ESPIONAGE: Round Four (Spy & Informants Win!!)

[Trickster]

As I said, this is why we have to make sure everyone mentions who they vote.

Why does this just sound like a bad idea to me?

[Iwamoto Yuri]

because it isn't and if we do we can make sure we don't throw civilians out of the game?

[dumytru]

Welcome to Day 1!

You will send the votes until 1:00 PM EST Time and the results will be posted soon after that time.

Have a good game!

*sorry I posted this message one hour late. Apparently I confused 1:00 PM EST for 2:00 PM EST.

[bash7353]

Well, last time I was opposed to tie voting because our lists could possibly tell us things about the Spy and would get more valuable when Civilians are revealed as such when they've been arrested or no longer live. However, in this round there's nothing about the Spy's identity to infer from lists, so I don't see the slight benefit of dead Civilians that I saw last round. Depending on the method we decide on I could see myself in favour of trying to arrange a tie for Day 1, but I do have concerns that I mentioned earlier about Togop's suggestion.

[Iwamoto Yuri]

it should be a random one, not based on lists.

[Stopwatch]

But what information would it give us? None. We would only get information from kills and there are way too many possibilities that can be inferred from that. No, I suspect that the Informants will potentially give away the Spy, so we need to give them the chance to talk and cast suspicion.

[Togop]

Well, last time I was opposed to tie voting because our lists could possibly tell us things about the Spy and would get more valuable when Civilians are revealed as such when they've been arrested or no longer live. However, in this round there's nothing about the Spy's identity to infer from lists, so I don't see the slight benefit of dead Civilians that I saw last round. Depending on the method we decide on I could see myself in favour of trying to arrange a tie for Day 1, but I do have concerns that I mentioned earlier about Togop's suggestion.

About my suggestion, there are certainly problems with nominating someone and waiting to see if three others concur. Which is why instead of suggesting that, I said I didn't know how to figure out who to vote for and asked for an input on that... Yuri's suggestion about using random.org could prevent the spy from checking people, but would still give out the detective if random.org selects them randomly. We could use a mechanic similar to how Investigate works, but I haven't thought it through for loopholes.

Anyway, you're right that we should go for a tie instead of kill. Still, we should keep in mind that the tie may not work out. Thus the question remains who do we vote for?

[Fujiwara]

So much going on, so little time ...

Something minor but possibly impacting occurred to me a few minutes ago. I'm not sure if I should point it out now, though, as it gives the Spy a lot of time to plan leading up to the end of Day One. If the Spy is one of the veteran players, I think they'll get an advantage by the start of Day Two if they realize this certain something.

The question is: Do you think it’s something we could prevent by talking about it? I’ve been thinking about what you could be referring to, but all the things I could come up with are things that are less likely to happen if we talk them over (like people inadvertently revealing the non-detectives by voting for them or the detective being revealed by every civilian jumping to his defence when he’s nominated [hint: Let’s not do that!]). But of course, you’re the only one who can judge whether it’s prudent to mention whatever it is you noticed.

About Day 1:

Okay, about 17 hours to go until phase change, so we really should get a plan underway.

There are two things we should keep in mind at all times:

1. Everything that reveals who is or isn’t on our lists is a bad idea.

2. Everything that reveals other information (i.e. discussions) is good.

So far both googleearth and Togop have tentatively agreed with Yuri’s idea of arranging a tie, with Jd- also listing it as one of two options. I’d certainly be willing to go for that as well, but that’d still leave us at only 5 participants. Others in favor of the idea should step forward as soon as possible if we want to make this a reality.

Should we get enough participants, there still remains the question of who the votees of such an event would be, since there is a chance of the vote falling through, in which case one of the two votees would be arrested. I’ll actually be around at phase change this time, so I could react to any last minute vote changes much like dumytru did last time, slightly increasing the chances of the tie working out. Also, much like last time, we should agree to vote out anyone who deliberately or accidentally destroys the tie (by not voting for the person they agreed to vote or for voting for one of the votees despite not being a part of the tie arrangement) on Day 2, just to give people more of an incentive not to mess it up.

