EPISODE 6: "RETURN OF THE JEDI."

[Reicheru]

Cheesiest - episode - title - ever.

So I've just come from Exile 5. All I have to say is this:

DAMNYOUTRINAWHYDIDNTYOUCHOOSEBRUCE??!!!!

One the plus side, we now have a safelist of five out of fifteen. On the negative side, Jack and I are the only ones not confirmed, and the spies are probably suspicious of us.

Anneliese, me, Jack, Taylor and Jordan are safe.

Why am I doubtful those last two can be of much help?

TAYLOR is the gift-giver. (I was way off.)

BEBE is not.

When Jack told Bebe and Trina that he knew he was voted against, someone immediately warned Tenchi. My hunch is that someone is a spy. Tenchi said it was Trina. I think it was Bebe. So Bebe is right at the top of my list again.

Secondly, there's Bruce's mention of video uploading times. He sounded like he'd done it a lot. One spy at least is a videographer. So Bruce is up there.

Thirdly, I would have to say Miles or Jessica, with my personal preference on Miles. Unfortunately Jessica knows who the Gift Giver is. That could be bad.

Fourth and fifth...?

Jessica/Miles, Arthur, Tenchi, Brooks, Claire, Matthew and Raphael are the suspects. I don't think Arthur is a spy with Miles or Jessica. I DO think Jessica and Miles could very likely be spies together, so let's put those two in the same box. Raphael defended Miles. Tenchi defended Arthur. Jessica seemed to want me to vote Anneliese or Jack over either of 'em. Would she care, if she was a spy and knew they had the exile covered? Or could they not be sure? I'll check with what Taylor said at exile to find out.

Jessica somehow doesn't seem to "fit" to me. Miles still looks very suspicious unless his role is confirmed. Tenchi and Arthur have supported each other - is it possible they're the two spies?

Let's say that two of the originals are spies. in that case it's Jessica and Miles, Jessica and Tenchi, or Miles and Tenchi, unless Arthur and whoever it is has been VERY smart and they're suspecting each other. Possible.

Tenchi doesn't seem to "fit" as a spy. He is so "out there".

Decision time:

BEBE is my first spy pick now.
BRUCE is #2.
MILES is #3.
JESSICA is #4.

That leaves... Brooks, Claire, Matthew and Raphael. Raphael defended Miles in the forum. Too obvious? Or just right?

BEBE said Raphael was a "power player". BROOKS was VERY suspicious of BEBE. Would Bebe name a fellow spy?

Raphael and Matthew are the lowest on the suspicion ladder. Matthew seems like a total ass. Would a spy set out to be an ass?

Let's assume I'm right about Bebe and Bruce. Raphael defended Miles in his questions. Possibly this is too obvious but... I'm calling it...

BEBE, BRUCE, RAPHAEL, MILES, JESSICA.

Unlikely thing: Bebe and Bruce voted together in two of the last three exiles (and most likely this one as well, although we'll never know for sure.) That's 3/4 matches. Would spies match that often, especially in marginal votes?

Other possibilities:
BEBE, BRUCE, MATTHEW, MILES, JESSICA.
BEBE, BRUCE, CLAIRE, MILES, JESSICA.
BEBE, BRUCE, RAPHAEL, MILES, TENCHI.
BEBE, BRUCE, MATTHEW, MILES, TENCHI.
BEBE, BRUCE, CLAIRE, MILES, TENCHI.
BEBE, BRUCE, RAPHAEL, JESSICA, TENCHI.
BEBE, BRUCE, MATTHEW, JESSICA, TENCHI.
BEBE, BRUCE, CLAIRE, JESSICA, TENCHI.

I'll hammer out the voting numbers tomorrow. Sleepy time!

[Reicheru]

Just confirmed my picks of BEBE, MILES, JESSICA, BRUCE and RAPHAEL in a PM to Anneliese and the new alliance. Could it be possible that, after all my incompetence early on, I'm the first one to call it correctly?

And if not, what the hell do I do?

[Reicheru]

More thoughts in spare time:

If those five are spies, that effectively means every single spy votes Judith in exile 3. Not encouraging.

Replace BEBE with BROOKS and you have four Judith voters, one Carrie voter. That makes more sense.

BROOKS, JESS, MILES, RAPHAEL, CLAIRE makes four Jennipher voters in exile four, but splits the Judith / Carrie vote 3/2. Personally I think it's more likely the spies went 4/1 against Judith, since Carrie was such a strong suspect anyway, than three of them voting Jennipher. The other thing is that Jessica voted Brooks.

