WW16: The Outlaws and The Olives

[Ichabod]

Well, I have a moment of break down from work, so let's use it to start the discussion. Even if day 2 is almost beggining, no reason to wait, in my opinion. I'll defend myself in this post, which seem to be a more pressing matter. later I'll try to give some insights regarding whom I think is suspicious.

I think Ichabod said he was busy this weekend or had something come up, so he was probably not able to vote. I've been thinking we might have some busy and some unexperienced scum, since they fared so poorly on day 1.

Another thing - at some point wolves must have reasoned that Thestick had attracted enough heat that saving him was just too risky. Say Ichabod had turned up and voted Bigger, and Bigger flipped villager. Thestick would be quite likely to be the next lynch, leaving wolves badly exposed.

Yes, I was busy this weekend, due to unexpected happenings (which led me to not even vote). I stopped reading the thread about the time I made my last post. I came back after the lynch was over already.

I disagree with the second part of this post, though. While a strongly suspected player is unlikely to get the heat out of himself later in the game, day 1 suspicions can come and disappear easily. So, I wouldn't expect wolves to let go this easily. Even if the suspicion didn't disappear entirely, they can get time, like on WW7 with scooter and WW3 (?) with Zak and Scooter. Now everyone is sure of thestick lynch, but if other player was mislynched instead, I bet everyone wouldn't be that sure. It's risky to play this game based on hindsight.

But my thoughts about best wolf play are kind of pointless, because the wolves indeed let thestick go, without of much of a fight, apparently. Regarding this, I agree with Zak, the place to look for people trying to divert the bandwagon on the stick is probably in the first part of the day, not near the deadline. The timing of my posts was really unfortunate, making me look suspicious because of this (and I'm a villager), but the argument stands. This leads me to point out a finger to Lewwyn, which I find to be a suspicious player right now. But I'll talk about this later (after trying to reread things a bit, I confess I mostly skimmed across the 30 pages I had to read this morning).

Another option is a planned busing of thestick. It's more likely to happen in a big game than a small one, for obvious reasons.

(Parenthesis: regarding the "big game topic" - there were some players refering to the setup and every single one, if I remember correctly, talked about a 6 wolf pack. That's interesting, because I wouldn't be so sure about that number).

Alright, I guess it's time to spill the beans.

My top suspect is Ichabod. This is based on a very strong gut feeling, which I'll try my best to explain now. Remember that I've been looking for people who tried to deflect thestick's lynch at an early stage. Ichabod made a post which looks like an archetypical wolf Ichabod post, right at the time when thestick really needed relief. Thestick had recently surged to a 5 vote lead, with no more than 2 votes on anyone else. (Although Waterbat moved his vote off thestick shortly after that happened, so it was 4-2 at the point Ichabod posted.)

Since this post is so central to my case, I took the time to reassemble it with nested quotes, even if it's a pain:



To me, this post looks like Ichabod trying to come up with a compelling case, building on some established suspicions but adding his own "twist" so it looks insightful. Only he fails pretty hard, at least in my view. The argument against Gaspar is nonsensical. I was actually thinking at the time that this screamed wolf Ichabod trying to move our attention away from thestick, but I mostly held my tongue because I didn't want to weaken my case by showing too much confirmation bias.

I did pick apart Ichabod's case on Gaspar, though, and he quickly backpedaled furiously:




By the end there, his argument has warped into something completely unrecognizable.

His tone throughout this exchange is just incredibly subservient. I think he realized how exposed thestick was and really felt on thin ice. Ichabod never rejoined the discussion after this, and as expected, his promised vote on thestick never materialized. It's as if he was afraid to rear his ahead again, for fear of getting smacked back down.

Also notice how he managed to sneak in a comment about me inflating the interpretation of a post. Thestick's post, in particular, although that went unsaid. Classic wolf Ichabod, trying to sneak in backhanded compliments or jabs while seemingly making some unrelated point.

One thing I can point out quickly against your argument, Zak: Why choose Gaspar to try and get a bandwagon/mislynch to save thestick going? If I was a wolf, I could pick an easier target (Gaspar is hard to lynch), which would lead to, most likely, a better escape goat to save thestick.

I think the main problem with my posts regarding Gaspar is that I tried to hard to express a gut feel, and a pretty vague one at that. And, from what I can see from Novice and Zakalwe now and from the lack of comments after my post, I really failed at that. My point still stands (even if I couldn't made myself clear), though, and I still suspect Gaspar, even more so after I kept reading the thread.

Any comment about my absence is really though for me to answer. You imply I did it due to an agenda (because I got beat after trying to save thestick). I say I was away. I don't know what else to add to this point, really.

What was the comment about you? That you are a cat herder? I was making a about Gaspar style of play and how I think he has a difficulty to make people follow his suspicions (which I attribute to him not trying to, since I find he prefers to find the wolves rather than convincing people he's right). I find that your style of play is the one most contrarian to that of Gaspar. Or to put in other words, if you are not a cat herder, who is?