But still, votees are a problem. We could go with volunteers again, or do nominations. Nominations should be completely unrelated to the lists (see 1. above) and would have the advantage of revealing information (see 2. above). On the other hand, we don’t actually have anything to base such nominations on and time is running on damn quickly. If we do go with nominations, we should set a deadline for the nomination process, so that we still have some time to arrange the actual tie votes.
If we went with volunteers, we would lose a valuable source of information for both the detective and us civilians. So if we’re not doing nominations for the tie, I think I’d prefer Stop’s plan (see below), but if more people want to do the tie anyway, I’m willing to go with it.

One alternative would be random voting. Such random voting would still have to be independent from our lists, because otherwise we’ll reveal the detective through non-votes. That means that despite the fact that we all have a list with the detective on it, he wouldn’t actually be safe in random voting. We also wouldn’t gain any information through the votes themselves, like in the last games and there’d be no discussion about the votes, thus we wouldn’t gain any other information either. :/

I think we should figure out the most susp people partway through D1. Maybe three or so. And at that point people have to narrow it down through debate. At the end of the debate it should be fairly clear who the winner is so voting can begin? I was mostly building off Togop's idea, but I don't think that just saying a name will work and giving multiple names out can narrow things down so that's not ideal either.

I think that’s certainly a good idea. If the nominating for tie is too complicated/time-consuming or we don’t find enough people for it, I’m in favor of this plan.
I think I’m repeating myself a lot here, but it should be obvious that such nominations should not be based on the list. If you want to defend a nominee for any reason, don’t say whether he’s on your list. If someone is already being defended by 2 people and he’s on your list, tread very carefully. In this case it’s probably not the best idea to jump into the discussion as an extra defender – too many defenders will give the detective away.

[Jd-]

I'll nominate myself as one of the subjects of a potential tie. We need one more person to come forward before we can establish such a plan, but I have a bad feeling about this, somehow. Nonetheless, I'm up for the risk.

(Volunteer #2) votes for Jd-
___________ votes for Jd-
___________ votes for Jd-

Jd- votes for (Volunteer #2)
___________ votes for (Volunteer #2)
___________ votes for (Volunteer #2)

NOTE: PLEASE DO NOT VOTE FOR MYSELF OR WHICHEVER PERSON VOLUNTEER #2 ENDS UP BEING UNLESS YOU POST AND ARE CONFIRMED AS A PARTICIPANT IN ARRANGING THE TIE. WE MAY NOT GET ENOUGH PEOPLE, AND ANY OUTSIDE RANDOM VOTES WILL BE VERY BAD FOR THE CIVILIANS TEAM. ULTIMATELY WE MAY SCRAP THIS PLAN ENTIRELY, SO DO NOT VOTE FOR MYSELF OR VOLUNTEER #2 UNLESS THIS PLAN IS CONFIRMED.

ANYONE THAT DISRUPTS THE VOTE SHOULD BE SEEN AS SUSPICIOUS, INTERROGATED, AND ARRESTED IMMEDIATELY. TAKE NO CHANCES.

Alternatively, we can just stick with random voting if we can't confirm six participants in this in time.

[Stopwatch]

We don't get info either with volunteers >_<.

[Conan-chandesune]

Well, i can be be the second volunteer if ya want but i also think it is a waste of time.

[Togop]

We don't get info either with volunteers >_<.

I know. I several times considered actually making a nomination (not based on my list) to try and start a discussion. However, every time I feel like the situation won't be handeled well and soneone would give away too much info.

Still, we need a way to start some discussion. Discussing only strategy wouldn't get us very far.

Anyway, the only think I can think of is announcing my to-be votes..
If the tie strategy is confirmed, I'll vote Jd-
Otherwise, I'll vote miakakiri (random not based on my list).

[Iwamoto Yuri]

As it was my idea, I'll volunteer as well.

This isn't completely what I meant but well

[Stopwatch]

Aye for tie: Jd-, Yuri Iwamoto, googleearth

Nay for tie: Stopwatch, Togop

@Yuri Iwamoto: Civilians hide the Detective, but they also hide the Spy. The difference is that Town can survive two more phases after the Detective is down (and anyway, the lists should help us to avoid lynching them) and so if we lose the Detective with your tactic we'll have nothing to go off and a whole lot of Civilians obscuring the Spy.

[Iwamoto Yuri]

You forget that while we shield the detective the detective has the time to investigate, stop.
I'm giving the detective this time to do so while the spy gets nothing.