Open 820: The Siege of Aurelia — Game Over!

[Something_Smart]

Zeroth.

[Something_Smart]

Also, I keep doing this to myself, and I apologize in advance.

V/LA until Tuesday

I'll be around for six more hours or so.

Mild preference for not Gate.

[Something_Smart]

Once again, I'll try not to interject with my own setup ideas too much early on. Death of the author and all that

[Something_Smart]

I'm going to treat any early movement as a scumclaim, though.

So, about this...

[Something_Smart]

Unwnd was the one who did the insta jump last game as scum right? Would you have done it as town?

[Something_Smart]

I think it's a dangerous game (for scum) if they just let townies start plotting because then the onus is put onto them, and it becomes a matter of reacting less to what town does and more about complying and hoping that their plans are misguided.

Through this lens, the scummiest jumps are really the mid-day ones once it's starting to become clear what's going to happen. Yolo picking early as scum really relinquishes control more than anything.

[Something_Smart]

Speak of the devil.

Reading now.

[Something_Smart]

I was more curious about ssbm and dunn in that trio

Kinda wanto keep unwnd/catboi out of the keep

VOTE: keep

Wat

[Something_Smart]

Okay, I'm gonna have to look at this again when I'm at my computer to actually be able to process it.

Really sorry about the immediate V/LA, btw. I didn't want to hold stuff up but at the same time I doubt I'll be able to get good reads from this.

If anyone wants to give me something specific to focus on, that would be much appreciated.

[Something_Smart]

Friends don't let friends try to win by putting three scum at the same location.

[Something_Smart]

We want to have an even number of universal townreads at the Gate. If there's already one there, we might as well put a second one, but if there isn't one we should avoid giving scum an easy IC choice.

I know this ignores the swap, but we're highly unlikely to be able to control the swap in a predictable way (our attempts last time ended in disaster), so the more we can limit what scum can reasonably do with it the better chance we have of getting a good grouping.

[Something_Smart]

I'm aware of the options. What I'm not aware of is the consensus reads.

Like I said I'll try to reread later but I can't promise I'll absorb everything.

[Something_Smart]

Not sure what to make of SS. His posts haven't pinged me either way.

Shocking.

Anything in particular you want to hear my thoughts on?

[Something_Smart]

Skimmed through his ISO a few times, nothing really stood out much. It's somewhat towny that he went completely back on his early townreads, and his mechanics takes seem mostly solid, but I wouldn't expect any of that to be far out of his scumrange.

[Something_Smart]

Well also welcome to me being V/LA.

[Something_Smart]

What are suboptimal places for scum?

It seems like where certain townies are matters a lot more.

[Something_Smart]

Specifically, scum have to use their swap to put themselves where they need to be. If we try to put scum somewhere they don't want to be they can just... swap out of it. But if we put town somewhere scum doesn't want them, they may not be able to do something about it.

[Something_Smart]

it is, as always, possible that i'm thinking of this backwards but if there are 2 scum in the remainder (say for the sake of the argument implo/ss) and they're both in wall one of them would have to swap, so we'd get information from one of the 'scummier' slots moving

I mean, the obvious problem with this is that it's trivial for scum to frame it in most cases where it isn't true.

Trying to put 2 scum in a location is good, all else being equal, because it gives them fewer options for the swap, but I think that's less important than getting consensus townreads in the right place.

[Something_Smart]

The less we say about how we will interpret a particular swap, the better, methinks.

[Something_Smart]

Not really? I think the last game showed that the gate is not my strong suit. Especially with the low amount of content I have right now.

[Something_Smart]

I kinda feel like having me at the gate is just all around bad, because I'll never be able to generate genuine content once I'm locked in a 1v1.

[Something_Smart]

Well I don't think it was really true last time. But since I was V/LA, it's a lot more true this time.

[Something_Smart]

Remind me, is there a particular reason you want to be at the gate?

[Something_Smart]

Is that just because she would do well in a 1v1 situation, or because of how she is being read, or what?

[Something_Smart]

I feel like I should be fine to VOTE: Wall at least. I would imagine I'm the least Gate-fit person of everyone left.

[Something_Smart]

If we end up 1v1ing that's an outcome that would surprise me actually.

