player opinions

[M. Gustave]

this thread is for listing my opinions of people and saying what kind of stuff we talk about.

camp ivanhoe originals

oracle: my bestie. their opinions are almost the same as mine on stuff, we look at the game the same way, and it's just awesome. we've talked about and shared some music, favorite shows, and how we want to play the game. plus, we bonded over both not knowing wes anderson very well, on top of both being active during the opening hours of the game.

anthony: on top of magic the gathering stuff, we've been chatting about other games like chess and general game design. there's been a side topic of psychological experiments and what their outcomes mean. i like him pretty well so far, though we haven't talked much in-depth about this game aside from us both liking oracle and richie (and each other).

richie: more approachable than he first seemed. we've talked tv, studying methods, and our struggles to figure out the forum software. friendly guy, but of my 'core four' he's probably my bottom man on the totem pole; that could easily change as time goes on, we're literally one day in. (my 'core four' is me, oracle, richie, and anthony btw)

young writer: very much playing a character which annoys me. i try to connect to people and i can't do that if you aren't yourself. anyway, we've talked mostly about poetry so far and traded a few haikus. a few people seem to like him, particularly richie, but i wouldn't be too sad to see him go.

sam shakusky: we've been talking about my childhood mostly, these cool stairs at a beach hotel i went to that a slinky worked perfectly on, followed by other gizmos i had. so far he's been pretty short and to the point, not really telling me all that much about himself; probably either newish or shy, which i can identify with.

suzie: only a couple messages so far but they've been pretty large. she answered my joke ice cream question by interpreting it to be about the cone, which i liked - witty wordplay is awesome. strangely, i keep hearing people say that other people like suzie, without them saying that they like suzie. like, is this real or is she being set up?

herman: just one message so far, bare bones. no connection to speak of yet. he'll need to step it up to survive if we lose.

kylie: on the same level as herman, few posts and what they do send is sparse.

duke: not a ton of messages yet but we've been swapping stories of crusader kings games, and talking about rl dogs. not super high but could rise with more posts.

[M. Gustave]

poor kylie didn't know where to find the member list, and so really struggled to message people. i just feel bad for her now, and i've offered to give her some tips. maybe one day she'll surpass her mentor and become a full-fledged mediocre player.

herman is messaging plenty now and is clearly not dead weight, so good for him.

sam is a little awkward but still alright; nobody else has moved much since yesterday.

[M. Gustave]

kylie is starting to message more and with better quality now, which is great. now if we can win immunity, she'll have a great chance of getting acclimated.

anthony, oracle, richie and i have made a group chat which we've decided to call "the four horsemen." oracle took famine and richie took death, so i picked war and left pestilence for richie. we're all vibing well with each other; in particular i just love oracle, he's awesome.

herman and i are talking basketball now; i think he believes i'm a warriors fan? i just said i was a west coast team with bad defense, but i'm not going to clarify which team exactly because it could id me. he also likes history books, which is another thing we have in common; he's a pretty cool guy.

still disappointingly little from duke and sam, but the young writer is starting to drop his persona and let me interact with the real person beneath, which i like.

[M. Gustave]

so what i said about not blaming anyone for this loss is not actually true. i am annoyed with kylie for not reading the thread (otherwise, she would have known we were saving the bullseye for last), but if she had stolen it and oracle nails a 9 or whatever we're still fine. but then she goes and misses, hitting a 1. obviously she's not the only one to miss, and mistakes happen. but if she had aimed for not the bullseye, we would have won the challenge. that's very frustrating.

oracle and i are talking about all kinds of stuff, the latest topics are persona 4 and board games. we're alike in so many areas that it's almost eerie. anthony is still talking with me a fair bit, but richie has been somewhat quiet - i need to work on reviving our chat if the bump from tribal doesn't do it. talks are progressing well with the young writer and suzie, and sam has opened up more since i started talking primarily game. i want to like duke and herman, but i want them around more. and kylie... well, she didn't do herself any favors today, and i think there's a pretty good chance she goes.

