Could be anyone. The only way you could have dug your way out of it was bribery.

Damn, I'm torn on how to handle this proposal. On the one hand, I've not liked very much of Bentz's style; on the other hand, he seems to agree with my hunch about Aaaaarrrrgh - Squinty being two-thirds of Team Evil.

How to reconcile this... Hmmm...

This post is written as a train of thought, and will move wherever my brain goes without any specific agenda. I just need to work some things through, and I figured I might as well do it publicly.

I'm in a very awkward position right now, where I know that no one trusts me. Now, in a 9 person game, that is not necessarily an unwinnable scenario, but it sure is difficult, because it means that we need to identify the spy team exactly, instead of having an extra out. Now, an easy out for me would be to just assume that my loudest detractors are the spies, simply because I have reached the point of feeling that I will have to go with a risk, and I might as well take the risk that benefits me. Also, looking at conversation and accusation, I think an argument could be made for Razor/bentz/(Zherog or Squinty).

On the other hand, I could look at those same conversations and accusations, ignore the fact that I know my alignment, and think that that those same people are the ones most likely to be the good guys. Razor has done a lot of work, and seems to share things honestly, even though his work is bringing him (and others) to what I know to be an incorrect conclusion.

bentz was very quiet in the early game, but has really picked things up, and seems to work hard at figuring things out (though he seems a bit fatalistic right now). This makes him look a lot better to me (apart from the fact that he, too, accuses me). I don't think an amateur spy would be likely to go into the full character conviction that bentz showed in his proposal post, but I might be wrong.

Now, I think there has only been one spy on each mission, which means that either Zherog or Squinty is the last spy. They both approved the team that failed mission 2. Zherog has given his reason for approval (it's weak, but not completely incredible). Squinty has not said anything since the mission was posted. Currently, this makes Zherog the better resistance candidate of the two.

If I assume that Razor and bentz are both Resistance, who could the spies be? One of them had to be Mown, the other one is... completely impossible to discern at the moment.

So I have one theory that is clear cut but doesn't seem too likely (Razor/bentz/Squinty), and one that seems to fit better with people's actions, but is very hard to figure out (Mown/Squinty/?). The problem is that both of the players I had with me on mission 1 have been very active and vocal, and very few of the people on mission 2 have been, so I have no reads on SeTiny or RM. Altimis also has been sharing a lot of work and info, which again is a good thing, even if I know that he is drawing the wrong conclusions from the numbers.

In short, I'm stumped. I really don't know how we'll get through this.

YEAH, sorry, I tend to be in games.
my nick name in pokerstars is evilGilbe.
I figured that that games are sublimation for my competitve nature, because I choose not to be competitve in real life.
by the way, I liked table top, because I saw this trait in wil wheaton also, he was like this in big bang theory also, really reminds me of myself.
This reminds of playing a railroad game where there is a shared pile where players choose cards from in the beginning of the turn - there was nothing there I needed, but I knew there was a card there that my girlfriend back then really needed (she played after me) - I took this card, and in the end of my turn, when I needed to throw a card - I said: 'you know what, What the hell I'm going to do with this card?' discarding the card I took from the pile, while giving my girlfriend meaningful stare, she haven't speak with me for a week.

back to the subject, Zherog, I can see why you don't like my style, but doesn't say anything about me being resistance/spy.
this is the point of the game when you need to already choose 5 persons that will go on the last mission and second to last mission - 4 of them need to be on this mission, because since we need to win all missions till the end, there is no time for try&error - with what 5some are you feeling comfortable with?

