Mid-Range Game 36: The Northern Wind

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

4 hours ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

The only living people we can confirm are not the elim engineer are you, Striker, BR, and whoever sent that anonymous message.

Ah, not quite. If somebody claims to have gotten an Aviar on D1 (a fairly low-risk claim since all of those Aviar were returned at the end of the cycle) and there are no more than 3 claims, then we can be reasonably confident that those three people are also not elim!engineers.

A similar principle can apply for claiming role-specific actions, although that comes with the usual downsides of announcing your role (probably worth it at this stage given the urgency of finding the elim!engineer, but I'm not going to force anyone to roleclaim, even if I personally would do it if I had a role).

A similar principle can also apply to anonymous messages... Hm. That could be useful.

Anyways, people who are claiming to have received Aviar on the first cycle:

• Me: Kokerlii
• Lopen: Sak
• ??? there should be a third one did somebody else claim

 

Reading through the game:

• A lot of the early posts are individual analysis, without that much interaction between players, which is unfortunate.
• Devotary's explanation about village!sabotage was probably to open a defense of Lopen for eliminator teammates to be attempting at this stage.
• Mark could very well be a teammate of Lopen or Lumgol for his soft defense of those two players on the first cycle, but if neither of those two are evil I doubt Mark is.

Quote

Stick: Ooo exciting. Right now we've got Aman, Lopen, and Lum all up for the lynch  

• While this could be acting, I don't get the sense that Stick is teammates with Aman, Lum, or Lopen.

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Stick: From the Rules (TM): "Trapper: You’ve been hired by the NITC to help their expedition." If the village doesn't have a Trapper I would be surprised, to say the least.:P I think whether the elims have a Doctor or not depends on their number, but it's a reasonable assumption to make. Of course, after the last LG I know not to let role distributions fool me.:P They can be tricky. 

• While this is pretty small, I think the tendency is usually for players of either faction to assume the most problematic possibility for the enemy faction. Not only is it just plain good strategy, but I feel like people subconsciously tend towards creating a narrative where their own cause is the underdog.

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Stick again: 3 Aviars are up for being loaned off every cycle, and are granted randomly to the players that request for one. So the elims don't really have a guarantee of getting one, but it'll cost an action regardless.

• Again, maybe I'm reading into it more than it needs to be, but in my experience, "limitations on the eliminator team" is something the elims are going to be vastly more aware of than villagers are. And not something an eliminator would really think to hide.
• Devotary sounds genuinely displeased with the possibility of there being no village doctors, and it just being "a more vocal death". Reads as more likely to be village, to me.
• Alv said the game is very likely to have WGGs, which if the elims have no doctor I would be fairly sus of. But I can't think of an easy way to discern if the elims have a doctor or not. Well, that's what I get for trying to definitively read Alv.
• Striker trying to push the lynch away from being just RNG is a bit village. Although only a bit village, since encouraging activity is a pretty common blending-in tactic as well, since it doesn't cost an elim very much.

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Well...I don't see any good lynch targets. I'd prefer we had a lynch, but there has been very little discussion so far, so I've got zero suspicions. I'll leave my vote on Lumgol I suppose, since I don't want Aman lynched C1, and also the more players that are tied the higher the chance we've got an elim in there, which means they'll have to take some action to protect themselves.

• Lopen seems oddly okay with just letting the D1 lynch go in a direction they don't think is productive. I am going to mostly give this a pass because they were planning on going to sleep soon and probably didn't want to open up a whole new lynch, but it's a wee bit suspect.
• Striker breaking the tie is a bold move and personally I think more likely to be village. Although, the choice of lynching a fully inactive player who Striker believed probably wasn't an eliminator, is not ideal. When questioned Striker cited that there were no other good choices, with the implication that lynching a fully inactive player is a relatively safe choice. I'm not going to pursue this very hard though because Striker is one of the few people who absolutely cannot be the elim engineer.

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Devotary: Failing to vote condones Aman's lynch, and I'd rather cast a vote based on any sort of actual suspicion.

• I don't think an eliminator would as readily share this sentiment. Even if Aman is an elim this would be a tad blatant as defenses go.

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Devotary: It's not quite clear what Stick thought the rules for acquiring Aviar were, whether it was 'submit an action and have a random chance of getting a random Aviar', or 'submit an action and three random people who do so get random Aviar', which is an important distinction if three or fewer people try to pick up Aviar.