CLAIRE voted Carrie once. Matthew voted her three times. If we accept Matthew is a cit, Claire could replace Raphael or Bruce. It works out nicely either way. Bruce sorta suspected Claire, but he's never campaigned against her, and if he's smart he wouldn't clear her if they're both spies.

So let's say BEBE, JESS, MILES, RAPHAEL, CLAIRE or BEBE, JESS, MILES, CLAIRE, BRUCE.

[Reicheru]

So there's not many people online tonight. Bebe, Jack, Tenchi and Claire are all online. That'll be a fun party after Tenchi told me he was taking out Jack, I told Jack, Jack told Bebe, Bebe told Tenchi, and Tenchi blamed Claire...

[Reicheru]

It's been a while since I did a really meaty confessional, so here's one right now.

First, there's a distinct "Spies 2" flavour to the game right now, which I don't like. Anneliese is out. Shane is out. Trina is out. Judith is out (I won't state the painfully obvious...) Jennipher is out. And not a single spy is out. And if you look at who's left - well, it's hardly a star lineup, is it? Jordan, Taylor, Raphael, Matthew, Arthur, Miles, Brooks... Who the hell ARE these people, anyway?

In the meantime my opinion of the spies goes up and up. They've played it quiet for the first part of the game, which I thought would kill them eventually, but now that things are kicking into serious mode, they've adjusted well. Look how all of my suspects have reacted. Miles has come out with a "role" that appears to be true (but could still be a spy's role). Jessica's gone more undercover. Bebe is playing the crowd in much the same way as a certain other spy from a previous series I'm not supposed to mention (*cough*Allison*cough*) did, and look how far she got - helluva lot further than anyone from Spies 1, that's for certain. Raphael is coming out of his shell more. Claire is looking for alliances. Tenchi is getting a lot more aggressive in actively targeting citizens. Even Arthur is kicking it up a notch.

These guys are all my prime suspects, and they're creaming us. While we're floundering, they're getting better as the game goes along. And they only have to exile three more citizens to win. (Even if one or more of them gets taken out, that's still the case - three citizen exiles ensures a spy victory, no matter how many spies are taken out.) For the first time ever, in any spies series, the odds are against the citizens rather than the spies. That's bad.

And it's not as though you could be accused of any bias here... ok, five spies is a lot to take in. (Based on this and the two previous series I think four is the ideal number.) But it's not as though there weren't enough citizens around. I think the "twist" of having a lot of new players appear actually harmed rather than helped the game, but seeing as I sort of suggested something very similar myself, I'm not in any position to complain. :-) Basically, I don't see any pro-spy or pro-citizen bias in this game, whereas in the last two I thought the citizens had it a touch too good from the start. (Let nobody mention the dreaded words "two counteragents".)

(And while we're on the subject of things I suggested... let's take a look at some others... having one-off roles rather than permanent ones [and did you REALLY think "Lena from Survivor" was a real person, eh?] - and of course the idea of "immunizing" someone against imprisonment was originally mine in Spies 2. Goddamn, so much of this game seems to be based on suggestions of mine, I shouldn't be a citizen OR a spy, I should be the freaking HOST!)

This business of faked roles is great for the spies because it helps obscure things. I thought I started THAT, too, but thinking about it (sorry, another Spies 2 reference coming up...) it occurred to me that Davoni actually faked a role before I did - she claimed to be a counteragent early on in the game. So blame her, not me!

I think the spies probably deserve to win (which is lucky, the way things are going now they probably will.) Hell, we even had a double-exile and managed to screw THAT up. They've got over the psychic (much better handled in this game IMO) and taken it in their stride. They've played a good discreet game but made their moves when they needed to. They've done very little wrong, while the citizens have done very little right.

[Reicheru]

Why are 88.6% of votes cast against old people when there are increasingly less and less of them? Are the old people "in power" and they choose to vote themselves? Are the new people just silent and don't voice their opinion?

And that's why I don't think the new "twist" is working. The problem with doing it like this is there's much more evidence concerning one group than the other. I think my original suggestion was to have two or three separate games, each player being unaware of anything except the games they were in, which then combined. That means there's no bias towards one group or another.

That said, I don't think it's had a particularly negative effect on the game, I just don't think it's added anything and it has put one group of players at more of a disadvantage than the other IMO. But then those players should find ways of working around that. I have, others haven't.

On twists - and I don't mean this to reflect on Spies at all, it's just general thoughts -

I was recently playing in a mole game where the host added a surprise double-elimination halfway through, about fifty "exemptions", "mole points" for extra quiz points (that's two stupid concepts for the price of one, isn't the whole idea of mole supposed to be that you eliminate whoever knows the least about the mole?) had one round where players were nominated instead of eliminated through a quiz, and even had a quiz bonus on the final round. Practically every challenge was individual, nobody worked as a team, which is the whole point of mole. It was chaos. It was also tiring and not fun.