Because you don't think skitter is scum or because you don't think she'd expect to win it?

[Something_Smart]

I mean no but it feels like he has some ulterior motive for wanting me to go there

I have a response to this, but I probably shouldn't say it. Remind me on D2.

[Something_Smart]

Why does it matter if someone's read on you is bad if they aren't in your minigame?

[Something_Smart]

What does that even mean?

[Something_Smart]

Just vote Wall, PP. I think technically one more vote is required to end it.

[Something_Smart]

like me voting i'm not sure it actually matters at all, i think we functionally go to wall once the mod shows up

The way it was originally phrased it does require all but one (mostly due to an oversight), don't know if the mod here corrected that.

[Something_Smart]

Mm.

I felt like the weird way unwnd was acting toward skitter made them somewhat more likely to be partners.

Which makes this swap very interesting.

[Something_Smart]

Go on

There's nothing more to it. I don't understand why he did it, full stop, unless it's a distancing tactic.

(I mean of course it could be that he did it for a reason I don't understand, but that's why I only said it makes it more likely.)

[Something_Smart]

I guess if it's unwnd/implosion, then he would want implosion not at the gate, but it would have been really easy for implosion to not go to the gate...

[Something_Smart]

Victory, I've been ICed

I'm glad you're enjoying it, at least.

I feel like in general it's best to do Gate last because it's the hardest part of the easiest path to victory (if that makes any sense)-- that is, we're most likely to win via Keep and Gate, and between those Keep is easier, so it makes sense to save Gate for later so we have more information.

That said, knowing implosion's flip would help sort the Wall a lot, I think.

[Something_Smart]

it is proven that unwnd and skitter are not SvS

How so?

[Something_Smart]

- i townread penguin's anger at implo's hammer (dunno why he would be mad that his partner did that as presumably that would be a good outcome for them)

You don't think he would do that to distance?

Maybe that's not how PP operates, but that's the kind of thing I'd expect from a setup where scum can't directly bus.

[Something_Smart]

I do townread PP on the balance, but I think if he's scum then implosion probably is as well. That seems more likely than him blowing up at a townie, especially since if he were with skitter he'd be genuinely upset that skitter couldn't go gate and he wouldn't want to telegraph that.

[Something_Smart]

Well that makes things somewhat easier.

Really no reason to crossvote until PP says, on the off-chance unwnd wanted to self-hammer.

[Something_Smart]

That really does look like a desperation play, too. The timing doesn't make any sense from town.

[Something_Smart]

That was 674, yeah.

[Something_Smart]

Well yeah, lol. As I said I was leaning that way before unwnd made it easy.

[Something_Smart]

Yeah I mean this kinda feels like a forced switch into an all-town wall but why would implosion deliberately cripple his team like that?

Pedit: big wall I did not read yet

[Something_Smart]

PP, what do you think about the possibility of unwnd/implosion? Feels like implosion would have just sabotaged his team for no reason.

I am leaning toward skitter being scum because of this. The wall should definitely be resolved before the gate, at least.

[Something_Smart]

I mean, I'm assuming that PP is conftown. At the very least if he's scum he's already secured the win here and is just slow playing.

So I will vote unwnd, there's just no reason to put him in self hammer range yet.

[Something_Smart]

If skitter+unwnd are scum, what's your explanation for scum choosing to swap the two of them rather than doing something else?

If it's 1-1-1 already the swap is just WIFOM. Presumably it would be skitter thinking she could win the 1v1 against you (and she clearly DOES think that, regardless of alignment) and unwnd thinking he could get me executed (as was clearly his plan given how quickly he gunned for me).

[Something_Smart]

Didn't you say last game that as scum you wouldn't have immediately hammered at the keep like Briar did?

I don't specifically remember that, but I believe it. It's why I added the caveat-- PP could be scum, but I think it's pretty unlikely, and if he is he's already won the wall so it's not really my problem.

[Something_Smart]

If only we could speak to its designer to get an answer to that...

Yeah, I think it's true. I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't be.

[Something_Smart]

I mean, you're welcome to check it. The only guaranteed thing after the swap is that 1 scum is at each location.

[Something_Smart]

What's stopping you from voting, then?

[Something_Smart]

I'm not pushing on you, I'm literally just curious.

