Open 840 - Guardians of the Fortress [Game Over]

[imaginality]

Hi all.

I'm slightly suspicious of Aristeia because second vote in a location is convenient for scum to ensure they're split (if the first vote is town). Making a big deal about planning to vote Tanner makes less sense from scum though as it more or less locks them into swapping one of them.

hm. my hope was to bring two scummiest people to the keep with me. if we're right on them both being scum, scum will be forced to move one of them, which would greatly help us.

That seems like a strategy that would work for any location, not keep-specific?

I'll go where I'm told to go. The game looked like an interesting exercise in ways to play out MeLo. I have absolutely zero preference in where I end up.

Not caring where you go is good but 'where I'm told to go' seems a little passive, letting others direct rather than aiming to influence the discussion. Are you typically passive as town?

I highly doubt both Luke and Ari are scum both going Keep this early. Either T/T or T/S. Two scum going to the same location right away doesn't make any sense to me.

Agreed, it seems like it would limit scum's options a lot to lock two scum in so soon.

I would not be opposed to Toog coming to the keep with me an Ari. They are the only two people on this player list I have ever played with, so might help us read each other ?

I like this, though remember we share the same game thread so people can weigh in on the other minigames.
I think being willing to have a player who knows you at the same location as you is towny though since they will have power to vote or not vote you.

hm. i would say aristeia is still >rand town. scum!aristeia is basically forced to either flat-out lose one minigame, or use the night swap on me. and the second might not always be possible. it feels like limiting options for scum for... zero gain.

She could use the night swap on her to appear towny in whatever minigame she's swapped into. That seems like a reasonable play as scum? And also could just be hoping Tanner doesn't actually end up in Keep anyhow.

Have I played with anyone here before? I recognize a few names but I can't remember if those were games I modded or played in. Though maybe it's a moot point since idk if I'd be able to read them well even if I did have player experience with someone here.

So all that said, I'm fine not picking where I go. I have no real preference for which location I'm in.

I'm slightly suspicious of this very 'nothing' initial post.
@numberQ, any early reads?

-
Reminder to myself to figure out why post 72 seems interesting to me for some reason.
-

VP Baltar, what game were we in together?

P-edit: implosion's thoughts re how we divide ourselves up make sense. We can sort of still do that even with two players committed. The problem of course is getting consensus about who is most/least town!

Would it be useful if we agreed that the remaining players go somewhere another player nominates them to go? Might help with solving the final minigames once some of the nominating players have flipped?

[imaginality]

Okay I see the added value of that strategy if it's on the Keep. Though it might be moot as Lukewarm and Ari have limited our options to apply it unless we strongly scumread either or both of them.

[imaginality]

VP Baltar, what game were we in together?

Feel like we definitely played together many years ago. I couldn't tell you the game though. Definitely not saying I can read you, was just listing people I am pretty sure I've played with before.

I'd be happy if you (or anyone here) can read me easily. Since this game seems to rely on playstyle reads and a bit of mechanics/wifom rather than the typical game with wagons and NKs to analyse.

You're right, by the way - I dug back into my wiki and looks like we were both in One Flew Over a Cuckoo's Nest (you as scum, me as town) which got abandoned. Back in 2009!

[imaginality]

Are there other people out there who have preferences for the game that they are in, or a preference for who they end up with?

Looking back, I see Toog saying that they have no preference and then DArby saying that they want the

DArby, do you have any thoughts on who would go with you?

None of Imaginality, Implosion, numberQ, VP Baltar have said anything one way or the other

Doesn't matter to me, they all seem like interesting setups.
I do think it's important players give clear views on the players in the other minigames to maximise the info that we get when the first minigame flips. Compared to focusing just on the game they're in

[imaginality]

@Everyone, how good would you rate yourself in Elo?

I'm good in elo as scum.

This is my first chance to be in elo as town since my return, so we'll see.

In terms of the order the games resolve I think we should commit now to a consensus approach to that ie. we agree we will resolve the game that will give most info to the other games first. E.g. If we are pretty sure A and B aren't scum buddies and they're in different locations then we should resolve a game with one of them in first, all else being equal.

[imaginality]

Looks like a who's who of lowest post counts.

Interesting also that two of her scumreads are you and I who have both expressed mild suspicion of her:

i like implos strategy

also if we r throwing the three scummiest into the same spot, it doesnt actually matter which spot we throw them into.

Do you think Luke is town?

nope

So then, your comment makes no sense.

Hi all.

I'm slightly suspicious of Aristeia because second vote in a location is convenient for scum to ensure they're split (if the first vote is town).

hm. i would say aristeia is still >rand town. scum!aristeia is basically forced to either flat-out lose one minigame, or use the night swap on me. and the second might not always be possible. it feels like limiting options for scum for... zero gain.

She could use the night swap on her to appear towny in whatever minigame she's swapped into. That seems like a reasonable play as scum? And also could just be hoping Tanner doesn't actually end up in Keep anyhow.

[imaginality]

I considered whether sharing reads is good in this game. I think it is. Because I think smart town play draws on wider views in the minigames so I think scum are limited in how much they can use their knowledge of people's reads. And I think the discussion it generates can help progress others' reads also.

So (with the caveat it's still early and some of the below sounds more black and white than it is), here's how I see things so far:

Lean town:

implosion
- good mech thoughts shared proactively
- asking useful questions eg of Luke and Ari
- my sense is he's more focused on the game than on how others are reading him

Toogeloo
- in my head I thought they were lurking but they've posted more than I remembered, probably a town point as my scumdar pings louder than my towndar
- some good questioning of Ari
- I'm doubtful of his idea that it's better not to give reads yet but doesn't seem like a stance scum would take

Lukewarm
- the vote explanation feels genuine to me
- my sense is he wouldn't want to be the centre of attention as scum in the way casting the first vote made him

VP Baltar
- more focused on strategy chat than forming reads but I do agree with the townread he's formed on implosion
- #151 is the sort of filler post I'd make as scum, and strategy posts seem to wander here and there
- maybe trying a bit deliberately to be likeable?
- that said I suspect I'm being paranoid and by later game my town read would firm up on him

A specific recent point I disagree on:

So, 3 scummiest goes to the Gate, one becomes an IC, and then that player is left to sort the two scummiest players in the game. So, would be a hard choice.

But if you essentially treat all the group input as the decision, seems like it is actually easy to solve, plus you potentially get the scum to clear a scummy player for you. At least those are the benefits I see. I think in a 50/50, I believe town can figure it out

I'd rather force scum to clear someone who is good at scum hunting as IC, than have scum clear a lurker/bad player. So I'd rather put the strong and towny players in Gate, resolve that early, and then get the players in Wall to listen to those in Gate.
I recognise though that strong and town aren't synonymous, so it's not as simple as this, but I do think if we put someone bad in Gate scum will just IC them and I'd rather scum have to make a harder choice.

Tanner
- #59 seems too superficial
-but #74 and questioning VP's townread on him in #103 seems town

Lean scum:

numberQ
- only two posts, so not much to go on
-but I find this switch jarring, from #42"I was really hoping we'd talk about assignments more" to #64 "I'm fine not picking where I go. I have no real preference for which location I'm in."

Aristeia
- 2nd vote on a location
- her readlist feels omgussy
- her Tanner buddying could fit as both S/T and S/S
- would town Ari promise to vote unknown-alignment Tanner?

DArby
-rejected a couple of suggestions but no apparent intent to figure out if they came from wrong town or scum
-don't feel like he's trying to scum hunt
-don't feel like he's trying to help town progress

[imaginality]

Oh also on implosion #178 doesn't feel to me like one scum would make.

[imaginality]

that post was me questioning implo's read on me. part of me wants to say that means the team is imaginality/implosion/baltar because why else would he mix up you two, but realistically i know it's probably just a mistake.

Probably best you stick with the 'mistake' explanation not only because it's correct but also because what I

actually

mixed up was typing you instead of implosion:

.

I will say, I give small +town points to implosion for spouting off his optimal strategy. He talks about it in the scum PT for that old game. Seems like it wouldn't need to be mentioned before I asked for a link if he were scum.

So your tinfoil theory would have me, you and implosion as scum, which I'm guessing you disagree with?

[imaginality]

- her Tanner buddying could fit as both S/T and S/S

i was going to complain about you calling my 59 superficial, but then i realized just why it might seem like it to someone not familiar with ari, and why i'm maybe being a bit hasty in that read, so, fine. my questions then are (1) why are you townleaning baltar? the points you wrote about him seem overwhelmingly negative, (2) what's the logic behind ari/tanner being s/s?

Your take on those points is flavoured by your scum read, I think. For me they fit a pattern of 'could be scum but could just be early game town' and my gut says the latter.
That gut take is probably also influenced by the fact I already have three other players I find scummy. If everyone else looked town to me I might be more wary.

[imaginality]

As for why Ari/Tanner potentially being S/S, consider that my own tinfoil theory.

Basically that the whole "we wanna go in the same location" thing could be aimed at making town wary of letting you go in the same location. So you end up in different locations. Or if you do both end up in keep and have to swap one of you, you use it as a point to argue that you/Ari are being swapped so Ari won't vote you.

I don't know how likely it is but I do disagree with people who are saying it's too limiting for S/S to play like that.

That said it could be S/T with her wanting to buddy you. I think in that scenario they'd still nightswap you if you end up in same location so she doesn't have to vote you. But I could see that leading to you and others strengthening your townreads on her. Whereas again I see her play even if you're town as a perfectly viable scum tactic.

Whereas I don't know if Ari as town would be willing to risk the game on voting for you as an unknown alignment.

[imaginality]

does anyone else read 204 as me shading those three people for not assigning yet?

I did not think that it was shade

[imaginality]

that post was me questioning implo's read on me. part of me wants to say that means the team is imaginality/implosion/baltar because why else would he mix up you two, but realistically i know it's probably just a mistake.

Probably best you stick with the 'mistake' explanation not only because it's correct but also because what I

actually

mixed up was typing you instead of implosion:

.

I will say, I give small +town points to implosion for spouting off his optimal strategy. He talks about it in the scum PT for that old game. Seems like it wouldn't need to be mentioned before I asked for a link if he were scum.

So your tinfoil theory would have me, you and implosion as scum, which I'm guessing you disagree with?

uhm. you posted the original thing in the section of your readslist that was describing your townread of me. you linked post 103, which is me responding to implo and asking why he's townreading me and vp.

so you're telling me you mixed up typing me instead of implosion, you mixed up which section you're putting it in, you ALSO mixed up the number of the post, but everything came out in such a way that it looks like you mixed up implo and vp?

To clarify:
- when I was writing notes for my reads on you I noted 'VP townreads Tanner' instead of 'VP townreads implo'
- when I wrote my notes on you I wrote 'Tanner questions townread on him' and grabbed the URL
- when I wrote up the section on you I combined these into the line about you questioning VP's townread on you

[imaginality]

If you think the low info slots will be hardest to sort I'd argue we should chuck them at the wall where we have lowest odds of winning anyhow?
I do like the idea of sending implosion to the Keep as no one's voiced any suspicion of him.

[imaginality]

If I'm grouping people, might be something like this:

numberQ, Toogeloo, Tanner

Lukewarm, Aristeia, implosion

VP Baltar, DArby, imaginality



Maybe flip Tanner and DArby

I don't oppose this suggestion.

Which of those groups do you think has 2+ scum in it?
I'd rather have numberQ and DArby together.
I think if we had VP - me - you, that could be all town and force scum to swap in.

[imaginality]

Potted summary of what happened after page 4, for NumberQ's benefit:

Page 5: Ari and Tanner flirted in seven different languages
Page 6: everyone agreed I'm obvtown
Page 7: we all assigned ourselves to locations and asked the mod not to end the day yet just to trick you into thinking it's still up for discussion
Page 8: we ran an impromptu karaoke Song Contest, Lukewarm won with by singing Snow (Hey Oh) by Red Hot Chili Peppers which all agreed was the most impressive vocally albeit also the most confusing temperature-wise
Page 9: basically just cat memes (VP posted a dog meme but the rest of us politely didn't comment on his faux pas)
Page 13: we invented time travel but the future was boring because it was still D1
Page 10: everyone thought about it some more and still agreed I'm conftown, though the vote to build a monument in my honour was postponed til Day 2
Page 11: we felt it was unfair to keep posting in your absence so no one posted on that page, it's just 25 vote counts

[imaginality]

@Ari: what's your read on Toog?
@Ari and @Luke: do you both townread implo?

