Generic thougnts on CITIZENS.

OK, before I even meet my fellow players, I'd like to get some things on the record. Let's start with the citizens.

I've gone over and over Spies 3 in my head, trying to work out how we lost. OK, you had at least four awesome spies, but they can't have worked every exile by themselves. Which citizens could have changed things, and didn't?

Let's take a look at the main contributing factors to the loss from my point of view. We'll go back in time from the very final round until the very start, looking for answers and responsibilities.

1) BRUCE voted Arthur instead of Tenchi at the end, having been persuaded to by Claire. That's the most immediate reason for our loss. However:

2) REICHERU contributed a great deal to this by basically freezing Bruce out, leaving him in the cold. She didn't include him in the "citizen alliance" at the end. This despite the fact that Bruce and Rei were clearly the only citizens who could've pulled everyone together and gone for the win at the end.

3) The next person I would blame is ARTHUR. When Miles was exiled, Rei and a bunch of spies were online. (Taylor, Jordan and the rest were naturally nowhere to be seen - but we'll look at that later.) I point blank asked Arthur who he wanted to target. He could have gone for anyone, but he went for Miles - completely against my own instincts. Even though I was strongly suspicious of Miles, I also thought he may very well have been telling the truth about his "role", and the last thing I wanted to do was to take out a citizen with a power.

4) JACK, however, provoked this by being completely indecisive. He had an excellent opportunity to get rid of Bebe and he wasted it. Jack's indecisiveness provoked both Miles' and his own exiles.

5) ANNELIESE and TRINA - yes, Trina! - misused the burg horribly. (And, let's face it, if ANYONE should've known better, it would've been Trina.) The spies made excellent use of this in the same way that Tyson and Allison did in Spies 2. Anneliese in used the burg to target Jennipher, against all of Rei's advice. Trina's idiotic post about her role left her open to the kind of attack that Claire successfully launched against her, getting her to target a citizen instead of a spy.

6) REICHERU took perhaps the best exile plot yet in any Spies game - more on this in the "Exile" section, when I can be bothered to write it - and wasted it on Judith, a strong citizen. Judith would almost certainly have targeted Raphael or Bebe the next round if she'd survived.


So, just going on this point of view, Reicheru, the person who had the best suspect list of all and who was constantly active and looking for spies, turns out to be the most responsible for the entire loss! HOWEVER, before I blame myself too much, look at the other citizens.

CARRIE, JENNIPHER, MATTHEW and others were suspicious of the right people, but did nothing about it.
ANNELIESE, JACK and BRUCE were active and formed alliances, but targeted the wrong people.

Let's take a look at the citizens of that game:

MATTHEW (semi-active, isolated, never spoke out)
TAYLOR (useless, annoying, semi-active, never around when a citizen voice was needed, wasted her role, divided the cits - easily the worst citizen in my opinion)
BRUCE (in the final exile he targeted a citizen, also gave an investigation to a spy)
BROOKS (semi-invisible)
ARTHUR (seemed to annoy a lot of people for the sake of it, generally wrong)
JORDAN (inactive)
JACK (annoying, couldn't make his mind up about anything for more than two seconds)
MILES (so under-the-radar he became a natural target and had no influence whatsoever)
ANNELIESE (didn't understand the game, got her tactics utterly wrong, put her allies in jeopardy)
TRINA (used do-or-die on a citizen, told two spies her role then posted it in the burg)
SHANE (gave his role to a spy)
CARRIE (had the best suspect list of anyone bar Jennipher yet rea;;y did nothing to help the citizens)
JENNIPHER (isolated herself, didn't trust the people who were trying to help her)
SUJATA (completely inactive)
JUDITH (best citizen by far, was targeted by one of her own friends)
AUDREY (apparently too much of an imprisonment target!)
TYLER (completely inactive)
LEENA (had no spy allies and was therefore a threat to them)
JAKUB (didn't give the citizens any reason to keep him)

And let's add to that:

REICHERU (Annoying to some, targeted two strong citizens, seduced by a spy)


And there you have it - a lengthy list of inactivity, irritability, anger and straight forward cack-handedness that led to an embarrassing defeat in Spies 3. It's weird, then, that if I had to choose the absolute worst citizen, it wouldn't be anyone from Spies 3, and moreover one of those two worst citizens was played by the best citizen of Spies 3.