• I also don't think Devotary would be elim teammates with Stick and say this. It doesn't really fit with the distancing mindset, and if somebody were consciously trying to break from that mindset it would probably be more pronounced.
• Burnt talking about having a potoo was initially a bit suspicious to me since the only strategic reason to say it is as a cover for an elim. But I'm also pretty sure Burnt didn't bring it up for strategic reasons. There's also the fact that when you get a non-Aviar bird, Rand has been linking you to the Wikipedia page to that bird, which in the case of the potoo specifically mentions the mournful cry in the first paragraph. So I'm pretty sure Burnt's potoo claim is legit.
• I still find Stick's TWTBAW comment to be suspect. I removed my vote from Stick mostly because it looked like nobody was defending them, but in retrospect it isn't clear to me if that was the case or not. On one hand, there were a lot of other candidates who tied shortly after Stick. On the other hand, creating ties is also a kind of unusual way to defend somebody.
  • I can think of very few people who would think of "gigantic ties" as a defense mechanism. The first person on that list is Alvron. The second person on that list is me, since I've thought of something kind of similar to this before (I've never quite got the hang of execution, but you can bet that most unusual plans have at least occurred to me at some point), and I know it isn't me.
• Alvron basically defends the elims' choice to pursue sabotage. This is interesting, because Aman just brought up that Alv also disagreed with the elims' choice to sabotage the brig. I have two possible ways of reading this:
  • The simplest explanation is that these are just Alv's genuine thoughts about what the elims are doing. It makes perfect sense for a villager to agree with some of the decisions the elims make and think they would have done some of it differently if it was them.
  • The other halfway likely explanation is that Alv disagrees with the idea of sabotaging the brig with the intent to hospitalize people, because the elims sabotaged the brig early with the express intent of avoiding a hospitalization that could possibly backfire.
  • All in all, this makes me trust Alv a bit more, since the simplest explanation is that village!Alvron is making these posts. However, both possibilities are fairly likely.
• Lopen expressed support for trying to find the elim saboteurs by way of alibi, which is somewhat village, unless the elims happen to have a good alibi prepared.

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Striker: So, I have some time right now and I'm not really tired anyway, so I figured I should probably go through and give my thoughts on each of the players so far.

1. Xinoehp512: I don't think he's even posted yet. Could be an inactive elim, but I'm thinking the odds of there being two inactive elims are kinda slim. 

• Okay, I know Devotary already brought this up, but even with the explanation that followed, this feels weird to me. It's like Striker is already knows Aman was an inactive elim or something. I don't particularly get a bad vibe off Striker or Aman, but I am still pretty wary of a comment like that.
• Striker was initially too unsure to cast a vote, then after Araris provided additional reasoning, Striker was convinced to cast a vote on Stick. The fact that Striker readily reassessed with new information is a point in their favor, and a point that suggests Striker and Araris are less likely to be elim teammates. Striker's vote on Stick has seemed to flip-flop a fair bit, which is also more frequently a village thing.
• Lopen posts a list of reads, which, for a list of suspicions, doesn't actually contain very much suspicions. The vote cast at the end of this post is prodding Ventyl to weigh in, which falls in line with Lopen's lack of reads. This isn't necessarily suspicious, but I'm kind of wary of someone who is reasonably active in the discussion and yet still remaining perfectly neutral. It's possible but unlikely for a villager to go about their business and somehow end up completely neutral. I also feel it's a tad contradictory to cast a vote prodding somebody to weigh in on the later cycles, because while that's 100% valid at the beginning of the game to encourage discussion, at this point those kind of votes kind of hurt discussion.
  • Not really something I want to read into very much, but if Ventyl is inactive in part due to playing two games, doesn't that kind of increase the probability that Ventyl is a villager in this one? I know if I were playing two games without very much time for both, I would probably give a bit more attention to one I was an elim in, since there are fewer elims and thus my faction would be relying on me more.
    • Again, I'm not sure this is even a valid line of reasoning, but a similar logic could be applied to Alvron, which would suggest he is also village.

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Brightness: Secondly- The reaction to losing the brig could be real but it also feels like it could've been a fake reaction.

• This line really doesn't sound sincere to me, but since BR is in the hospital right now I'm not going to focus on it overly much.
• Brightness spends a lot of post suspecting Striker, then votes for me because she thinks I could be Striker's teammate. In my experience, the kind of overthink-y mindset where you vote on one person by proxy because you are mainly suspicious of someone else, is almost always a village mindset. So that's definitely a point in her favor.
• Aman arrives, which is good for activity levels. Says some stuff about a Burnt - Alvron team, which curiously enough was on a short list of possibilities I wanted to consider at the close of last cycle. But, at this point I'm not feeling particularly suspect of either Burnt or Alvron, so idk.

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Alvron: Several of us should visit the Hospital randomly or semi randomly.

• @Alvron would it be fair of me to ask if you plan on including yourself in that?
• Aman is concerned about the game being almost over. I'm trying to decide if elim!Aman would cultivate a sense of urgency and try to steer it, or try to downplay the crisis and risk being called on that. Probably the former. But, village!Aman would certainly also act concerned about the game being almost over so I'm not really making any headway here. In any case, Aman wasn't active enough early in the game to be an engineer, and right now I'm only interested in lynching the elim engineer.
• Lopen posted the anonymous message so can't be the elim engineer. Good to know.

 

Oof. That took a while to get through.

So, engineer suspects:

1. Lumgol - Potential suspect but not very active. Claimed to receive a useless bird.
2. Ventyl - Potential suspect but not very active.
3. Devotary - For the reasons listed out above, I trust Devotary, I think.
4. Mark - Potential suspect but not very active.
5. Shanerockes - Potential suspect but not very active. Claimed to receive a useless bird.
6. _stick_ - I think Stick is an eliminator. I'm now pretty convinced about that. But, I don't think Stick is the eliminator engineer. If Stick were the eliminator engineer, the defense of Stick would have been more pointed last cycle.
7. Alvron - I have a few things slightly pointing to Alvron being a villager, but there also isn't very many other options and Alvron remains plausible.
8. Burnt - Potoo claim seems legit, from what I now know.