[imaginality]

If you think the low info slots will be hardest to sort I'd argue we should chuck them at the wall where we have lowest odds of winning anyhow?
I do like the idea of sending implosion to the Keep as no one's voiced any suspicion of him.

it's the difference in strategy, whether we want to absolutely tank our odds of winning one minigame but somewhat increase them in another, or to keep them ~equal. i don't think one is mathematically better than the other.

Fair point.

I'm also fine so far with putting darby and number together, the only thing is i have this selfish desire of not being the third one there, because i have

absolutely nothing

on their alignments so far. like, i have some ideas on imaginality and baltar. (and everyone else in the game.) those two? head empty

This post and some other posts by others really miss the degree to which we can and should be sharing reads cross-game tomorrow. Not only to help with suggestions to the players in each game but also to get more interactions and committed reads to make the flips in one game provide info to the other games.

All of which is to say I don't think it should matter hugely if you don't find them easy to read yet.

Out of curiosity: if VP Baltar and I are in the same location, but you're not, who else would you want in that location?

285 got me thinking. if ari and luke are town/town, then scum would surely be trying to angle themselves to get into the keep. but i think what i mentioned earlier was right, nobody actually showed much care about where they get assigned. working backwards, that would mean ari/luke are t/s? it's probably wrong to be making that many assumptions.

I've been having similar thoughts.
This is also a reason why we might want to resolve Keep first if it still has Luke and Ari in it - if they turn out to be town/town then there's highly likely scum amongst the conspicuous "I don't care where I end up"-ers.

[imaginality]

*pfwish*

So hey, back a page ago I decided to cobble together some tin foil Tanner left lying around with some real numbers from numberQ, imaginary numbers from me, and kinetic energy from implosion, to make a time machine. And it worked!

So I figured I'd jump a page ahead to see what's going on.

-looks around-

Ah, so basically nothing new, then. Yeah, I should've jumped further ahead.

-sets target time to page 29-

See ya later, 'gators. Time to put this scientific progress to use!

*boink*

[imaginality]

I think for the third person in Keep we should make it someone Ari and Luke agree to vote for in advance. If we can lock them in to that plan it pretty much forces scum to swap the third person if they're town. Hence my questions to them to see who they can both agree on as town.

[imaginality]

@Tanner: you not wanting to go with numberQ and DArby makes me slightly suspicious that VP and I are both town and you're scum trying to get in with us so there's one scum among us. You saying DArby should be with VP and me if you're not doesn't do much to dissuade me from that concern.

That said, I kind of like the idea of you going to Gate with us because I think if you are town and get IC'ed you'd be a useful voice. And I think the same of VP and me, whereas DArby if town seems less useful if IC'ed.
For the same reason if VP and I are at the Wall I'd rather DArby is with us than you.

[imaginality]

oh wait, baltar said originally said we should go at wall, not gate. and imaginality talked about going to the gate. meh, i don't dislike it. i usually feel like i wanna evade being ic any way i can, but considering this is one of those games where pretty much everyone suspects me to some degree, me being at the gate is not actually a very clear-cut decision for scum. alright.

Almost posted that I didn't remember saying that, but I also have Swiss cheese brain and didn't have been too busy with work this morning to go fact check.

Fwiw, I think the three of us are just the right amount of ambiguous to make an IC clear useful regardless.

I was about to correct that too.
And I (obviously) agree with us going to the Gate, like VP says none of us are obvtown already and any of us would be useful as IC.

[imaginality]

Yep it's time to take our positions and defend our fortress!

VOTE: Gate

[imaginality]

pedit: Oh there we go. Just one more needed at any location I think?

We have to fill two locations before remaining players get autoassigned, so there's still two votes to go.

[imaginality]

Huh, well for starters obviously [v] VP Baltar [/v] - by no means do I want Tanner to rush his vote but since I know VP is confscum I might as well do this now.

Okay now for a bit of a wall post or two, catching up with other stuff from today:

[quote="In [url=viewtopic.php?p=13185034#p13185034]post 442[/url], numberQ"]Long night made me forget a lot of the game state lol

Was Pav moved because they're scum and it was obvious that slot would be voted out at the Wall? I could see both Luke and Ari being town tbh in light of this swap.
[/quote]

So basically you think it could be a scum-scum swap scenario?
If implo is scum then scum had a more or less guaranteed win with implo at Keep, given he was the most townread of the three, so I'm not sure there'd be benefit for them in this swap unless their read on the gamestate is significantly different to mine.

[quote="In [url=viewtopic.php?p=13185040#p13185040]post 444[/url], numberQ"]Oh wait, if Pav is scum and they were swapped then either A) implo is ALSO scum and we managed to put one scum in each location by accident, or B) Toog is lockscum.
[/quote]

From your POV yes, I'm a bit wary of how you state this without that qualifier though. Since for the rest of us it only means either Toog OR you are scum.

[quote="In [url=viewtopic.php?p=13185127#p13185127]post 468[/url], Aristeia"][quote="In [url=viewtopic.php?p=13185118#p13185118]post 463[/url], Pavowski"]We don't have to get scum here, we just have to find town. This is easy and makes me think even more that Luke is scum, because I know he thinks (knows) he can look townier than me.[/quote]

?

If you think Luke is scum why wouldn't you just vote for me?

Do you think Luke is bluffing about voting for me to convince you to vote for him?[/quote]

@Ari, it sounds from this like you think Pav should have the voting power in Keep rather than you or Luke, is that right?

[quote="In [url=viewtopic.php?p=13185137#p13185137]post 475[/url], Aristeia"]I think over focus on one minigame to the detriment of others might be minus town EV

I think every player should be trying to play and win their own minigame concurrently while also giving opinions on the other games.[/quote]

100% agree with this. Though I think rather than resolve minigames in order of certainty, resolve them in order of how useful the flips will be for solving the remaining games.

[quote="In [url=viewtopic.php?p=13185144#p13185144]post 477[/url], Tanner"]
i think the first step here is having everyone give their introduction thoughts. at least on their own game, preferably on the others too. then it will be easier to decide the order, when we figure out what flips give info for where. [/quote]

For me, off the cuff (I haven't reread D1 in depth yet cos Christmas etc.):

- Gate: Well my read is obviously VP is scum. I am happy to go dig through his iso but from your POV I might be scum trying to bias your reads so I'll stick to fairly objective points. And obviously happy to answer any questions/requests.

I'm a bit surprised this game didn't get changed cos I think the choice of you as IC points to VP, so that makes me see the Darby - implosion swap as either a necessary S/T one, or as scum thinking it is a more useful swap than disrupting the Gate.

One other thought I had: if you don't have a clear view on whether the scum in our game is VP or me, it might be useful to see where VP and I differ in our reads on other games and resolve those game(s) first to help you decide between us.

- Wall: I want to re-read before commenting as I didn't have a strong read on either Toogeloo or numberQ D1. I think implosion is town because wouldn't scum implosion just stay put at Keep? So for me, the only scenario implosion is scum is if one of Luke/Ari is also scum.

- Keep: if either of Ari or Luke is scum, by play alone my hunch is still on Ari scum. If either of them is scum they likely brought in Pav mainly to swap out implosion, which implies the scum among them thinks Pav was a better choice to swap in than me/Tanner/numberQ/Toogeloo. The Luke - Pav history might be a point against Luke here?

The alternative scenario of Luke-Ari town and scum dumping the DArby/Pav slot into Keep is also very possible. Weighing against that somewhat: I don't recall anyone trying to angle against implo joining Keep? Rereading that part of the D1 discussion is high on my to do list.

[imaginality]

Huh, well for starters obviously VOTE: VP Baltar - by no means do I want Tanner to rush his vote but since I know VP is confscum I might as well do this now.

Okay now for a bit of a wall post or two, catching up with other stuff from today:

Long night made me forget a lot of the game state lol

Was Pav moved because they're scum and it was obvious that slot would be voted out at the Wall? I could see both Luke and Ari being town tbh in light of this swap.

So basically you think it could be a scum-scum swap scenario?
If implo is scum then scum had a more or less guaranteed win with implo at Keep, given he was the most townread of the three, so I'm not sure there'd be benefit for them in this swap unless their read on the gamestate is significantly different to mine.

Oh wait, if Pav is scum and they were swapped then either A) implo is ALSO scum and we managed to put one scum in each location by accident, or B) Toog is lockscum.

From your POV yes, I'm a bit wary of how you state this without that qualifier though. Since for the rest of us it only means either Toog OR you are scum.

We don't have to get scum here, we just have to find town. This is easy and makes me think even more that Luke is scum, because I know he thinks (knows) he can look townier than me.

?

If you think Luke is scum why wouldn't you just vote for me?

Do you think Luke is bluffing about voting for me to convince you to vote for him?

@Ari, it sounds from this like you think Pav should have the voting power in Keep rather than you or Luke, is that right?

I think over focus on one minigame to the detriment of others might be minus town EV

I think every player should be trying to play and win their own minigame concurrently while also giving opinions on the other games.

100% agree with this. Though I think rather than resolve minigames in order of certainty, resolve them in order of how useful the flips will be for solving the remaining games.

i think the first step here is having everyone give their introduction thoughts. at least on their own game, preferably on the others too. then it will be easier to decide the order, when we figure out what flips give info for where.

For me, off the cuff (I haven't reread D1 in depth yet cos Christmas etc.):

- Gate: Well my read is obviously VP is scum. I am happy to go dig through his iso but from your POV I might be scum trying to bias your reads so I'll stick to fairly objective points. And obviously happy to answer any questions/requests.

I'm a bit surprised this game didn't get changed cos I think the choice of you as IC points to VP, so that makes me see the Darby - implosion swap as either a necessary S/T one, or as scum thinking it is a more useful swap than disrupting the Gate.

One other thought I had: if you don't have a clear view on whether the scum in our game is VP or me, it might be useful to see where VP and I differ in our reads on other games and resolve those game(s) first to help you decide between us.

- Wall: I want to re-read before commenting as I didn't have a strong read on either Toogeloo or numberQ D1. I think implosion is town because wouldn't scum implosion just stay put at Keep? So for me, the only scenario implosion is scum is if one of Luke/Ari is also scum.

- Keep: if either of Ari or Luke is scum, by play alone my hunch is still on Ari scum. If either of them is scum they likely brought in Pav mainly to swap out implosion, which implies the scum among them thinks Pav was a better choice to swap in than me/Tanner/numberQ/Toogeloo. The Luke - Pav history might be a point against Luke here?

The alternative scenario of Luke-Ari town and scum dumping the DArby/Pav slot into Keep is also very possible. Weighing against that somewhat: I don't recall anyone trying to angle against implo joining Keep? Rereading that part of the D1 discussion is high on my to do list.

[imaginality]

Just thinking abut the game, and I realized that Baltar and imaginality's are in a better position then anyone else to make reads across the games. Who ever is the town in that pair basically have a scum flip to work with. They can actually make associative reads and partner hunt against the other person.

Agreed, though it's not so black and white as others can also partner hunt they just have to do it for two players in their games. So twice the effort but also useful.

Thinking about the swap and which scenarios make sense:

Implosion Town, Pavowski Scum

Counterpoint: Why flip out Implosion out of the three of us if keep is TTT? Implosion is arguably the most townread out of the keep players pre-d2 so does it really make sense to flip him out of the keep? Is the hope that Ari/Luke refuse to trust each other? But Luke has already said multiple times he trusts me so what's even the objective here? Why would scum not just walk into keep regularly if Luke/Ari is T/T instead of wasting the switch?

I have issues with this worldview, I'm not sure if I'm being overly paranoid but I struggle to see which scum team decides this is a good move.

I agree with your analysis of the first two scenarios, but this one - if scum swap in wouldn't they want to swap in for the most townread to give them the best chance of winning Keep? And walking into the third slot after you two had voted would have drawn suspicion on them, I think. So I think this scenario is more likely than you see it. Although you do seem to arrive at the same conclusion later:

I guess the simplest explanation for what went on is that Luke/Me is T/T and nobody on scum team wanted to come to keep with us with 1 scum player inactive.

Pavo then switched in because he was a replacement and decided to take the fall for his team at that point.

I don't think I'm going to vote unless Tanner tells me it's ok to trust that person

Seems sensible. @Luke and @Pav will you commit to taking the same approach?