I'm willing to take your word that catboi is town, since you seem pretty confident about it.

[Something_Smart]

Scum are not even incentivized to have bad reads. In general they are incentivized to bus, I think.

[Something_Smart]

VOTE: unwnd

[Something_Smart]

Can you explain this? Why are they incentivized to bus?

Well, it's not like it's automatically better, but the assumption is that in general people are going to distrust what scum were pushing, so it would encourage scum to at least muddy the waters. And there's no direct penalty for bussing because even if they do get listened to then it makes them look better.

[Something_Smart]

That's, uh, how you play a 1v1? Or how I play it at least. Go look at the last run of this setup, where I was town and at the gate.

There's generally no point to engaging with the person you're 1v1ing.

[Something_Smart]

I mean, that's well within your rights, and I don't really care, but ssbm's reason is a bad one.

[Something_Smart]

I'm ready to vote now except that I don't want to leave unwnd/s_s/Penguin as the last few alive if penguin isn't sure of what they're doing

ssbm can still post, don't forget.

[Something_Smart]

I think Keep should be first, which leaves me once again in a situation where it's not really beneficial to say anything about it, since my opinion shouldn't really be trusted.

As for my own location, I can make a case on unwnd if PP wants, but I wouldn't really expect it to be particularly good. I did correctly scumread him last time, but I just wasn't involved enough in the game this time.

[Something_Smart]

Except it's the truth, so I will. Sorry not sorry.

[Something_Smart]

And I did it as town in the last Guardians game. It's just how I play.

[Something_Smart]

If T3 is scum then that would fit with scum playing overly fancy. Implosion intentionally jumping into a 2-0-1 only to switch unwnd out is pretty weird, but I guess it was just banking on implosion flipping first, which was a pretty reasonable thing to bank on.

[Something_Smart]

Implosion's reads on you post-swap don't matter at all, they're all for show anyway.

[Something_Smart]

I think unwnd and S_S should unvote before peng comes online. Just. Because he didnt hammer earlier doesn't mean he wont hammer now that scum is up 1-0. However the fact neither of you unvoted already makes he think peng probably is just town because I find it hard to imagine that 2 townies both didnt have this very same thought.

I did have the thought, actually, but I felt like on the balance it wasn't worth having that paranoia when I probably wouldn't get unwnd to vote PP even if I did decide he was scum.

If you really want me to unvote though, I can.

[Something_Smart]

What I gather from this is you think that if unwnd flipped first it would point to scum!implosion? How is that?

More that if implosion flipped first they thought it would point to town-unwnd, because people wouldn't expect implosion to intentionally avoid a 1-1-1.

[Something_Smart]

I actually thought you did a really solid job in that game. It was mostly S&M's theories that were wild.

By the way I haven't ignored the request for a case. I was hoping to wait until the Keep flips because there's still a chance of Dunn scum who wanted to throw off the Wall, but I guess I can do one assuming T3 is scum, since it's pretty unlikely that he isn't.

[Something_Smart]

Though, scum only need to win 2 locations to win. So you being 1/3 might still be sufficient to IC you.

I wasn't aware those were your reads, though. Did you take them into account when hammering skitter?

[Something_Smart]

Fwiw ssbm, I have seen so many people play one game with me and think they know me. I would imagine that you think I'm scum mostly from comparison to Owner's Market? Because if so, probably some of the things you see are just my playstyle, and not alignment-related.

[Something_Smart]

By the way I haven't ignored the request for a case. I was hoping to wait until the Keep flips because there's still a chance of Dunn scum who wanted to throw off the Wall, but I guess I can do one assuming T3 is scum, since it's pretty unlikely that he isn't.

Should I just go ahead and assume that T3 is flipping scum?

[Something_Smart]

Explain what to you? Why unwnd is scum?

[Something_Smart]

Okay fine I'll make the flipping case. Give me a bit.

And why do you think it matters Dunn? If I want to make a case on unwnd I'd like to know who his partners are

[Something_Smart]

Unwnd pushed T3 as town from super early on. He specifically argued for a keep of ssbm/Dunn/T3, presumably on the assumption that T3 would be voted there. He makes multiple mistakes about the locations, most notably 375 where he's like "oh I was totally considering going for the keep just to prove a point about not being scum with catboi" when it turned out the keep was already hammered. Then he calls it an odd makeup when from his POV it should be a pretty easy T3 vote.