So, I'm kind of left with the impression that the eliminator engineer is a lurker. Which is not going to be fun to track down. This isn't good.

I don't love to do things this way, but, Alvron, have you got an alibi?

EDIT: I should probably also mention that I also suspect Lopen of being an eliminator, but am not interested in lynching Lopen since we know they can't be the engineer.

EDIT2: @Ventyl @Mark IV the same question I posed Alvron applies to you. Are you going to claim any alibi for the first cycle?

Edited July 19, 2019 by MrakeDarshall

[Amanuensis he/him]

Just posting to say I'm on the brink of passing out, but also that I really appreciate the amount of effort Mrake put in this post. I was already leaning villager due to him not breaking the tie yesterday, but this clenches it, even if I don't agree with all of his conclusions.

I hope to see more posts like this from other players in the future maybe not as extensive, but even a quarter of this amount of work is extremely helpful.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

Okay, here’s the vote tally right now:

• (1) Burnt Spaghetti: shanerocks,
• (1) _Stick_: StrikerEZ,
• (3) Devotary of Spontaneity: Amanuensis, Lopen, Stick, 
• (1) Alvron: Drake, 

I’m not a huge fan of the Devotary lynch, but it’s not a bad one. I don’t like that Stick’s voted on Devotary (maybe I’m tunneling on Stick), but I feel pretty good about Aman’s vote. That one feels genuine. I don’t know what to think of Lopen’s vote, but I like it more than Stick’s (man, I’m really tunneling on her, aren’t I?)

I’ll have to do a reread of things before I’d ever switch my vote, and I can’t do that right now, so my vote on Stick is staying for now. 

Edited July 19, 2019 by StrikerEZ

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

1 hour ago, Amanuensis said:

I find it a lot more likely that Xino is a village!Engineer than an elim!one. Speaking of, [Xino]. Shane also had expressed that he was busy IRL, which while it doesn't mean he couldn't have submitted the order, it also doesn't mean he did. I wouldn't be opposed to the Trapper hospitalizing him tonight for that reason. [shane] I don't think you replied to my last ping. What's up? As for Ventyl, it's more so the wording of his pinch-hitter request than the request itself that I'm reading as genuine.

On the subject of people visiting the hospital to prove they're not the Engineer, it is a bit late for that, IMO. That's a long-game play and we're pretty much at the end of this game already. Not to mention I really don't want any villager to abandon the thread. If we don't have you here to talk and vote, we might as well be handing the game to the eliminators on a silver platter.

[Devotary],  if you're not evil, I ask that you start building a case against another player or two. Since PoE is the main reason I'm voting for you right now, your best bet in convincing me to change would be presenting a better target.

Xino isn't playing quite the same as he did in LG56 or LG57, but I wouldn't say he's much more likely to be a village engineer than an elim one. There didn't seem to be anyone defending Xino when he had two votes against him C1, which is a point in his favour. Not my first choice for inactive elim engineer. Reading Ventyl's post, I'm certainly conviced that Ventyl doesn't believe he can dedicate the necessary time to this game. Faction loyalty doesn't mean villager though.

It will take at least three cycle for the elims to win a sabotage victory, so it's more middle game in that regard. It is true that attacking the doctor doesn't help the elims win a sabotage victory, so it's less useful to protect the doctor if that's their plan. 

22 minutes ago, MrakeDarshall said:

Ah, not quite. If somebody claims to have gotten an Aviar on D1 (a fairly low-risk claim since all of those Aviar were returned at the end of the cycle) and there are no more than 3 claims, then we can be reasonably confident that those three people are also not elim!engineers.

A similar principle can apply for claiming role-specific actions, although that comes with the usual downsides of announcing your role (probably worth it at this stage given the urgency of finding the elim!engineer, but I'm not going to force anyone to roleclaim, even if I personally would do it if I had a role).

A similar principle can also apply to anonymous messages... Hm. That could be useful.

Anyways, people who are claiming to have received Aviar on the first cycle:

• Me: Kokerlii
• Lopen: Sak
• ??? there should be a third one did somebody else claim
  
   
• Burnt talking about having a potoo was initially a bit suspicious to me since the only strategic reason to say it is as a cover for an elim. But I'm also pretty sure Burnt didn't bring it up for strategic reasons. There's also the fact that when you get a non-Aviar bird, Rand has been linking you to the Wikipedia page to that bird, which in the case of the potoo specifically mentions the mournful cry in the first paragraph. So I'm pretty sure Burnt's potoo claim is legit.
   
• Okay, I know Devotary already brought this up, but even with the explanation that followed, this feels weird to me. It's like Striker is already knows Aman was an inactive elim or something. I don't particularly get a bad vibe off Striker or Aman, but I am still pretty wary of a comment like that.
   
• Aman arrives, which is good for activity levels. Says some stuff about a Burnt - Alvron team, which curiously enough was on a short list of possibilities I wanted to consider at the close of last cycle. But, at this point I'm not feeling particularly suspect of either Burnt or Alvron, so idk.