Well, I've been gone for several pages of activity. It's gonna take me some time to go through everything, but I've only been home about 10 minutes from my trip. As a note on my voting:

I voted against Mown's proposal because it bothered me that he seemed to be throwing it away by not taking himself and just saying anyone else would be better. When I sent Neo my vote for Mission 2 Proposal 3, I also instructed Neo to vote "yes" to Roaring Mouse's proposal and "yes" to bentz's proposal if they were for Mission 2. The reason for that was that I trusted Roaring Mouse more than bentz, so I figured a vote for her team was a much safer bet. But, if it got shot down, we had to have bentz go through otherwise it would have been an auto-loss, so I wanted to make sure my votes were in for those. But yeah, I had to vote blind since I couldn't do it from the business trip.

So, yeah, been on an Island for the last.... just under a week, so now I have about 150 (give or take) posts to catch up on and work through. Probably won't fully happen tonight, but I'll do my best to get to it as soon as possible. Also gotta check in with all my other games, so this might be a late first night home....

~SE++

really not liking this "choose five right now" attitude. we need to pick 4 we're comfortable with right now. we need to pick a fifth two missions from now. we'll have two missions more of dialogue and voting to reach conclusions on who that fifth should be.

I also don't like that bentz has already made up his mind about who he thinks the spy team is. That could kill us. I currently think that bentz is resistance, but if he is, his attitude will lose the game for us. Also, being reminded that Squinty was out of town and had pre-voted suddenly means that his vote contains less info than I thought. Now the only thing that carries weight is if we believe Zherog's claims as to why he accepted that mission.

This will be very hard to win...

Just to be clear, I didn't make up my mind, but since this our last chance, we have to go with our best guess.
If we continue discussing, and make up different proposals, they will be rejected with the help of the spy team, until there is a proposal with a spy in that will be go through with the help of the spy team.

Alright, time to do a Zherog wall of text.

This was from before Mission 2, Proposal 3 (Mown's) was turned down. This worries me since bentz is begging for someone other than Mown from Mission 1's failed team to go on the next Mission. Maybe this is a completely wrong read on him, but to me it screams that he knows either Aaarrrgh or razorborne are Spies and that he's trying to increase his odds of getting a Spy on the team. He then goes on to be on the failed Mission 2, and if my read on Aaarrrgh is still valid, that would imply Aaarrrgh and bentz are Spies working together right now. razorborne still rings more Resistance for me, so my best guess on Spy likelihood for Mission 1 is Aaarrrgh as number 1, Mown as number 2, and razorborne as number 3.

Perhaps my thoughts on low post counts and Spies hiding while Resistance are correct. Both Aaarrrgh and bentz have some of the lowest posts to this point. Roaring Mouse is also down there, and also in the failed Mission 2, so with this, my thoughts are going towards a Scum Team of: Aaarrrgh // Roaring Mouse // bentz. I wish I could have seen this before blindly voting "yes" to Roaring Mouse's proposition, but as I said, I was doing it blind so I wasn't an auto "no" while on vacation. I figured that more "no" votes might tip things in the Spies favor since it gets them closer to stalling out Mission 2 and winning by default, and I had bentz cautiously pegged for a Spy, but Roaring Mouse was still a Resistance lean when I cast my preemptive votes. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

With each post of Zherog's that I read I get a stronger feeling that he is a White Hat / Resistance / Town since he seems to have similar feelings to myself.

I know this is an obvious post, but I point it out because there was no conversation about who to take before it was made. Most people seemed to be having a lot of discussion about who they should take with the other players before making decisions, especially this late in the game. At this point, it's like voting for President, we're stuck with the lesser evil of two options. As I said, right now, Roaring Mouse and bentz are both ringing Spy to me, and Roaring Mouse manages to get both on a mission, and even if she didn't, bentz would have free reign on the next proposal. To me, this looks forced and like we're caught inbetween a rock and a hard place since we can't win Mission 2 at this point if I'm right.

I'm fine with altimis not wanting me on the team, I mean, it seems he's only singling out players who are contributing to the conversation and scumhunting the most, so I can see the wisdom in trying to get other players into the game and see where they stand. Also, he has the same worried read on bentz here, which is only getting more and more confirmed for me. Personally, I'm not surprised the Mission 2 failed, but that's because two of my top three Spies are on it. My only worry is that he's looking everywhere besides the Team Leader, which was Roaring Mouse, keeping focus scattered on three different players.

