I’m confused. You’re saying that you’ll oppose any group that doesn’t include you? Or is there something about this specific group that you don’t like?
Nothing specific other than it doesn’t contain me. Maybe after watching a few votes, I’ll be more open to groups that aren’t me. If it fails, we have gained information at no cost.
One of the ways in which the resistance loses is if the missions are voted down too many times in a row. If everybody voted against missions that they weren’t in, the spies would win by default. So I’d have to say that voting against a mission simply because you haven’t been included is a scum tell.
I disagree. Voting to approve a mission where you have no information is unwise. The only information each of us has right now is our own status (plus spies know spies, which I’ll get to in a minute). So if I’m on a mission, I know at least one person is not a spy and the chance of success increases. If the mission fails, I know that one of two people are a spy, rather than one in three.
Spies should want one spy to be on the mission. Thus, they should vote to approve any team with a spy, whether it is them or their ally. So if we watch who votes to approve, we get an early indicator of who might be a spy. (Of course, in voicing that, it throws the whole thing into a mess, but we would still gain information from votes.)
There are five votes to approve a team. I don’t like to leave it until the fifth vote because you can be cornered into taking a spy on the mission, but that still leaves three votes to gather information before approving a team. As I said before, too many new groups are too quick to approve teams.
I have no problems with this mission spec.
I have read up and I hope I understand the game. I see I have been nominated for the first mission, which is fine by me. I have nothing much to say other than I am a good guy and plan to make the mission succeed.
There is not much else to be said at this point, folks. Accept this team and you have my vote for success.
Everyone has now confirmed being in the game.
Some things I thought worth mentioning:
In post 32, when I reviewed the rules, I forgot to mention that 5 consecutive rejections is a win for the spies.
As Johnny Bravo mentioned, please do not edit your posts in any way after posting.
The nominations for a mission team are not official until I receive a PM notifying me of the nominations. At that time I will make a post with the proposed team listed. At that point phase two of the round will begin and you can send me your accept or reject votes. You do not need to send me those until I have posted the proposed team.
So if you nominate a team, please PM your team to Mental quickly so we don’t have to wait around.
Since it’s the first “day,” I was waiting a bit for people to check in, and in any case a bit of discussion can be informative. I’ve PMed him, though.
I kind of see the logic of this but:
Not wanting to be forced to take a spy on mission 5 opens you up to the Surprise Test paradox: you could then be “forced” on mission 4, so best go for mission 3…
This is the best mission to have one spy on, for the reason you refer to. It would mean one in 3 was a spy, but in later missions it will be 1 in 4 or 1 in 5. More people means more chance of multiple spies, true, but I don’t think that makes a big enough difference compared to the narrower band of suspicion.
You’re privileging your private knowledge. It doesn’t do the team any good for you to announce after a failed mission that it was definitely one of the other guys? Even if true, there’s no way the knowledge can transfer from you to us.
I can’t see how, on mission 1, we can decide how one team is better than any other. Yes, I’d prefer if I were on it, but so would most of you so that doesn’t really advance a public decision.
Johnny Bravo has nominated the following team for the 1st mission:
Storyteller0910
TexCat
Mahaloth
You may PM your accept or reject votes anytime before 5:00 pm central time, Thursday Nov. 6th. If all ten players have voted by 5:00 pm central time, tomorrow (Wednesday, Nov. 5th), I will move the round on to phase three or move on to the next leader for this round then. If you wish to change your vote, that is ok. I will consider the last vote you send me your official vote. If you send a change after 5:00 pm tomorrow, though, I may already be counting votes. I will not change votes once I have started counting them. Please remember, you can say whatever you like in the thread. Your accept-reject votes will be made public when the results are announced.
Thanks for all the input. I have never played this game before and don’t have the bandwidth to watch a 25 minute video.
If we reject the three-man mission four times in a row it’ll be automatically approved the fifth time, and we’ll continue with no penalty, right? That doesn’t seem much of a disadvantage this early in the game.
