quite as you intended, based on the tags?

Regarding the balance of the game. It quickly turned out that the best strategy for everyone involved was to just not mention the IC and the Winzik in thread, and for the doc to not be active. Which is not at all ideal, because it's a cool idea. I think it's always going to be in the village's interest to not mention it in thread, and you're not likely going to change that. If PMs are allowed, that changes things. But it also opens up the potential for the IC to make contact with other villagers privately and grow the trust group, which runs into the issues with village trust groups. Fixing the ability for the IC to speak though would be a worthwhile first step. Looking at the docs, one of the biggest issues was the tracking timing of Shard activity versus doc activity. I would wonder about instead of elim access to the live doc, instead the elims get access to all of last cycles discussion in a separate doc at the start of each cycle. That way there is no timing information available to them, and they can't immediately react to things. This is sorta how PM spying works in KKC for example. It does open the potential the IC to ID each other based on timing information without the Elims knowing, but I think that's sort of interesting - they get to know who is safe in thread, but have to be careful to not show it, else the elims use that to ID each other.

RIP GG WP. I'm glad that Aman, Kas, and Stick were indeed all village. Well done TUN for always just hovering out of the most pressing person to go after. Feels like the whole game then, the village was just devouring itself with little guidance, given the low activity of all the elims. We just got unlucky and didn't go after the right low actives. Ah well. Time to read some docs EDIT: I approve of the plotting of potential outcomes based on who flips when Very me. Seems I was right then with the Xino kill being a matter of TUN missing the mark.

Seeing as this is presumably my last chance to do so, may as well update the vote trackers for you: Green = SDPS Member (Village Boring) Blue = Inner Circle Member (Village Trust Group) Red = Spy Vote Tallies Vote Tallies (Detailed) Last thing I'll say, if the Winzik or IC are not night killed, consider that with 6 players left, if the in-thread assumption of 2 IC and 2 elims is true, consider using the IC doc to verify each the remaining IC in thread. If elims try and pretend, based on being able to read the doc, the real IC should be able to ID them. While yes, claiming in thread does give the elims their target, there's a chance that depending on who the claimed ICs are, it may help to narrow down the uncertainties on who the last elims are. Maybe it's a little messier in a 1 elim world. Didn't get time to think that through fully. If it's a 1 IC/only the Winzik is alive still, then a claim probs does help. @Szeth_Pancakes What happens if the last IC/Winzik and the last Spy die simultaneously?