So, engineer suspects:

1. Lumgol - Potential suspect but not very active. Claimed to receive a useless bird.
2. Ventyl - Potential suspect but not very active.
3. Devotary - For the reasons listed out above, I trust Devotary, I think.
4. Mark - Potential suspect but not very active.
5. Shanerockes - Potential suspect but not very active. Claimed to receive a useless bird.
6. _stick_ - I think Stick is an eliminator. I'm now pretty convinced about that. But, I don't think Stick is the eliminator engineer. If Stick were the eliminator engineer, the defense of Stick would have been more pointed last cycle.
7. Alvron - I have a few things slightly pointing to Alvron being a villager, but there also isn't very many other options and Alvron remains plausible.
8. Burnt - Potoo claim seems legit, from what I now know.

So, I'm kind of left with the impression that the eliminator engineer is a lurker. Which is not going to be fun to track down. This isn't good.

I don't love to do things this way, but, Alvron, have you got an alibi?

EDIT: I should probably also mention that I also suspect Lopen of being an eliminator, but am not interested in lynching Lopen since we know they can't be the engineer.

EDIT2: [Ventyl], [Mark] the same question I posed Alvron applies to you. Are you going to claim any alibi for the first cycle?

Striker claimed to have gotten the Kukupa twins, and to have used them to create a PM with BR. I don't believe anyone else has claimed Aviar from C1. Claiming Aviar by itself doesn't guarantee that one isn't the elim engineer, as it is true that an elim teammate who actually received the bird can cover for the claimer. That's presumably not true in your case, as it would have been easy for a biologist to test your Kokerlii claim. 

Burnt's post was ~45 minutes after the writeup, and since there aren't a whole lot of people around at that time, the odds that an elim teammate requested an Aviar, failed to get one, and then informed Burnt are fairly low. Combined with Burnt's willingness to leave her life up to chance suggests she is telling the truth here.

A Striker-Aman team isn't particularly likely given that Striker almost got Aman lynched C1. The elims would have to be ruthlessly committed to bussing a teammate C1 on the assumption that Aman wouldn't come back, or else they weren't paying any attention at all to how close Aman came to dying.

The main reasoning for Burnt-Alvron is that Burnt voted for Ax rather than Alvron to create the three way tie last cycle. Aman suggested lynching Alvron first to test this, which I believe is because Alvron has a higher chance of being the elim engineer of the two. Burnt probably wouldn't have voted for Alvron regardless of his role if they were both evil though.

If nobody else claims navigator, I'd be willing to accept that @Lumgol has that role, especially if she actually confirms it. Shane's claim of receiving a useless Aviar would have been more useful with an actual name, but it's kind of too late for roleless bird claims to be alignment indicative. Stick as the elim engineer likely requires an elim teammate to be around closer to rollover, but two votes isn't especially threatening. If I had been around several hours before my vote on Burnt I probably would have voted for Stick to force any teammates to make an actual defence. Alvron's only alibi is his claim to have received a Guam Kingfisher when the Aviary was sabotaged. It fits the naming scheme, which I had thought was real world birds that live/nest on islands to fit with the fact that Aviar live on the islands of the Pantheon. Drake's shoebill doesn't fit this pattern though, according to the map on the shoebill wikipedia page.

It's technically possible that an elim teammate could have gotten Sak C1 and then sent an anonymous message C2 to cover for engineer!Lopen. It's probably better to look at those without alibis first though.

I'm willing to remove Xino and Lum from the list of people I would vote for this cycle, pending confirmation on Lum's role. Shane, Mark, and Ventyl remain viable inactive suspects. Burnt, Stick, Drake, and Lopen have better alibis than just a claim. Lopen's is the strongest. Drake's claim of getting a Kokerlii C1 is strong, though the fact that his claimed C2 bird doesn't fit my pattern is a bit unfortunate(maybe the Shoebill does live on islands, and I'm just not looking hard enough). Burnt and Drake not being the engineer based on vote tallies and risked death is stronger than similar evidence for Stick. Alvron hasn't cast any votes despite the numerous opportunities for ties. Supposedly, this is because he's been spending most of his time on LG57. Lack of direct involvement and no semi-confirmable actions does mean there isn't any particular reason why he can't be the elim engineer. Despite everything I've said about not ignoring the inactive candidates, I will end up voting for someone other than me who has a chance of being lynched, which right now are Stick and Alvron. I might as well ask @shanerockes, @Ventyl, and @Mark IV what birds they received this cycle.

[shanerockes]

2 minutes ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

I might as well ask @shanerockes, @Ventyl, and @Mark IV what birds they received this cycle.

I had said what I had gotten previously but to answer this I got a Dhyal Thrush which does absolutely nothing. Also, sorry for the lack of posts. Whenever I have a chance to post, my family wants to do something. 

[Alvron he/him]

2 hours ago, MrakeDarshall said:

@Alvron would it be fair of me to ask if you plan on including yourself in that?

