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

[seed12]

RIP

[RoboG55]

Okay, the detective was killed? Already? o_O I agree that we are pretty much screwed. It's only the 2nd day after all. T_T But if we make proper decisions we might be able to get the Spy in time!

One problem: I have NO clue who might be the spy.

[Fujiwara]

Ansai-kun you liar!!! D: I KNEW something was up when you refused to help me make decisions! D: And THEN I ended up voting googleearth because Ansai-kun told me to! D: I TRUSTED YOU NII-SAN! Q.Q

You know you're not allowed to talk about the game outside this thread, right?! Because what you're saying there sounds like something that shouldn't have happened.

From the rules:

Do NOT discuss the game in private messages or anywhere that is not the original game topic.
Unlike our other Mafia games, all correspondence and interaction amongst players in Espionage takes place in public in the designated topic. The only person you should contact in private in regards to the game or its operation is a given round's GM. They will assist you with anything you may need help with.

[seed12]

Now that I think about it, there weren't any deaths on Day 1. Does that mean that the Spy and the second Informant were in the list of inactive players? In other words, those who voted for themselves in Day 1...

[RoboG55]

Ansai-kun you liar!!! D: I KNEW something was up when you refused to help me make decisions! D: And THEN I ended up voting googleearth because Ansai-kun told me to! D: I TRUSTED YOU NII-SAN! Q.Q

You know you're not allowed to talk about the game outside this thread, right?! Because what you're saying there sounds like something that shouldn't have happened.

From the rules:

Do NOT discuss the game in private messages or anywhere that is not the original game topic.
Unlike our other Mafia games, all correspondence and interaction amongst players in Espionage takes place in public in the designated topic. The only person you should contact in private in regards to the game or its operation is a given round's GM. They will assist you with anything you may need help with.

I'm sorry. >_< It's just that I was really excited for nii-san to join too. So I talked about it with him. I'll delete that

[Fujiwara]

Like I said, I didn't agree with your reasoning as to why we should vote him in the first place. But I maintain that Jd-'s behaviour in terms of calling for you to be lynched doesn't point towards him being evil or innocent, in my opinion. It could still be both, I don't think one's more likely as a result of that.

I think the point is mostly moot now, but I don’t want you to misunderstand me, so I’ll try to explain:

Spoiler: Mostly for google's benefit. Feel free to skip this.

1. At first, I didn’t call for Jd- to be arrested. I mereley said I found him suspicious and that I would vote for him and asked others who thought he was suspicious to do the same. I also said that I would reconsider if someone gave me a good argument against it, since my suspicions weren’t that set in stone. And when you said you didnt think his actions were particularly suspicious, I took note of that.
2. Right after that post, instead of any reasons for why I shouldn’t vote Jd- from either him or anyone else, came Jd’s post that I was super suspicious, without any actual arguments for my suspiciousness, as far as I could see and something which I saw as a gross misrepresentation of the truth (although it turned out that I had misunderstood how orders worked, but nobody is perfect :v). I was also about to leave the internet behind me and not sure whether I’d be able to get online again before phase change, so I wanted to make sure to take Jd down with me if I was going to get arrested. His conviction that I was an informant, his call for my arrest and my previous suspicions of him (even if not super strong) combined to make me think that it might be a good idea to make sure he didn’t get away scot-free.
3. Your post about not finding Jd- suspicious came before my second post (described above), but I only saw it after I’d posted, so for me it came afterwards. Thus, after said post, I was actually lucky enough to leech some free wifi at the train station, reading up on your post, Jd’s partial explanation of why he was suspicious of me, his explanation of how orders work and Yuri’s post explaining that she didn’t think Jd was suspicious either. I had maybe 30 minutes until I had to go and catch my train. I read everything that had been posted, thought it through and came to the decision that there wasn’t enough information to convince me of Jd’s evilness. Keep in mind that my original post indicated that I was prepared to change my mind on the matter and that I wasn’t dead-set on my opinion or vote. Keep also in mind that I had only a few minutes to quickly write a message. So, thinking it prudent that Jd and I don’t both get taken out of the game, I wrote my retraction. But since I was in a hurry, I wasn’t able to write a throrough explanation of my thoughts and thus quickly gave one of 5 reasons (your post, Yuri’s post, the order explanation, Jd’s way of finding the informant, Jd’s imo risky way of attacking me) that – taken together – changed my mind. I hope my actions make more sense now. If not, well, then I don’t know what to do. ^^