I keep trying to look at things different ways so here's a chart of the number of times players have voted alongside each other: The second is with C5 removed, seeing as just about everyone voted together. Basically it shows TUN, Book, and Stick tending to vote together, me and Kas ending up on the same person every single cycle (though I think sometimes Kas has voted and stayed while I've joined later, while others Kas has moved back to someone I've voted on). Aman most often votes the same as Kas and I, but also book. So sorta interesting there's sorta [Aman, Kas, Hael] and [TUN, Stick] and Book sorta in the middle. Don't know if there's anything there but take what you want from that. I was listing non-negotiable "Will not votes" based on reasons other than reads - with TUN specifically, I remembered the discussion D2 of the MR in which I chose to N1 TUN, and then people were like "they've just been N1'd the last few games, so someone new would have done that". Figured I didn't what to D1 TUN if I'd just N1'd him. I don't mention Nerdy or Wiz there. Nerdy, as I mention in a later post that cycle, I wouldn't vote for being new. Honestly don't know why I didn't mention Wizard. Best I can suggest was a sense of comradery having just been evil buddies with them last game. See, I feel the opposite - makes me feel worse about them - why are they arguing more about Stick's idea than Stick? And with a weird view of the mechanics of the Winzik. If anything I can't help but wonder if the elim doc had a different idea of what to expect from the Winzik which is fuelling their perspective as they argue. The meme was about my thoughts on Mat(t). There'd been 5 votes on Nerdy for most of the cycle. I'd voted for Xino, being more sus of them than Nerdy, but had resigned myself to the fact that we weren't getting a Xino execution. So when Mat(t) suddenly changes his vote so that Xino goes through, it was good news! Except, after the chaos of C2, and concerns about elim action, I didn't know if the very fact Mat(t) was moving was because they were an elim choosing to save their buddy last minute. I thought it unlikely, so didn't last minute change my vote in case, and so instead went to the effort of locating the image. I knew I probably had that image somewhere, but it doesn't appear like that in the webcomic itself. I went and checked the book of the maxim sayings from the webcomic, but that only shows the text. Then I remembered they'd done calendars with the maxims on top of backgrounds, so I dug through my OneDrive to find the calendar so I could screensnip the relevant page to share. While I suppose it was half an hour, I was wasting my time by working out how to find and upload a meme. Anyway, Xino kill doesn't end the game while there's still two people in the IC doc, so being confident on that fact doesn't make sense. And worries of Winzik powers only matter if you think there's a chance of them being employed. If you're monitoring who's on and your Winzik candidate is offline, unless you think they would have already put some in unecessarily, the change isn't really going to be a concern. Nah, I continue to think that it was a matter of the relevant player not being online to react to the last half hour with the change of the vote, though I'm still not sure why Xino was a target anyway, unless they hadn't seen Xino become a candidate. EDIT: While I think when I checked at the time, TUN had be on within 6 hours of the end of cycle, at least as far as posts on the shard full stop, his last post in C4 was half an hour before Infinite and Kas put the second and third votes on Xino. And their next post on the shard was 20 hours later. So while it's close, it's not infeasible they didn't pay attention to the game. Which means in a <TUN/Stick> or <TUN/Almond> world, you end up with a kill placed 6 hours before end of cycle that seems a safe choice, only to have that turned around on your by the end of cycle, without your notice.

I don't truly think it matters if you and Kas are committed or not. Stick I don't see moving, and Book, TUN, and Infinite have been one and done votes all game - they're not shifting either. If some reason the pair of you decide on another player that I can agree on, it takes the Winzik vote and Exotic's vote to confirm an execution on a target that is not me, but I'd put money on an Exotic appearance meaning another vote on me because that's the active wagon. If you're sleeping, doesn't matter, but anyone who continues to be on, I'd just ask you don't waste your time trying to work out who I'm teamed up with, and try work out what you do next cycle when I flip village. Heh. I'll give you one last argument for why I'm not elim though, just for fun - in the face of an execution that I don't think I can budge, I've not chosen to open wolf for the sake of trolling or evil RP, ala LG14 or MR7.

Don't have much in the way of short games: El's LotR game that ended C1 was the only other evil start MR I played other than your SW one. AG4 feels typical low thread engagement Hael with the Diagram-wielding!Azure Mouse, while LG65 gives you what more active E!Hael looks like. The closest to an evil QF is QF46, in which I was one of the secret faction inside of the elim faction, where I seem to be my more typical low thread engagement.