I also played in a game where the idea was you formed a "circle" of people who you wanted to keep in the game. Then the person who'd won immunity would choose one of the three with the least votes to be eliminated. Only in one round the eliminated player got to choose someone else to take out of the game, and in another round the players were given the opportunity to vote for the person they wanted OUT, instead of in. Sorry, but when you plan a strategy as far in advance as I do, you don't want it ruined by some stupid twist that turns the whole premise of the game upside down temporarily.

The point is, IMO the fewer "twists" there are, the more successful a game will be. (One of the most successful I've played is Spies 1, and there were no "twists" at all there.) Unseen elements like roles are ok, as long as the players know they're possible. But if you NEED ridiculous twists to keep players on their toes, the game's not a success. Again, I'm not applying this to any of your games AT ALL, it's just general thoughts.

[Reicheru]

Oh yeah - you might say that Spies 1 was unsuccessful because short. Well, first, I think everyone enjoyed it immensely (except perhaps the spies, on account of being pwned), and second, I think the spies suffered in that game from not knowing what to expect and what tactics to employ. (That's a polite way of saying "they sucked.") That wasn't what happened in Spies 2 (as Ally and I proved), and from the way Spies 3 is going I doubt it is here either...

I think the perfect mafia game would be something like this - 21 players, four spies, one gambler, one builder / wheel of fortune-type figure, one decision-maker (psychic who chooses only three or four people to immunize). Perhaps one or two roles elsewhere, perhaps an investigative role for a spy along the lines of Leo's, but working the same way as the gambler's role (so the spy has to earn the investigation by making something happen in the game). Most if not all roles announced in advance. No twists. That would work well. And if you don't want to do it with "Spies", I might try it one day...

[Reicheru]

"Most confessionals done in an hour" record now being attempted by Rei. Subliminal!

Tenchi and Jessica are online. I have nothing whatsoever to say to them because Tenchi and I are now officially exes, and I don't know what on earth talking to Jessica would do other than irritate the hell outta me. I'd like to talk to Bebe, Bruce, Brooks, Miles, and half a dozen others APART from Jack, Tenchi and Jessica. Unfortunately none of them is ever online when I am. Occasionally I just come online, check quickly, and disappear, but I've stayed on for three or four hours at a time over the last couple of days and nobody's been there. It's frustrating as hell.

[Judge Sam]

Thank you for all these elucidative confessionals, I love reading yours.

I agree with some stuff, not others but that's not important unless you want me to nitpick stuff haha.


One main thing though on this: "I think the perfect mafia game would be something like this... Most if not all roles announced in advance." The problem with that is each time I publicly announce that there is a role out there that someone has (for example Gift Giver) that effectively allows one person to become "confirmed" as a Citizen. (Not saying anything about this particular case lol.) For example, let's say I publicly announced this "Inheritor" role, then you might believe Miles if nobody counter-claimed it and said they had it instead. But by not announcing it, it instantly becomes suspicious and possibly a lie.


I didn't learn until after Spies 1 that publicly announcing that a role exists is a huge step in the game and greatly helps the Citizens and should be kept to a minimum. Also that you need to keep the number of publicly verifiable roles to be less (or possibly equal to) than the # of Spies.

[Reicheru]

But by not announcing it, it instantly becomes suspicious and possibly a lie.

Yes, thanks so much for pointing that the "Inheritor" could be fake, I hadn't thought of it!

[Judge Sam]

Huh? Why so snotty? You must have misread my words. I was using that as an example of how a role is suspicious if I don't announce it exists, but would possibly be not suspicious if I do announce it exists.

[Reicheru]

It was kinda meant as a joke... I would have put a "sarcasm" emoticon in there if there had been one!

As it is, I will have to stick with the "in tears" one instead...

[Reicheru]

Right now it's looking as though Bebe and Bruce aren't spies together. Miles, though, is looking more and more like a certain bet. Let's say Bebe and Miles are my top two. Miles' suspect list is particularly revealing. He's just repeated everyone on my own who's a suspect, including Trina and Taylor, and yet the only one on there who looks at all likely at this point is our Claire. He's never suggested voting for Bebe. He HAS suggested voting Arthur, which is interesting, because after their burg post I've been toying with the idea that those two are both spies and playing off each other by pretending to be suspicious.

Let's say... Bebe. Miles. Tenchi. Who else... Claire and Raphael? Seems like a fair bet.

