Codenames 26

[shallow_thought]

So, we're still totally deadlocked on PIT (Mardoc, ST) v KIWI (Azoth, JR4)?

I think all of us agree that these are the two most plausible words.

Just for reference, the argument for HONEY was:
A Nectarine is not only sweet (more so than many other fruits), but has the additional nectar->bee->honey link.

The argument against (HONEY +) PIT appears to be that it is better clued by Bear.
I feel the argument for it is that:
A Nectarine has a PIT. Not all fruits have pits, not all sweet things have pits. Nectarine is a specific pointer.


I also feel that KIWI could have been better clued: for example, Fructose or Sugar (I think Mardoc pointed this out earlier). That might have risked bringing in the (somewhat obscure) STAR fruit, but so does almost anything else - I can't think of any way to clue HONEY + KIWI that avoids that (other than referencing an obscure NZ detective series where someone was murdered with poisoned honey, but that would only work if my wife was on the team).

I do find it difficult to spot a "wrong" word that Bear might have pointed to. IIRC, Czech symbology tends to be based on eagles, not bears. WHIP is a potential issue if you think about performing bears. I just think that the "Bear Pit" phrase may have been too obscure for El Grillo to pick up on it, or else he just thought Nectarine->PIT is strong enough to override the KIWI connection once you've seen it.

I don't think there was a single new idea or fact in any of that .

So, unless otherwise restrained, I'm going to guess PIT in a couple of hours time ...

[shallow_thought]

Point to PIT.

[El Grillo]

PIT is blue.

Blue team wins!

WHALE	HAM	PARK	BEACH	MINT
STAR	CZECH	IVORY	PIT	LIMOUSINE
BUGLE	WIND	RACKET	SKYSCRAPER	ICE
SOLDIER	POOL	BOOT	TIE	HONEY
KIWI	DINOSAUR	WHIP	OPERA	BUFFALO

Thoughts:

I'm really pleased with the team's performance, though I made things a bit harder for you than necessary because of a couple of mistakes I made. The plan all along was to win in 3 with Expensive 4, Skirmisher 3, and Nectarine 2, but things went better than planned and I was given the option to make a pair of 2-clues instead, at which point I almost bungled things terribly.

For round 1, Expensive 4 was clued at 4 because there are 4 tangible expensive objects, which the team identified immediately. While I considered cluing it at 5 to cover Mint, I've realized that giving a bigger clue leads teams to consider weaker options on first impression, which can really hurt the resulting order of guesses. Azoth did me a huge favor here with his post arguing so strongly for MINT that it became a de facto +1 guess, despite hitting 4 out of 4 words.

Skirmisher 3 was intended to hit SOLDIER + BOOT + MINT (for Civ4 players, I was hoping that Malian Skirmisher -> Malian Mint would be clear enough). When I was given the opportunity to clue just SOLDIER + BOOT, for some reason, the top priority on my mind was giving a word that would not hit WHIP's Civ4 connection. In my mind, that ruled out everything from Infantry as a unit that could be whipped, to Army as something one often needed to WHIP out. Instead, I thought about infantry from a non-Civ franchise and went with the Warcraft universe's Footman, completely overlooking that that word actually had a more common meaning. It was truly ironic that one of the candidates ended up being WHIP anyway, but thankfully the team went with its gut and rescued me here.

Mardoc and shallow_thought followed my reasoning on Nectarine exactly in that a PIT was an essential feature of a Nectarine. If anything, I was afraid that no one would know what exactly one was or not realize that one had a PIT, but using a more common stone fruit name like Peach or Apricot would've led astray from HONEY toward KIWI, which I knew would be a risk. Thankfully, again, the team ultimately came to the right conclusion.

An alternative pair of 2-word clues I was considering was Entrenches 2 (SOLDIER + PIT) followed by Golden 2 (BOOT + HONEY) after SD cleared STAR, but I felt like there was more room to go astray between CZECH and people not recognizing the phrase Golden Boot award from soccer. I'd never thought to use Bear to clue PIT, unfortunately.

[shallow_thought]

PIT is blue.

Blue team wins!

You have no idea how relieved I am. I was checking compulsively ever since my patience snapped and I posted .

GG all.

[JR4]

Good game. You got it all right, Shallow_thought (and Mardoc). Sometimes you just have to make a decision and this one turned out well enough!

@El Grillo: I can understand why you wanted to avoid Infantry with WHIP being the assassin. The link Skirmisher - MINT would be pretty obvious and would certainly be the first thing I`d think about. Yes, I`ve played far too much Civ 4.

[DaveV]

So I guess the fifth water word was HAM?

[superdeath]

So I guess the fifth water word was HAM?

the 5 words i had for water were: Whale/pool/beach/ice/kiwi
Then i was going to say LORD 2 for Ham/star ( Hamlord being a very common phrase in a game i play... ) But then i realized that hey, no one else has probably played Everquest lol

With Suit 1, being used to grab tie. /shrug

[Mardoc]

Well, that worked out! I admit I thought Kiwi was grey, not red. Well done, I certainly wouldn't have been on track for MINT without y'all's help, and I was even skeptical about HONEY.

[JR4]

Anyone interested in another one?

[shallow_thought]

Well, that worked out!  I admit I thought Kiwi was grey, not red.  Well done, I certainly wouldn't have been on track for MINT without y'all's help, and I was even skeptical about HONEY.

I'm still not clear exactly how we managed to intuit that we'd spotted an extra "expensive(ish)" word in our rambling. But we got there somehow.

I'm going to sit any new one out - RL needs some attention. But I need to try spymastering at some point, just to see how bad it can get .