Well this is fascinating. And truly about what I expected. In case there was any doubt, have a vote tally Detailed (0) Archer: Aman {1} (0) Szeth: Kas {1} (0) Stick: Aman {1} (1) TUN: Stick {1}, Aman {2}, Stick {3}, Hael {1} (6) Hael: Stick {2}, Stick {4}, Aman {4}, Bookwyrm {1}, TUN {1}, Kas {1}, Infinite {1} (0) Kas: Aman {3} Vote Tally (6) Hael: Stick, Aman, Bookwyrm, TUN, Kas, Infinite (1) TUN: Hael Unless our elims are Exotic and Infinte, there is one or two elims voting me. I see two options here. E!Stick hearing that I'm going to be offline for the next 6 hours, has the option of finding a reason to sus me, place a vote and at this stage of the game, where you've got to choose one of a number of bad choices, once someone has picked one, it's fairly natural for a wagon to form, because it feels less bad to follow the person who chose, than have to choose to be the reason one of the other bad options dies. Once Aman jumps on, you've got a fairly guaranteed wagon if it stays, as evidenced by the one that appeared. While there's 6 hours left, at this point player activity could easily mean I'm stuck with 3 votes regardless of whatever posts are made in the next six hours. But I still tend to think Stick is village. Like, even with today. Why does E!Stick choose to sus me in thread to try get the execution? I feel like I wouldn't have been the easiest option, so why not push Book or TUN, and save me for a Night Kill? So I think Stick and Aman's votes make sense enough as village just having to make a terrible choice. Kas' vote is too late on the wagon to mean anything. The goldilocks zone of opportunistic!Elim is where Book and TUN are. Who were my main candidates anyway. Book has always voted fairly late on established. The one notable vote was Aman v Fifth, Book broke the tie by voting Fifth in cycle 3. But I like Books posts as I skim back over them. He's sharing opinions on the thread, on who he's sus of, I think I even saw a speculation on what certain flips could imply about other players. They seem a confused village - they're certainly playing the part with the degree of waffling in their vote on me. TUN... Has TUN ever posted a read ever? Well, I mean, they have. But I think each time was prompted, and never was there any attempt to give reasons for that, as far as I can tell at a glance. For example this cycle, how is their post anything other than opportunistic - the only time they've ever mentioned me as a suspicion previously, it was in the context of Stick vs me, at which point they thought Stick was the more suspicious. Yes, they later, when prompted, give a reason. Which was someone else's reason - Stick's point about tying up of votes. So they've turned up, seen 3 votes on someone, they've thought "Great! A wagon to consolidate that's not me, that I can consolidate without really having to comment." and then just said "What she said" when asked why, rather than doing any actual work. And all this from a player more experienced that I. I've 33 games under my belt - TUN has 41. (Kas is at 47, Stick 55, and Aman is at 64, if anyone was curious). So for what it's worth, putting my vote on TUN. (Other things I'm musing about re: TUN - activity was highish C1-2 with 7 and 10 posts. 1 post C3 (despite a bunch of other posts around the Shard), 4 C4, 3 C5, but suddenly he's got 8 posts right at the end when numbers mean he might actually be in danger of getting executed if they're not careful. And I'm trying to decide if they've had some misunderstandings of how the Winzik works and if that has implications) I have also spent a bunch of time over the last week or so tidying up the About Me page on my profile with all my game stats, and am considering revising it to add more information in it. While yes, whenever I'm evil, I'm likely the reason for a variety of tables being inserted into the end of the doc, even as village I regularly set up an excel spreadsheet to track role claims, who's alive and dead, who voted who, and post counts to track activity. I like data. If you wanted preexisting proof, not sure how best to find reference to that in a post, but with the last KKC game, which admittedly I was evil for but that's not truly relevant to the point I'm making, I did overhaul my player sheet with a bunch of stuff to keep track of my money usage throughout the turn, and keep a record of it throughout the game. Pretty sure the GMs took that and shared it to all the other players, and I'm pretty sure I linked to the sheet in the aftermath of that game. I guess what I'm trying to say is a love of data is more indicative of me in an AN that of my alignment. Regarding the follow data specifically, while I've made a point of that in the past once or twice, I keep forgetting it was a thing. In that particular case, it came about because when we had the Xino kill, one of my first thoughts is that we didn't have an elim on at end of cycle to see Mat(t)'s vote, so it was critical to note when players were last online asap to preserve that information. I suppose I should have actually noted down everyone's last online times but I got distracted with Stick and I think it was Nerdy's times giving a solid option for two elims that wouldn't have seen Xino even being an execution option. Anyways, it was when I was looking at the activity feed portion of the profile that as I was looking down it, there was a line about them having followed the post, in between I think it was two posts in other forums, while they didn't post in thread for another 14 hours. I went and located the list of people following the thread only after seeing that to try and work out how following works to decide if it was just a matter of being @'d by Szeth in the signup post caused the follow, or if it had to be an active choice to follow without posting. Got a few things to do, but then I'll get back and try and actually dig into the voting patterns stuff I said I'd do so that I can generate as much data as possible to help you out next cycle, assuming this execution is pretty much locked.