Who ISN'T a spy... Of the remaining players, I'd put good money right now on Brooks (depending on what Bebe is), Taylor, Jack, Jessica, Jordan, Arthur, Bruce. That leaves: Bebe, Claire, Miles, Raphael, Tenchi, Matthew. I think five of those six are spies. I could be wrong because there's a few unconfirmeds in the first group.

[Reicheru]

Miles isn't a spy. D'uh!

But I think I had a good point about his "ability"... if I were a spy and learnt that if I'd gone to all the trouble of finding out a role, concealing that fact, and then imprisoning the guy with it, I'd be SERIOUSLY FREAKING PISSED to find out that someone else has "inherited" it!

Let's see who's a spy now.

JACK... If he's a spy, he's better than Tyson was. Tyson made mistakes, Jack doesn't seem to have made any. I hate trusting Anneliese's word at this point, just because we seem to have been wrong every time so far, but I have to.

BEBE... I'm doubtful. I think the theory regarding her win in the investigation challenge is fairly good. But then so was my reasoning about there being a spy among the Jakub voters, and now there's only two of them left. One of them has been cleared by investigation, the other is me. D'uh!

ARTHUR... suspected him right at the start, then pretty much ruled him out. I'm reluctant to rule him back in, if only because he's so damn obnoxious. That said, getting out the "friendly" people hasn't helped much. So I'm going with jack on this one. Let's say Arthur and Tenchi are spies... even though I'm no longer sure Jack isn't one...

And that brings us to TENCHI. If Jack didn't organise Judith's exile, Tenchi probably did. Therefore if there's a spy among those people, tenchi is probably it. I still think he's done a superb job if it's him, but then so has everyone else...

JESSICA. I'm no longer convinced Bebe is telling the truth about her. I mean, they only have to survive three exiles (two now!) so as long as we don't bother to check, they're home free. Also she's the only one left who can give some credence to my theory that a spy would vote Jakub.

CLAIRE. Looks a bit like Carrie, but more obviously "open". If it wasn't for the pattern we've fallen into, I'd say she's a good suspect. But right now, there's ever sign the spies are consciously avoiding that pattern. Just as I said a good spy has to do in practically every one of my Spies 2 confessionals...

BROOKS. If Bebe isn't a spy, Brooks could be. Or they could both be covering each others' asses by suspecting each other. I'm no longer factoring who everyone suspects into my thinking. The spies have lasted this long, they're not idiots, they're going to throw suspicion at one another. They probably have it all worked out.

MATTHEW... Has suddenly come on the radar. He and Arthur make a nice double-act. I think it would be really funny if the two least friendly, most annoying obnoxious people in the burg were spies!

RAPHAEL has been one of my top suspects. And since practically all of them except Bebe and Jessica have now been cleared, that's good enough evidence that he's a cit.

BRUCE... what IS it about that guy? Honestly my gut says citizen. A week ago I would have said a likely spy. My gut has been wrong so many times in this game, I'm surprised it just doesn't shrink away to nothing (although I rather wish it would).

It could be any of them.

[Reicheru]

Claire, Bruce, Jessica and Bebe all seem to come online at the same time before an exile. Coincidence? Flight of fancy? I don't know...

[Reicheru]

Well well well, Jack doesn't think it's Bruce. I'd like to know why. I guess he'll post it somewhere.

If I had any certainty about who was a spy, I'd make a last-minute push here with a round of PMs to EVERYONE saying "If you're a citizen, VOTE X!" As it is, I'd probably end up going after a citizen. I THINK Bebe is a spy. (Which means she's probably not.) I think at least two, possibly all three, of Jessica Tenchi and Arthur are spies. The last one or two... possibly Matthew, possibly Brooks, possibly Raphael, possibly Claire, I really don't know.

You say the clues are there. I really don't think they are, the spies are too good for that. They've obviously been suspecting each other, possibly voting for each other. They've mixed up their tactics, not given away too much, stayed out of the crossheirs.

[Reicheru]

Well, Bruce's burg post answers that question.

If Bruce is a cit, another good theory goes west... obviously Bebe didn't have another spy in her group to get the investigation for herself. So maybe Bebe isn't a spy. I don't know. It could still be that Bruce is making a clever push to make sure there's only four spies on the block instead of five. This is the whole point, ANYTHING could still be. Nobody's confirmed except Jordan and possibly Taylor.

One thing I don't get - if Miles' role isn't a spy role, what the hell ARE the spy roles? Have they completely hidden away some kind of investigator or something? Are they that good?

And here's why it's so hard.

Arthur - was voted most likely spy by everyone, including the spies. When they controlled over a quarter of the vote. He's obnoxious and obvious and a perfect exile target. Is he a spy? Doubt it.