My assumption for The (edit: Wall) was that we were the unsorted and most likely to have 2 scum. I didn't like numberQ yesterday they kept making pushes as me scum early, and then again at day start today. I don't recall implosion's play yesterday, but I do recall them being mostly town read.

I'm currently leaning scum were already 1/1/1 in the games, and Darby was probably moved to The Keep for chaos purposes.

Why did you shift from your 2-1-0 view to your 1-1-1 view?

Tanner, I am only skimming. Are we certain to have a scum at the gate? If yes, resolving that first makes sense. We can yeet imaginality into the sun.

I have no idea why others are taking this at face value especially given:

i was gonna say "surely scum!him doesn't fake *this*, right?"

but i still remember my first game with him, where scum!him deadass went "guys, does scum have daytalk?" and like, yes he does.

Also would VP really be that clueless as town? Considering also there was plenty of mech discussion some of which he was involved in on D1.

i think gate should resolve either second or last

if implo or lukewarm flip scum it makes it much less likely imo that imaginality is scum here

Would flipping imaginality provide an inverse associative...if so, doesn't it make significantly more sense to flip the gate first since that's a 50/50?

Keep is a 67% chance for town so why does flipping the 50/50 Gate first make more sense odds wise?

Tanner although we are worlds apart may I still flirt with you? the two lads in the keep seem more interested in each other :/

This is two times tonight you've made me laugh, and that might be worth a vote

Please don't just side with the funniest players. Or I would win every game

I am trying to pick your brain to see what information that gives you about the rest of the game and why it might be so.

Right. Me getting your thoughts also is helpful though. Two way street and all. I'm merely asking you to comment on the gate. I understand wanting me to talk first on the other games.

This discussion felt like VP was holding back on giving reads on other games until Ari had given reads on the Gate? I'm wondering what his angle was here.

Toogeloo
- in my head I thought they were lurking but they've posted more than I remembered, probably a town point as my scumdar pings louder than my towndar
- some good questioning of Ari
- I'm doubtful of his idea that it's better not to give reads yet but doesn't seem like a stance scum would take

Looking at imaginality's wall post right now because snow and ice has canceled my dinner plans...

This read looks very fake reasons to me. Other than "some good questioning of Ari", imaginality is hand waving here by stating 'these things might be scummy, but ill actually town read Toog for them'. Which is unfortunate because I had kind of had gut town pings on Toog.

Okay this is a clear misrep. Handily VP has quoted my post. I didn't say any of those things might be scummy.

DArby
-rejected a couple of suggestions but no apparent intent to figure out if they came from wrong town or scum
-don't feel like he's trying to scum hunt
-don't feel like he's trying to help town progress

This scum read on Darby may be accurate, but feels made up at that point in the game perhaps. Darby wasn't hardly even in the game, but imaginality had him at the bottom of the list for not helping town progress and not scum hunting.

Seems overly aggressive read when few people were truly scumhunting D1

It was early, most firm reads at that point could be called overly aggressive (or at least overly confident which is what I assume you mean; for me I use 'aggressive' more for in your face playstyle).

It would move the game discussion less if I caveated all my reads with "of course it's early days so this is all pretty speculative blah blah."

Also DArby being hardly in the game was kinda part of why I said he wasn't helping town, so..?

[imaginality]

@Ari, it sounds from this like you think Pav should have the voting power in Keep rather than you or Luke, is that right?

I don't think of the Keep that way.

If I get to 100% sure of the solution I will not hesitate to vote.

Okay, fair.
I just thought there was agreement D1 on how it would be played, or was it just that someone (Luke?) suggested it and everyone else ignored it so it went undiscussed?

Imaginality how prepared would you say you were for this 1v1?

Not prepared in that the last week of work was crazy and then there was Christmas shenanigans. So I didn't do any in depth rereads or the like despite the long night.

i would like to know what "objective" points you believe you have against baltar. how does me being ic'ed point to him being scum? and why were you thinking our game was going to get changed?

I'll give you more on VP post re-read.

Re. the IC choice: for what it's worth (precisely nothing since I'd say the same as scum), if I were scum I'd prefer to 1v1 Tanner and try to get VP to side with me.
You/others you can and should decide for yourselves who would prefer which match-up, don't take my word on it.

In my head I was expecting the Gate would get swapped because by the end of D1 I felt like there was a decent chance it was T/T/T.

[imaginality]

Re. the IC choice: for what it's worth (precisely nothing since I'd say the same as scum), if I were scum I'd prefer to 1v1 Tanner and try to get VP to side with me.

really? scum!you isn't the type to say "yeah, i totally would have picked you as the ic, the fuck you gonna do, vote me?"

still, why do you think baltar is more likely to want to 1v1 you than he is to 1v1 me?

I'm not so in-your-face as either town or scum. And if I was the type and was scum here... Wouldn't I have said that already?

Like I say though, I don't think my views on my own play matter, I'm just sharing them as part of my thought process here.

I think VP Baltar would prefer you because of your D1 suspicions of me and because of his friendliness towards me D1. I don't think it's a clear cut decision - and in addition, presumably, he would be weighing up our reads on his scum buddies since whoever is IC has a lot of influence over the other minigames.

(On which point, maybe there's value in contrasting your stated D1 reads vs mine to see what the differences are; I'll also do that on my reread.)

But in isolation I think scum VP is more likely to pick you as IC than scum me.

Again, to be clear, I am not saying "you being IC is clear evidence VP's the villain." It's a marginal thing. Probably of bigger interest, certainly once I flip town, is why VP picked you over me.

[imaginality]

I think VP Baltar would prefer you because of your D1 suspicions of me and because of his friendliness towards me D1

Clarifying this: the friendliness gives him cover for "wouldn't he want imaginality as IC" wifom but the fact you had actual suspicions of me is more likely to influence your decision of voting him vs me than his being friendly to me is to influence mine of voting him vs you.

[imaginality]

I think Baltar is a much stronger 1v1er than Imaginality, it feels like a bit of a mismatch to put him at Gate, I think you/implo would have much better odds of winning the 1v1 there.

how does the fact that luke self-assigned at the keep immediately play into this?

I would imagine the scum team decided to split up assignments pregame.

I don't think imaginality volunteers for Gate unless there's no stronger options to throw at it, his scum game isn't as confrontational or 1v1'y as Baltar's.

Nah, after being on Pooky's scum team in Pokemon Mafia and watching him win a 1v1 against Milobird that went on for over a thousand posts, my scum side feels inspired and whenever I'm next scum I'll channel Pooky's spirit to win any 1v1 I'm in. Bring on the 1v1s!

[imaginality]

i would like to know what "objective" points you believe you have against baltar.

Okay, I've reread VP Baltar's iso. Here are the things which stood out to me and which I don't think are just me conf-biasing because I have certainty that he's scum.

1. Fake confusion about mech

Spoiler:

I won't bother quoting the posts from the start of D2, instead I'll provide a video of VP Baltar's mindset at the time:


I'll also point out the following:
a. VP has already done this 'I don't know the rules of this game' shtick earlier this game, in relation to his VLA, for example:

Of course, I do have a vacation planned dec.22-27. I think I will be able to post some, but will be semi-occupied during that time. Maybe orientation toward the first or last mini game makes more sense for me?

There are a couple of other posts which echo this idea that the minigames play out in order, e.g.

Speaking for myself, I don't think I'm very good at mechanics, so as I stated I don't have a strong preference. Because of where my vla is likely to land, I think the first or third minigame might make the most sense for me.

I think town!VP being wrong and getting corrected on this point makes it less likely that town!VP would then still be confused about some other aspect of the mechanics on D2. Wouldn't a town-aligned player put more effort into understanding a modicum of what's going on? Wouldn't someone actively scum-hunting pay attention to whether or not there could be a scum in their mini-game? So I think VP's apparent confusion is fairly objectively fake.

Especially since in that post he also stated he re-read implosion's previous minigame:

I will say, I give small +town points to implosion for spouting off his optimal strategy. He talks about it in the scum PT for that old game. Seems like it wouldn't need to be mentioned before I asked for a link if he were scum.

So the idea that today, he still doesn't know scum have to ensure there's one player at each location is really questionable, considering he clearly was paying attention in his re-read since he noticed implosion's strategy post.

There was a post or two somewhere where he called Wall 'tower', also, which again seems a bit much to believe. (It's not what the Wall was called in that previous game he re-read, either.)

2. He tried to rush the Gate vote today:

Spoiler:

Tanner, I am only skimming. Are we certain to have a scum at the gate? If yes, resolving that first makes sense. We can yeet imaginality into the sun.

i mean, the whole point of the setup is that there's one scum in each of the three locations. and you're going "wait, there's scum at the gate?"

what was your thought process wrt our location when you saw that i was ic'ed?

I thought scum can place wherever they want as long as it's not all three at one location?

If it has to be one at each, then my thought is your imaginality read was right and let's flip it

This is objectively anti-town since VP won't be able to post after Gate is resolved, so if he were town he shouldn't be pushing to yeet me before he's shared his reads etc. in full. Whether or not there'd be value in getting me to post more also before yeeting me is more arguable, wifom etc., but him not wanting to wait to share his reads is not a pro-town mindset.

3. VP has backtracked on his takes under pressure:

Spoiler:

Forgive me btw. I just assumed scum would be avoiding getting stacked together, so playing to try and lock 3 scum together seemed like a pointless endeavor to begin with, but people are pushing it anyways.

Are they? My read is people are trying to optimize minis, not lock scum in a position.

I kind of agree with Aris that first movers probably have +scum due to the simple fact scum have more direct incentive to move first.

(and also... keep in mind that in that game scum moved 2nd yes, but the rest of the first 5 people to move were town)

My point is there is more likely to be a scum among the first movers due to the desire to prevent a lockout.

I agree first first mover is probably slightly +town.

Of course, now that we have talked about it, it feels like it all means nothing, so...

VP has earlier said, and will no doubt say again, that this switching of takes is part of his playstyle. However, I think there's a difference between switching because of something you notice as the game progresses, and backing off/qualifying your takes when you're put under pressure.

Another example:

part of me wants to say that means the team is imaginality/implosion/baltar

hm. i just realized none of those three are assigned yet. we could shove them into the same location.

Looks like a potential town bloc to me. So sure. Where would you put us?

(Also, only two people are assigned, so making a point like that group is avoiding assignment sounds forced)

He then qualifies when questioned:

Why do you have imaginality as "potential town bloc" worthy right now?

He's most out there with reads. Those reads are probably overstated even, which seems like a riskier move than scum would need to take at like 10 pages.

I'm not confident fully sorting imaginality yet, but that's why I said potentially.

And walks back some more:

pedit @ Tanner -- it's not that it's hard to fake. it's more to the point you're making. I often see early reads lists get criticized, so that's why I'm saying it's more risky as scum. Anyhow, I am NOT saying I'm absolutely town reading imaginality here. Just saying it seemed +transparency early in the game that was likely to draw heat...which is not necessarily something scum are motivated to do.

This example is interesting because it comes after Tanner suggests putting me with VP

that post was me questioning implo's read on me. part of me wants to say that means the team is imaginality/implosion/baltar because why else would he mix up you two, but realistically i know it's probably just a mistake.

hm. i just realized none of those three are assigned yet. we could shove them into the same location.

And the second backtrack is right after VP accepts the idea of me being at the same location as him.

i unironically want imaginality and baltar at the same location.

That seems fine by me. I don't trust you to call an entire location, but if you want to test your theory in a 2/3, I don't think there is a lot of harm in that.

So I think this is objectively compatible with scum!VP looking to weaken the point he made in my favour, ahead of being in a minigame with me. I think at this point he was expecting/aiming to get us at the Wall, though, and suggested DArby or Tanner as the third person. So I don't see the above posts as evidence of him planning the 1v1 on me well in advance, more just that it's useful to scum!VP to have flexibility to shift reads on someone he's likely to be in a minigame with.

I'd also note that he might have been thinking there's a good chance I might have voted DArby or Tanner if it had ended up with me, him and DArby or Tanner on the Wall, as he'd hoped (if there weren't any swaps). So makes sense he was wanting to stay neutral on me rather than go after me hard at that time.

I'd also note that these backtracks don't look like what happened with Aristeia where he (said he) was applying pressure to read her reaction to it.

4. VP wanted to get a lurker at the Gate

Spoiler:

I commented on why this was bad earlier:

So, 3 scummiest goes to the Gate, one becomes an IC, and then that player is left to sort the two scummiest players in the game. So, would be a hard choice.