Yes.  It would be fair.  Whether or not I answer is a different question.   I did intend to include myself in that but Amans point about it being a little later to do that is something I didn't consider.  So it might not be the best choice to randomly go to the hospital.

2 hours ago, MrakeDarshall said:

I don't love to do things this way, but, Alvron, have you got an alibi?

I almost missed this in your wall of text.  I do have an alibi but not one that can be proven.  I spent C1 exploring the Sky Crane.

Edit:
Devotary:

Quote

Alvron hasn't cast any votes despite the numerous opportunities for ties. Supposedly, this is because he's been spending most of his time on LG57.

I didn't vote because I never vote for ties until the final hour of a cycle.  This is to make sure I don't disrupt discussion beforehand with people trying to make and break ties.  Sadly the rollover for this game makes it impossible for me to place tie votes so that only leaves me with normal boring votes which I cast when I have a suspicion.

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

46 minutes ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

I might as well ask @shanerockes, @Ventyl, and @Mark IV what birds they received this cycle.

Slight nitpick, but why are we interested in what birds people got this cycle? Everyone got a bird randomly since the Aviary was sabotaged, so this does not affect role or alignment. What birds people got last cycle is more interesting because it means they spent their action requesting a bird.

As for the shoebill, idk but that’s what I got.

10 minutes ago, Alvron said:

I almost missed this in your wall of text.  I do have an alibi but not one that can be proven.  I spent C1 exploring the Sky Crane.

Hm. That is tricky, since it isn’t an alibi that can be backed up. Gonna think about this one (and hopefully hear what the other players I flagged have to say). Thank you for volunteering a claim in any case.

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

16 minutes ago, MrakeDarshall said:

Slight nitpick, but why are we interested in what birds people got this cycle? Everyone got a bird randomly since the Aviary was sabotaged, so this does not affect role or alignment. What birds people got last cycle is more interesting because it means they spent their action requesting a bird.

As for the shoebill, idk but that’s what I got.

This is solely to test my theory that all the roleless birds live/nest on islands. Shoebills apparently make nests on patches of dry land in the middles of swamps and marshes, which could technically be considered an island. 

Edit: Claiming is almost certainly not useful anymore, but I'd kind of like to figure out the pattern for sure.

Edited July 19, 2019 by Devotary of Spontaneity

[StrikerEZ he/him]

22 minutes ago, MrakeDarshall said:

Slight nitpick, but why are we interested in what birds people got this cycle? Everyone got a bird randomly since the Aviary was sabotaged, so this does not affect role or alignment. What birds people got last cycle is more interesting because it means they spent their action requesting a bird.

I’m interested in what bird each person got because whoever sabotaged the Aviary for sure got an Aviar. So our saboteur is someone who received an Aviar this cycle. 

Wait. I can’t remember, @Devotary of Spontaneity, did you receive an Aviar this cycle?

For some reason I feel like she didn’t. She either said she had Sak last cycle or this cycle...I should probably go back and look at her posts....

Oh, never mind, she got Sak this cycle. So...it is a little more likely that she could be the elim engineer than I was thinking....

Ugh, I don’t like making decisions like this when I’m tired. I have a gut feeling that Stick is the better target, but Devotary doesn’t have the alibi I was thinking she did. Eh, whatever, I’ll leave my vote where it is. I’ll eat my shoe and apologize to Stick if Devotary flips elim.

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

Right, the cycle is winding down. So, two things:

1. I am very against the Devotary lynch. I don't think I'm understating things to say that this will likely be the deciding factor that loses the game for the village. Not only have I provided ample reasoning for why I think Devotary's past behavior is village, but think about it. Is Devotary really acting like an eliminator engineer under the gun right now? Is there really enough resistance to Devotary's lynch (aside from me right now) to signal those votes on the right track? I don't think it's much of a coincidence that the votes on Devotary include Stick and Lopen, both of which I have been vocal about thinking are eliminators. I am also both surprised and suspicious that it hasn't occurred to Aman that the Devotary lynch has just been too easy. I'm not sure why people are content to let this be. If we get this lynch wrong, and no village engineers show up that haven't been around before, I'm realizing that the village literally cannot win, even if we get every lynch after this one right.
2. While Alvron is one of the few suspects, what little I have on him kind of points to his being a villager. This is very frustrating, because the other suspects have barely given much commentary. I don't like my odds at guessing with so little information.
   • I feel reasonably good about narrowing it down to either Mark or Shane. I think Shane is slightly more likely.
   • Unless the real eliminator engineer is more active, and stealing the claim from one of their teammates, in which case, it's Lopen. Considering the fact that Stick accused Devotary of literally the same thing, and Lopen seemed eager to rely on alibis to catch the eliminator engineer, I'm for sure willing to bet that the eliminators have thought of this already, and are using this tactic since the game is so close to ending. Lopen.

@everyone, if nothing changes, then I don't think the village can win. Please think twice before you let this lynch go unchallenged.

Edited July 19, 2019 by MrakeDarshall

[Burnt Spaghetti she/her]

Bah drake has a point. I agree that people were quick to jump on the lynch with little resistance. 

The main thing i keep thinking is that at this point, eliminators can probably afford to lose a member if they arent engineer. So easy enough to let one die and not give any opportunity to let us link them together.