If no missions are rejected, then these five will never be leaders:
Storyteller0910
septimus
TexCat
Stanislaus
Mahaloth
I suppose if 2 or 3 of these are spies they might want to reject. OTOH, perhaps so many missions will be rejected that the leader order is irrelevant at this stage.
I’d never heard of the game until I typed “/In” and watched the YouTube with two redhead spies. Perhaps it would be good for other players to indicate their experience and point to any webpages with strategy tips.
A couple of things:
I was off today, but normally work during the day on weekdays. I may occasionally have time to answer a quick question, but please be patient. Some days I may not be able to check the thread until the evenings.
Inner Stickler has started an unspoiled discussion thread for this game. The spectators have no more information than you do, so I don’t think it would be gamebreaking for you to read it. I would prefer, however, that players not read that thread until the game is over.
HookerChemical wants to reject any mission team that he isn’t on since he doesn’t have enough information about the other players and can trust only himself. By his reasoning, we all should reject this initial team, except for those nominated, since we aren’t on the team ourselves. The team is rejected.
The leadership moves to player 2, who nominates three other players. [Player 2 happens to be me, but that’s immaterial to this hypothetical discussion.] Since we haven’t seen a mission to completion, we still don’t have any information about player loyalty. So the same reasoning applies and everyone rejects the proposed team, except for those nominated. Player 3 becomes leader and the same thing happens. Then player 4 is leader with identical results.
Player 5 is now leader. We’re now forced to approve whichever team is nominated or lose by default. Very conveniently, HookerChemical is player 5; he can nominate whomever he wants, secure in the knowledge that the team will be approved.
I expect everyone on the team to be in favour of it, regardless of their side. But at least Mahaloth has chipped in. TexCat got involved in discussion earlier. We haven’t heard at all from storyteller since he said he was in. This is a relatively quick moving game so I understand if people suddenly get busy, but as a general rule we need more talking. We can’t evaluate people on anything other than what they say. (“They were on a team that didn’t fail a mission” is sort of evidence but a) not very strong and b) we’ll need a team to go on a mission to get that far.)
My initial read was that I was as happy with this team as any other possible one (that didn’t include me), and that’s still basically the case - but I’d like to hear more from the people on the team - on literally anything vaguely game related - before the early deadline.
(I’d never even heard of this game before now. I haven’t had time to watch the video.)
The spies can’t communicate with one another directly. There are all kinds of oblique ways of communicating in public - I’ve watched players in games I’ve moderated use all kinds of clever tactics when direct communication is out. I expect the Spies (it’s going to be hard not to write “Scum”) will find at least rudimentary ways to coordinate, so expecting them to be uncoordinated is probably a mistake.
How do you feel about going on the mission, story?
This page conveniently supports my position that the voting is a critical information gathering phase. There are discussions of strategy on the BGG forums, but this one is particularly important. I also want to point out that those are tips for winning as The Resistance, not a spy.
Also, barring far too many accepted teams, everybody will be leader at some point. The leadership rotation continues after a mission with the next player. So if player 4’s team is accepted for mission 1, player 5 is the first leader for mission 2.
I’ve found that spies frequently have one conversation while the Resistance thinks they’re having another. For example, a spy votes to reject a mission with two spies. Then acts disappointed and says “I voted to reject. Like I’ve already told you, I think Bob is a spy. I’m sure this mission will fail.” Which tells the other spy that the speaker will throw the failure and allow the fellow spy to retain their cover, but the Resistance only heard that the speaker was suspicious about Bob and correctly predicted the failure. There’s also an art to ratting out fellow spies.
For mission 1, we’re not really looking for a team that’s any better than another. We’re gathering information and watching votes. If this were my tabletop group, I’d be shocked if the mission failed even if the leader himself were a spy. Maybe by the third vote, a pattern emerges with sloppy or bold spies, but it will be mostly a crap shoot and the Resistance relies on the spies not wanting to give away to much on the first mission.