As I said, if that was for the Mission 2, Proposal 4 team, I did have my vote in ahead of time, which is why Neo messed up, but it was done blind and ahead of time as my best guess to help the Resistance.

I dunno, even if bentz were to screw up and change it up and force a Spy win for Mission 2, we'd only have a single read on a player, and still three Missions to lose to a single Spy who keeps himself hidden. Personally, I could see it as a brilliant move to put all focus on himself and allow another Spy buddy to sneak onto Mission 3 or Mission 5 and win it all.

Hey, look, two of my top three Spies are his suggestion and he leaves himself an out.

After a lot of back and forth, altimis makes this post where you do have to go back and forth to read him and Mown's posts. He says he's not setting up a wall, but it totally looks like he is. Now, I'm willing to chalk this up to being in a small battle of words, but this seems really contradictory. It also raises the concept that Mown and altimis are trying to distance themselves by arguing back and forth a lot, which would probably be a good move for the Spies to do so people can't get a good read on them, but then this takes us down a long rabbit hole that probably ends in fewer answers and a lot more questions, so again, gonna hope they are just both Resistance / White Hats and trying to figure stuff out for us.

Honestly, I am as I try and work through everything I missed. I agree that facts seem to be fairly minimal right now, but as we move into Mission 3 I think with the extra voting of Mission 2, we have a decent amount of information to work from.

This feels like deflection and adding in stupidity into late game thinking to keep people looking all over the place. It further solidifies my bentz read as a Spy. This post does nothing to help the Resistance, and only helps the Spies hide behind bad posts like this.

Good point, Zherog (on the thought that you and I are Spies). I can also accept that you feel I am a Spy, but that's only because we only need five out of the six Resistance to win the rest of the game, and I agree with most of your points so far. I know I'm Resistance, but I also feel heavily so are you, and as long as the Resistance members are thinking critically, we can still win this.

I would agree, except razorborne is the strongest argument for Resistance I've seen so far. I would swap out either seTiny or yourself for razorborne. seTiny I just can't read yet since his posts feel kinda devoid of information thus far, and I honestly prefer Zherog over you, but if you were to put up the Team, I'd be okay with you on it, just a stronger preference for Zherog.

So, you're naming me a lot. What is it that you're basing this off of? I haven't been on a single mission, and it looks like you're just augmenting your previous arguments of me and Zherog to splitting us so you don't look wrong. I mean, maybe my opinions of you are tainted since I think you're a Spy, but it just doesn't add up for me.

So, you propose basically the same team that just failed with you on it and then proclaim to say you're not going to participate much anymore? I really see this as a frantic last ditch effort to end the game before people can poke more holes in your "logic."

--------------------------

Ugh, I should be sleeping. I'll keep reading and trying to figure it out later, but my personal Spy Team right now is:

Aaarrrgh // Roaring Mouse // bentz

~SE++

Oh, no - you misunderstand. I don't particularly mind you being aggressive. That can get annoying, sure, but it's a reasonable play style. (I've been over-aggressive one - or twice - in mafia; I get how it happens.)

No, my problem is the building crescendo of your posts. You were nowhere to be seen early on, hiding behind a veil of silence. You were called on it, and now you're out and about, guns blazing. Here's an example of your early posting style.

You had this:



That post was after the failed Mission 1. Prior to this, you had made a grand total of 2 posts - and one of those was procedural. Three days after that post came your next post:



Then there was basically an "edit by way of posting" with this 5 minutes later:



Then the next day, you fire off a total of four posts. Three of them come within a 15 minute span, another 40 minutes after that. They follow the same pattern of being relatively short, and having the look of "edit by way of posting" for a few of them.