I wont be voting this cycle. I would like to but i havent time to re go through the options as im going out for the rest of the day. I know its annoying to not vote, im sorry.  Im tired from hiking and now have to be social >> at  this point ill say i personally trust both aman for finally giving village direction and getting us talking, and drake. I was initially inclined to vote on devontionaary as well, but that was more a 'what aman says makes sense to me and im happy to support a lynch that thought has gone into'.  But i havent personally reviewed stuff myself this cycle so i waited. Re stick and lopen. Stick is someone i dont trust. But also not fully convincwd of evilness so idk and idk about lopen- i never know about lopen. Anyways i gtg right now byeeee

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

Devotary(3): Aman, Lopen, Stick
Burnt(1): Shane
Stick(1): Striker
Lopen(1): Drake

Is my lynch actually fatal?

Worst case-nobody ever bothers to fix anything: 

C3: 5 parts remaining. I die, double sabotage
C4: 3 parts remaining. Lynch elim engineer, double sabotage
C5: 1 part remaining. Lynch elim, single sabotage, game over

Best case- One repair action in on the brig, newly active village engineer: 

C3: 5 parts remaining. I die, elim hospitalised, double sabotage, brig repaired, one tick of bridge repair
C4: 4 parts remaining. Hospitalise elim, Roleblock+lynch elim engineer -> single sabotage, bridge repaired, one tick on lab
C5: Elims can't sabotage faster than two village engineers can fix

Mid case- One repair action in on the bridge, one active village engineer:

C3: 5 parts remaining. I die, double sabotage, bridge repaired
C4: 4 parts remaining. Lynch elim engineer, double sabotage, one tick of brig repair
C5: 2 parts remaining. Lynch elim, single sabotage, brig repaired
C6: 2 parts remaining. Lynch elim, wins if three elims total. Else single sabotage, one tick of bridge repair 
C7: 1 part remaining. Lynch or roleblock elim wins. Else, single sabotage, bridge repaired
C8: 1 part remaining. Have to roleblock elim, otherwise the ship is destroyed

If we don't have any active engineers, things look bleak. A single engineer can hold out for quite a while, but we'd have to be accurate with lynches, attacks, and roleblocks. With two active engineers we have a pretty good chance if we can get rid of the elim engineer next cycle.

I'm not going to vote for Burnt. Drake seems more convinced than I am that Stick's brush with the lynch means she's not the elim engineer. Let's see.

Three and a three quarter hours before rollover, Stick votes for a secondary target to create a 2-1-1-1 lynch. I vote for Burnt three and a quarter hours before rollover, deciding it was too late for a third vote on Stick. ~30 minutes later, BR makes a three way tie by voting for Drake. An hour before rollover, Drake eliminates the threat on Stick by switching to Alvron. There are never more than two votes on Stick, but a 50-50 tie resulting from Stick casting a survival vote aren't great odds. Stick loses nothing by voting for Drake initially and then switching later if absolutely necessary. This would require her to stick around and see how the lynch developed. She also has to rely on a teammate, one of Drake, Burnt, BR, or I, to manipulate the lynch. I doubt it's Drake, as he almost died to the lynch. BR never saw Drake remove his vote, and she probably could have gotten away with voting for Burnt instead of Drake, which would have been far safer for Stick. Burnt is the most likely of the three by default, but I don't really like that pairing. Burnt didn't vote until after the danger to Stick was gone, at a point when Stick wasn't around to change her vote. I would expect more defensiveness in the form of a vote for Drake well before Drake's vote shift.

I guess that means less likely to vote for Stick. I suppose I'll @_Stick_ while I look at Lopen more closely.

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

1 hour ago, Burnt Spaghetti said:

Bah drake has a point.

I wont be voting this cycle.

Um. I'm glad you agree with me but. My point was kind of that you shouldn't do what you just decided to do.

 

Re: Devotary's analysis. Your analysis of the end game condition is sound. I'm just not getting my hopes up about any village engineers coming through for us, since so far, it hasn't happened. Unless Aman happens to be a village engineer, I don't think it's very likely.

This is an interesting point with regard to Stick. But, as you say, it's kind of hard to make a good pairing for who was bailing Stick out as the engineer. If I hadn't changed my vote, I'm pretty sure Stick would have been up for the RNG tiebreaker.

Edited July 19, 2019 by MrakeDarshall

[Amanuensis he/him]

I have woken up despite how badly I want to continue sleeping, to make sure my vote ends up in the right place. Hopefully this will be worth it.

@MrakeDarshall @Devotary of Spontaneity, I didn't bring up the lack of defenses for Devotary because it would decrease the chances of a teammate standing up for her, but it was always something I've been paying attention to and will be a factor in my vote decision going forward.

I believe lynching Lopen today is a worse idea, even if I also believe he is smart enough to have a teammate set an alibi. The main problem is if he did indeed do that, this means a total of 3 elims were active last cycle and all had unaccountable actions. Due to how small a possibility that is, I would rather the Trapper just hospitalized him today rather than wasting votes on lynching him.