The two worst citizens in ANY Spies game, discounting inactives (who deserve a special circle in Dante's hell all to themselves), are without a doubt Adriana and Jenna - and my preference for the absolute worst would be Jenna. Nobody else comes close to these two. Taylor, as irritating and divisive as she was, was far too inactive to do anything like the amount of damage these two did. If there's a hall of fame for bad citizenship, these two would be alone in it.

Let's take a look at Jenna first.

Jenna's first act was to be the leading light in exiling Winston, against all the advice of her peers. This isn't all she did wrong - after all, I was pretty set on exiling Jakub in Spies 3. But I do think that to anyone who'd been involved in Spies 1, Winston should've been an obvious citizen. He was to me. He was to Paul and DC and a few others. That didn't matter to Jenna. She knows how to organise an exile and she did an excellent job of it.

Following the recruitment, Jenna immediately took the new spy Tyson off her suspect list. She did suspect Leo, but went inactive for almost two episodes, meaning that it was up to Nicole and Tiffany to get him out. She played no part whatsoever in Leo's exile. When she did turn up, Jenna was adept at lying about people behind their backs in such a way that many of the citizens marked her down as stupid, a really bad compulsive liar and a general two-faced bitch.

But wait! There's more! Early on, Jenna gave away her ability to Allison, a spy. Despite this, she never actually used her ability ON a spy until the round before she was imprisoned. As a spy, I had very little doubt that she did have an ability from round two onwards because she made it so obvious; but telling Allison obviously sealed the deal.

But it's her actions in round five that really seal the deal for me. Davoni had made an excellent plan, which she had wisely chosen not to share with Adriana. (Adriana would have handed it to a spy, probably accidentally, before you could blink an eye.) Davoni was going to sacrifice the inactive Jenna for imprisonment, make sure Tiffany was saved, and get Allison investigated and exiled. Great plan! Unfortunately the spies were on their game but - worse than that - so was Jenna. She acted as Adriana's attack dog, making possible what I don't think Adriana could ever have done on her own at that point. Tiffany being imprisoned was inevitable - awbeit largely because of Adriana giving her away six ways from Sunday - but Jenna and Adriana together managed to get together a strong enough exile group to take out Davoni. With Davoni's group forced to trust Allison and target Lindsay instead, the best possible chance to take out all three spies in three consecutive rounds was lost then and there.

If Davoni had had her way that round, Allison would have been exiled. The citizens would then have had to look at who the last spy was - and how about the person who knew Allison was being investigated, supported her the entire round, and could have been responsible for Tiffany's imprisonment? How about Tyson? The cits would have been absolute idiots to not take him out the next round. And that's how a citizen victory in six rounds could've taken place then and there, with Adriana and Jenna both still in the game.

Now let's look at Adriana. This was her opening statement - who'd have thought she'd turn out evil?


A dark figure pops out of a bush and shrieks, "Surprise!" The voice is high-pitched, inhuman. It fills you with an immediate urge to run away: run! run as fast as you can.

You desperately try to run away, but trip over a dip in the sidewalk. Your knee makes a sickening cracking sound as it smashes on the pavement, but the sounds of arms scrambling to push your body back up again are worse.

The dark figure lazily stalks towards you; lazily, for it knows you're its prey. You quake with fear ---

--- Snaps out of it ---

Hi. I'm Adriana.


First of all, I've tried to understand the dichotomy between Adriana and Monica. Both were citizens given some kind of power, but they couldn't have used it any more differently. Monica was an excellent counteragent. I think she perhaps wasted one or two investigations - Frank and Gindi, in particular, were never going to be spies - but the main purpose of a counteragent IMO is to built a rock-solid anti-spy alliance. Monica did this very well. While I don't buy Gindi's description of her as a veritable Giupetto, I think she a lot of good things as a citizen. Contrary to Gindi's opinion, I don't really think she changed much in terms of what would have happened in the game - Gigi and Julian were on their way out anyway, and Soraya was by far the most responsible for Mercedes' exile - but Monica played a big part in helping to organise the cits and keep the alliance steady. That's important in a game like this.