[M. Gustave]

if we swap, i'd be most happy to get my horsemen and/or the young writer. i would also be happy with getting suzy and maybe duke (he said he's going to be more available starting soon). don't want to end up with only sam or herman from this tribe, they'd end up targets easily and we aren't that bonded to begin with.

[M. Gustave]

i heard some interesting info from oracle. apparently, the one who told duke that he should expect a vote last tribal was anthony. i've agreed not to spread this info to anyone. we believe that kylie self-voted, since she wasn't online for the entire duration of tribal. therefore, the duke vote was from someone else, either anthony or someone who told anthony that they'd be voting duke for god knows what reason. i hope you specs are enjoying the confusion on this tribe, i know i would be if i were in your shoes!

as a side note, i miss your questions! please let me know what different stuff you'd like to see from me.

[Captain Sharp]

If you went to TC this round, what would happen?

[M. Gustave]

not a bad question, captain; you're clearly not captain obvious. if we lose, i feel it's pretty likely to be herman this time, but i could see it getting swung onto sam instead. herman has hardly any close friends and isn't around much. sam is around a little more, but he's someone that i and several others have just had a hard time talking to. i don't think anybody believes the time is right to get rid of a big player, when that player could well end up as an ally later on - this is all about getting rid of people you wouldn't like to end up on a tribe with. i would vote either of the two, but i'm not going to push either of them myself - others should end up doing that for me, and no need to put a target on myself by pushing.

[M. Gustave]

update on recent developments: richie and i have talked about sam seeming to be building up to offering us an alliance. we both don't feel super fond of sam, but have decided to accept whatever he offers us, and at worst we get intel to share with others. i realize that this would absolutely suck to be sam in this situation, and it's not going to make me happy to stab him, but... i just want to work with other people instead :/ :(.

furthermore, i think i'm getting closer with suzy, and i'm definitely in good with duke, at least as his second-favorite behind oracle. those two dogs are ones i'll have to worry about down the line. i love talking to both of them, and we love working together, but not only am i below oracle in duke's eyes, i may well be below duke in oracle's eyes. plus, i think both have a bit more natural charisma than i do. they'll have to be broken up for me to stand a chance, but we're ages away from that point still.

[M. Gustave]

omg, foxy likes not only roguelikes but persona 4, great start to that convo! they're apparently on the bottom over on rushmore, but hopefully they make it through, if only so we can talk more lol.

madame d. says she was the one to receive votes last time, so i now know things aren't great between her and max / foxy. (i've heard from a few places now that max and foxy were the minority voters along with steve).

[M. Gustave]

herman speaks! just when i was getting worried for him. thankfully he's just been busy with work and driving his kid around.

[Snoopy]

DOES ANYONE STRIKE GUSTAVES FANCY ON RUSHMORE?

[M. Gustave]

i've only heard from foxy, madame, and peter from the other tribe so far. i do like the first two, we've gotten off to a decent start on our conversations and both have a tinge of desperation to them. madame was the target of the minority group on rushmore, and foxy was a member of said group; both would be fighting hard to get allies in a swap. peter, it's just one message, and i don't really know how to feel about him.

it should be noted that madame is telling anyone who asks, and then those who don't ask, all there is to know about the last vote. that strikes me as somewhat questionable, but maybe she figured word would get out no matter what and so she might as well be the one to get the 'credit.' there's a chance that story is an elaborate ruse, and that really they're all #rushmorestrong, but that would be a level of planning that it sounds like they collectively lack.

[Snoopy]

IF SNOOPY ASKS THE SAME QUESTION AGAIN, IS THERE A DIFFERENT ANSWER NOW? (IT HAS BEEN SOME TIME)

[M. Gustave]

i've since heard a good amount more from foxy and madame, and have several messages with royal too. i think madame has risen higher than foxy now that we've swapped our impressions of our tribemates. royal is alright and fairly personable, but hasn't grabbed me super hard.

and i must say, snoopy, that i'm disappointed in your fellow dog buckley. i messaged him that he should have been over here with his dog brethren, and he never responded! the nerve. dogs belong in a pack. really though, i hear he's busy and my message isn't exactly high priority, lol.

