WW16: The Outlaws and The Olives

[Azza]

Sweet, we had at least 2 villagers on the block, maybe more. And we kill the one who's probably played the best village game of the 4... brilliant stuff...

[Gaspar]

I, uh, still have no idea how that happened. I think we're outsmarting ourselves with these late swings, though. Just because it worked for Matt doesn't mean having 47 hours of one thing and an hour of something totally else is a winning strategy.

[Lewwyn]

Wow. My vote wouldn't have mattered. Tomorrow, I'll try to make sure it does.

[Jkaen]

Just logged on to catch the mislynch. What I actually wanted to do (I got the deadlines wrong in my head) was switch to Novice as my gut has been telling me for a while now.

1. What wolf would try and restrict him with a PR that he has already shown he can work around easily
2. Why isnt he dead yet
3. There are far too many posts that gave me the WW14 feeling, like I think it was early day 3 he suggested all suspected villagers band together, and followed me, only to hop off quite soon after to a different target
4. Then there is just that gut feeling his posts felt wrong (not read them since about Friday much though)

[novice]

Let's go easy on the insults and just keep discussing the game.

Indeed. Speaking of which:

novice, was there any reasoning behind your votes or was it a clusterfuck?

Yeah I had my reasons. Yes, it was a clusterfuck, I don't think I'm more responsible than anybody else though.

2. Why isnt he dead yet

Because villagers follow me even when I'm wrong.

But if the Tasunke wagon was sincere, I think it was a horrible play. Just not enough time.

There demonstrably was enough time. I stated early in the day and repeated later that I would like to hang Molach, Lewwyn, Tasunke or Selrahc. As such I'm not upset as such that we ended up hanging Tasunke.

I do blame novice, but not for hanging Tasunke. I have no idea why Tasunke was brought up out of the blue with 5 minutes to spare. We had 3 candidates we were discussing, we could have sought to consolidate votes on two of those, in order to get a large enough majority that the wolves couldn't derail as easily. There are probably 4 wolves left, no way they'll let a wolf hang with this few voters.

See above. I stated my suspects early on, and I stated hours before the deadline that I thought the Meiz wagon was a bad idea. I don't see how I'm to blame for the lack of consolidation.

Okay, enough about that, I think it's as civil as I can be. I'm glad I decided to sleep before addressing that.

---

So why did I vote the way I did? I voted for my stated suspects all the time, the only exception being Azza. At that point I realized that with the even votes, our chance of having a scum on the block was quite slim. So I voted Azza because I felt it would give us the most information. It was a snap decision, deciding to test the judgement of the current Azza voters, which were Catwalk, Lewwyn, Injera, Meiz. At least that was the tally I was looking at, my vote crossposted with three others.

Additionally, Selrahc and Meiz' behaviour on the block didn't seem so scummy. Well, it was bizarre, but it didn't feel like something a wolf would do. Meiz made a good case against Waterbat, but refused to vote him. Selrahc kept pushing his suspects, never voting solely for survival.

On reflection, I think Selrahc nailed it with this comment, actually:

On a broader note, I feel the votes in this game are necessarily going to be a little lacking in information. The scum have the liberty to bus one another, and clearly did so on day 1. Bring the wolf to attention and act as a driving force for their lynch? That buys you some goodwill from me. Just happening to be on their wagon when they got killed doesn't seem that significant. I think all this talk of the "Mattimeo Voters" is misleading. This game is rather different because it is going to be long and there are a lot of wolves. Creating discernable patterns in behaviour to save wolves *will* be picked up on as the game progresses, so the wolves will have to be very callous with regards to packmates until they approach endgame. I wouldn't expect the wolves to start momentum on other wolves, but I would expect them to join in in roughly expected numbers in order to break patterns.

But, let's not despair, this game is still like a normal 16-player game starting with the mandatory mislynch. In light of Selrahc's comment above, let me reorder my list of players, solely judging by the scumminess of their posts, and disregarding all but the most powerful voting evidence.

Ranked from villager to wolf:
novice: the Secretary
Catwalk: the Bureaucrat
Pindicator: the Lawyer
Injera: the Electrician
Ichabod: the Pizza Delivery Boy
Twinkletoes89: the Barber
Meiz: the Firefighter
Jkaen: the Olive Picker
Selrahc: the Knife smith
Lewwyn: the Garbage collector
Molach: the Street musician
Azza: the Mechanic
Waterbat: the Clergy
Gaspar: the Carpenter

Interesting. When disregarding vote-based evidence, Azza, Gaspar and Waterbat bob to the bottom of the list. Yeah I don't know - it's hard to separate scummy posts from scummy/protown votes, so I might have to work on that list. I'll post it anyway, don't hang me for it being inconsistent with previous suspect lists.

[novice]

Wow. My vote wouldn't have mattered.

Why do you say that? Your vote was on Azza, it seemed like a highly relevant vote throughout the lynch.

