Strategic

[Holly Short]

A big part of this game is using the right strategy to make it to the end.  Sometimes you have to make #BigMoves, or know when the time is right not not make a move. You have to advance your game in a manner that leaves you a path for the future. 

This thread is for the jury to ask questions about the strategic decisions you made throughout the game and how they compare to your opponent.

[Scruff McGruff]

Greetings! I should preface this by saying that this is not a bitter Jury in the slightest— all of us are looking to make an unbiased decision to determine the best possible winner of this game, and I think Ponderosa is completely void of any lingering bad feelings whatsoever.

Anyway, here’s my starting question:

Lucifer and Hercule— what’s one strategic move you made that you think played a big (or the biggest part) in helping you reach the end? Not necessarily take control of the game— but why you’re sitting here instead of someone else.

[Hercule Poirot]

Bonsoir M. McGruff. I 'ope zat you 'ave been well.

I think my move at ze final four ees 100% ze raison zat I am sitting in ze F2 instead of someone else. I was truly crushed when I lost zat challenge. I thought zat I would 'ave to make fire.

M. Morningstar 'ad zero intention of taking me to ze end if M. Kennedy was an option, so I 'ad to remove 'im from ze game in order to open up ze possibility of getting taken myself. I knew zat I was not ze strongest in challenges, so I never wanted to 'ave to rely on winning my way zere.

And eet ees far from a guarantee zat I would 'ave won fire against M. Kennedy. I performed worse zan 'im at ze IC zat round. I'm glad zat we will never know, thanks mostly to my strong play.

[Grouch Cop]

Hercule, from my perspective it seems like there wasn't a single vote that happened which didn't benefit what you wanted to do in some way or another, and that's highly commendable, it truly is. But a lot of those votes were also incredibly close, did you have contingency plans if they didn't work? I want you to tell me about the places where you messed up and should have played better. I want you to own your mistakes too.

Luci, so about that vagueness I talked about over in Social, I think you know you have a very rough path here, yeah? A lot of this jury isn't exactly sure what it is that you did in this game and whether you planned for any of what happened or if perhaps you got lucky. You certainly won immunity when you needed it, which you should be incredibly proud of and that is a point in your favour imo. But, I think for those of us who weren't privy to your thoughts and plans, we would really benefit from hearing what sort of plans you had. When friends and allies of yours went home, how did you regroup and continue forward? And please, be as specific as you can. If you want to win, you need to be.

[Penelope Garcia]

Just here to bump Grouch's question for Lucifer. I want to know what you were thinking going forward in most rounds. What was the larger picture that you were making or were you just playing round by round? Either is fine, I just feel like I didn't get to know which was your mode from your speech and want to give you the opportunity to detail that here.

[Grouch Cop]

Oh also, Luci, I want more elaboration in why you chose Hercule over Rust in the end here. You touched a bit on it in the TC thread, but I want more than just that. You're not wrong that taking Hercule was a better move for the reasons you stated most likely, and the jury very much liked Rust's game, largely because we knew what he was doing as we'd been part of it at various points. So in what ways did you think you couldn't separate your game from Rust's? Why was having him in the jury the best move for you personally at FTC?

Which, Hercule, brings me to another question, in other places it sounds like you're attributing being at the end being due to things you did and ways you outplayed Lucifer into giving him two not great options. But he could have just as easily sent you home instead of Rust. Why do you think any part of you being here is due to your own strategy and actions? Are you merely here because you knew your game was worse than Rust's and you were an easier battle for Lucifer to try to win? Why is you being here a positive for your game, and not a positive for Lucifer's? Or is it not that cut and dry?

[Hercule Poirot]

Hercule, from my perspective it seems like there wasn't a single vote that happened which didn't benefit what you wanted to do in some way or another, and that's highly commendable, it truly is. But a lot of those votes were also incredibly close, did you have contingency plans if they didn't work? I want you to tell me about the places where you messed up and should have played better. I want you to own your mistakes too.

I disagree zat every single vote zat 'appened benefited me. I don't think zat ze M. Briscoe and M. Peralta votes benefited me, at least not obviously. Maybe ze way I used zose votes to try to reduce my threat level benefited me, but M. Briscoe and M. Peralta were loyal allies. Zere was no reason for me to want zem gone, and zose were both votes I vehemently opposed. I can't express to you 'ow many plans I 'atched to try to save M. Briscoe, and 'ow close I truly came to flipping eet. I honestly believe zat if M. Cohle 'ad not been in ze middle of a road trip and unable to log in, zere ees a chance zat M. Briscoe could 'ave stayed, which would 'ave been an amazing move by me, but eet was not to be.

