Make sure you vote for me and you can keep your voice, ok?

ah yes indeeed

@uclabb, @snowy, @Demon

Your questions about loyalty and deception are related, and I'll answer them together.

This is a ruthless game. The way to move forward is to vote people out of the tribe. It sucks to be voted out of the tribe! Because the way of moving forward is to vote people out, you really have three choices: (1) vote people out when they do not expect it, (2) tell people you are voting out that you are voting them out, or (3) play no role in who goes home.

I think (2) is a bad strategy. If you tell someone they are the target, they will duck and weave. I think that (3) relies on luck and other people choosing to bring you along because they think they can beat you. I chose (1). I think it is the best strategic way to play, and the only way I could control my destiny.

I am well aware that it sucks to be voted out, and that there may be sour grapes at the people who were most instrumental in sending y'all home. That implicates me the most, because I was often in control of the votes. I thought hard about that. But in the end, this is a diplomacy site. Deception and manipulation are recognized as powerful tools, and I think I used them well.

@uclabb, I have a lot of respect for you. And I have more after your question. While some jurors have indicated, without questions or comments, that they are voting to settle old scores, you have asked the right question. Why vote for me when you promised you would work against me at jury if I stabbed you? It's obviously your personal decision. But I believe you are someone who appreciates an artful stab, and who will vote based on who you genuinely believe played the best game.

"It especially makes no sense for you to claim that you didn't think I would take you to the end, as I told you that after Ezio was sent lynched that I would consider no other to stand by my side. In that sense, my understanding of your plans were truly shortsighted, and you burned bridges which should've been left hanging for reasons I cannot conceive"

@Snowy, on May 23 you told me that you would not agree to a final 3 deal with me in it, because you thought I would win before the final jury. Consider why you thought I might win.

After you told me that, I voted out Ezio. While you said later that you'd bring me to jury, you were on the chopping block at the time, and I had just voted out a mutual ally. In other words, you had a lot more credibility to me when you suggested I was too big a threat. I ultimately stabbed you because I thought it gave me the best chance to get here.

So there's going to be a theme with these questions,.

Balki: You claim you had control over the game and name times you had control. Can you give example as to why these moves were strategic?
Don't you think there might be an issue of having too many entangling alliances or sharing too much information, such as stuff I told you to keep confidential?

Demon: You seemed a bit too eager to go along with the ideas of other people this game, rather than pushing your own. Can you name a time in the game where you had clear control of the vote and why your idea was the most strategic one at the time?
Also, there may be some tension in your statement as you claim " Oztra, I legit tried my hardest to get bo out before you but no one else was having it and they kept getting annoyed at me for saving you. I would have had you in that final tribe if it was feasible but there was only so much I could do. Sorry friend, I hope you’ll vote for me for my loyalty and persistence."

Yet I distinctly remember me being very open to voting bo, to the point of asking "why should I not just vote out bo?" after you told me I should vote Oztra, and you persisted to tell me I should vote out Oztra. How is this trying your hardest to save Oztra?


Flum, First off, you claim that you never knew what my advantage was, but Ezio did. Yet I didn't tell Ezio what my advantage was and Balki claims he told you what it was. How do you reconcile these claims?

Secondly, on my vote out you claim that I was an unknown factor with a mysterious advantage and that maybe this would lead you to vote me out. However, why was this the BEST course of action as opposed to knocking out Demon who seemed to be straight up opposing you, Ezio who was also considering it (not sure if you knew that) and was a rather large threat, or ghug who was also a considerable threat in the game who was doing a considerable amount of press work?

@Balki- No, you misunderstand. If the deal was my idea, that would be one thing. *You* were the one that forced *me* to promise to work against you on the jury if you stabbed me, not vice versa. Without that clause we could have easily worked together- in fact, I saw you and Ezio as possibly my only paths to the end as I hoped that you would at least think of me as a shield until later in the game. In fact, many times throughout the game if said things like "if we are really allies" and "if we are really ride or die" because you were very obviously not pulling in the same direction as me. And had you just voted me out, that's not a problem- Fluminator voted me out and he was one of my allies, and, honestly, I wasn't expecting to win. What I'm saying is that the method you used was the exact opposite of artful. What would have been artful is if we had traded my immunity idol for Ezio's black rock and then voted Ezio out. Or what Fluminator did- he found out what the votes were at the merge and then got Vashta out with just one vote! It's not artful to just to initiate blood pacts that are designed to make you lose if you don't honor them, and then to not honor them.

^

@flum @balki
Do you guys seriously think we (the birsan tribe members) are going to vote for the people who caused us to die after promising an alliance, rather than Demon?

@uclabb, to answer your questions a little more directly and specifically:

1. "Isn't that the exact opposite of the goal of a game where it is the people you vote out who choose the winner?"

I don't think so. To advance, you must vote people out. There is no course of action that is simply "be loyal and don't lie" unless you want to count on luck and other people to do your dirty work. Keeping your hands clean only really means you weren't involved in crafting your own fate. The simple truth is the way of moving forward is voting people out.

None of the people who made it to the end played an honest game, or a loyal game. We all had different levels of duplicity. I believe I had more control over the game than anyone, and I probably have the most blood on my hands. I am not afraid of that. I have blood on my hands because I had control.

2. "In what way was there no fall out from voting out Glen Alexander? Did you feel like the game was in control at that point?"

What I meant by this was that I maintained my position as everyone's ally after the Glen vote. That was tricky. I ended up telling you who I was voting for with seconds left and we had our comical "vote switch" exchange.

Thinking on it more, I know you didn't trust me as much after that vote. So there was actual fallout there, and I may have been in more trouble if you had more options.