So, basically: Two phases left. The game will end on Day 4 one way or the other. Anyone who voted for Ansai is highly unlikely to be the Spy or Informant... but, if they were clever, a sacrifice isn't impossible. We don't really have time for conspiracies now, though.

So we’re good? Because I think it’d be really helpful if we could work together from here on out. It’ll be difficult enough to catch the spy as it is ...

[RoboG55]

So, basically: Two phases left. The game will end on Day 4 one way or the other. Anyone who voted for Ansai is highly unlikely to be the Spy or Informant... but, if they were clever, a sacrifice isn't impossible. We don't really have time for conspiracies now, though. Someone go back and look at all of Ansai's posts so far, see if he posted any sort of cue--if not, that may have explained the lack of a kill (Spy afraid of killing an Informant that didn't respond). Look at all posters who mentioned Ansai as a possible suspect so far so we can get a list going. Also, Stoppy may have mentioned somewhere her non-Spy result... Maybe, in some form.

I'll be back later to discuss exactly what's happened here and what we can possibly do to win. It's a rough situation, but let's not give up yet.

Ansai said he was busy with stuff, but I did too.
I was tempted to vote for nii-san, but I decided that would be kind of mean to do XD

Wait, I'm a suspect because Ansai is my brother? Oh well, I guess that's how it goes!

[bash7353]

The thing you quoted, Togop, was from Day 2. There were no posts from Ansai over the course of Day 1, and I doubt the order the Spy sent was not to post at all during the phase, so I'm gonna assume that Ansai just didn't comply with it, for whatever reason. That means there is at least one Informant whose identity the Spy was unaware of at the end of Day 1. Maybe that's why Day 1 was without Kill, but that's just speculation... We don't know about the other Informant, though. The question is if we believe that the post that you quoted, Togop, told the Spy and the other Informant that Ansai is also playing for the evil side. If we do we might conclude that everyone that voted him is probably innocent, but I think it's entirely possible that Spy and Informant just had no idea who the remaining Informant is. That is assuming the other Informant identified him or herself which we don't know anything about, either. In that case Spy and/or other Informant may have voted Ansai out of ignorance. So I'm inclined not to declare anyone who helped arrest the Informant innocent because of that alone...

The Detective died very early, but at least Stoppy had the opportunity to send in three names and receive one she then knew for a fact isn't the Spy. I've been looking at every post Stop made between after Day 1 ended to see if she left us some clues as to who was returned as the non-Spy, but I'm not really sure what to make of them. Maybe Fuji? I don't know...

[Jd-]

The thing you quoted, Togop, was from Day 2. There were no posts from Ansai over the course of Day 1, and I doubt the order the Spy sent was not to post at all during the phase, so I'm gonna assume that Ansai just didn't comply with it, for whatever reason. That means there is at least one Informant whose identity the Spy was unaware of at the end of Day 1. Maybe that's why Day 1 was without Kill, but that's just speculation... We don't know about the other Informant, though. The question is if we believe that the post that you quoted, Togop, told the Spy and the other Informant that Ansai is also playing for the evil side. If we do we might conclude that everyone that voted him is probably innocent, but I think it's entirely possible that Spy and Informant just had no idea who the remaining Informant is. That is assuming the other Informant identified him or herself which we don't know anything about, either. In that case Spy and/or other Informant may have voted Ansai out of ignorance. So I'm inclined not to declare anyone who helped arrest the Informant innocent because of that alone...

I came back to say pretty much all of this. Ansai's post was not only from Day 2 (potentially explaining the lack of a kill on Day 1, to avoid the mishap that happened in Round 2 with Conan-chandesune), it also doesn't really contain very much identifying information. So, what I came to say is that it's possible Ansai just didn't check his PM's or was confused about what to do, exactly.