Bebe - looks like one of the most active players left. So was Judith, and look what happened to her. That's just what we need right now, another active citizen out.

Brooks - probably our best shot. Honestly I can't think of much to defend Brooks. He's often about and never does much. And look who else fits that description: Jakub, Carrie, Miles, Jennipher, Shane...

Claire - Shouldn't there be someone saying she's probably not a spy, if she is? Everyone seems to consider her a possibility.

Jessica - investigated and cleared. Enough said.

Matthew - the most obnoxious player. Actually I think his reactions to the exiles are so one-level, it looks like he's hiding something. He could be the Mercedes of the group.

Raphael - I didn't know about the Claire thing. And he's always been a suspect to me.

Tenchi - one of the most active players, he defended Carrie to the death and she was a citizen.

(Tyson's spy tips #4: Nothing wrong with defending someone to the death if you know they're going to be dead anyway. Hell, my whole strategy was based around that. Jenna, Adriana, Nicole... I defended them to the death, so when they did die, people didn't think I was the one who killed them. Didn't seem to work too badly at the time, apart from Nicole!)

I think all the citizens and semi-confirmed citizens need to get together and thrash this one out. That's our only chance to get a spy before we're all imprisoned one by one. Which means I have to work with the combined insights of Jordan, Taylor and Bruce. Two of whom are virtually inactive.

We're doomed...

[Reicheru]

OK scrap that.

I see two possibilities here:

1) Bruce is a spy.
2) One or both of Arthur and Raphael are a spies.

It's all to do with the investigation challenge. Thinking about it, you can divide the suspects down the line like this:

Group 1 - Bebe, Bruce.
Group 2 - Claire, Jessica, Matthew.
Group 3 - Tenchi, Brooks.
Not involved - Arthur, Raphael.

Bebe, in group one, won the investigation. Now if there's four or five spies in the mix, that means she's almost certain to be one herself. Hell, if there were five spies in the mix, they had a MAJORITY. How could they possibly not have one of their own win?

And if the spies can help it, I think they'd almost certainly have a group with two spies in it win. So let's say there are five spies at the challenge. They're probably split 2-2-1. If so, does it make sense that they'd only have one of their own win? Doubt it.

(And BTW - I think Brooks has to be the "1". Again and again I go over in my head what's happened with Tenchi and I just don't see him being the final spy. He's always so sure of himself - we're talking Tyson-sure here. Call me an arrogant dick but I don't see anyone else being able to pull that off. And if he has, he deserves to win.)

That means TWO of Jessica, Matthew and Claire are spies - unfortunately I don't know which two, other than having a very very strong suspicion of Jessica - and BOTH Bebe and Bruce are.

Now say Arthur or Raphael is a spy. In that case, you're probably looking at a division of 2-2 OR 1-2-1. If it's 2-2, Brooks is innocent and Bebe and Bruce are both spies. If it's 1-2-1, Bebe and Brooks are spies. And in either case TWO of Jessica, Matthew and Claire are spies. That leaves Arthur or Raphael for the last one.

In that case, I can understand why Bebe would end up with the investigation. There'd only be one in her team. It's even possible, in this situation, that she's a citizen and Bruce is the real spy. In which case Jessica is innocent. So let's say there's a possible combination there of Bruce, Matthew, Claire, Brooks and Arthur. I think this is unlikely, but it's the only possibility I have other than those involving Bebe.

Finally we've got the case where BOTH Raphael and Arthur are spies. In which case all bets are off. They could divide themselves 1-1-1, 1-2, 0-3, whatever. If this is the case, I'm screwed as far as this goes.

Guess we'll see... anyway, I'm off to watch "The Apprentice".

[Tenchi]

With the millions of spy combinations I've found in Rei's confessional, I am still waiting for her to predict all five spies in one line. The closest yet was four...

[Bruce]

I was prepared to give you uber props for a Star Wars thread title but my hopes and dreams were dashed by the spyness of Bruce feelings in the earlier posts

[Reicheru]

Tenchi - there won't be one, all my spy posts from now on contain Bruce in them. There was no way he wasn't a spy after Miles went.

Bruce - I thought it was the crappest episode title ever, but it was like four o clock in the morning and I was tired as hell.

[Bruce]

reicheru said:

Tenchi - there won't be one, all my spy posts from now on contain Bruce in them. There was no way he wasn't a spy after Miles went.

Bruce - I thought it was the crappest episode title ever, but it was like four o clock in the morning and I was tired as hell.

Star Wars can never be crappy!
...Unless the Christmas Special counts.