TWG CXVIII: Noughts and Crosses

[BlackDragonSlayer]

Official Suspicion List:

SUSPICIOUS:
- SpecsFlyer17: Aside from what I mentioned last time, it feels like his posts have been contradictory and jumping back and forth. He initial seemed to go pretty hard to advocate for the corner strat, but seemed to have a rather sudden change of heart toward the end of the phase. If Math was a wolf, Specs is a good potential partner.
- A# Minor: A combination of being rather quite and having quite a sketchy suspicion list that really struck me the wrong way.

Lil' Suspicious:
- The Musical Poet: Some weird/erratic behavior, combined with general quietness overall. I hope to see you try and make at least one wallpost before the game is over!!!
- TheZeldaPianist275: Posts generally feel a bit on the safer side, aside from his most recent post, which does bring up some perspectives I haven't really seen other people talk about (i.e. discussion about Xiao and Math, although I personally disagree with both).

Bit Human:
- Toby: Seems to be usual Toby at this point in the game. Has been helpful and making good, sound arguments to back up his points.
- XiaoMigros: Normally I'd be a bit more unsure about Xiao, but after the past two games I think I've started getting a bit more of a grip on human Xiao. That being said, I haven't seen wolf Xiao to compare to, sooooooo

Most Definitely Human:
- BlackDragonSlayer: I, for one, trust myself.
- ThatHiddenCharacter: I trust this man more than I trust myself.

[The Musical Poet]

was going to ask what a wallpost was, then I realized

[Oricorio]

XiaoMigros has died in the night!

Current board:

TheZeldaPianist275	BlackDragonSlayer	A# Minor
ThatHiddenCharacter (IC)	X	SpecsFlyer17
The Musical Poet	Toby	O

It is now D2, which will last for 48 hours!

Note: I decided not to apply phantom votes this phase, since I didn't announce they were going to be on beforehand. If you don't vote in this phase or in a later day phase, however, they will be applied.

[BlackDragonSlayer]

...interesting. Glad to see my XiaoRadar is getting better, but I have to wonder why Xiao?

[SpecsFlyer17]

Wolves playing a corner basically means we're playing for a tie. And edge would led to a town victory in 7 turns.

[The Musical Poet]

why 7?

[BlackDragonSlayer]

Wolves playing a corner basically means we're playing for a tie. And edge would led to a town victory in 7 turns.

Would you say that makes it more likely for Math to have been a wolf? As if both wolves were still alive, they'd be fine wolfing THC.

[The Musical Poet]

Isn't that not optimal TTT strategy

[SpecsFlyer17]

why 7?

That's just the natural progression of the game. If the 2nd player plays an edge after the 1st player plays middle, the 1st player will pin and win on the 7th overall turn.

[SpecsFlyer17]

Would you say that makes it more likely for Math to have been a wolf? As if both wolves were still alive, they'd be fine wolfing THC.

If Math was a wolf, picking an edge would have been a death sentence. They would have had to play a corner to have any shot at winning, barring an extremely TTT blunder.

If Math wasn't a wolf, they could have taken a gamble and played edge, which commits them to try and get 3 mislynches.

I'd say it doesn't really tell us a whole lot about Math. In either case, playing corner makes a little more sense for the wolves imo. Just because they played corner doesn't mean they had to.

[SpecsFlyer17]

Would you say that makes it more likely for Math to have been a wolf? As if both wolves were still alive, they'd be fine wolfing THC.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

As I previously mentioned, if they did wolf THC, Math would be confirmed not a wolf.

That being said, THCs presence is going to become more and more problematic for the wolves as the game progresses. I haven't ran through all the move permutations yet, but I think we're in control of how the board plays out, and thus can keep THC alive. Eventually, I could see situations where having a confirmed human would be able to expose the wolves via voting trends.

Killing THC would have been safe for the wolves in the long game, but it would have exposed Math not being a wolf (since playing an edge with a wolf down is a losing path for the wolves). Since they chose to to keep THC alive (which does have risk, since they may not get another chance to kill him), it could indicate that Math was a wolf, and keeping THC alive (by playing corner) was the only option for them.

[SpecsFlyer17]

SUSPICIOUS:
- SpecsFlyer17: Aside from what I mentioned last time, it feels like his posts have been contradictory and jumping back and forth. He initial seemed to go pretty hard to advocate for the corner strat, but seemed to have a rather sudden change of heart toward the end of the phase. If Math was a wolf, Specs is a good potential partner.

I'll own up to flipping my opinion from the corner strategy to middle. I know that it inherently looks suspicious, but I got a little too wrapped up in trying to win TTT instead of controlling the board and controlling the lynches/wolfings.

[TheZeldaPianist275]

Interesting thoughts and observations on the implications of the wolfing, BDS and Specs. I think that that is a plausible explanation for avoiding THC, although I could also see it being a mindgame. If Math was a wolf, they would have to pick a corner, but if Math was human, they could hit either a corner or the confirmed human.

So right now, the game profile is that whoever we lynch, the wolves will have to wolf the person opposite them in order to avoid losing to the TTT win condition—the exception of course being me, since the person opposite me is now dead. I suggest that, in addition to the suspicion lists we've been putting out, we each rank the pairs of opposite players that we'd be most comfortable with getting killed, since whoever we lynch will have the opposite player killed the following night. The pairs being:

-Me &
-BDS & Toby
-A# & Poet
-Specs & THC

I want to sleep on this, but right now I'd say that I'd rank those pairs A#/Poet, BDS/Toby, THC/Specs, me/whoever, in order of "would most like to lynch" to "would least like to lynch". THC, I'd appreciate your thoughts on this in particular.

[SpecsFlyer17]

Another thought.

There are 7 spaces that we can play this phase. One is THC, and that would be silly to play. So let's call it 6.

Of those 6 options, 5 of those choices will forces the wolves' move on N2. Example, if we lynch A#, the wolves have to wolf Poet on N2.

The only space where that is not the case is TZP. If we lynch TZP, the wolves get options on N2. That appears like a bad play, since we want to "stay in the drivers seat".
But what if the N1 play on Xiao was intended to protect TZP? We've discussed "controlling the board" a lot, but what if the wolves attempted to take advantage of that strategy? wolf!TZP would be hiding up there in the corner, clearly not the target of today's lynch since it doesn't force a wolfing move N2. But, it keeps a wolf alive, which if Math wasn't a wolf, means one more mislynch ends the game.

I haven't ran through the board possibilities if we do lynch the TZP square, and I'll look into that. It may be incredibly dumb from a board control perspective to give the wolves options on N2.

Just thought I'd throw that out there. Thoughts?

[SpecsFlyer17]

Ninja'd by TZP, who mentioned the idea of the TZP square not having a forced move, but not stating it as a wolf strategy/ploy.