In other words:

I am not willing to exonerate anyone based on voting Ansai or nominating Ansai for a vote because it is increasingly likely neither the Spy nor the other Informant knew who Ansai was due to inactivity.

It just seems increasingly likely that not only did the Spy not know, but neither did the other Informant, as to who Ansai was. They definitely did not know on Day 1, but it is possible Ansai never gave any cues whatsoever. Unfortunately, it looks like we aren't going to get any information whatsoever from either Stopwatch or Ansai's history so far.

So we’re good? Because I think it’d be really helpful if we could work together from here on out. It’ll be difficult enough to catch the spy as it is ...

I wish we were, but... I think we have to very strongly consider that not only the Spy but the other Informant didn't know who Ansai was either. In other words, everyone's fair game right now on that front. Fujiwara and Togop should still be considered suspects for being on the evil side. I'd like for Fujiwara to be with us, but there's nothing to suggest that right now. No one should be excluded based on those voting results.

[Togop]

Stopwatch was really focused on making sure she's not pegged as the detective. If someone started posting every day something along the lines of "I don't think X is the spy" it would be pretty obvious why they are doing it. It's a lot more efficient to do more names at once. So I don't think she left the name she checked. There is one thing she said which could be interpreted with some imagination as "Jd- is non-spy":

Jd-, if Fujiwara turns out to be Civilian, I seriously doubt you'd get lynched.

but I think it's supposed to be taken at face value.

Yes, the post I quoted was from day 2, meaning if Ansai ever identified himself it was mid-day 2. I don't see why he wouldn't fulfill the identification order in that post, so I'm assuming he did.

Note that most people who voted Ansai chose to do so near the end of the phase after they backed out from voting Jd- or Fujiwara and were left with no viable suspect, so they went for the surely-not-detective.

My most likely suspect at this point is either a quiet player or Yuri - I'd expect the spy to try to use the tie arrangement to get cover, and volunteering after we have both volunteers set seems a safe way to do so.
Furthermore, Jd-'s made consistent claims that Yuri's volunteering would be too risky for the spy. Since at tahat point we already had two volunteers, we wouldn't have used Yuri anyway, so that's false. Jd- repeating false claims makes me think that he could be an informant defending Yuri, or an informant trying to pin the guilt on Yuri.

Or Jd-, if you think there was a real chance that we'd have changed the arrangement and used Yuri for the tie, can you explain why do you think so?

Then we have googleearth vouching for Jd- in day 2 here:

As far as Jd- being suspicious is concerned, I'm not sure if I agree with that. Most of Jd-'s posts have felt very Jd- to me. I don't think it's unusual that he's being cryptic and that he doesn't really let on what he's really thinking. So I don't think I'll be voting Jd-.

This got me thinking about the possibility that Jd-'s an informant trying to pin the blame on Yuri, while bash as the spy is defending Jd-. That's probably overthinking everything.


Jd-, you said you thought Fujiwara was your top informant suspect? Well, I yuess you won't be voting Fuji now, as we need the spy. So, who'd be your top spy in that case?

[Jd-]

Here are my suspicions where they stand. The hard part is we're having to make endgame-level decisions on Day Three, giving us only two previous phases with which to draw information. It's a pretty nightmare'ish scenario for civilians. Anyway, here goes:

---

Yuri Iwamoto: Hopefully Civilian, but not concrete. Initiated tie-vote procedure on Day 1, but didn't implicitly volunteer to be in the hot seat. She hasn't really done anything out of the ordinary and has spent a lot of time strategizing as what one would expect of a civilian. I mentioned during Day 2 that there was basically no way that both she and Stopwatch (now revealed to be the Detective) would be evil due to various factors, including that the Spy wouldn't want that much exposure or risk exposing one of their Informants without knowing their identity. As an aside: She did mention Ansai was on her list, which is totally fine, but could have been an attempt to save Ansai should she have known his identity (which I do not believe to be the case for whoever the Spy is).