I definitely 'ad contingency plans for things. I mean in a sense, my entire endgame path was a contingency plan, since M. Briscoe and M. Peralta were people I wanted to take down ze stretch, and I couldn't because zey both were taken out. I 'ave already discussed my misread on Mlle Hopps, but I think ze way I played ze M. Briscoe round in general showed what ees great about me as a player, but also some of my weaknesses. I was trying to save M. Briscoe with such a single-minded focus zat in ze process, I alienated M. Kennedy and really much of ze rest of ze game, but I was able to repair zose relationships. And in ze process I may 'ave accidentally sabotaged M. Briscoe, since I lost M. Kennedy and zen when M. Cohle was willing to consider Mlle Garcia, M. Kennedy's vote was uncertain. I think zat ees a problem with me a lot, where I get a goal in my 'ead and I am so focused on achieving eet zat I lose sight of everything else, but I also think zat being willing to fight for what you want in zis game and not being afraid of ze ramifications ees a generally positive trait. And I was also a capable enough player zat once deadline 'it and ze dust settled, I was on eet doing damage control and making sure zat everything was 'ow I needed eet to be.

[Hercule Poirot]

If you want more specific contigency plans from various points, I can give you zem, but do you 'ave any specific rounds in mind? I 'ave spent a lot of time zis game spinning my wheels thinking about scenarios, most of which never played out, so I probably 'ave thought about most paths I could 'ave gone down, but eet ees difficile for me to isolate zem without more to go on.

[Hercule Poirot]

Which, Hercule, brings me to another question, in other places it sounds like you're attributing being at the end being due to things you did and ways you outplayed Lucifer into giving him two not great options. But he could have just as easily sent you home instead of Rust. Why do you think any part of you being here is due to your own strategy and actions? Are you merely here because you knew your game was worse than Rust's and you were an easier battle for Lucifer to try to win? Why is you being here a positive for your game, and not a positive for Lucifer's? Or is it not that cut and dry?

'E could 'ave done zat, but I 'ad a strong feeling zat 'e wouldn't. My read on M. Morningstar for a while 'as been zat 'e was trying to win ze game and zat 'e recognized ze situation 'e was in and zat I was ze better person to sit next to in ze zan M. Cohle. I didn't think 'e would willingly sit next to M. Cohle in ze end. Really my entire endgame path if I didn't win ze necessary challenges was predicated on eet, but at a certain point you either 'ave to step up and win ze challenge, which I failed to do, or 'ope zat you gave yourself enough space to get taken to ze end.

I do think M. Morningstar taking me over M. Cohle ees a positive for 'is game. Eet was obvious to me zat zat was 'is smarter move, and if 'e wins, eet will be because 'e took me and not M. Cohle. I absolutely give 'im credit for zat. 'E 'as always been a self-aware player. Zat ees one of my favorite things about 'im.

'Owever, I definitely do not think eet ees as simple as my game being worse zan M. Cohle's. I saw 'is choice as choosing between someone who played a drastically different game vs. someone who played a similar game, but better, and I think 'e sees eet ze same way from what 'e 'as said. Even if I was objectively more threatening zan M. Cohle (which I'm not sure zat I was, I definitely didn't feel zat confident in a Jury vote against M. Cohle), I could still be ze smarter person for M. Morningstar to take.

I think I structured ze endgame so zat eet was in M. Morningstar's best interest to take me despite ze fact zat 'e did not feel confident in 'is Jury chances against me, and zat ees my doing. Short of winning ze final Immunity myself, I don't know what more I could 'ave or should 'ave done.

[Lennie Briscoe]

For Lucifer, I just wanted to address this part of your speech:

Rounds 15 on were where I think I got more control in the game and put together a better performance. I thought Lennie going home in round 15 was important for me, because I knew we weren't on particularly good terms at the time and it set me up to go deep. The next two rounds the bigger challenge threats went- in particular, the round 16 vote would've been impossible without me beating Judy- I knew it was important to get them out if I was going to win immunity these last few rounds and fully guarantee my spot at the end. Obviously the one blemish here is round 18, but I was still safe during that important vote thanks to my challenge performance. I think during these rounds I exhibited a little bit more control over the game, my status as a low-profile player paid off and my devotion to my allies worked out. I think it shows some dynamism.

The thing is, after I left, I just assumed that it just went without saying that Judy or Penelope would go at 6, and if the remaining member of that pair was vulnerable at 5, they'd be voted out next. So like we've got 2 rounds at 6 and 5 where basically everyone in the game was on roughly the same page other than those being targeted, and then at 4 the one person you didn't want to go home went home. I'm not really seeing how this is particularly dynamic or exhibited more control over the game, aside from having immunity at 4 and 3. I'm not trying to grill you or anything here, but do you have a different view of those rounds?

