Open 812 Guardians of the Fortress - Game Over

[absinthe]

I don't think you've ever spent any part of a game flattering me. I've always felt like I make the initial reachouts, or we don't interact much at all.

I definitely have flattered you in my head. Maybe I didn't verbalize it as much because you were in a hydra in most of our games and it made it hard for me to tell who was posting, but like... I've always had a high opinion of your play.

As for the reachouts, well I bet that has to do with the game being smaller and open, as you said. Certainly, based on our history and how I generally play around people whose towngames I respect, I don't think I'd be trying to interact with you

more

as scum.

Do you spectate games frequently?

[Marashu]

Official Vote Count 2.03

---

Gate

catboi (0):
Something_Smart (0):
absinthe (0):
Not Voting (3): catboi, Something_Smart, absinthe

Wall

unwnd (0):
Lukewarm (0):
Dunnstral (0):
Not Voting (3): unwnd, Lukewarm, Dunnstral

Keep

Briar (0):
Anastasia (0):
Infinity 324(0):
Not Voting (3): Briar, Anastasia, Infinity 324

Deadline:

(expired on 2021-05-22 23:00:54).

Mod notes:

You may only vote within your location

[Something_Smart]

Do you spectate games frequently?

No. I'll sometimes read random parts of games I'm not in, but I rarely follow them from start to finish.

[absinthe]

Do you spectate games frequently?

No. I'll sometimes read random parts of games I'm not in, but I rarely follow them from start to finish.

I'm surprised you were aware of this alt's past games.

[Something_Smart]

I couldn't have named any of the games before I looked, but I remembered you as someone who was playing during that time. Looking back at your games it was probably from Walking Dead (because I played in a lot of Radja's games and frequently referenced his previous ones for mod meta) and Midsummer Night's Dream (because I had a friend in that game who talked to me about it a lot).

[absinthe]

Do you mind if I ask who your friend in the Walking Dead game was?

[absinthe]

I'm sorry...the Midsummer Night's Dream game.

[Something_Smart]

It was itlepip. I know him irl and he's the person who introduced me to the site.

[absinthe]

that was a brutal game. the 3rd party actively played to help scum. :/

anyway.

It surprised/surprises me that anyone would remember this alt well enough to look forward to playing with it, but eh. I did think that absinthe meta would be fairly easy for players to acquire, and that meta definitely supports my page 1 statement about being good at finding town (why I wanted to go to the keep) and good at being transparently town (why my second choice was the Gate). Though the Midsummer Nights game was a sort of counter-example.

I wish I could have at least gone a few pages before alt slipping. The interactions could have been helpful.

[absinthe]

What are your thoughts about how to use the 3 minigames?

I got into that in 167, put your townreads in the keep, do whatever for the others. I think trying to game the IC at the gate is a bit of a waste of time, mafia are going to choose who they want as IC no matter what so it's not like they can be forced into making a bad choice. I'm mostly indifferent to how people arrange themselves in the other two.

I was actually going to type a bit more but I want to save those thoughts until after the assignments are finalized.

Did you ever get into these thoughts?

I've half a mind to just jump to the gate right now - I actually didn't mind lukewarm's suggestion earlier that I be the third at the keep, because I don't see scum motivation in Anastasia's play and although briar's play didn't make a ton of sense to me I feel as though she's threadspewed from the townreads on her, but, selfishly, I want to stay in the game longer and I think the keep should be resolved first. I feel like I'm able to play better after flips are on the table.

I need you to wrap some more words around your stance on joining/not joining the Keep.

In terms of generalised strategy or particular people?

either.

both.

any.

talk to me.

Hmm, my feeling was that I was content to slot townreads in the keep and then to let the chips fall where they may - I felt like there wasn't a lot of point in trying to micromanage everyone and I felt like letting peopl decide on their own might be more revealing. It's easy for scum to simply defer their decision to others and thereby abdicate responsibility for their actions, whereas here they'd have to justify it. Having read a lot of the arguments about straegy on the previous pages, I would agree that putting multiple scumreads in one location seems preferable - although trying to force a 3/3 is impossible, any potential swap is valuable in terms of the information it provides. As thngs stand now though, unwnd is feeling a bit...cornered in his responses. I don't mind ana's suggested groupings although I'd probably swap in dunn at the wall in place of something_smart. I'm fine with either you or Luke being at the keep.