But if you essentially treat all the group input as the decision, seems like it is actually easy to solve, plus you potentially get the scum to clear a scummy player for you. At least those are the benefits I see. I think in a 50/50, I believe town can figure it out

I'd rather force scum to clear someone who is good at scum hunting as IC, than have scum clear a lurker/bad player. So I'd rather put the strong and towny players in Gate, resolve that early, and then get the players in Wall to listen to those in Gate.
I recognise though that strong and town aren't synonymous, so it's not as simple as this, but I do think if we put someone bad in Gate scum will just IC them and I'd rather scum have to make a harder choice.

5. Poor excuse for lack of D1 scumhunting:

Spoiler:

Probably also worth saying that because we couldn't scum hunt in earnest D1, I could only look at people doing mech discussion mostly. Shrug.

It might be

harder

to scumhunt without votes but it's not impossible.

6. VP omitted the IC possibility when suggesting Tanner go to the Gate early on D1:

Spoiler:

i'm starting to wonder why did i even /in into this game, considering i utterly hate lylos as town and have never won one when i was the deciding vote. i think i might really be a masochist.

Going to the gate means you don't have to do that

It's true I also suggested Tanner should go to the Gate:

@Tanner: you not wanting to go with numberQ and DArby makes me slightly suspicious that VP and I are both town and you're scum trying to get in with us so there's one scum among us. You saying DArby should be with VP and me if you're not doesn't do much to dissuade me from that concern.

That said, I kind of like the idea of you going to Gate with us because I think if you are town and get IC'ed you'd be a useful voice. And I think the same of VP and me, whereas DArby if town seems less useful if IC'ed.
For the same reason if VP and I are at the Wall I'd rather DArby is with us than you.

imaginality, you *really* wanted me at the gate, huh.

However, I had a pro-town reason for wanting Tanner there (thinking you'd be useful as IC). As well as an unstated pro-town reason (I felt if Tanner was scum I'd be confident in winning a 1v1 with him, or correctly deciding between him and VP). Whereas VP only raised the idea Tanner wouldn't get IC'ed, and not the possibility that Tanner could be made IC and still have to decide. Did he leave that possibility out deliberately to try to tempt Tanner (a self-proclaimed bad deciding voter) to Gate?

...Actually this one is probably a stretch, I'll chalk this one to my confbias. Not expecting it to convince anyone else.

Interactions with/reads of others

I'm not sure how useful the 'reads of' part of this section will be, because of something VP said:

ok but what's the point of applying pressure to me?

I am gathering information to make reads off.

I don't really care if the scum think they are going to play off that because I almost never put all my thoughts on the table until I'm ready to push something.

I will go all out tunneling someone to see how they act and then call them town. Ill flip on locktown reads ive had all game if i see something solidly scummy. Good luck to scum trying to plan off my reads, because even I can't do that.

The implication is that he likes to hold back at least some of his thoughts on other players.

I think in this game, especially given there's no future days, VP should give his full and frank reads on all players now. I think it would be objectively anti-town not to do so in the current game state.

VP's interactions with others, though, may be more useful in and of themselves...
...I've drafted some notes for this section but it's 2am here so I'll provide this section tomorrow.

Summary

If you think the above isn't a slam-dunk case on VP, you'd be right. I was leaning town on him D1, and I think he's being playing it pretty well as scum. I think VP actually hoped he and I would be at Wall together so he could use my town-read on him to his benefit, but wasn't opposed to Gate when it came up since he reckoned Tanner's main D1 doubts about him were based on the theory he and I are partners, and he believed Tanner would see me as scummier individually than him once that was proven impossible.

[imaginality]

*pfwish*

Hello again! I promised to return on page 29, and here I...

-looks around-

Ah, damn, the fluxocalibration chronostat is playing up. I'm a page off.

-gives it a thump-

*rumble*

Oh, shi-

*boink*

[imaginality]

Okay, first off it's beyond cheeky for VP to whinge about me posting a wall when:

-my post was a direct response to a request from Tanner (sorry should I have given fewer reasons VP is scum?)

-VP has spammed the thread with dozens of posts since that I'm now going to have to wade through at some point.

Luckily a bunch of the posts today are based around the idea he can't be scum because he proposed me and him going to the same location.

I think it is kind of crazy people are even considering I'm scum since I drove D1 to arrange D2 partially around Tanner's scum reads

Can you expound on this?

Tanner wanted me and imaginality in the same game based on his scum reads, so that was the first building block I put in place when I suggested the sort.

Since he knew we were S/T rather than S/S this really doesn't earn town points for him. It's not like he was obviously more likely to be voted out than me if he gets paired with me. If we were S/S then agreeing to have Tanner's scum reads in one slot is riskier knowing we'd have to swap one out but that's obviously not the case here.

--
And another quick thing. I wasn't in favour of DArby joining me and VP so that speculation about both me and VP wanting that was a big waste of time.
I proposed Toogeloo as the third in post 275 and then argued against DArby and for Tanner being the third in post 314. On the other hand VP initially proposed DArby as the third and only said 'maybe swap DArby for Tanner' so it's not like Tanner was his first pick for the third slot.

And as I mentioned in my wall, remember also VP was aiming for me, him, DArby at the Wall so if DArby is town I think DArby was the intended mislim for that mini game.

[imaginality]

In terms of being around for real time reactions, Tanner, I'm usually asleep around 12pm UTC to 7pm UTC, I'm off work this week so happy to coordinate with you and VP on any time that suits you both outside that.

[imaginality]

I proposed Toogeloo as the third in post 275 and then argued against DArby and for Tanner being the third in post 314. On the other hand VP initially proposed DArby as the third and only said 'maybe swap DArby for Tanner' so it's not like Tanner was his first pick for the third slot.

how is 314 arguing against darby being the third in you/vp?

This bit:

"That said, I kind of like the idea of you going to Gate with us because I think if you are town and get IC'ed you'd be a useful voice. And I think the same of VP and me, whereas DArby if town seems less useful if IC'ed."

[imaginality]

Since he knew we were S/T rather than S/S this really doesn't earn town points for him. It's not like he was obviously more likely to be voted out than me if he gets paired with me. If we were S/S then agreeing to have Tanner's scum reads in one slot is riskier knowing we'd have to swap one out but that's obviously not the case here.

What in the world are you even talking about. How is me agreeing to incorporate Tanner's idea an indication that I would know people's alignments? That makes no sense.

If you are scum (I know you are but this is me talking to the others who don't), you know we're S/T not S/S. So agreeing with Tanner's request (which was based on his view we were S/S) for us to go to the same location together doesn't deserve any town cred because there's no risk to you as scum agreeing to it. Whereas you painted it as "how can you even

think

I'm scum after I agreed to go where Tanner wanted D1?"

[imaginality]

So, first off, and apologies because this post is snarky but I'm annoyed, so:

I cannot believe imaginality posted another wall. I apologize in advance for people having to read my response to what is no doubt nonsense.

Okay, first off it's beyond cheeky for VP to whinge about me posting a wall when:

-

my post was a direct response to a request from Tanner

(sorry should I have given fewer reasons VP is scum?)

-VP has spammed the thread with dozens of posts since that I'm now going to have to wade through at some point.

The reason I complain about your walls is because what little I have read is complete nonsense like this and you use a lot of words to say it. So now I have to go deconstruct said nonsense because,

let's be real, most people glaze over at wall posts

.

Also, don't act like I'm spamming the thread by answering direct questions people are asking me.

Scum shading will get you nowhere darling.

In relation to the bolded: pot, kettle.

In relation to the italicised:

Over the last 24 hours I've posted 3,000 words in under 10 posts. You've posted over

9,000

words, across 50 posts.

Which do you think is easier for someone who's not the poster to read through?
Which one is likelier to bury any good points anyone else makes?

Also, which posting style is easier for someone who has only intermittent opportunities to post to adopt?

I don't mind you not liking wall posts but to ostentatiously apologise to everyone as though I'm shitting in the thread because I posted a wall post irks me no end.

[imaginality]

Okay, so here are my thoughts on VP's interactions with others.

VP interactions with players in the Keep:

There's quite a bit here.

In post 212 and post 256 VP argues Tanner and Ari aren't T/T or S/S. We now know Tanner is town. VP's expressed suspicion of Ari a few other times too, e.g. in post 217saying she's trying to pocket Tanner.

Do we think VP is more likely to distance or to defend a buddy? implosion for example has argued bussing/distancing doesn't cost scum in this set-up. I disagree, but even if we consider it's possible Ari and VP are scumbuddies and Ari is bussing VP, to me that's outweighed by how hard Ari has gone after VP today. She's making (imo) excellent points and I don't think Ari needs to do that if she's scum. She could just stay quieter and let VP get me mislimmed. So largely based on today's play, I townread Ari. The only scenario I see Ari bussing VP is if she figures she's losing Keep and also figures Keep is resolving first and also figures bussing VP will sway Tanner's vote in the Gate after she flips scum. Which, eh, seems unlikely.

With Luke and DArby/Pav, I notice VP's question of DArby in post 151 is designed to encourage more suspicion of Luke whichever way DArby answers. That seems to me to point to town!Luke because scum don't distance in that particular manner, I think.

I notice in post 248 Luke defended Ari against VP's suspicion of her. That seems like +town points for Luke given they're at the same location.
At the start of D2, Luke's reads had him leaning scum on VP, though not for any super-strong reasons that can't be reversed.

And since then, he shifted to a more neutral stance, and then there was the 'slip' post:

Tanner, I am only skimming. Are we certain to have a scum at the gate? If yes, resolving that first makes sense. We can yeet imaginality into the sun.

um.

Does this make Baltar town?

Also, Baltar, you do realize that imaginality is only confirmed

town

from your POV, and not from tanner's, right?

Luke's pushed VP a bit more since then, though, and also given me townpoints in post 833.

Since Pav replaced in, Pav's also leaned me-town, VP-scum, but not with any great depth of reasoning, e.g. post 640. VP's expressed suspicion of Pav in post 873, based off VP's sense my read of DArby isn't genuine.

VP's interactions with people at the Wall:

There's quite a bit less here:

VP engaged in some mech debate with implosion early, that ended up with VP's 'it feels like it all means nothing' in post 138. Then he gave implosion townpoints in #160 for sharing the optimal strategy (at least, what implosion sees as the optimal strategy) from the scumchat in the earlier game. And strengthens it to his 'strongest townread' as of the post where he suggests the allocations.

VP's town-read of implosion is of interest because the leading explanation for the implosion swap, in my view, is that scum thought implosion was too town-read for them to win Keep with him there. So it's worth noting that it is indeed plausible any scum-team with VP on it would have held that view.

implosion townreads VP today because of the dumb 'dumbtell' tell, but then later fence-sits when Tanner asks for more:

I've been pretty clear with my reads, I think, Tanner. And I've given reasoning for the ones at Wall. I'm happy to justify why I think Luke is so town if you want, and am happy to wax about VP and imaginality but I honestly doubt I can really reasonably read the two of them better than 50/50.

And then more recently he says he townreads VP, but then ums and ahs about it, e.g. post 905. By a couple of pages later, he's more strongly against me, e.g. post 949 and post 953. I obviously don't agree with some of his takes here (for example, saying it's +town for VP to assign implosion to the Keep; as someone else (Luke?) said, scum could easily have planned to swap out implosion for DArby regardless of how the other locations ended up, in an S/T swap and some T/T scenarios too), but my gut feel is that implosion seems to be honestly trying to figure things out.


VP has been more neutral and minimal in his interactions with numberQ, e.g.:

@numberQ -- do you usually have a hard time keeping up with games?

NumberQ also steers clear of saying much about VP, e.g. in post 281 and as recently as post 584.

This seems very plausibly like buddies not wanting any connections between them. Note also that VP's proposed setup always had numberQ in a different game to him.

With VP-Toogeloo, there's a bit of mech discussion in post 111/120. Not much else to speak of after that until recently. Toogeloo basically fence-sat on the me v VP question in post 495.
In post 524, VP uses my early reads list as a reason to suspect Toogeloo.

More recently in post 859he has said Toogeloo's first post today seems too composed and is leaning scum on him.

How to read this depends on how we think VP thinks the minigames will resolve, since he knows I'll flip town. If he thinks Gate flips before Wall, this could be an attempt to protect a scum-buddy by distancing himself from Toogeloo; if he thinks Wall will resolve before Keep it could equally be an attempt to add suspicion on a town player based off the suspicion he's trying to stir up about me.