I got distracted with video games, so only just getting to bed now, but alarm is set for 6 hours, so I'll finish my review then, but for the moment I'm in the same spot as Stick. For my gut puts her strong village, and I think her back that up, I struggle to see who else, without a thorough look at Book and TUN. The offline when the Xino wagon happens continues to niggle, but I think Aman's point was good. @Szeth_Pancakes with the elim kill, if two players submit a kill which happens? Earliest valid order, or latest? I've seen both happen in different games, and the answer could have a bearing on the Xino kill.

I'm curious too. I spent a couple of hours working on them in hope that it would reveal something when studied, but most of my attention just went into writing them. I think I noted a few things as I went through in [square brackets] but I think most of them were me sussing Mat(t)... Plan is still to try and look at players that voted together, or look for tunnels, which having the votes pulled out only should help compile. Figuring when actually doing some ISOs on people this cycle also, the vote tallies may help with giving context for voting choices or suspicions when there weren't up to date tallies in thread. But I'm fairly tapped out for today (11:15pm local time), so when I get up in the morning, that's when I'll start digging back into them. Feels we've got two more mistakes at most if we're lucky... I feel like Szeth needs an award with a pithy title for the degree of confusion that his distro has left on thread, along with whoever has been involved in making it happen. >> Where I'm at presently is I'm unwilling to execute Aman or Kas on principle unless some very compelling evidence is found implicating them. I've been feeling positive about Stick's interactions the whole game, I've felt okay with Infinite's stuff, not sure that Exotic has been active enough to be the real danger, though could be a decent candidate I think for a low active elim, and then I don't recall a ton about TUN or Bookwyrm. And if there's anyone else in the game, I've forgotten them.

Play by Play Vote Tallies Cycle 2 Cycle Three Cycle Four @Kasimir Thanks for pointing out the error with Wizard. I guess while I'm at it, although it largely doubles up Kas' own work, the Detailed final Vote Tallies for Cycles 1-4. Green = SDPS Member (Village Boring) Blue = Inner Circle Member (Village Trust Group) Red = Spy Vote Tallies Vote Tallies (Detailed)

I was rushing to get that done before end of cycle in case I was night killed and the vote things would be useful for someone else, so I may have missed something, or miscounted. I'm going to go copy those into one post, and add in the new info from this lynch, so I'll double check that then.

Not strictly finished, haven't included descriptions of all the votes, though all should be linked, but there's 2 minutes of cycle left, so we're posting this. I'm not sure I'd noted that Stick's move made a 3 way tie before. I think the Nerdy execution will be interesting to comment on the state of the game with Nerdy v Aman before Stick took the vote to that 3 way tie.

Okay cycle 3 done, this time with the votes linked to for your consideration. I'm thinking I want to go through and look at if people returned to the same targets each vote, or if there are blocks of players tending to vote together. But getting through cycles 1-2 in case anything comes of it. Play by Play Vote Tallies Cycle Three

I may as well throw my vote down on Nerdy for the moment, as unless I find a thread to tug at as I dig through voting patterns, we've spent enough time trying to execute them at this point that it seems worth just resolving that.

I might post these as I do them, rather than wait to post them all together. Though I may collect them later into one post. Play by Play Vote Tallies Cycle Four For the moment, wary of Mat(t)'s moving his vote around all cycle. Not sure how I feel about Infiinte and Bookwyrm. Yes my comments are contradictory, but if I'm looking for suspicions, there's a world where just following the existing wagon is sus, and there's a world where trying to provide another option is sus. Infinite's is more supicous in general though, given we know Xino was village, so with e!Nerdy, e!Infinite was helping to take heat off their buddy, whereas e!Bookwyrm bussing e!Nerdy seems a weird play. So overall, Mat(t) and Infinite seem the ones to watch, based on this read through of the votes.