When did your thoughts about me being at the keep change? And why?

Dunn's jump to the wall was weird but I don't see why he'd choose to put himself in a place with two people who already suspected him as scum

Why do you think he'd choose that as town?


re your 1146, my 704 was an attempt to give a hypothetical town-infinity a chance to talk about why she wasn't feeling motivated, and to do a reset if the response felt town.

Spoiler:

it didn't. :/

But, at any rate, it certainly wasn't a sign that I was townreading Something_Smart to a significantly greater degree than infinity at that point.

[absinthe]

I don't understand how everybody is looking at Luke write paragraphs on mech and thinking that they're either over their head or not a bold player

It seems obvious to me that they have some experience

In the Newbie game I played with town-Luke, I started to doubt my townread of him basically because he seemed too good to be true. And I spectated his next newbie game (he replaced into a game that included catboi) and almost immediately scumread him. There's a mechanics current to what he does in general that is alien to me because I emphasize reads much much much over mechanics and setup info. I think I've calibrated for that current, finally.

[absinthe]

y'all gonna make me crazy.

[catboi]

(๑-﹏-๑)

Oh my gosh I'm so tired, had a long today, going to catch up now

[Briar]

I too am tired.

[catboi]

Did you ever get into these thoughts?

At the time, I was about to post the order I thought the locations should be resolved in, but thought better of it because doing so would allow scum to better plan their placement/swaps. Of course I'd basically already given away that I wanted to do the keep first, so that seems really silly on my part in hindsight. At the time I was actually thinking keep > wall > gate for the order, preserving the IC as long as possible, but that's somewhat contingent on getting the keep right as otherwise doing the wall seems a bit of an unnecessary risk, and ultimately I began to think it may be preferable to simply play the numbers.

I need you to wrap some more words around your stance on joining/not joining the Keep.

My feeling was that, assuming the two townreads already at the keep were correct, me going there would ensure it was all town and force the mafia to swap with one of us. Being that I was not as townread as the other two, I'd likely be left there and I could just vote my townread and win a point. However it seemed almost superfluous to me - they were likely to get voted without my help regardless, and I'd end up removing myself from the game before being able to do much. Like I said in the post you quoted, I feel like I'm able to contribute a lot more effectively once there's been some flips and I can analyze based on interactions. Granted this way I have to convince people I'm town myself, which is not always easy for me, but I still feel as though I'm more valuable this way.

When did your thoughts about me being at the keep change? And why?

I don't think they did? At the very least, I was never

against

you being at the keep that I can recall. I didn't townread you as much as the other two, but I think I kept myself from expressing any reservation I had in-thread.

Why do you think he'd choose that as town?

I think his explanation in 1056 of wanting to force his scumreads to the gate is believable enough.

re your 1146, my 704 was an attempt to give a hypothetical town-infinity a chance to talk about why she wasn't feeling motivated, and to do a reset if the response felt town.

Spoiler:

But, at any rate, it certainly wasn't a sign that I was townreading Something_Smart to a significantly greater degree than infinity at that point.'t. :/But, at any rate, it certainly wasn't a sign that I was townreading Something_Smart to a significantly greater degree than infinity at that point.

It doesn't really matter what the strength of

your

read

actually

was, the scum are going to swap based on their perceived chances of success, and I think from your posting they'd likely infer something_smart had a better chance than infinity.

[Briar]

Fuck, I don't want to solve the Wall.

[catboi]

In reality, if mafia played it correctly, after I locked in at the gate, either Infinity would have locked into the gate in preparation for the exact play they made anyway (while s_s as town waits for infinity to pick the wall). Or, in a scenario where s_s is also scum, that would be pretty bad for them, but I feel like the scum team is less likely to find themselves in this situation. I think catboi is a bit more likely to be mafia off of how this played out.

I dont understand what you're trying to say here. You hammered the wall, it forced the moves of the other two. How does that make me more likely to be scum?

[absinthe]

I don't think they did? At the very least, I was never against you being at the keep that I can recall. I didn't townread you as much as the other two, but I think I kept myself from expressing any reservation I had in-thread.