[Snoopy]

SNOOPY IS THE MOST PROPER DOG.

DID GUSTAVE NOT SEND ANY FIRST PMS? IF YES, WHY WAS THAT CHOICE THE CHOICE GUSTAVE MADE? DOES GUSTAVE PLAN TO STICK TO FIRST TRIBES?

[M. Gustave]

i did send some initial pms to rushmore people, but not all of them - i know it's subpar play, but i just felt a little overwhelmed by the prospect. i wanted to, but couldn't muster the willpower / mental fortitude.

not for too long! i know that to get rid of some of my allies down the road, i'll need the help of some rushmores. as i get to know them more, there's every chance that some of them usurp spots currently filled with ivanhoe players.

[M. Gustave]

i'm going to make a simple-ish tier list for my bonds w people, unordered within the tiers.

top
oracle: we're almost each other's confessionals at this point. we share everything, or at least 99%.
duke: he trusts me and oracle hugely, and vice-versa. one concern is that he probably likes oracle better than me, but oracle is also a bigger threat than me, which could counteract that.

pretty good
suzy: i believe that she's close to me, while also liking duke and oracle. i think to her the inequality is something like duke < me < oracle, which isn't perfect but again, oracle is the bigger threat and higher priority to remove than me.
young writer: very cool guy with an unlimited number of good videos to link. i feel like we're on solid terms, but oracle doesn't seem to like him too much. i know that he sees oracle as dangerous, and so would be willing to vote him when the situation calls for it. i've tried to hint to him that i'd be good doing that eventually too; hopefully he doesn't think i'm lying, so he won't keep me out of the loop for later moves.

meh
richie: i used to like him a lot more, but now i'm getting some bad feels. he seemed pretty dismissive of my idea that maybe anthony is an agent of chaos, and seems to full-on reject the idea of voting herman over sam. oracle has noticed a lot of the same things, and there's a real chance he has something going with anthony and herman.
peter: only here because we haven't seen him in action yet. i took the plunge and shared my plan to vote sam; if he repays my trust with trust in return, then it could be a great friendship and my position looks a lot better than before. even him as a floater wouldn't completely suck; him as an enemy, though, would be pretty awful. i've given him no reason to make me an enemy, so hopefully he won't.

bottom
sam: see my reasons for voting him. just can't trust him, and our paths forward just involve keeping totally different people around.
herman: on one hand, he's around even less than sam; on the other, i actually feel like i know him better than sam in fewer messages. ultimately, he's more 'free agent i have little connection to' than 'my sworn enemy.' he could well prove crucial to how the game develops, so maybe my choice to not leave him totally in the dark wasn't moronic after all.

[M. Gustave]

reposting this from my votes thread, since this has strategy thoughts and it'll be more visible here. apologies for my posts being so rambling.

let it be known that this vote was easily the most difficult decision i've made in this game so far.

for now at least,
vote: anthony

you are a legitimately nice guy, and i've had so much fun talking to you about the most random topics. this isn't even because you voted me, i'm over it and i think you likely have learned your lesson already. this is entirely for strategy reasons. i don't think it's possible that people won't see our ivanhoe bloc as a threat; if we go into merge having picked off the biggest threat outside of ourselves in margot, then the only option for outsiders will be to move against me or my trusted allies. leaving margot around isn't without its risks either; she seems really smart, social, and cutthroat, and if people ignore her she will go far. and i will make sure everyone is aware of how strong she is, though not immediately. it would be after a few votes, during which we'd try to remove various stragglers. only then, when the game is whittled down enough, would we turn to take her out. at that point our group would be big enough to not be at risk. exactly who the stragglers are depends on who i think is closer to other members of my group than they are to me, and who i think will just never work with me ever.