So I've gone through and done my version of vote tallies for all cycles, marking alignments/roles in them as well. There's a few things that piqued my interest regarding votes as I went through though, so going to dig back into the voting patterns. Green = SDPS Member (Village Boring) Blue = Inner Circle Member (Village Trust Group) Red = Spy Vote Tallies Vote Tallies (Detailed)

Dunno if anyone actually wanted any of this, but have some comments about comments about me. I think this is what I was trying to address in my last post. Context on that is both of you I'm aware are deadly in thread when you want to be, making you dangerous eliminators. You both also had been (and continue) to be the main drivers of discussion in thread, which is a particularly nice place to find yourself if you're eliminators - you can guide the focus of the thread in the way you want, and your very activeness and apparent engaging in hunting elims generates village reads on the both of you. But then you both started chaotically voting right at the end of cycle, and that was not giving the good Vibes, hence the jump to considering the pair of you E/E amidst the chaos of those 15 minutes. Is this a good time to mention the game of Resistance where I was evil, I failed the first mission, my buddy failed the second, but then I talked my way on to mission 3, and succeed it, and mission 4, essentially hard confirming myself, only to pull out a fail in round 5, just because why not troll when you've got the chance. FWIW, if I find myself as the most experienced member of an elim team, with teammates without strong opinions, I very much like to start puppetmastering everything. I'm likely to have a voting strategy by this point in the game, as I plan towards getting control of the execution by numbers. And yes, that's not necessary in this game as far as win con, but that didn't stop me from focusing on doing just that in the similar set up in Kas' last Star Wars game. This I feel strongly. It's a line I wouldn't let myself cross as an elim, and I don't believe Aman and Kas would either. Perhaps I'm choosing to believe that because I want it to be true, but I'd rather continue to hope for the best in that area than start doubting people on that when it matters. I think this is the current state of the votes. Vote Tally (Detailed) (6) Nerdy: Stick {1}, Bookwyrm {1}, Nerdy {1}, TUN {1}, Aman {2}, Mat(t) {4}, Kas {3}, Stick {3} (0) TUN: Kas {1}, Mat(t) {1}, Mat(t) {3} (0) Hael: Stick {2}, Kas {2}, Aman {1} (1) Stick: Mat(t) {2}, Exotic {1} (1) Aman: Nerdy {2} No Vote: Infinite, Hael Vote Tally (6) Nerdy: Bookwyrm, TUN, Aman, Mat(t), Kas, Stick (1) Stick: Exotic (1) Aman: Nerdy No Vote: Infinite, Hael Next up, actually reevaluating my reads.

Having woken up to having 3 votes on me, I suppose you'll be looking for comment. Give me half an hour to get on my PC and do a proper read through to respond to anything you were looking for a response to. Only things off the top of my head are, I think it was Kas musing about my appetite for gambits vs strategizing or something. The answer to that is I'm risk averse and not great and thread work. I'll participate in someone else's gambit if they've a good sell, but they'll need to be doing the thread work. Where I'm quite in to gambits is for the end game play. If I've gotten to the point where I've good odds on predicting outcomes and signs point to elim victory if we do a gambit now, then I'll push for a gambit. In this case, they don't feel too me my style of gambit - they'd be things I'd need to be talked into, not things I think I'd suggest. I was also going to suggest taking into consideration my activity this game. I feel that I've been more actively posting this game as compared to the last, where I posted little and what was posted was generally purely informational, because I had the elim doc to occupy my time. Although I've also finished work for the year so do actually have more time, and probably looking at my old games you'd find the village boring Hael I think tended to be less active than village role Hael or E!Hael... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ suppose neither of them are necessarily helpful, but that's my perspective on those questions if you were curious. As I said, I'll respond properly to any enquiries and share my thoughts in a little.

I think that's compelling enough a point to take off my paranoia hat.

I think that makes sense, gotcha. It's what I'm considering. Third times a charm? I will want to plot out for myself likely outcomes/what information that nets us before actually throwing any votes around though.