The next day, July 15th, you have one post (same short style). July 16th you have 4 posts, one of which is an "edit by way of posting." This is the day your style changes, though. You go from posts that were shorter in length and calmer in style, often really lacking backbone; to starting to put forth some aggression. This one looks to be the turning point. That's sort of the middle point between your, "Golly gee, I just don't know" style to you "I'm the best damn detective since Sherlock Holmes" style.

After that you don't post again until the 18th. And then your transformation is complete. The 18th starts off [url=http://forum.nogoblinsallowed.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=4561&sk=a&start=80#p167484]with the post where you noticed Neo goofed about having Squintmeister's vote already recorded. It's followed a few hours later with a short post listing what your proposed team would be.

Prior to the 18th (7th through the 17th - 11 days), you had made a total of 14 posts. Starting with your first post on the 18th, you've made 22 posts. They're longer (or, in a few cases, made to look longer by including big quotes), and they're way more aggressive than your early play.

So, 14 short, relatively passive posts over 11 days; 22 longer, aggressive posts over 3+ days. That is what I mean about not liking your style. What it tells me is:

A) A player who was uncomfortable at first in the game, and took a while to warm up

or

B) A Spy who laid low early on while your teammate(s) from the first mission was heavily hunted. Once attention turned to you, you fired back.

Either is reasonable, I think. You're obviously going to claim A is correct. You'll probably say you can understand how somebody would see B. I've certainly seen plenty of times in Mafia where two Town players butt heads and make themselves a huge distraction to the scumhunting. (*cough*Alt&Numbers*coughcough*). I've seen Townies dig themselves into a hole they never get out of, too. So yes, there is a very good chance A is cause.

But, I'm gonna go ahead and assume B for the short term. More re-reading later, if I get time, at work.

And as a slight procedural thingy...

Mouse - I've seen people refer to you as both "he" and "she." Do you have a preferred pronoun? If you're inclined not to say, no worries. I'm clever enough with the English language to be able to handle it. Just thought I'd ask.

Where is this coming from? I have no idea what this is referring to?

==xx==

@squinty: YAY! squinty is back. In response to your pointing out the wall of text that I made mention of, I didn't mean literal walls, but this "Alt&Numbers" business. I saw that happening between Mown and I, and I figured I'd call him out on it. As for making you guys jump back and forth; I find that preferable to having quotes inside quotes, unquotes then quotes again. For me, that's just plain confusing and it gets messy to read fast. Personal preference.

mouse is a she, squinty must know it, I refered to her as 'he' because my chauvinist assumption is the people playing this game are males.
Zherog - I already explained it, I didn't post anything before I had information - there was no information, and nothing to talk about early game, other people posts were also posting just for the sake of posting with nothing to work with.
Once I got the information I started making analysis of who are the most likely spies - while I can't be sure, I got to go with the most likely guess. I was also trying to be loud in making people choose teams that will: 1. Will give better probablity of a succesful mission 2. will give us the most information to analyze the possible spy teams.
I'm not sure this alt,squinty,aaarrggh spy team is right, but it is the best guess we have now. give me an alternative, and I will explain why I don't like it.

Oh, and by the way - I was against Roaring mouse proposal taking 4 persons not from mission 1, I explained it loudly many times from the probablity of success prespective. However, I admit that it did give us vital information (switching just one from the earlier rejected mission) - I still think it was a mistake, but I can see Roaring Mouse's Reasoning of taking alt because she suspected him (him - right?) as a spy.

You're right I don't know what I'm looking for. At this point I wish I had stayed out of this game and watched it from the sidelines. Then joined a smaller game as my first game. I started off treating this game like mafia, but they are two different games.

I haven't accepted or rejected any spy team proposal. I'm not going to rush into a decision nor fix on one possibility without going over other options. I was hoping bentz would have made his team proposal early today or late last night, since Neo said he could take his time.