Summary:

I think just from interactions with VP it seems pretty clear to me Aristeia is town, since I know VP is scum and they really don't seem buddied.

Pav has also being anti-VP today, but in a way which fits better with the scenario where they're scum together and Pav knows he's going down in Keep so wants to get some distancing in. Whereas Ari seems to genuinely believe her case and want to get VP limmed.
Luke's pushes on VP today seem somewhere between the two; they read to me as earnest, though less intent than Aristeia's.

So from interactions with VP alone, I'd say I suspect Ari least and Pav most.

At the Wall, it's harder to read much into VP's interactions. I do think VP genuinely saw implosion as townread, so if implosion were scum I think as a scumteam they'd be more likely to leave implosion at Keep. Even in a Pav-implosion-VP scenario, the S/S swap seems to make Keep harder to win and not gain much at Wall. So the interactions strengthen my townread of implosion.

numberQ and Toogeloo both look very plausible as buddies. VP had both numberQ and Toogeloo at a separate location to himself so I don't think we can distinguish between them that way, and there's not a lot of difference in how he's treated them and vice versa. Complicating matters, VP's interactions with the Wall are muddied by the question of whether Gate or Wall will get flipped first. If VP (and his scumbuddies) expect Gate to flip first, there's more reason to distance from his buddy at Wall so his scum-flip won't point us to them. If they expect Wall to flip first, VP might be less inclined to distance, to give his buddy at Wall a better chance of winning, and/or VP might be more inclined to try to paint a towny as scummy. So if the interactions point us anywhere, I'd say they point to Toogeloo as VP's buddy if scum expect Gate to flip first, and numberQ if scum expect Wall to flip first.

[imaginality]

i think it's likely baltar is townie too. 11, 49, and 57 are obviously angling to go to the same location as me. he knows how paranoid i get of him and how i'm sometimes prone to think he's scum for most bullshit reasons, see that pick your poison game. so unless he's the same petty asshole i am, he's probably town.

this is a post that i myself did write a week ago i GUESS

i'm starting to wonder why did i even /in into this game, considering i utterly hate lylos as town and have never won one when i was the deciding vote. i think i might really be a masochist.

Going to the gate means you don't have to do that

do you remember what the idea was behind this post?

These posts are interesting since they show you have a +town read of VP for wanting to be at the same location as you. So VP could have taken that into account when we decided the locations.

Would scum!Baltar really want to place himself at the gate with him + imaginality + miselim bait, and be foreced to IC either imaginality or miselim bait over Tanner?

Yeah, that scenario sounds way easier. I would just IC imaginality and then get the easier player tossed. How is that not a way easier scenario than going into a situation with someone who regularly grills me in games where I am town?

I'd also note here that VP first proposed me+him+DArby/Pav, Tanner was just listed as an alternative. And from a scum!VP perspective DArby/Pav is very much mislim bait if town. So if DArby/Pav is town, VP's first option was what he himself says is a 'way easier scenario' and his backup option was a player who he knows will town read him for being at the same location. Flipping Keep first will confirm if DArby/Pav is town or not.

[imaginality]

Tanner, I thought you wanted to jam on some stuff? I'm still around

mmm, there is one more thing i did specifically have in mind, but i'm mulling over if i need both you and imaginality to be around or just you.

okay, i think you disagreed with me on my idea that the wall should go first. you want keep, right? if it were up to you, who votes whom there?

I'm still around. Do you want me to answer this also?

[imaginality]

I feel surest about Ari being town and Luke has said he thinks Ari's town so if it's entirely my call I'd get Luke to vote Ari.
If we do the 'get the scummiest player to choose who to vote' thing I'd get Pav to choose between the other two.

[imaginality]

I'm not like, clicking refresh every minute, but I'm here or hereabouts for the next 12 hours or so.

(also if anyone else has questions for me they also want a quick answer to, today is a good day for that)

[imaginality]

@Tanner I'm here

[imaginality]

The problem is you town reading VP for that post.
Like, if that's his town playstyle he has every reason to say 'this is how I play as town'.

So I don't think 414 in and of itself is particularly +town.
I think if he *is* flipping reads all over the place then you'd have stronger grounds to see that as his town play rather than scum play (if your take on his meta is right).

However in this game the only reads you could reasonably say he's flipped are you and me which are both forced flips due to the mini game. He's been sniping at Ari throughout and he's been pretty vague on the wall and he's been calling implosion town throughout.

So I think whatever town cred you're giving him for his "this is how I play as town" post is outweighed by his actual play.

[imaginality]

ok but what's the point of applying pressure to me?

I am gathering information to make reads off.

I don't really care if the scum think they are going to play off that because I almost never put all my thoughts on the table until I'm ready to push something.

I will go all out tunneling someone to see how they act and then call them town. Ill flip on locktown reads ive had all game if i see something solidly scummy. Good luck to scum trying to plan off my reads, because even I can't do that.

Also it's not like he posted his "this is how I play as town" post unprompted, it was a defence to Ari asking him why he backed off his line of questioning of her.

[imaginality]

ok but what's the point of applying pressure to me?

I am gathering information to make reads off.

I don't really care if the scum think they are going to play off that because I almost never put all my thoughts on the table until I'm ready to push something.

I will go all out tunneling someone to see how they act and then call them town. Ill flip on locktown reads ive had all game if i see something solidly scummy. Good luck to scum trying to plan off my reads, because even I can't do that.

Also it's not like he posted his "this is how I play as town" post unprompted, it was a defence to Ari asking him why he backed off his line of questioning of her.

hm? wasn't that when she was asking him why he's questioning her in the first place?

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It sounds to me (maybe I'm wrong?) like some of why you're giving him town cred for describing his townplay is you see it as unprovoked. But his post was in the context of that to-and-fro. It wasn't unprovoked.

Contrast with implosion's optimal strategy post which was posted unprovoked.

[imaginality]

yeah, i am aware. which is why i expected either him to be ic'ed, or for one of us to get moved. and the fact that neither happened is like

like i said i was townreading baltar and i said that i felt like he was gonna get ic'ed and that that would be a waste

and then i wake up to see i'm ic'ed?

I doubt VP thought he was getting town read to that extent for that particular post. Like if you're saying this makes you wonder if he's scum who ICed you because you town read him, well yep! that's true! ,

I just don't think he would have seen your read of that post as a specific super-important factor in that town read. More just a general sense you town read him more than me.

[imaginality]

i think it's likely baltar is townie too. 11, 49, and 57 are obviously angling to go to the same location as me. he knows how paranoid i get of him and how i'm sometimes prone to think he's scum for most bullshit reasons, see that pick your poison game. so unless he's the same petty asshole i am, he's probably town.

this is a post that i myself did write a week ago i GUESS

i'm starting to wonder why did i even /in into this game, considering i utterly hate lylos as town and have never won one when i was the deciding vote. i think i might really be a masochist.

Going to the gate means you don't have to do that

do you remember what the idea was behind this post?

These posts are interesting since they show you have a +town read of VP for wanting to be at the same location as you. So VP could have taken that into account when we decided the locations.

Would scum!Baltar really want to place himself at the gate with him + imaginality + miselim bait, and be foreced to IC either imaginality or miselim bait over Tanner?

Yeah, that scenario sounds way easier. I would just IC imaginality and then get the easier player tossed. How is that not a way easier scenario than going into a situation with someone who regularly grills me in games where I am town?

I'd also note here that VP first proposed me+him+DArby/Pav, Tanner was just listed as an alternative. And from a scum!VP perspective DArby/Pav is very much mislim bait if town. So if DArby/Pav is town, VP's first option was what he himself says is a 'way easier scenario' and his backup option was a player who he knows will town read him for being at the same location. Flipping Keep first will confirm if DArby/Pav is town or not.

@Tanner - reposting this since it's a few pages back now and I'm keen for you to consider this (the second part)

[imaginality]

anyway, here's the thing. if i'm going by my own reads and nothing else, i vote imaginality here without question. his wall of "objective" reasons why vp is scum was... oh boy (though it's forgivable considering town can very much get confbiased when they're casing someone they know is scum), but 971 is. i don't like using buzzwords but it feels very IIoA-y. it actually reminds me of something scum!me would write. for like half the wall, i felt like i was reading at it was like, ok i get it, he did this, she did that, where's the conclusion behind this?

Hmm. I won't repost the entire wall but might try to make my points clearer, I guess.

I did say at the start that VP is playing a good game - I don't think he would have 1v1ed me if he thought I could make a strong case against him.

I think he waited for someone to post suspicions about him + someone else that would give him a good match up so he could build his allocations post around it. And saw your posts about us being buddies and leapt onto that.

[imaginality]

(the second and third paragraphs there aren't me making my wall post clearer, they're just follow on thoughts)

[imaginality]

I think we should flip the gate first maybe since it is the most discussed and my reads will bear fruit when my alignment is public

Interesting to see this post just a few posts after I remind Tanner that flipping the Keep first would show if DArby/Pav is town which would paint VP in considerably worse light.

[imaginality]

my issue with the keep is like. i have no fucking clue who is scum there, lol. if i'm going with my brain, i'd want luke voted. but if i'm going with my gut, i'd want pav because goddamn i still really like the "both vp and imaginality wanted pav to be their third" idea

You said this before too but I never said I wanted DArby? In 273 I said DArby and numberQ should go together, in 275 I suggested Toog should be the third with me and VP (i saw us as potentially T/T/T), and in 314 I said it should be you.

[imaginality]

Oh, yeah that was for him being low content though. In that same post the sentence earlier it's clear I was assuming it would be me and VP at the Gate in that same post. There was a bit of confusion around whether VP wanted us at Wall or Gate though so I covered off the possibility people would want us at Wall.
At no point did I say I wanted numberQ at Gate.

[imaginality]

That was @Tanner.
And now I'll be back in an hour or two.

[imaginality]

**note to self to ask about Ari wrt his sort in 268/270

@Baltar, when you made your sort in 268, were you trying to do a 3 towniest / 3 scummiest / 3 nullest split ?

More like, start with Tanners concern of me and imaginality, which I know is not fully accurate. Then put Tanner with us to prevent any fuckery if Tanner happened to be scum.

Next, I tried to put my strongest townread of implo at the keep because that seemed like it might make for an easy win.

The wall just ended up being the leftovers because that is the hardest game to win.

You didn't put Tanner with us in 268, you offered it as an alternative but you put DArby with us.

And rereading this stuff eminded me again that you were angling for me and you to be at Wall with DArby/Tanner. I was the one who said we should be at Gate. That might be relevant for Tanner's speculation because if I'm scum and wary of a VP match up I could have gone with them to Wall and tried to mislim Tanner rather than VP.?

[imaginality]

The benefit of doing the gate first is that is where the most associatives will come from. Fingers crossed, Tanner votes out imaginality and town is then up a game with good associatives to win the keep.

We are also getting to the point of needing to make a decision on a game so we aren't rushing the later games. I do think gate has had the most robust discussion to this point.

Noting here that VP tried to get Tanner to vote right at the start of today. There really seems some reason why he wants to get Gate done first.

[imaginality]

In a parallel world where I didn't put us at Gate rather than Wall, I wonder if VP would have kept up his D1 suspicion of Tanner, and hoped Tanner and I both town read VP and cross voted?

Pointless spec I know...

@Luke re bravado, isn't it less risky to be consistent with that approach (either way) as scum than to vary it? Starting off high bravado and then switching approach might be seen as scum trying to find an angle that works. Especially in this scenario where VP knows if he were town he'd have 100% certainty I'm scum, so he knows it doesn't make sense for a theoretical town!VP to be inconsistent?

[imaginality]

Pointless spec

A good summary of your entire scum game.

LOL, which of my scum games did you read?
I'd say my spec as scum is more pointful.

[imaginality]

I think RH9 slipped in the above series of posts. He didn't realise he was implying implo is town.

If so, that would mean RH6 is scum, implo is town and Luke is town

[imaginality]

I think RH9 slipped in the above series of posts. He didn't realise he was implying implo is town.

If so, that would mean RH6 is scum, implo is town and Luke is town

Giving me added confidence about the above: this also fits with my theory in 791 that RH6 was more likely than numberQ to be scum if VP is expecting Gate to flip first. We've seen him push hard for that more than once today.

[imaginality]

I think RH9 slipped in the above series of posts. He didn't realise he was implying implo is town.