Devotary's responses have been very good, if I'm honest, but also not really enough for me to be convinced of her innocence. I could be willing to put her on the backburner, but at this point I can't see myself voting for anyone other than Alvron or Stick. Provably Alvron, since I believe he would ask the GMs if there were secrets in this game before wasting an action on the Sky Crane, like another player did (I believe it was Stick)

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

Assuming that Lopen is the elim engineer: Lopen could only have sabotaged the Aviary if he's elim partners with Ventyl, as Lopen wouldn't be able to get away with claiming one of a set of Kukupa twins otherwise. It would be easier for Lopen to avoid this problem by sabotaging the lab instead. I can be pretty sure that either Lopen or a teammate received Sak C1, as we haven't had any other claims and someone needed to have requested Sak for me not to have gotten one C1. C2, Lopen claims to have sent an anonymous message through the mess hall. This claim is made two hours after stating that he didn't have an alibi and that taking credit for an anonymous message or Aviar possession wasn't proof of innocence. Which is certainly an interesting strategy regardless of role and alignment.

Anything else important? Suggested that village engineers wouldn't sabotage the ship, which isn't necessarily wrong. I think a villager is more likely than an elim to consider reasons for village sabotage, though we can be pretty sure that nobody who brought up the possibility of village sabotage is actually a village engineer or else we would have fixed something by now. Poked Lum, and kept the vote to support a tie. Cared more about Aman's fate than Xino's, which seemed to be a relatively common sentiment. Supported Drake's attempt to narrow down the saboteurs with the caveat that it doesn't make sense to remove the minimal actives wholesale, advice that Lopen seems to have abandoned this cycle.

I'm not entirely sure what criteria Lopen is using for inactive though, as last cycle he listed a bunch of people who were too inactive to vote for and then cast a vote for someone who'd only posted twice. This cycle, Mark was included in the list of people active enough to vote for while Shane, Lum, and Ventyl were not despite posting at least as many times. 

So we've come close to the end of the cycle and my options are 'no', 'probably not', 'maybe', and 'unviable' x4. I assume from Stick's silence that she plans to keep her vote on me, which means my vote probably doesn't matter anyway. I would and probably still do suggest hospitalising other candidates for elim engineer, except many of them(Xino, Shane, Mark, Ventyl) are also prime candidates for village engineer. So that's unfortunate. I suppose Ventyl won't be doing anything after this cycle until he's replaced, but we have no knowledge of when that will be. We can always hope Aman is an engineer.

 

And now Aman is here. Surely it would only take one teammate to create an alibi for Lopen? A teammate sends in an anonymous message and Lopen takes credit for it? Hospitalisation seems better than dismissal, as Lopen is probably only evil as the engineer, otherwise he would have let the actual engineer have an alibi. It's unclear whether a Trapper is actually willing and able to attack Lopen.

Edit: I've realised that you were probably referring to the fact that an elim other than the engineer sabotaged the other airship part, so we have two unaccountable elim actions as a baseline, and sending an anonymous message would be the third. We definitely have more than three players who can't prove their C2 actions though. 

Edited July 19, 2019 by Devotary of Spontaneity

[DeTess she/her]

It's a little over 1.5 hours till rollover so remember your actions and stuff! I will be going on holiday for a long weekend shortly after rollover, and will likely be less active until I'm back, so If I'm slow to respond to stuff, that's why.

Edited July 19, 2019 by Randuir

[Amanuensis he/him]

I am roleless, sadly. I wouldn't be feeling the pressure this bad if I had the ability to repair anything.

As for Lopen, since two parts were sabotaged that means 3 eliminators would need to have put in actions. Given the sheer number of inactive/low active players, I find that scenario unlikely compared to the elim!Engineer just being someone else.

[Stick. she/her]

eeeee what if all the super active players are village? Not gonna lie, the lack of defense for Devotary is worrying. Drake’s the only one very vocally going against the Devotary lynch - something I don’t see an elim doing for a teammate unless they’re desperate. That shouldn’t be the case at this stage. Uff

edit: you know, it’s really convenient for the elims to just sabotage stuff every cycle - they get closer to their wincon without narrowing down the pool of suspects as they would’ve if they’d chosen to go with the other method of reaching their wincon which involved revealing roles and hospitalizing more people...

Edited July 19, 2019 by _Stick_

[Amanuensis he/him]

7 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

eeeee what if all the super active players are village? Not gonna lie, the lack of defense for Devotary is worrying. Drake’s the only one very vocally going against the Devotary lynch - something I don’t see an elim doing for a teammate unless they’re desperate. That shouldn’t be the case at this stage. Uff

I wouldn't really describe Alv as super active, but either way, the players on my list are fairly experienced and judging by how this game has turned out so far, I'm fairly confident there's an elim among them. Right now my gut is telling me Alvron, but I low key hate that I need to depend on gut at all. You and Devotary unfortunately have the added problem of having received an Aviar.

Hrm. I doubt I'll be attacked anyway, so it doesn't matter. A large part of the reason I've been voting for Devotary is because she claimed to get Sak. I also got Sak from the Aviary Sabotage and thus am wary of two villagers getting it at the same time.