I don't like when things line up too well, but Aaarrrgh, Squinty, Altimis spy team (Team ASA) is a possibility. If you believe straight forward spy actions and there was only one spy on mission 1 and mission 2 then it is the best option. I want to spend today looking at two mission one spies and what that would look like.

Your proposal would be possible if the spies could communicate or took a big risk. On team 2.2, and team 2.3 where there would have been two spies, how does only 1 of them vote yes for the mission? Each time it was a different person that voted yes.



Like you said spies don't want to be found. IF bentz and razorborne are spies and bentz committed to bringing a second spy on the team, then he changed and lied about it he would be prime suspect. Now he puts his team at risk, because people have a post history and voting record to look at. Big risk.

If they both go on the mission they would have to be pretty confident in their ability to communicate. Two fail cards and we know there are two spies. They both voted no for team 2.4 meaning they both were committed to going on team 2.5. Another big risk.

The only way I don't see it as a big risk is if they were planning ahead and preparing for mission 4 where they would need two spies. In this case they would put two success cards down. The problem with this is then how do you fail mission 3 or 5? For the win, they would need to fail either mission 3 putting mission 4 at risk, or some how get a spy on mission 5 when we know that team 4 has two spies.

The simplest thing I can see is, if bentz is a spy, he committed to razorborne as a shield. Pick someone from team 1 and you have someone you can blame for a failure. With two failures and someone to blame it makes it more difficult to get a all town team for mission 3 and 5. But if this is the case then your spy team fails because it would mean razorborne is town.




Huh? The spy team you proposed was razorborne (team 1), bentz (team 2), and Zherog (team none). I know your stats below show team 1 members at the highest probability of being spies. As I said before statistics gives me a headache, so I don't know if you are right or wrong with them. But your phrasing gives me pause. You say you are STILL convinced there were two spies on mission one, but suggest a spy team with one member of each group we have.



I'm not sure what you accomplished with this. The top three percentages C (Mown), F (razorborne) and I (aaarrrgh) after Bentz are the same as the previous table in this post. Wouldn't the numbers be the same if you replaced Bentz=spy with you, roaring mouse or myself?

~29 hours until the deadline, I've gotten 4 of the 9 votes so far.

4 people are confident in their reads?

If this team gets rejected we move to razorborne, then altimis, then myself, and then aaarrrgh. From an outside perspective not one person that has a strong town read. We have time to discuss the team and who we think are spy, why vote so soon?

I suspect that bentz is one of the 4. I'm a little worried the other three are spies and that doesn't bode well for the team. I assume bentz has voted yes. If there is a spy on the team then the other three vote yes then only one more yes is needed for the team to pass and we lose. If there isn't a spy on the team then it may go into a spies hand. This all of course is assuming bentz is resistance. My point is don't be hasty to pull the trigger on your vote.

Borrowing Zherog's coach mode:

We can still win this one mission at a time. We get an all town team on this mission, then mission 4 will pass. Even if we bring a spy along on mission 4 he will have to vote success or be outed. Then all we have to do is figure out the best 5 person town team, knowing 4 townies.

Man, that's not a lineup of people I want to have in charge.

Sorry, I went through this out of order...

How do they alternate voting? It's just luck. If I was on the spy team, and I saw that one of my teammate voted yes for a random mission, I too would vote for a random mission; probably the soonest one afterwards to help alleviate suspicion. There's no way to really order it, but guess and check. Either way, their goal is to alleviate suspicion.

Why commit a team? To provide this kind of confusion.

Oops, Zherog is supposed to be Mown in that case.

The numbers... Right, but you're looking at the wrong numbers.


to



As I mentioned there, from my point of view, the most statistically suspicious peopl are Mown, Razor and Argh. Given that they can't all be spies, and that I think bentz is a spy; I had to pick one of the original three to count as a rebel. For now, I'm trust Aaarrrgh more than Mown.

I should have said.
"You need to compare this list; to this list"

I said it in my head, so it made sense at the time.