[Judy Hopps]

Hard to come up with good questions for either of you seeing as I was very close to both of you.

For Lucifer: Do you think you had control over your fate or were led on to certain points in the game, specifically with regards to myself and Rust? Ultimately you made it to the end where we didn't, but it's more a case of did you control us, or did we control you and were targeted for it?

For Poirot: You talked about long term strategy and that this was a contingency plan. We talked about it a little but I feel like I spent more time explaining my plans for us to make final 3 than you did. At what point was this your trajectory? Of if this is just where chips fell, what was your previous plan and how confident in it were you that it would have worked without intervention (ie. My immunity swivel and the Jake/Lennie votes)?

[Hercule Poirot]

For Poirot: You talked about long term strategy and that this was a contingency plan. We talked about it a little but I feel like I spent more time explaining my plans for us to make final 3 than you did. At what point was this your trajectory? Of if this is just where chips fell, what was your previous plan and how confident in it were you that it would have worked without intervention (ie. My immunity swivel and the Jake/Lennie votes)?

Zis was 100% confirmed as my trajectory after/during ze M. Briscoe vote, but probably after ze M. Peralta vote all of my ideas about ze game started shifting around. One main difference was zat I felt strongly zat I 'ad at least some chance of beating you prior to zose moves, whereas after zem I did not think I 'ad a chance, especially if I elected to take you. If you won your way to ze end and took me, zat was different.

M. Briscoe was a core piece of almost any endgame I was making prior to zat, so a lot of my thinking was trying to find out who to take deep who M. Briscoe would actually 'ave a chance of finding more threatening zan me and cutting at 4, and you were an excellent candidate for zat. I would 'ave been 'appy with both you and M. Briscoe at 4, because zen no matter 'ow Immunity went I felt strongly zat one of you would probably go 'ome. M. Briscoe I knew was especially scared of facing off against you in ze end. I might 'ave 'ad to face to slightly more difficile FTC, but I 'oped zat I would 'ave a chance, and in my position, my priority 'ad to be getting zere. I also was honest when I said zat I wanted to F2 with you, but realistically I didn't think I could get you much further zan 5 or 4 before you 'ad to win your way zere.

I initially was incredibly averse to taking M. Morningstar and M. Kennedy deep, especially not both of zem, and if eet was a F3 I think I 'ad reason to be because everyone and zeir mother wanted to sit next to zem in ze end, and for a player like me, who ees socially threatening but not strong in challenges, zat was 'ighly worrisome. But you taking out M. Briscoe left me really with no other options, because I didn't feel confident zat I could beat you and Mlle Garcia in ze end, and you were both too strong in challenges to take down to four. So I decided to go all-in on M. Morningstar deciding to cut M. Cohle, and pray zat M. Kennedy might be convinced to force firemaking as a last resort.

[Lucifer Morningstar]

Greetings! I should preface this by saying that this is not a bitter Jury in the slightest— all of us are looking to make an unbiased decision to determine the best possible winner of this game, and I think Ponderosa is completely void of any lingering bad feelings whatsoever.

Anyway, here’s my starting question:

Lucifer and Hercule— what’s one strategic move you made that you think played a big (or the biggest part) in helping you reach the end? Not necessarily take control of the game— but why you’re sitting here instead of someone else.

I think the Strike Team TC was a really important point in my game. Like the vote was shaping up to be between Judy and Nick from my point of view, with my name being pitched to the SVU players by the BAU to try to throw the. It was a really difficult decision for me, because going into that round I had felt fairly close to Hercule and Judy from the original tribe we were on together, but I'd also had an alliance with Nick and Jake going into that tribe as well, so I was put in a difficult spot. But I made the right call- I think it was a critical decision that allowed me to re-establish my relationship with Hercule and Judy and I was able to rebuild my relationship with Penelope and avoid being in a precarious spot.

[Lucifer Morningstar]

Hercule, from my perspective it seems like there wasn't a single vote that happened which didn't benefit what you wanted to do in some way or another, and that's highly commendable, it truly is. But a lot of those votes were also incredibly close, did you have contingency plans if they didn't work? I want you to tell me about the places where you messed up and should have played better. I want you to own your mistakes too.

Luci, so about that vagueness I talked about over in Social, I think you know you have a very rough path here, yeah? A lot of this jury isn't exactly sure what it is that you did in this game and whether you planned for any of what happened or if perhaps you got lucky. You certainly won immunity when you needed it, which you should be incredibly proud of and that is a point in your favour imo. But, I think for those of us who weren't privy to your thoughts and plans, we would really benefit from hearing what sort of plans you had. When friends and allies of yours went home, how did you regroup and continue forward? And please, be as specific as you can. If you want to win, you need to be.