If so, that would mean RH6 is scum, implo is town and Luke is town

Giving me added confidence about the above: this also fits with my theory in 791 that RH6 was more likely than numberQ to be scum if VP is expecting Gate to flip first. We've seen him push hard for that more than once today.

What are you even talking about. Toog/RH9 was in my scum team call twice with you.

So? I covered that in 791. It was near the end of that post, maybe you fell asleep before you got there.

[imaginality]

There's zero point in me reading a bunch of scum BS.

This attitude doesn't come from town.

As town I'm reading what VP says in case he:

- says/does something that makes it more objectively obvious he's scum
- interacts with someone in a way that could give clues as to their alignment
- tries to make us do something anti-town (like rush the Gate vote at the start of D2)

VP is trying to steamroller over me today.

Quiz for others: has VP even explained why I would:
- choose to go to Gate with him and Tanner rather than Wall
- stay in the Gate with him and Tanner if his me-Ari-RH9 solve is right (meaning scum weren't forced to swap Wall and Keep)
- IC Tanner over IC-ing VP, given their relative attitudes towards me D1

[imaginality]

If your answer is "I don't know because he's posted like a thousand posts today", that tells its own story

[imaginality]

I might not always be as concise as I could be but if you look at my posts about VP I've:

- pointed out where he's overstated his case for him being town (the 'I'm obvtown because I did what Tanner wanted with my groupings' stuff)
- pointed out contradictions in his argument that others overlooked (where he said having a low content player with us rather than Tanner would have been way easier as scum, when a low content player was actually exactly who he first suggested to bring with us)
- pointed out where his interactions with him are revealing (Ari town, implo town)
- pointed out anti-town actions he's pushed for (rushing the Gate vote at the start of the day would be anti-town even if he were town)
- pointed out that his reads this game haven't been as loose as he claims he is as town
- pointed out that flipping Keep will help if people (Tanner) wants more data before deciding

Sure, to him it's all BS, because we're 1v1 and that's what he'd say as town. But I think the above points and others are coming together to make a coherent case.

And as I've said, if I had a coherent case on him at the start of today, he wouldn't have chosen to 1v1 me.

So yeah, it took a few posts for me to make sense of it all. But I feel like at this point, if I were in Tanner's shoes reading me vs VP, the case against VP is stronger.

If people (Tanner) still aren't convinced, I'm not sure what I can do to convince you. I feel like all the pieces are there now, if you look at them clearly.

[imaginality]

I think we should flip the gate first maybe since it is the most discussed and my reads will bear fruit when my alignment is public

Interesting to see this post just a few posts after I remind Tanner that flipping the Keep first would show if DArby/Pav is town which would paint VP in considerably worse light.

He's relying on Darby/Pav flipping town to paint you in a worse light.

And me flipping scum would make you look really good.

So if he wants Keep to flip first, he's banking on Me/Pavo both being town in Keep.

I'm less sure about Pav because VP was angling for us to go to the Wall, and Pav could be scum with VP intending for one of them to swap out of Wall if it had ended up as me-him-Pav. I definitely think you'll flip town though.

[imaginality]

VP is trying to steamroller over me today.

Now we are on to AtE. Which step of grieving is that?

The step where you go on to prove me right?

Seriously though, your theorizing is consistently incoherent and reaching for any desperate angle to call me scum. You've stated I've done so many things that are galaxy brain moves, it makes no sense. Why would I spend my time reading and responding to such nonsense when I know it is all fake?

[imaginality]

Think I realized who Ari is. I'll reread tomorrow with that in mind.

your opponent has already preflipped me as town and you are still confused about my alignment

it's absolutely maddening

You'll feel less stressed when you realise its because he's scum and doesn't want to consider you clear town because then they won't win the Keep.

On which note, I do agree with your earlier point in post 1214: if I were deciding, the Keep vote should be for you. I said as much pretty soon after #971, in post 1040.

As for your other question in #1214 about why I still analysed Luke vs Pav after I already town read you: figuring which of those two is scum is important because it informs us about one side of the swap, so it helps us narrow down what the plan was with that.

[imaginality]

Remember not to tell Tanner and Ari this is a secret bastard game and town has a secret win condition that they only win if the two town players correctly figure out all eight other players are scum before page 60.

[imaginality]

(Eight including Prism who is not only modding but is also part of a hydra with Pooky, the hydra being VP Baltar (this bastard game has been planned for decades))

[imaginality]

Oh shit those posts were supposed to go in the scum thread.

[imaginality]

For avoidance of doubt, the above posts are jokes and I'm not in a scum Private Thread with VP, numberQ, RH9, implosion, Lukewarm and Pavowski.

We're using Discord instead.

[imaginality]

Okay I'm bored of pretending to be scum. It makes me feel like I'm VP Baltar.

Ari are you also bored of pretending I'm scum or is your switcheroo on me serious?
If it's serious is it because:
A. you think your town flip will help scum me?
B. you think my interactions post is junk?
C. I'm not flirting with you?
D. Xyzzy?
E. Other?

If it's A, your town flip helps town me. Fair enough for not town reading me for wanting you to flip but it's something I'd be pushing for as scum as much as I am as town. I know for sure you and VP aren't T/T and I think getting you proven to be Town helps others see VP is scum because they place more weight on your side of your arguments with him.

If it's B, I think you're not giving that post enough credit as it not only helped me clear two players as town in my eyes (explained in the post) but also strengthened my later case that RH9 is scum.

If it's C, sorry, I don't want to make Tanner jealous at least not til after he's voted. I'll come flirt with you when we're in the dead thread and he's stuck out here with the Wallees.

If it's D, fair enough, can't argue with that.

If it's E, please explain?

[imaginality]

Think I realized who Ari is. I'll reread tomorrow with that in mind.

Gosh, VP, I'm on tenterhooks wondering what your conclusion about Ari will be after your re-read!

[imaginality]

1131 wasn't a strong point, as I said earlier it's just interesting timing.

I actually doubt Pav will flip town but, as I said, IF he does it's an additional point against VP (because of how it makes the D1 location set up a more obvious play compared to a sneakier pre-planned swap).

You're taking it to mean I'm saying Pav will flip town but that's not what I said.

As for VP I think you're confusing 'earnest about being flipped before Keep' with 'not wanting to be flipped after Keep'.

[imaginality]

Tanner's been leaning to voting me to varying degrees most of this game. It's another reason I want Keep to flip first because I feel like I'm doing my best to convince him I'm town but he's tunnelled and not really going to be persuaded by me alone. So a Keep flip introduces an outside element that can help to shift that.

[imaginality]

I think we should flip the gate first maybe since it is the most discussed and my reads will bear fruit when my alignment is public

Interesting to see this post just a few posts after I remind Tanner that flipping the Keep first would show

if

DArby/Pav is town which would paint VP in considerably worse light.

This post is absolutely not saying "I expect Pav to flip town". It's a conditional.

[imaginality]

Let's say VPB is scum,

He flips red, wins gate.

This more or less makes it that I am a shoo-in at Keep, I win keep.

Then he still needs the Wall player to win, which doesn't really seem like good odds for him if it's RH9

They planned in N1 when it was still Toogeloo. I think their odds at Wall have worsened with the replacement but not like they could change the plan at this point.

[imaginality]

I think we should flip the gate first maybe since it is the most discussed and my reads will bear fruit when my alignment is public

Interesting to see this post just a few posts after I remind Tanner that flipping the Keep first would show

if

DArby/Pav is town which would paint VP in considerably worse light.

This post is absolutely not saying "I expect Pav to flip town". It's a conditional.

It's a conditional that you expect to happen...

You're saying the motivation behind VPB trying to flip first is to cover up the Keep results which will show that he's a baddie, which means you expect those results to be bad for him.

It's not one I expect to happen. It's one that went from not expected at all (before VP's post) to 'hmm interesting, is that connected?' which is the vein of my post.

I am definitely relying on you flipping town to help convince Tanner VP is scum. (Sidenote, if you and VP are scum buddies you have me completely fooled!)

You leapt to assuming I also expect Pav to flip town but I don't, and even with the 'hmm interesting' I still don't think it's the likely outcome.

Now I actually hope Pav definitely flips scum because if he flips town, the help that gives to my VP case is gonna be outweighed by the suspicion you're throwing up about my post.

[imaginality]

In 1027, the earlier post that 1131 referred to:

I'd also note here that VP first proposed me+him+DArby/Pav, Tanner was just listed as an alternative. And from a scum!VP perspective DArby/Pav is very much mislim bait if town. So if DArby/Pav is town, VP's first option was what he himself says is a 'way easier scenario' and his backup option was a player who he knows will town read him for being at the same location. Flipping Keep first will confirm if DArby/Pav is town or not.

Again, this isn't saying "Pav will flip town." it's saying, flipping Pav will reveal if he is or isn't. And if he is, well, that's bad for VP. It's just an additional chance for some input that could help Tanner vote correctly.

[imaginality]

The main point of that earlier post was that VP was misrepping himself as proposing to go with Tanner from the start, rather than starting with DArby and shifting to Tanner.

[imaginality]

I feel surest about Ari being town and Luke has said he thinks Ari's town so if it's entirely my call I'd get Luke to vote Ari.
If we do the 'get the scummiest player to choose who to vote' thing I'd get Pav to choose between the other two.

Here's proof your interpretation is wrong: this came after 1027 and I'm saying I see Pav as scummiest. So even though I raised the possibility he might flip town in 1027, it was only as a possibility. It didn't change me saying he's scummiest, or recommending you get voted for in Keep.

[imaginality]

I think you're wasting your efforts to argue with me,

I don't actually have any influence on what happens in your mini-game

Tanner doesn't really listen to me very often, if at all, even when I am flipped town.

You should focus more on trying to show that VpB is mafia

Yeah that's why I want Keep flipped first but someone started saying I had scum motive for that soooo....

[imaginality]

Like really if I'm trying to justify why I feel like VP is town and I dig deep enough I will eventually not be able to justify it beyond the bedrock of "gut". I can come up with superficial reasons though but they're just a facile representation of the actual reason which is "his approach to the game just feels like it's not coming from scum" or something like that.

Implosion, is your take that I locked into VP-me deliberately or that I couldn't swap out because it's 2-1-0 (and also for some reason I decided to IC Tanner rather than VP)?

[imaginality]

Just passing through. Won't be around much until this evening NZ time.

I do want to closely read RH9's reads post today. I only read his section on me last night, and it felt like he was townbinning me for the wrong reasons. I'm back at work today, but I'll update when I have time.

damn, and here i was about to hammer imaginality. i guess the hammer will have to wait after all ))):

Implo has been staunchly advocating for imaginality-scum, so I really don't see him being scum with Ari.

explain the connection to me?

Maybe you should just hammer our game now tbh. Because I don't see how else I can make you realise VP is scum. He played well especially D1, and I think was smart to lock in a 1v1 with someone he knew town read him day 1 - it meant I didn't object to the mingame and he knew I'd find it hard to retrospectively find reasons to call his D1 play scummy. It's no surprise you've found some of my points unconvincing, if it was easy to prove he's scum he wouldn't be in this mini game.

So you flipping our game first will at least show you you're wrong in time to let you recalibrate for the other games.

The one caveat I have is it's pretty clear he wants Gate flipped first so scum must be taking into account his flip in terms of how you'll read the other games. So I feel like it's walking into a trap to let them have it their way on that front.

[imaginality]

Luke, why do you think imaginality wanted to give Ari the voting power in your game?

You've misread somewhere. I've consistently said I want Ari to be the one voted for (most likely town) or Pav to be the deciding voter (least likely town)

[imaginality]

/me out, back in 6

[imaginality]

Uh.
Yay?
That's good because if Tanner mislims me now he/we can still course correct and win at Wall.

Also proves Ari was town when she attacked VP earlier today. (and when she attacked me but that was over a misunderstanding)

But why would Luke vote Ari like that? I can understand why he'd declare intent to, but the 'Pav will vote me in time' theory when Ari was online and clearly ready to vote immediately doesn't stack up.

[imaginality]

Hammer imaginality before he gets back

LOL scum getting nervous

[imaginality]

Implosion, how good are you at reading VP?
Would scum!VP have had reason to worry about a 1v1 with me or Tanner if you were IC?

[imaginality]

But why would Luke vote Ari like that? I can understand why he'd declare intent to, but the 'Pav will vote me in time' theory when Ari was online and clearly ready to vote immediately doesn't stack up.

Keep it to the scum PT.