Aman: Sak, Devo: Sak, Lopen/Ventyl: Twins, Stick: Kokerlii!probably

Edited July 19, 2019 by Amanuensis

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

4 minutes ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

Assuming that Lopen is the elim engineer: Lopen could only have sabotaged the Aviary if he's elim partners with Ventyl, as Lopen wouldn't be able to get away with claiming one of a set of Kukupa twins otherwise. It would be easier for Lopen to avoid this problem by sabotaging the lab instead. I can be pretty sure that either Lopen or a teammate received Sak C1, as we haven't had any other claims and someone needed to have requested Sak for me not to have gotten one C1. C2, Lopen claims to have sent an anonymous message through the mess hall. This claim is made two hours after stating that he didn't have an alibi and that taking credit for an anonymous message or Aviar possession wasn't proof of innocence. Which is certainly an interesting strategy regardless of role and alignment.

Point.

@Ventyl are you around to back this up? Do you have a PM with Lopen that you know was not initiated by Lopen?

Because the claim that "two different people got different twins" struck me as kind of odd. That suggests that the twins have an entirely different behavior when they are loosed via sabotage compared to how they are used normally, which seems unlikely.

For now, Lopen.

 

21 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

Devotary's responses have been very good, if I'm honest, but also not really enough for me to be convinced of her innocence. I could be willing to put her on the backburner, but at this point I can't see myself voting for anyone other than Alvron or Stick. Provably Alvron, since I believe he would ask the GMs if there were secrets in this game before wasting an action on the Sky Crane, like another player did (I believe it was Stick)

Alvron wouldn't be my first choice, but he's in my top 3 suspects, and I think it's a better choice than Devotary.

It may be late in the cycle, but are you willing to switch over the lynch? Devotary, same question.

Alvron.

 

[Amanuensis he/him]

I am definitely willing, just mulling over details and hoping more players show up to see what happens. I would ask that Stick keeps her vote on Devotary, however, and that Devotary votes for Alv.

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

7 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

I am roleless, sadly. I wouldn't be feeling the pressure this bad if I had the ability to repair anything.

As for Lopen, since two parts were sabotaged that means 3 eliminators would need to have put in actions. Given the sheer number of inactive/low active players, I find that scenario unlikely compared to the elim!Engineer just being someone else.

Last cycle, we had fifteen players who could be evil. Out of those, you, Xino, Ventyl, Mark, and Shane, or 1/3 of total players were minimally active enough that it's plausible they didn't put in actions. Are you suggesting a three member elim team, or a four member team that just got really unlucky?

3 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

Hrm. I doubt I'll be attacked anyway, so it doesn't matter. A large part of the reason I've been voting for Devotary is because she claimed to get Sak. I also got Sak from the Aviary Sabotage and thus am wary of two villagers getting it at the same time.

Aman: Sak, Devo: Sak, Lopen/Ventyl: Twins, Stick: Kokerlii!probably

We know that more than three people can get Aviar when the Aviary is sabotaged. If you assume that you got Sak, Lopen/Ventyl got Kukupa, and Stick got Kokerlii, why does that make it implausible for me to have gotten Sak? Or, more accurately because I specifically requested Sak, why is it implausible that you received Sak by chance?

3 minutes ago, MrakeDarshall said:

Because the claim that "two different people got different twins" struck me as kind of odd. That suggests that the twins have an entirely different behavior when they are loosed via sabotage compared to how they are used normally, which seems unlikely.

I believe it's that normally, a player request Kukupa and gets both twins. They can then create a PM with whoever they want. When the Aviary was sabotaged, one twin went to Lopen and the other went to Ventyl, forcing them to have a PM together.

[Amanuensis he/him]

No way the elims have 4 members, imo. It would make this too hard considering they got an Engineer.

While you getting Sak isn't exactly alignment indicative, the eliminator strategy of going for sabotage over Hospitalization + the probable existence of a Village Trapper makes me think that one of the sak's could have ended up with the elims. Especially with the Bridge and Biology Lab already down, making Kokerlii redundant.

Edited July 19, 2019 by Amanuensis

[DeTess she/her]

7 minutes ago, MrakeDarshall said:

Because the claim that "two different people got different twins" struck me as kind of odd. That suggests that the twins have an entirely different behavior when they are loosed via sabotage compared to how they are used normally, which seems unlikely.

When the aviary is sabotaged, the birds fly everywhere in a panic. Birds are assigned to everyone that didn't already have one by random chance. Someone will only get a single twin under sabotage conditions and as a result will end up in a random PM.

[Amanuensis he/him]

Main issue with my logic is when you claimed getting Sak, I believe Stick, Lopen and I already claimed Aviar, no? That would be extremely risky for an elim to do, when it would be easier to just figure our the pattern and lie. With you knowing the name of Sooty Albatross, Elephant Bird and Monk Parakeet, it shouldn't have been too difficult. Of the group of claimers, Stick and Ventyl are probably the most likely to be elims, given the former claimed almost immediately (good elim strat) and the latter didn't claim at all, but was announced by Lopen. This information is unfortunately all for naught if the actual engineer just lied and said they got a regular bird, but acting under that assumption if it's not true would be a fatal mistake and really get us nowhere, analysis wise.