Absinthe at the moment wouldn't be anywhere close to my choices for the keep.

[catboi]

Please stop talking about the stupid fucking mechanics

Both of your arguments are just hearsay and me needing to believe what you would do in accordance to how the night played out

Not what you've organically gained from it

I just want to state that my initial TR of S_S is exclusive to what I think of him as a person. I townread his efforts thinking he was tinkering in his head to try and make a favorable outcome for town. I changed my mind on this however because I'm just going to assume the same thing I always do about mechanics: They're really fucking easy to talk about and require zero commitment. Dunn, you yourself admitted this and made the basis of your argument against Lukewarm based on (Mechanics). Okay? So why are you two going rounds about postulating theories and how the mechanics should work in your town!favor instead of the opposite. I'm not going to pay attention to it much further and I hope to god that is not what becomes the majority of conversation you will absolutely lose me if it is.

Let me state that I don't think all mechanic talk is bad. It's protown to consider how to use the setup to your advantage and line up potential good moves in accordance to it. However? I think that's passed.

:/

[Briar]

Luke is so genuine; I just read his ISO and his interactions with Dunnstral feel really sincere. I think that scum!Luke probably tries to double down on Dunnstral there in other ways if he can't get what he wants out of the talk about mechanics, regarding Dunn locking in yesterday? But instead he's trying to work with him. In general, I think he's just been so /open/ with what he's thinking, trying to compromise with what's best, being humble, etc.

Tonally, he just sounds good. He's not agenda-based at all, not trying to hammer his way through the Wall, just vibing and solving with enough like... good. I don't know the word for this, but his posts are just good and I like them.

Subsequently, uh, I know unwnd told me that his frustration was NAI and I really do get it, but reading it in the context of Luke and Dunn trying to engage with each other without it being a toxic slapfight really does feel like frustrated scum who wants to shut down a discussion between two townies, which is... about as much as scum can do this game, it feels like: shut down the townies and cause potential strife, to hope for a WIFOM win or someone getting too paranoid. (Your feelings are still valid unwnd, I am sorry, but I just can't take this as /not/ AI.)

I don't want unwnd to be scum but like, ugh. I'm getting to that point right now. Which would make my solve catboi (this is currently the weakest of the reads, and it is admittedly going off of D1 more than today, and the fact that I don't think that S_S can be scum with either Ana or Infinity. I haven't read over Ana's other games, but I don't think that scum!S_S exists with either Infinity nor Ana this game as a potential scumpartner for them both. Which uh, sucks for catboi honestly because I don't think he's played bad if I'm doubting myself here but it's more that he's getting netted by other things going on), unwnd, and Infinity -- who, I know wanted me to talk about my read on her but it's entangled in how I'm viewing Ana this game frankly. You both have a 50% chance to be scum but realistically it's... just, over the course of the game, I don't catch myself thinking that Ana is scummy when we disagree, and it feels like we're collaborating together. Which, probably sounds dumb because she's a good scum player and I do still have a seed of doubt, but it feels more like she's just wrong whenever we interact and we're trying to figure it out together? I've liked her interactions over the course of the game, and I really do think that the pool that's left for her to be scum with based off of what she's done doesn't make sense to me as much? It has like, 1/3 scum that I agree with. Granted I still need to check my work here regarding how strictly she sticks to not bussing but I have a feeling anyways that I'll come up with what I'm expecting to.

[catboi]

I don't think they did? At the very least, I was never against you being at the keep that I can recall. I didn't townread you as much as the other two, but I think I kept myself from expressing any reservation I had in-thread.

Absinthe at the moment wouldn't be anywhere close to my choices for the keep.

Hmm, then my thoughts changed somewhere between page 10 and page 34

[Briar]

So, tl;dr as of right now: catboi/unwnd/Infinity scumteam, everyone else has reasons I don't think they can be scum save for Dunnstral, I guess? My read here is the shakiest and it's more the fact that I just didn't like how unwnd reacted over the past in-game day.

[Briar]

But, I do have to question why it is that I think the only person townreading Infinity is unwnd. Like... scum cannot be bussing right now, can they?

[Briar]

Which, if they aren't bussing...

>_>

[Briar]

Not even going there.