* * * * *

@uclabb, stabbing you was a difficult decision and it certainly wasn't something I did lightly. I felt like I had a better chance moving forward with Snowy/Ezio just based on the numbers on Birsan, and I was also worried about your connections to ghug/Bo. When we were at Exile, you said something that stuck with me at a time when you thought I might gain access to your Anschluss messages. You said that you felt you were everyone's closest ally on Anschluss. That scared me -- it was exactly the same game I was playing.

I gotta run. I'll be around later to answer more questions.

I know you're just framing your argument because that's what you need to do at this point, but you're just wrong. The entirety of the jury aspect was designed such that you would be hesitant to play the sort of game you did, and you failed entirely. Granted, I leaned on that angle way too much and failed to make endgame, but you failed to balance the opinion of the jurors over your own survival and that's why you're not a contender for victory either
You can't completely ignore the final win condition of the game and then turn up expecting the trophy

OH another question, for all three, but probably just Flum (since I know he watches the show).

Which player in actual survivor was most like each member of the final 3 and jury, and why?

It seems weird, but I think it opens up the perception of the game of each person.

Yea. It's not hard to go around promising everyone you're going to do (paraphrasing here) everything you can to ensure the final three contains them. Not just not voting against them but actively fighting against any plot that gets made threatening them.

@snowy, a couple ways I could approach this question.
One, I sincerely didn’t think Balki would vote against you. And I won’t be surprised if this mistake gives demon the win. I didn’t foresee you getting voted out by my vote out of Ezio.
Two, if it wasn’t for me, there was a very strong chance you wouldn’t have even made it that far. For the longest time in the final phase of tribe 2, Ezio and Balki were voting you out over Bozo. I stuck my neck out to tip you off things were fishy so you would be able to fight back. Maybe you would have survived if I didn’t, but it certainly increased your chances of making it to the merge.
@ghug: I still am confident that you would get more votes than either Balki or Demon.
Also, Demon claims to play loyal, but I remember a pretty large backstab on MoscowFleet that she instigated.
@Ezio: where did I say you didn’t know you were on the chopping block. Ghug and demon were literally telling you they were targeting you. Obviously you knew there was a strong possiblitiy?
Also, I remember the deal with the tribe not voting for people to backstab, (which is another reason Balki messed up in taking out snowy the vote after) but I viewed it as betraying only you, and not snowy. I fully intended to go to the end with snowy. I just had an inkling if I waited until 5 or 4 to target you, you would have been able to use demon to get me out first. I had to take you out while I still had ghug and demon’s support.
@Vash: Balki didn’t tell me about your vote steal until the round after you were voted off. If Ezio knew you had the vote steal and didn’t tell anyone, then that’s shame on him I guess.
Also yes, I was well aware Ezio was after me. The tribal right before merge he tried to get me out briefly but Balki and Snowy tippied me off. At the merge, we even agreed to throw each other’s names out as some sort of a decoy (although I was mainly into that so I could target Ezio later without him being quite as worried hopefully) I remember Ezio even telling me he threw my name out to you.
I didn’t vote out Demon or Ghug because I had a 3 way alliance from them from the last tribe, and I didn’t want to have to break my word to them yet. If I took one of them out, there was no chance I’d have support from the survivor. With you going home, I could still get away with it considering I told them both I wanted you gone first and would be trying to target you. (I was still the one they went to for targeting Ezio next round so it seemed to work out)
Ghug especially I wasn’t interested in targeting because he was a huge target and continued to be a distraction for pretty much the entire game.

uggh. sorry for poor formatting.

Another question. Does anyone understand how to space things?

@Vash - MoscowFleet, not only did it serve to save Oztra but it also got rid of the ring leader of the opposite squad. See Flum's post for details. And you're misremembering, you can ask ghug who literally got mad at me for trying to save Oztra. But yeah, I asked you to do a lot of things. I also saved multiple people on multiple occasions so I don't know why you're trying to downplay any role I have. And that's fine, maybe I wasn't behind everything - I don't think that's particularly a big deal. You really weren't either? I think a lot of the things we decided on were decided with collaboration and that's fine.

I'll think about the player comparison question Vash. Want to give that one some thought.
Will keep trying to check in, but a little busy today. Should be around more often tomorrow.

@Flum: So why not Ezio over me?

@flum oh my bad on the phrasing. You just said snowy and I thought balki was voting with us. That's the part I was laughing at.
You didn't answer why I should vote for you after you stabbed me instead of Demon.

@all three:

If you had to choose between the other two final tribal members, who would you choose, and why? (Feel free to go negative on the person you are not choosing; this isn't meant to be a trick question)

Yeah. I'm definitely not misremembering demon. I can mix up a lot of things, but the reason why I voted someone is not one of them. I really wish we could searched canceled games for messages. Oh well.

Ezio, can you confirm Flum's claim that you and Balki were inclined to vote me out over Bozo?
We're all jurors here - be honest

I investigated it and you passed the test.
I asked you how you felt about voting out Flum. If you were on board with it I'd have taken you out first. You weren't, so I didn't.

Oh that phase

I remember Demon trying annoyingly hard to keep Oztra alive, FWIW.

Flum, you think I would have won over you. Do you think I would have *deserved* to win over you?

Well, between Flum and Balki for me. Fact that DO is using Sauga and the Leafs (SPELL IT RIGHT) to get me to vote her is pretty telling.

All that about saving Oztra is BS - Bo told me that basically the reason I was voted out is that Oztra was seen as too close to me. DO, you never saw Oztra as more than a short-term pawn.

I'm going to think on this a bit more and will probably have some questions for Balki and Flum later. Peace

That's why bo and I wanted you. Flum and DO weren't quite on the same page with us yet at that point.

Question to all three finalists:
I'm sure you alluded to this in each of your speeches but why did you all choose the allies you did, and who were they?