So I'll first thank HR for doing the leg work of creating the nice VCA across three different scenarios. I lightly followed along while watching the Niners game but didn't really process anything due to the actual heart-attack inducing madness that that game was. I will actually read everything tomorrow morning/afternoon after I recover from today's celebration of the Niners beating Green Bay and staying up far too late to watch the X Games and the Australian Open. Until then I will give my semi-drunken thoughts on his Scenario A as I get to operate on the knowledge that I am town. Anything in quotes is HR's opinion.
Scenario A: TFB is town
1:11: celaph votes TFB
Wagons are:
celaph (5): ghug, goldie, HR, kgray, Vecna
BobMcBob (4): damo, Donny Dude, Maniac, rdrivera
TheFlyingBoat (4): Bonatogether, celaph, Chaqa, Durga
Vecna (3): Bozotheclown, Jamie, TheFlyingBoat
Others: BobMcBob (Goldie), BusinessLamp (Unvote), DemonRHK (damo)
First point: celaph voting TFB rather than Vecna looks good for TFB and less good for Vecna. celaph had earlier townread/"buddied" Bob, so a Bob vote was probably harder for him to justify and thus less relevant.
Well what's interesting here is that celaph actually voted for Bob D1 and opened D2 (didn't post at all at night) by shading Bob for posting a bunch of fluff and for not liking the way he framed convos. He only flips after rereading HR's defense of Bob on page 86 in the first hour of the night. The question is celaph trying to fake a read evolution, switch from hating on to buddying Bob to pocket him, or something else altogether?
He does also try to townread Vecna lazily by saying he liked his Goldie recap and then tries to say based on meta he townreads Vecna while caveating that the meta evidence seemed to be weaker than he remembered, presumably to set up in advance the walk back if Vecna got popped and turned out to be scum.
Now, going forward.
1:01 - kgray switches from celaph to TFB (4 celaph, 4 Bob, 5 TFB, 3 Vecna)
0:56 - RHK switches from damo to Vecna (4 celaph, 4 Bob, 5 TFB, 4 Vecna)
0:25 - ghug switches from celaph to Jamie (3 celaph, 4 Bob, 5 TFB, 4 Vecna, 1 Jamie)
None of these trio of votes look particularly good, though kgray's obviously looks worst.
I disagree on RHK's and don't follow HR's analysis here given he seemed to indicate Celaph picking me over Vecna when we were equally sized Bob counter wagons. Under that view, surely RHK's vote looks mostly fine while kgray's and ghug's don't look great with as he said kgray's looking the worst.
0:24 - Donny unvotes Bob (3 celaph, 3 Bob, 5 TFB, 4 Vecna, 1 Jamie)
0:24 - Goldie switches from celaph to Bob (2 celaph, 4 Bob, 5 TFB, 4 Vecna, 1 Jamie) - Nadir of celaph wagon
Should be noted - again - That soon after this, Goldie states that he dislikes the celaph wagon... Having only just left it. That looks atrocious.
Yeah HR finally has something I can't really quibble with at really. Goldie's vote looks suspect in context and looks like scum trying to gut the celaph wagon for good after having brought it up in the first place as a sort of inoculation.
0:22 - BusinessLamp switches from Unvote to TFB (2, 4, 6, 4, 1)
0:19 - Bob switches from goldie to Jamie (2, 4, 6, 4, 2)
0:19 - Durga switches from TFB to Jamie (2, 4, 5, 4, 3) - Peak Jamie reached
The Jamie wagon, interestingly, seems to rise more as a response to TFB taking a significant lead than to anything to do with celaph.
That was weird, especially given Durga scum read me earlier in the day and the day before as well. Trying to avoid responsibility under the assumption I still die perhaps? Bob's votes doesn't seem like there's much to read into given he moved from one meaningless wagon to another?
0:11 - Donny switches from unvote to TFB (2, 4, 6, 4, 3)
0:08 - TFB switches from Vecna to celaph (3, 4, 6, 3, 3)
TFB's change is interesting given he was the lead wagon and he moved on to celaph rather than staying on Vecna (though given the stasis of Vecna at 3, that may not be unreasonable)... But also, not moving on to Bob. Looks good.
For reference, I did say celaph was my second strongest scum read prior to that vote change and you are correct that the reason was I believed the Vecna wagon was dead. Reason for not switching onto Bob was that he wasn't in my top 6 (for reference: Vecna,Celaph,rdr,Durga,Bona,Damo). But yeah also think this analysis is reasonable.