391 indicates that unwnd figured ssbm would hammer him. He goes gate anyway, but presumably the plan is to swap him out (Keep is already determined, so they definitely can).

Then he tries to get skitter to come to the gate. I would expect that the outcome of this would have been the same-- unwnd and implosion swap, and implosion 1v1's skitter. But when skitter stalled, they didn't want to risk me or PP taking it, so implosion rushed in with the intent to set up the same 1v1. His explanation for wanting skitter at the gate doesn't make a lot of sense-- obviously nobody is going to IC skitter, so either she gets swapped out or put in a 1v1, neither really helps read her.

And he came into today with a plan, it was pretty evident that they decided in the scum PT that he would try to get me executed.

And the scumread on me/townread on PP came out of nowhere. In 599, his last reads post before voting me, he has me as null and PP as "pretty enigmatic in general and doesn't reveal his intentions easily". No explanation at all of why that read shifted. It's not organic, it's pushing an agenda.

Does that help, PP?

[Something_Smart]

256 and 352 imply that he's conflicted on catboi, while his early posts suggest that he had T3 pretty conclusively as town. If he changed his read on T3 after 237, he sure didn't say anything about it.

It's not impossible that he could do this stuff as town, but the interactions with T3 (townread him, try to get him with 2 townies at the keep, then completely forget about him) are hella sketchy. The skitter thing also just doesn't make any sense from a town perspective, and the vote on me ALSO doesn't make any sense from a town perspective since he wasn't scumreading me or townreading PP. And the scum motivation in all of those is pretty readily apparent, at least to me.

[Something_Smart]

Why is it now when the pressure is on you that you squabble together all these threaded ties to me and Implo.

Not gonna respond to everything, but I just want to single this out as a particularly weak bit of rhetoric. I don't normally do cases, I made this clear, but I asked PP if it would help and he said yeah. That's why I came up with those theories. I wouldn't have cared otherwise.

[Something_Smart]

really wish s_s had been here d1

Yep that makes two of us. The deadlines were plenty long enough for people to let me engage before jumping the gun, but I guess some people are just impatient.

[Something_Smart]

I mean that was after I had gotten to discuss it, I don't think anyone wanted me at gate, least of all myself. I don't feel I jumped the gun there.

[Something_Smart]

And 622 was after everything had been locked in, there is no advantage to continuing to discuss, it just gives scum more info for the swap.

[Something_Smart]

So you stitched together a thought process you never actually had and presented it as a case

...yes.

[Something_Smart]

I think the early townread on unwnd from T3 is significantly less likely to be one on a teammate.

In a vacuum, maybe. But I think the way he played it is pretty damning, because as soon as the keep was finalized the townread basically dropped off the face of the earth.

He posted 382, basically putting T3 as hard town. Then, right before the end of D1, he starts setting up some doubt around it (in 565 and 599 he asserts that T3 is either scum or stubborn town, not really giving a judgement on which is more likely). 814 he insults T3, and then the next mention is 884 where he calls T3 scum.

Distancing is generally encouraged in this setup because the locations can't directly affect each other, so you can pay them lip service and not have to actually worry about contributing to killing them. But, it benefits scum to make sure they get set in locations before distancing, so they don't have to do something suboptimal just to have their actions make sense with their reads. It makes total sense to say that unwnd townread T3 early to get him in the keep, and then tried to gradually reverse that by stirring up paranoia about him being scum faking stubborn town. But there's not any indication of him using actual evidence or reasoning to reverse the read.

[Something_Smart]

Well, that doesn't have anything to do with what T3 would do. T3 is a known loose cannon as scum, but from what I recall unwnd played in a pretty strategic way last time in this setup.

I can't speak to his meta in general, but he does seem to be calculating enough that he would think to do something like that.

[Something_Smart]

I don't think Unwnd going quiet is an indicator that they're scum

I agree with this, for what it's worth. He wasn't quiet at all in D2 of the previous game, and it seemed like his quietness now was indicative of laziness and confidence, rather than risk of spewing or giving himself away or anything.

[Something_Smart]

sorry again for being so absent. I probably shouldn't have joined.