So I'd say there were three big instances where allies went home- (excluding late merge where I was strategically eliminating allies)

First was Nick going- this was a difficult vote for me, but I think it worked out well. My biggest goal after this vote was to rebuild my relationship with Penelope. I knew that I had kind of ruined my relationship with Jake there, but I felt like I could salvage the other two and that it would be really important to do that. Then following that vote, because I felt like my relationship with Jake was in disrepair- we ended up going after Jake at merge which was something I saw as very beneficial for my game, since he wasn't particularly close with me. Obviously the idol led to that attempt being nullified though and another one of my allies going. After that vote failed and Pikachu went, obviously it put another wrench in my game. It led to the Scruff vote as well, which I thought was really important for me, because it kept the number of 27 players in the game in check because I wasn't on good terms with them and would also be something that most everyone could get behind, because I didn't want to like oppose what Hercule/Judy wanted for another TC in a row, because that could exacerbate our relationship.

Then you went which was also problematic for my game. It was obviously a hiccup, but I was able to stay strong with my my group of allies and work past it and was able to get Jake out of the game which I felt was another success for my game because we'd had a pretty poor relationship since merge started.

[Lucifer Morningstar]

Just here to bump Grouch's question for Lucifer. I want to know what you were thinking going forward in most rounds. What was the larger picture that you were making or were you just playing round by round? Either is fine, I just feel like I didn't get to know which was your mode from your speech and want to give you the opportunity to detail that here.

I wouldn't say I ever had a concrete larger picture, but I was always considering the long term implications of decisions for sure. I drew up a couple of possible boot lists and while they weren't really accurate- they were helpful in planning and considering possibilities for me.

For my round by round thinking starting from right before merge on:
Strike Team TC:
So for this TC I had a pretty good idea prior to the round that Judy and Nick were likely to be targets. I'd heard from Nick that he didn't care from Judy and the general vibe I got from the SVU players was that Nick wasn't too active. I had also felt, especially based on my conversations with people from the BAU, that this might come down to tribal lines- at least to a degree.
Once the round started my suspicions were confirmed. I was initially undecided going in- but I pretty quickly decided I wanted Nick gone. A large part of that was because I was worried I couldn't trust Jake- mainly because he had hardly been talking to me- and I felt like that ended up being a correct suspicion because later into tribal, I heard that at least some of the BAU people had tried to pitch my name behind my back.

Going into merge, I was initially hesitant because I didn't know what was going to happen. It honestly took a long time for anything to get rolling. I'd heard rumors of Grouch a bit because of the drama on Narcotics, but nobody was really pushing anything. Eventually Pikachu finally reached out and we discussed the vote possibilities before finally settling on Jake. I think it's also worth noting that I did kind of tell people that it was Pikachu's idea and intentionally gave him credit for it- and that was partially intentional. I didn't want my name out there as someone leading the vote early in merge because I didn't want to be seen as threatening and get idoled out.

Then next round Scruff went- I kind of already explained this elsewhere- but to recap: nobody really seemed to want to push Jake and I was hesitant the numbers would be there for it this round. So Scruff went as a bit of a compromise? And I think it was also important for my game that he went over like me or Rust, who were the alternatives I had heard about.

Next is the round Grouch Cop went home- I was obviously misled. I do remember talking with Grouch like fifteen minutes before deadline about how the TC had the feels that something sketchy might be happening and then that happened. The intent was to push Jake there and make that vote happen. But obviously that had to wait until the next round. Getting Jake out was something that I thought benefited me greatly since we had a very rocky relationship for a while now. And I don't necessarily think Grouch going was a major blemish on my game necessarily either- like I've said elsewhere, I think this round highlighted some of the good social connections I did have and I think the perception of me as someone who wasn't threatening and my strong ties to Judy in particular made my survival here no accident. And I also think Grouch going encouraged me to invest a little bit more into my other relationships.

Then the next round after this Lennie went. Going into the round the big focus was on making sure Judy would vote with me/Rust/Penelope and then I also tried to flip Leon to our side as well and work with him. I think this was the point where my vision of the end of the game went from more of a hypothetical to concrete. I started to feel good about my odds of making it there again and I kind of realized who I couldn't be against and who I felt I had more of a chance against.

Then Judy went the next round after she lost the challenge and Penelope afterwards. Those were pretty straightforward rounds, but I will elaborate on them a little more when I answer Leon's question in a little bit.

At F4, I was conflicted, but ultimately felt that I was better off getting Rust out. The catch was that I had known from previous rounds Leon really preferred Hercule going, so I was working hard to convince him, but it didn't work and he misled me about where he was voting. I do think it was really important I won immunity this round, because prior to the tribal occurring I could've easily been targeted had I not.

I'm just going to explain the F3 decision in response to Grouch's question in a second if that's OK.