0:08 - ghug switches from Jamie back to celaph (4, 4, 6, 3, 2) - Vote looks very good. End of Jamie as a credible wagon.
0:07 - Chaqa switches from TFB to celaph (5, 4, 5, 3, 2) - Another vote that looks very good if TFB is town
0:04 - Jamie switches from Vecna to Bob (5, 5, 5, 2, 2) - A vote that looks a lot less good. End of Vecna as a credible wagon.
0:03 - Bob switches from Jamie to TFB (5, 5, 6, 2, 1)
0:02 - Durga switches from Jamie to TFB (5, 5, 7, 2)
0:02 - HR switches from celaph to TFB (4, 5, 8, 2)
A trio of votes that all look awful if TFB is town. Peak TFB reached.
Very simple and largely unobjectionable analysis above imo.
I think ghug prides himself in generating miskills as scum, even if it means he become a blatantly obvious scum member. Therefore I think he'd happily let me die or force the wagon onto another townie rather than let celaph die right there unnecessarily. If he doesn't switch onto celaph and it looks like with two mins to go it is 8-4, I don't think any meaningful switches to celaph happen. But even more important than the vote is the argument that if I were scum then I should have fake claimed a role. The fact he brought it up is either a 4D chess bus then pocket plan, or just evidence that ghug is probably town. If he didn't say that I almost certainly die.
Yeah I like the Chaqa vote a lot, especially if you pair it with the claims of a role block. Though I could easily see Chaqa bussing AND claiming the RB after doing an RB/NK pair for the sake of setting up the fake claim.
The latter 3 are all pretty self-explanatory as to why they're bad.
0:02 - RHK switches from Vecna to celaph (5, 5, 8, 1) - A vote that looks very good... Except that it's so close to the deadline that maybe it looks like a convenient way to have ended on a partner without thinking they would die.
0:02 - Bozo switches from Vecna to celaph (6, 5, 8) - A vote that looks very good, and if he saw RHK's first, looks exceptional
0:01 - Donny switches from TFB to celaph (7, 5, 7) - A vote that ties it very close to EoD, and only takes place ten minutes after he voted TFB. This vote, of all of those that moved at the end, definitely looks the most questionable
0:01 - Jamie switches from Bob to celaph (8, 4, 7)
0:01 - rdrivera switches from Bob to celaph (9, 3, 7)
Two votes that look very good, particularly if TFB is town.
Once again, mostly simple and largely unobjectionable here as well.
Agreed on Donny's vote being questionable, but ultimately I think he was more lost town than actual scum. I disagree partially on the Jamie/rdr ones as they also could have been trying to tie. We have no idea what they saw, how well they counted, etc. in the chaos. I still am a bit sus on rdr, but perhaps that deserves a re-read and still positive on jamie and think him going back on Vecna here just seems very Jamie-y.
I think out of this ghug comes out looking incredibly townie as probably the single most important person when it came to flipping the expected result with like 2 minutes left in the turn and has unquestionably become my strongest town read.
From pure voting and wagon pushing, I think Durga and HR probably look the worst by a decent margin. Running up the score like that at the time they did looks like trying to nail the coffin shut by creating a massive delta that people are disinclined to overcome.
That being said, I've generally found HR's vibes to be pretty townie to date, but I am sure HR is good at faking that, so idk. Part of me thinks this VCA was made partially to get out in front of others making their own and going after him, partially because that effort is a good way to look townie. Especially with three scenarios in there that point to vastly different results, it seems like an easy way for HR to effortlessly hide in plain sight and cast aspersions, sometimes even mutually exclusive aspersions, and let them all hang in the air despite that. Unlike other scum reads where you are looked at funny if you don't actually vote for them, HR can likely flit between his scum teams across all three scenarios as vote targets with
relative ease, which is just incredibly clever.
Bob looks pretty bad for breaking the tie against me, but I also find it hard to believe with his play he is scum, though maybe I am crazy.
Also worth considering in the context surrounding the TFB vs Celaph VCA, are kgray (my first time as leading wagon that day) and bona (my first vote), two people who not only were largely responsible for me supplanting celaph in the first place with their votes, but also were the most vocal and ardent supporters of the wagon staying strong at the end, even though kgray seemed receptive to the arguments ghug made at the time.
I would put Bona behind kgray though as bona's insistence even in D3 that I must be the wagon has me thinking it may just be bona being bona. Then again, I did like kgray's posts before this and I do respect Flum's reads on her a lot, even it was just a D1 one, so I'd probably be much more receptive to other wagons, at least initially.
##vote durga
Good night. See y'all tomorrow :D