Jellitto: Unknown (little activity). Didn't trust me (even after several posts indicating I'm a civilian, including by the very person I was accusing of being an Informant), and protected Fujiwara.

Fujiwara: Possibly Informant, also (less) possibly Civilian or Spy. Unfortunately, due to our new time constraint, we just have to decide "Is Fujiwara the Spy or not?". If not, it won't matter; we have to arrest the Spy and can either work with Fujiwara as a potential civilian or avoid being entrapped by suggestions made by the Informant. I want her to be a civilian, but she did attempt to have me arrested (prior to me attempting to have her arrested) while introducing an out for herself. This would have given her a great way to not appear suspicious later. If Informant, dangerous. If Civilian, valuable. However, the lack of time to really find out is a problem.

Trickster: Unknown (little activity)

Kaito Lady: Unknown (very little activity)

miakakiri: Unknown (small amount of activity)

Togop: Could be a very crafty Spy, very crafty Informant, or helpful Civilian. He's played a good round so far that makes it hard to judge exactly what he's doing. He's mentioned several ideas so far, which, unfortunately, could have benefitted both sides in somewhat equal measures. He mentioned the idea of Ansai not being on his list (risky proposition; if Ansai had been the Detective, that'd have been a sure arrest).

RoboG55: Probably Civilian but also pretty inactive for the most part.

PhantomWriter: Unknown (little activity)

seed12: Unknown (little activity)

googleearth: Hopefully Civilian, but nothing certain. Was willing to vote for Ansai, which is good, but wouldn't have known who Ansai was anyway, which nullifies that. Protected Fujiwara as well as myself, which--if the Spy--could have been a ploy to save Fujiwara or could have just been the act of a worried civilian.

Jd-: Definitely Civilian. Put self on the line two days in a row, both in very risky situations, which would serve very little purpose for the Spy side. As Fujiwara (the one I accused of being an Informant) said herself: "There are easier ways" to get rid of her if I were on the Spy side and wanted to do so.

---

Bullet Points:

- We have to operate under the assumption that Ansai didn't identify himself for the Spy and other Informant to see. The only thing I can see that Ansai did was use ellipses in a prominent manner, which is something that Fujiwara also did on Day 1 in an obvious place (first line of first Day 1 post, and subsequent days, possibly for good measure to avoid 1) appearing suspicious later if it was caught and 2) putting it in a place where it was likely to be seen, such as the beginning and end of posts). It is possible, then, that Fujiwara knew Ansai was the other Informant, knew Ansai was inactive, and decided to join in the vote. Or, Fujiwara didn't recognize Ansai responding to the cue because Ansai did so only on Day 2, which was after the initial Order. Additionally, it's not outside the realm of possibility that the Spy is a relatively new player who just sent the Order "Use an ellipsis in the first line of your post today", which was sent to both Informants and why Fujiwara wouldn't know about the ruling. This is all very sketchy and shouldn't be used to condemn anyone, but it would provide a good cover to Fujiwara if so. I just decided to mention this possibility so that we don't exonerate anyone based on these factors just yet.

- No one should be exonerated based on voting, nominating, or suggesting Ansai in any way. While the above is somewhat possible, it's much safer to just assume Ansai never identified himself for them.

---

My most likely suspect at this point is either a quiet player or Yuri - I'd expect the spy to try to use the tie arrangement to get cover, and volunteering after we have both volunteers set seems a safe way to do so.
Furthermore, Jd-'s made consistent claims that Yuri's volunteering would be too risky for the spy. Since at tahat point we already had two volunteers, we wouldn't have used Yuri anyway, so that's false. Jd- repeating false claims makes me think that he could be an informant defending Yuri, or an informant trying to pin the guilt on Yuri.

Or Jd-, if you think there was a real chance that we'd have changed the arrangement and used Yuri for the tie, can you explain why do you think so?

Then we have googleearth vouching for Jd- in day 2 here:

As far as Jd- being suspicious is concerned, I'm not sure if I agree with that. Most of Jd-'s posts have felt very Jd- to me. I don't think it's unusual that he's being cryptic and that he doesn't really let on what he's really thinking. So I don't think I'll be voting Jd-.