This rhetoric reminds me of how Pooky won vs Milobird in Pokemon. Call the other player's posts junk, buddy the deciding voter.

[imaginality]

Didn't say I was perfect but if you compare the number of times today VP has been arrogant/dismissive vs the times I have, it's comfortably a 90% 10% ratio.

Also a similar scenario where scum had a confirmed town player pocketed.

It worked for Pooky there, if it works again here I might have to try it myself when I'm in elo as scum.

[imaginality]

So in today's news: I'm a genius.

@Tanner: Luke traded what was maybe a 50% chance of winning Keep if he'd waited (maybe Ari's still selected but maybe Ari or Pav vote him) for a 10% chance of winning by voting early (only win is if Pav comes online, and reacts by voting Luke, before Ari who was already online sees Luke's vote and hammers). These are just example numbers but my point is, it clearly reduced Luke's chance of winning Keep, right?

So. There are three options for why Luke makes that vote:
1. Luke's made a terrible call, like maybe he thought Ari wouldn't insta hammer
2. Luke is scum who gave up and threw the game
3. Luke is smart and has a plan

Luke's smart and motivated so I think it's clear it's not 1 or 2.
And I think I can see what the plan is.

But I want to hear your thoughts first, because I don't want VP calling it scum BS and he can't do that if you see it this way too.

So, start with these questions:

- what can Luke

guarantee

will happen by making that vote, that he couldn't guarantee if he didn't?
- how does that help his scum team enough to be worth slashing his odds of winning Keep?

[imaginality]

At first, yes.

[imaginality]

That's half of it. As you say, it only makes sense as a move if Luke felt that scum are very likely to win both the other games. To me, if you accept that, it points to VP (objectively; obviously I already know it's him) and to implosion at the Wall. I don't think either numberQ or RH9 could say with confidence they're likely not to be the lim there, but implosion can say that.

The additional thing Luke achieved is, he guaranteed his game wouldn't just flip first but would flip

immediately, right there and then

, which meant Ari and Pav wouldn't have any more time to change their reads at all.

I think that's significant with Ari in particular who'd just shifted from scum reading VP to scum reading me based primarily on a misinterpretation. Luke didn't want to risk her switching back at VP.

Also Pav had been fairly undeclared about our game, but I think Ari is the main factor here. They flipped the Keep right at the moment where it is best for VP. They didn't flip it earlier when Ari scum read VP, and they couldn't control what would have happened if they'd waited longer. It could have ended up with Luke still losing Keep to Ari but the trail pointing back to VP.

[imaginality]

Also happy new year from NZ!

[imaginality]

And yeah, my explanation does imply they deliberately went 2-1-0 with the locations. I think it's more likely they did that (which limits their options but also gives them some advantage with it not being the expected move), than that Luke deliberately tanked Keep for no good reason.

I guess maybe they could have numberQ and feel that confident of winning Wall with how RH9 is playing? But I doubt it.

Pedit: were you on the verge of voting Baltar? Not sure that was clear in the thread compared to just indecision and wanting to delay the vote longer. And as I mentioned, that would have given Ari time to swing back.

And they did also try to get Gate to flip straight away also:

you have called me a coward like 5 times today

not saying i don't deserve it, but like, do you have to >_>

I believe you can rise above this by taking action, either tell Ari who to vote or hammer imaginality. This game needs to move forward.

The reason I keep telling you to hammer imaginality is that you will feel good when he flips red. I'm actually trying to relieve your anxiety by telling you to trust yourself.

<<Obi-wan fades into mist>>

So I think they tried what you said of getting Gate to flip, saw you didn't bite and wanted to delay more, and forced Keep to resolve rather than risk the dynamics shifting again.

[imaginality]

interesting that baltar was like "yo, why is imaginality wanting to give ari the voting power when she would obviously vote luke, that implies a scum!luke" *twice* when that never happened. tmi slip?

Yeah. There was some other slip VP made that you picked up on too, I think?

[imaginality]

I should sleep in a bit but can stick around another half hour or so if you want to discuss this stuff more?
Otherwise happy to leave it with you. My main point is, is there any better alternative explanation for Luke's vote? Cos I'm not seeing one

[imaginality]

Okay, all good. Yes good to get some time away to clear your head!

[imaginality]

VP, your theory is Luke was trying a swift vote-unvote combo and got caught out, yep?

What exactly do you think Luke could have achieved with that?

[imaginality]

So, under your theory:
1. Luke votes Ari
2. Luke unvotes
3. Ari self votes
4. Pav: look Ari voted herself, such scum
5. Pav votes Luke
6. Luke self votes

This fails at step 4 - the correct move for town or for scum is to self-hammer if possible. It doesn't do anything to heighten Pav's suspicion of Ari. If anything the fact she wasn't lurking ready to instavote herself might be painted as her being less likely to be scum.

So, the only thing that occurred to you wouldn't have achieved anything.

My theory as stated earlier: his vote was guaranteed to achieve the effect of freezing Ari's reads right when they were most beneficial to you. And with a side-chance of winning Keep if Pav was around to vote Luke before Ari self-voted.

[imaginality]

My theory as stated earlier: his vote was guaranteed to achieve the effect of freezing Ari's reads right when they were most beneficial to you.

I can't overstate how bad of a strategy this sounds. Why would scum risk losing a game when by all indications Ari was in favor of voting luke over Pav?

Like the optimal in your fantasy world is for Luke to win his game and then me to hammer on you today. It makes no sense to go down in some silly gambit that has no guarantee of working.

I didn't say it was a smart move. But it seems like the only rational explanation for it. The alternatives all assume Luke is either a complete fool or a game thrower.

It seems an unnecessary risk to me too, but unless you can come up with a better alternative explanation...

And incidentally we* can't be sure Luke had that read on Ari of her genuinely being ready to vote him. We also know for sure Pav had recently said he was on the fence and would want to poll everyone before he voted.

*we being town. You can be sure if he said so in the scum PT I guess.

[imaginality]

This fails at step 4 - the correct move for town or for scum is to self-hammer if possible. It doesn't do anything to heighten Pav's suspicion of Ari. If anything the fact she wasn't lurking ready to instavote herself might be painted as her being less likely to be scum.

You wrote step 4 wrong - it should say "Pav: look Luke voted someone other than himself, such town". And step 3 doesn't need to be there.

I was responding to VP's post before about Ari being scum out to vote herself.

Your revised version fits with my view that Luke was open to that happening but also made the play worthwhile because of freezing the reads. Like how in Poker it might be a bad play to draw to a flush but if you also have straight possibilities it can shift the odds enough to make it a good play.

[imaginality]

It seems an unnecessary risk to me too, but unless you can come up with a better alternative explanation...

Why did you ask me about it then? If you agree your theory is just as bad as mine, what exactly was the point of the question?

My theory has added value (read freezing) that yours doesn't. Making a more plausible explanation

[imaginality]

We also know for sure Pav had recently said he was on the fence and would want to poll everyone before he voted.

What do you think the overall outcome of that poll would have been?

This is why your theory is so bad. Much worse than mine. It was very clear luke was overall in a good position to win that game. I can read the room that much. It made zero actual sense what he did, so asking me for a plausible reason is silky theater.

The overall result of the poll is it would have taken more time to conduct, during which time there would have been the chance for the dynamics between you/me/Ari to have shifted again.

[imaginality]

Who do you think is scum at the wall imaginality?

If you're not reading my posts no wonder you think this should be an easy decision for Tanner.

[imaginality]

If I were scum I would be banking on Keep and hoping on Wall, not ditching Keep. The move doesn't make sense with me as scum with how the reads and interactions were at the time. There's benefit to it if you're scum.

Another analogy, if you're ahead in a chess game you might sacrifice some material to trade into a simpler endgame rather than stay in middle game longer where there's more scope for tactical surprises and reversals of fortune.

To be clear, I think Luke misjudged it, I suspect he probably didn't think it would come across as dramatic as it has, which has led to this speculation about the real motive behind it. But if you say my explanation wasn't a factor then it's much more of a misjudgement and I think given how Luke's played, that seems more implausible than my theory.

[imaginality]

You tried your hardest to win Gate as scum but Tanner wouldn't hammer.

Tanner's continued indecision despite your best efforts to make him hammer me made your buddy Luke panic. Luke thought he'd better take out Ari before she not only solves you for the second time and shifts Tanner into deciding you're scum, but also figures out what you're up to at the Wall.

If I were scum Luke wouldn't throw Keep because he sees it's likely I lose Gate. Luke wins Keep, I probably go down against you at Gate, and then it's down to my buddy at Wall. And who's my buddy? I don't have one, I'm town. I already told Tanner who I think yours is, I don't need to tell you who it is because you can just look at your role PM to see.

[imaginality]

If yall intentionally tanked the keep as a way to smear me, that is so desperate and poorly planned. The logic you're putting forward makes no sense.

There's no way a scum team would come up with the plan of tanking Keep to make it look like a scum team had come up with the plan of immediately resolving Keep to help you. That's nonsense on stilts.

I don't necessarily think it was a whole team Plan for why Luke did this, more likely he did it without waiting for your okay, which is probably part of why you're so annoyed about how illogical it was.

[imaginality]

@RH9: VP Baltar doesn't need reminding who his buddy is.
But for you and Tanner, I shared my thoughts on it in post 1654

[imaginality]

@Tanner:

The stress got to Luke. He saw you procrastinating, he saw Ari being smart digging into everything, and he made a play he thought would best control the outcomes. The motivation for his vote was well-hidden but like those 3D pictures, once you see it it is the only way the random dots make sense. Luke isn't a game thrower.

This is the first big scum mistake all game. Let's make them pay for it. I know you probably still doubt me but we won Keep so you're not betting the whole game on listening to me about this.

Anyhow, if you do still decide to vote me I can't complain, I know my post style is a bit waffly (as town or as scum) and VP has played well. I can hope that my town flip means you go on to win at Wall. But I do think at least, you need to have a better explanation for Luke's vote before you vote me. Because I think I've solved this game.

[imaginality]

implo, you don't slowroll this yeah?

He does it he wants you to mislim me before he flips scum proving my theory about VP and him to be true

[imaginality]

*if

[imaginality]

If I were scum Luke wouldn't throw Keep because he sees it's likely I lose Gate. Luke wins Keep, I probably go down against you at Gate, and then it's down to my buddy at Wall. And who's my buddy? I don't have one, I'm town. I already told Tanner who I think yours is, I don't need to tell you who it is because you can just look at your role PM to see.

I thought you said Luke couldn't win the keep?

VP is flat out lying about what I said, not for the first time.

url=viewtopic.php?p=13192279#p13192279]post 1650[/url]

Hammer VP, be a hero!

[imaginality]

post 1650

RH9 please unvote because if Tanner mislims me implosion is gonna insta-hammer numberQ and win for scum. I don't want to risk the game on the smaller chance numberQ is the scum.

[imaginality]

Tanner you can hammer VP now without risk, but please don't hammer me until RH9 unvotes (or Wall gets resolved)

[imaginality]

i mean... that assumes that i actually agree with your theory

No, even if I were scum you could still hammer VP and win at the Wall. Because no way is implosion scum if I'm scum, so he won't autohammer.

Whereas when I flip town, implosion is in ideal position right now to win at Wall.

[imaginality]

i mean... that assumes that i actually agree with your theory

No, even if I were scum you could still hammer VP and win at the Wall. Because no way is implosion scum if I'm scum, so he won't autohammer.

Whereas when I flip town, implosion is in ideal position right now to win at Wall.

i think i missed the memo on why implosion and you cannot be scum together. because even if i were to agree with your theory of "luke lowered his chance of winning keep because he's certain in the other two games, and implo is in best standing at the wall", that doesn't mean you can't be partners?

If you agree with that theory: Would Luke feel certain I was going to win Gate? Nope. So it's VP plus someone they're confident will win Wall, which is very likely implosion.

[imaginality]

285 got me thinking. if ari and luke are town/town, then scum would surely be trying to angle themselves to get into the keep. but i think what i mentioned earlier was right, nobody actually showed much care about where they get assigned. working backwards, that would mean ari/luke are t/s? it's probably wrong to be making that many assumptions.

I've been having similar thoughts.
This is also a reason why we might want to resolve Keep first if it still has Luke and Ari in it - if they turn out to be town/town then there's highly likely scum amongst the conspicuous "I don't care where I end up"-ers.

what was the logic behind this? you said "i've been having similar thoughts" then outed a conclusion that was completely opposite from my own

Typo pure and simple. I meant town/scum.