[novice]

Sweet, we had at least 2 villagers on the block, maybe more. And we kill the one who's probably played the best village game of the 4... brilliant stuff...

Azza, I assume the two villagers you're referring to are yourself and Tasunke. And you're probably the only one who considered Tasunke's village play good. (Personally I think he has some good posts from time to time but it's hard to single out and he's impossible to trust because of all the erratic stuff in between.) I think you're the only one who pointed out any good posts by him, which you did here:

I had been thinking tasunke, but trying to look back at the formation of the Mattimeo bandwagon led me to this post. So I'm less convinced on that front.

My take on Tasunke is that wolves would probably just let him do his thing and count on the village mislynching him when they had run out of better candidates. They wouldn't have to push him much, but they would probably also be disinclined to single out protown play by him. As such I think Azza pointing out that post by Tasunke is a town tell on Azza.

Revised list:
Ranked from villager to wolf:
novice: the Secretary
Catwalk: the Bureaucrat
Pindicator: the Lawyer
Injera: the Electrician
Ichabod: the Pizza Delivery Boy
Twinkletoes89: the Barber
Meiz: the Firefighter
Jkaen: the Olive Picker
Selrahc: the Knife smith
Azza: the Mechanic
Lewwyn: the Garbage collector
Molach: the Street musician
Waterbat: the Clergy
Gaspar: the Carpenter

[Catwalk]

I thought calling it a clusterfuck was reasonably polite, my apologies if you feel otherwise And I still think it was (both polite and a clusterfuck). Enough votes to hang him, yes. Enough votes to hang him by enough votes that scum can't easily control the vote, no. Azza had votes already and there was momentum on him, yet with 7 minutes left (not 5 as earlier stated, and if we start with Ichabod's vote it's 9 minutes) we start putting votes on someone with no votes. You say yourself that Azza was high on your suspect list. This was the final tally:

Meiz - 5 - Azza, tasunke, Gaspar, Twinkletoes89, Ichabod
tasunke - 5 - Pindicator, Selrahc, Injera, Waterbat, Catwalk
Azza - 3 - Lewwyn, Meiz, novice
Selrahc - 2 - Molach, Jkaen

There was plenty potential for hanging Azza with at least 7 votes, maybe 8. If Azza flips scum eventually, I will likely find it highly suspicious that you called him a villager for a long time then *almost* helped hang him but obfuscated it at the finish line.

I also find it telling that you're distancing yourself from the Azza vote:

So why did I vote the way I did? I voted for my stated suspects all the time, the only exception being Azza

Yet in your suspect list in the same post is 3rd from the bottom based on post scumminess alone. I will have to reread, but I recall you saying several time that Azza read villager to you. Lo and behold, in your next post you've found reasons to bump Azza up to 5th place.

Lastly, saying that you "wanted to test the judgement of current Azza voters" seems strange to me. I assume you're referring to your last vote here. How is this a test of judgement? Either he's guilty or not, and we're guessing regardless. You can test people's reactions by switching votes, I don't see how it makes sense to argue that you're testing their judgement.

My case on you hinges on Azza being scum, I see no reason to go after you first and I still find Azza an excellent candidate. If he flips scum, I think you look very bad. Again, no offense intended by any of this and I apologize if you feel any of it was out of line. I'm officially not following you around anymore, though

[novice]

Yet in your suspect list in the same post is 3rd from the bottom based on post scumminess alone. I will have to reread, but I recall you saying several time that Azza read villager to you. Lo and behold, in your next post you've found reasons to bump Azza up to 5th place.

See, I knew you were going to jump on that inconsistency and I posted the list anyway. It was other suspects bubbling towards villager that dragged Azza down on that list, not anything Azza did.

And yes I adjusted my list in the next post based on further evidence gathering. So what, if I may ask? Is that scummy now?

Lastly, saying that you "wanted to test the judgement of current Azza voters" seems strange to me. I assume you're referring to your last vote here. How is this a test of judgement? Either he's guilty or not, and we're guessing regardless. You can test people's reactions by switching votes, I don't see how it makes sense to argue that you're testing their judgement.

I wasn't looking for vote switches then, I wanted to test the judgement of the people who had been pushing Azza all day by seeing Azza flip.

[novice]

If Azza flips scum eventually, I will likely find it highly suspicious that you called him a villager for a long time then *almost* helped hang him but obfuscated it at the finish line.

I also find it telling that you're distancing yourself from the Azza vote

I've been defending Azza for days now, it's a little late to start distancing, don't you think? And are you seriously saying that my last minute vote on Azza was an attempt to save him? (Or did you think it was a bus attempt, as if such a vote would gain me any credit, and as if a wolf me would have any need to bus any more teammates?)

You're just jumping at shadows. I get that you're annoyed at the lynch but don't take it out on me. The village consists of four scum and eleven confused villagers, so it's really unfair to blame a close vote on me.