This got me thinking about the possibility that Jd-'s an informant trying to pin the blame on Yuri, while bash as the spy is defending Jd-. That's probably overthinking everything.

Jd-, you said you thought Fujiwara was your top informant suspect? Well, I yuess you won't be voting Fuji now, as we need the spy. So, who'd be your top spy in that case?

As a civilian, I want to be clear that vouching for someone entirely is a risky proposition in itself. Purely from a civilian's point of view, if we vouch for someone and they turn up as the Spy later, we are fairly responsible for them having escaped if they indeed do. That's why, while I felt pretty sure Yuri is a civilian, I didn't want to completely exonerate her--she could have killed me, after all, and pointed back to what Civilian Jd- said throughout the game to help run out the clock and get away.

However: You are right about one thing. I actually slightly misremembered what happened on Day 1 with regard to how the tie-vote came together. Originally, Yuri mentioned the tie-vote (something I don't think the Spy would do too often, but that's just me), but she didn't volunteer (an impression I got from further posts, but it wasn't in that original post). The volunteers came later, so the actual situation is somewhere between my previous position and your current one. I do assert that Yuri could have very well ended up being volunteered into that by force, with someone saying, "Are you willing to be the one voted for, then?" and she'd have no choice but to get into it. It just seems too risky to me for the Spy to bother with that when there are so many other ways to gain trust and avoid suspicion. Of course, I could be wrong, but she really went to a lot of trouble if that was her idea.

As for Bash: Definitely don't read too much into that. It's not my style to protect someone and then betray them the very next day; I'd rather save myself the trouble and avoid the fight with the person being betrayed by just pinning suspicion on them in the first place. The fact I've gone through so much to get Fujiwara in the limelight should be good enough evidence to suggest I'm a Civilian, because if I were on the Spy-side, we'd have just killed Fujiwara rather than all that exposure. I've gone back and forth on whether Bash is the Spy or not; maybe, maybe not, maybe, maybe not. Currently, I want to say Civilian, but I'm not willing to vouch either way at this point.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure exactly who to vote right now.

[seed12]

You guys keep fighting which doesn't help at all and you're thinking too much into this. And Jd-, stop accusing Fujiwara. We have 2 days left so if you keep saying to vote for him, I will vote against you because the way I see this, is that you are only giving yourself time until the end (assuming you are on the evil side).

[seed12]

By the way, as I said before I think inactive people from Day 1 were evil so I will vote for PhantomWriter. Who's with me?

[Iwamoto Yuri]

Gee Togop, stop pointing fingers at me while trying to get fingers away from Fujiwara, mr informant-San.
If I was the spy, stop would be dead night 1. I don't like the idea of not killing that first night, skipping it is not my style. Besides, I already had a feeling Stoppie was the Detective from the start, I'd have killed her right away and laughed at how short this round was going to be.

Besides, I'm saying this again, I HADN'T SEEN DESUNE VOLUNTEER. I only saw the gaps in the main post and skipped over everything else. I tend to not read everything.
All I saw is that we needed someone and thought it should be me filling the gap.

[Togop]

Jd-, that clears some things out. Still it's not true that we shouldn't try to figure out Fujiwara's exact role. While we wouldn't want to vote for informants, we'd still want to know who they are.
Anyway, when Yuri suggested the tie, she formulated it like this:

I am, and honestly I think we should try to get a tie together like last round. People should post who they vote as well so a list can be made and we can avoid someone being voted for too many times.
How about that? Still think it should be random, but if we vote together the detective can do something while being safe(r)

After you took the initiative and set it up, she said

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

This isn't completely what I meant but well

So, as far as I understood, Yuri wanted everyone to vote randomly/based on suspicion and post their vote with the idea that the later voters would be able to choose their votes in such a way that we'd get a tie, and not one organized the way you did it. Am I right, Yuri?
Anyway, if I understand correctly, when she suggested the tie, she wasn't planning on there being two volunteers, so she wasn't really risking being forced into being one of them.