[imaginality]

I must have mistyped it as town because I was subconsciously thinking of VP Baltar and how townie he seemed. :p

[imaginality]

mistyped it as town

A thing you would never say as town

I assume that was a typo on your part since you know I'm town this game...

[imaginality]

RH9 please unvote so if Tanner mislims me implosion can't quickhammer if he's scum.
There's no protown reason to keep your vote in place right now.

[imaginality]

My explanation was clearly a joke.

[imaginality]

Like come on, VP, this is desperate stuff. I get that you need to paint me as scum but really...

[imaginality]

imag, what would your reaction be if Wall was resolved incorrectly and I flipped town?

I'd be surprised but i mean, i would still know VP is scum! I'd be worried Tanner would mislim me if you flip town though. I think it's better we flip VP at Gate and win whatever the reality at Wall is

[imaginality]

I think that imaginality scumslipped in 1919. There's no way, town!imaginality talks about winning at the Wall after scum!Baltar flips. Only possible scenario here is that scum!imaginality knows that town!Baltar is not going to flip scum at the Gate.

Implosion's question was premised on Wall flipping first. That's the context i responded to

[imaginality]

why shouldn't i be getting worried here that you got sick of my indecision and told him to initiate flipping the keep first (like, he first started talking how he's gonna vote) so you could use this argument?

I'd say the same exact counterargument I said to imaginality: It really wouldn't have made sense from my perspective at that point in the game to try some type of gambit at the Keep.

Do you think Luke had a decent chance of getting the votes at the Keep? If yes, then the gambit he pulled was very dumb.

If I'm sitting at the Gate at that time with Tanner saying "I'm probably going to vote VP at some point," am I going to be like "oh shit, we need to gambit at the Keep!" Hell no. I just sit on my hands and wait my turn.

Now, think about imaginality on a team at that point? They feel like they are likely to lose the gate. The pressure is super high because I won't shut the fuck up about want the gate resolved. So they decide to charge into the keep, hoping an eventual Ari town flip makes me look bad and the balance at the gate at least shifts more toward 50/50.

The scum motivation for an imaginality team is clear, and not at all clear for a VP team. I would have no reason to be impatient as scum.

You say this like Luke didn't get the idea and go ahead before discussing it with you. It's clear he was feeling under pressure, we agree it wasn't a great move but there's a clear added benefit to it if he's partnered with you rather than me

[imaginality]

okay, here's a thing that's genuinely been confusing the hell out of me this game. implo offered if i want to flip the wall first, in order to prove that he's town, and that the split was 1-1-1 pre-night. because that is a point in scum!baltar's favour (because why does scum!imaginality voluntarily walk into a 1v1 where the other two players proclaimed that they're good at being townie and townreading each other). but, when i asked him what's the point because he's currently saying vp is town, he said that he finds vp more townie, even with the above information calculated in. why would he then be offering to get flipped so that i have that information, if he deems it to not be *that* valuable?

Tanner: the theory I'm coming to is maybe implosion is town and numberQ is scum. So implosion genuinely wants to give you more info by proving it's 1-1-1. He doesn't feel sure who's scum at Gate, or at Wall, but knows it's better for you to have more info rather than less and sees the Wall flip as more helpful to Gate than vice versa.

This would make Luke's gambit worse than if implo was scum but maybe Luke was trying to double bluff us since he knew once scum win Gate we'd recalibrate our reads at Wall accordingly. So, the gambit was aimed to achieve this sequence;

1. Get me mislimmed at Gate
2. VP flips scum at Gate, you take that into account at Wall
3. Implosion gets mislimmed at Wall as most likely VP-Luke partner.

[imaginality]

Alternatively, scum implo might think proving it's 2-1-0 when he flips scum is enough to push you into mislimming me at Gate. But that's risky if he's scum because VP is the more likely buddy so that seems like quite a double edged sword move.

[imaginality]

Basically I have no idea what's going on with this game and can quite understand why you with even less info than me, are going round in circles.

[imaginality]

That was @Tanner.

The question imaginality will dodge forever: why wouldn't luke just win at keep?

I already answered this. A reminder for those with short term memory loss:

-Luke wasn't guaranteed a win at Keep
-Ari was town's mvp and had just flipped from scumreading you for good reasons to scumreading me over a misinterpretation
-Luke knew Pav wouldn't resolve Keep quickly
-the longer Keep stayed in play the more chance of Ari solving the game
-so Luke gambled some of his chance of winning Keep to make sure that Keep resolved before Ari could do any more scumhunting

[imaginality]

inb4 vp baltar decides to inform me that i *can* get out of i just hammered imaginality ahaha

You know me well.

Do it now please. Imaginality is a wounded gazelle who needs to be put down. Any longer is just torturing the poor thing, dear.

Wounded gazelle sounds right. Singled out and separated from the herd by predators who know they can bring him down.

[imaginality]

it's past 1 am, and the past... 3 hours i have been doing literally anything i can to procrastinate this game. but, i've just noticed something... weird.

And another quick thing. I wasn't in favour of DArby joining me and VP so that speculation about both me and VP wanting that was a big waste of time.
I proposed Toogeloo as the third in post 275 and then argued against DArby and for Tanner being the third in post 314. On the other hand VP initially proposed DArby as the third and only said 'maybe swap DArby for Tanner' so it's not like Tanner was his first pick for the third slot.

And as I mentioned in my wall, remember also VP was aiming for me, him, DArby at the Wall so if DArby is town I think DArby was the intended mislim for that mini game.

this was imag discussing my "both imag and vp wanted imag/vp/darby, we know there's 1 scum in imag/darby, therefore darby is probably town because scum wouldn't be buddying 2 of themselves together". imag dismissed my idea, but not because talk is cheap, because he did not want darby with the two of them.

now, town!imag would know that vp is scum, so even if he found my idea bad because imag didn't want darby there... shouldn't he still find darby town from it? because from his pov, he has scum!vp arranging a trip of vp/imag/darby. yet that's not really the conclusion.

That was me discussing things from an objective viewpoint in relation to you saying you could draw conclusions either way about Pav because me and VP both wanted him in our game.

And as an aside I wouldn't place much weight on scum trying to get 111 rather than 210. 210 is a little more limiting but still avoids the 300 scenario scum want to avoid.

This seems very plausibly like buddies not wanting any connections between them. Note also that VP's proposed setup always had numberQ in a different game to him.
...
numberQ and Toogeloo both look very plausible as buddies. VP had both numberQ and Toogeloo at a separate location to himself so I don't think we can distinguish between them that way

due to these parts of the wall in 971, you can't argue that imaginality didn't believe in "scum!vp could be purposefully putting buddies together", since he used the arguments of "vp wanted these players at different locations than himself" as +scum points.

My point was they weren't different in that respect so whether you see it as +scum or not, it doesn't help us decide between them

I'd also note here that VP first proposed me+him+DArby/Pav, Tanner was just listed as an alternative. And from a scum!VP perspective DArby/Pav is very much mislim bait if town. So if DArby/Pav is town, VP's first option was what he himself says is a 'way easier scenario' and his backup option was a player who he knows will town read him for being at the same location. Flipping Keep first will confirm if DArby/Pav is town or not.

in this post, imag once again talks about the fact that vp wanted a vp/imag/darby location. he even proposes to flip the keep first to see. but like, shouldn't the logical conclusion from town!imag's pov here be that vp was trying to put two townies with himself??

As mentioned above I don't think scum have to try hard to get 111 here unless the 210 really screws them in the setup they can't swap.
The above post was to point out that VP said having DArby would have been an easier scenario than having you with him and i pointed out that yeah, he actually tried to have DArby (who we know now is town) with him.

I feel surest about Ari being town and Luke has said he thinks Ari's town so if it's entirely my call I'd get Luke to vote Ari.
If we do the 'get the scummiest player to choose who to vote' thing I'd get Pav to choose between the other two.

because, imag sure did not advocate for voting pav in the keep.

I saw some stuff making me think Pav was scum some stuff making me think he was town.both luke and especially Ari looked more town than Pav so i wanted Pav to have vote control. I don't see what's odd about that position?

like, i know i might be confbiasing here, but this kind of feels like scum who was, at the same time, using the arguments "vp didn't want to go to the same location as these players" to be +scum points, while somehow never making the connection that "vp wanted to go to the same location as this player" to be a +town point. there were like, at least 2 opportunities for that connection to be made. yet it wasn't made. because town!pav was supposed to be the "toss this yeetbaity slot at the keep, nobody is ever going to be voting him lmao" townie?

See above for the nuance/context. I probably have tunnelled a bit on finding objective reasons to prove VP is scum and if I've missed some implication about one of the other players that's slack on my part, but I'm not trying to deliberately have it both ways.

[imaginality]

at some point is not now

this is my method of dealing with all of my life problems and it's turned out fine

Mood

[imaginality]

it's gotten to the point where this is some vile shit if you're scum here lmfao

That's what I have been saying!

Getting buddied is always a painful way to lose.

[imaginality]

I don't see what's odd about that position?

it's not odd to think pav was scum - i think every townie thought that at some point.

my issue is that the language you're using in 971 about nq and toog seems to imply that they are +scum because vp (confirmed scum from your pov) did not want to be in the same game with them. which, if you were working on the assumption that scum would be trying to achieve a 1-1-1 split at the time, is a logical conclusion.

however, when you're faced with information that vp wanted an imag/vp/pav game, you don't bring up that, by the virtue of vp being scum and you being town, that makes pav town. by the same logic, it should. it doesn't matter that you wouldn't consider that to be a strong point - it's completely omitted from your view of the game.

and the issue is that the above is REALLY convenient if pav was moved to keep as the "obvscum" slot that was never getting voted.

Okay i see what you're saying now. I was definitely tunneled on the fact VP had implicated himself rather than the corollary of what that implied about Pav

[imaginality]

The Wall seems like a hot mess right now. (As compared to the Keep which was a Lukewarm mess lol)

I did think at the start of D2 Wall might be the easiest game to for us as a whole to get a consensus view on but eesh.

A request: Wall players ideally should state who they see as more likely scum between VP and me before they resolve Wall. I'm sure it's probably there in their isos but would be useful to be reminded.

[imaginality]

literally the first thing imag did D2 was vote at the Gate.

I explicitly said to Tanner at the time I voted that I wasn't wanting him to rush into voting.

[imaginality]

this part of the post specifically commits the sin i talked about last night. it's actively calling pav scum, and making the connection how a pav townflip makes vp looks worse... while at the same time still not acknowledging how pav looks better if vp is scum, which from his pov etc you know what i mean

Fair point. I've already admitted I've been tunnelled on me vs VP,
this is another instance of that.

[imaginality]

I'm here and around if anything piques my interest, but mostly I'll shut up because Tanner knows my feelings and the wall people should keep talking.

[imaginality]

Tanner, I'm at peace with whatever you do. VP has played well and definitely buddied you well today. The most pro town thing he could point to himself doing (the allocations) is nai and Ari's case on him was good til I made an ambiguous enough post to send her off track.
I also feel he's used AtE and dismissiveness to try to drown out the other points I've made.

All that said though,he's played well and made it hard for me to prove he's scum. If my points and play haven't persuaded you, that sucks but I won't blame you if you mislim me.

at least not unless we lose Wall too

[imaginality]

You're all good, RH9, it turned out to work out well.
Sorry I couldn't get Gate across the line.
All the town played well this game, there wasn't really a weak link we could target.
Luke, your reads on the other players really impressed me. I enjoyed being on the scumteam with you.

And yes, thanks Prism for the smooth modding, neat flavour, and that line at the end that made me chuckle despite the loss.

[imaginality]

I'm so sorry I had to replace out Luke and imag. No lie, I think I slept for almost 48 hours afterwards.

Personally, while I was sad to see you go, that is greatly outweighed by how happy I am that you seem to have recovered.

Yep totally this.

Also, sorry that we didn't listen to you when you had forebodings of doom about our night actions!

[imaginality]

Re. the swap, Luke had reasons to think Pav would side with him in Keep. He explained it well in the scum PT. We also thought it might look like scum got stuck with 2 at the Wall. We also didn't see much of a way to win Keep with you there so it then became a question of who to swap in for you.

We did consider swapping you for Tanner or VP and ICing you.

[imaginality]

To be honest, I thought that saying 'lost to oblivion' was actually a nice thing which Prism did.

Yep the flavour this game was really enjoyable to read.