She made mistakes, however. She suspected Soraya very strongly at the end. She suspected Sage very strongly at the beginning, and actually got him exiled. And this brings in some of the more negative aspects of DC as a citizen.

DC is an awesome spy. (Again, look at the "Spies" part of that, when I write it.) But she's not a great citizen - in fact she can do a helluva lot of damage. She's ruled by 70% emotion and 30% logic, but she doesn't know it. And one of her major failings is that she targets people who are strong - even if every bit of evidence suggests that they are citizens, not spies. Her case against Davoni had more holes in it than Swiss cheese - chief among them was, if the spies' first choice for the "recruit" was Tiffany, why in all of seven hells would they put Davoni in second place? Adriana justified it with some nonsense about the spies planning for the first "recruit" to refuse. Bullcrap! There were about a hundred reasons why Davoni couldn't possibly be a spy - about as many as there were for Sage - and she targeted them both because they were more influential in the game than she was. Never mind that both were targeting spies when they went, this wouldn't occur or matter to DC. If she'd been a citizen in Spies 3, she would undoubtedly have been one of those who ignored all the evidence that Anneliese was safe, and targeted her instead.

Adriana, of course, gave away both Tiffany and Jenna, divided the burg, targeted Davoni instead of Allison, and did about a hundred other things that contributed to the citizen's dismal failure until the very final round. The one thing she did right was to acquit Anna with a piece of excellent logical analysis about the voting - proving that DC can do this when she puts her mind to it. (As a spy, of course, I made sure that as few people heard this piece of reasoning as possible.)


So that's the worst of citizenhood. How can the citizens win the game?

To answer this, let me quote myself from Spies 1, just before Sage's exile:


Right now I don't think that the citizens can win this game. I think I've identified the only way that they possibly CAN do it - which is for a group of at least three who trust each other to band together and get votes against the spies, working together as the spies are, and covering for each other so that the spies don't know who the instigators are - and so are unable to get rid of them. It's also the only way to utilise the counteragent effectively - because that person, too, has to be trusted. If they tell you, and you believe them, you've got a huge weapon in the fight against the spies.

Of course, if you get a spy into your group, you're f--ked.

Right at the moment it seems as though people are going to continue voting together. This is slow suicide. The spies can blend in easily while the contestants, partly guided by them, keep taking each other out.

The other strategy would be for everybody to act totally individually, which would again be suicidal since the spies could simply band together for one or two votes and take out the ones closest to discovering them. Near the end it would become obvious who the spies are, in both cases - but by then it would probably be too late.

No one person can lead the group. If anybody shows obvious threat, the spies will imprison them - that's obvious enough. So it can't just be a case of a small group working overtly against the spies. EVERYTHING has to be covert, on both sides.


Note that although I didn't know it, I had an alliance with a counteragent in it from the very first episode - I joined Soraya immediately. Even though I was never part of the "lip gloss alliance", I was strongly tied to Marion, Soraya and Gindi when I was imprisoned. Note too that Monica, Soraya, Gindi, Marion, Sage and practically every influential citizen instinctively - or maybe deliberately? - followed this pattern. Almost nothing was posted in the burg.

The main elements are:

1) TRUST. You have to have an alliance of people who trust each other enough so that they can work and vote together. (And THAT'S why we lost Spies 3!)

2) SECRECY. YOU CANNOT POST VITAL INFORMATION IN THE BURG. I'm so convinced of this that I'll say it twice: POSTING INFORMATION IN THE BURG ONLY HELPS THE SPIES. IT WILL NEVER AND CAN NEVER HELP THE CITIZENS.


You HAVE to have a strong alliance, or network of alliances, in place; but you also HAVE to have the illusion of individuality. This is how Monica and Soraya survived in Spies 1. It's how Karl and Nicole survived so long in Spies 2.

Note that it's not enough for citizens to "vote together". If everyone agrees on a suspect, that suspect is a citizen. Sam pointed this out in Spies 3, and I agreed, but there was no alternative available because - thanks to the uselessness of the likes of Taylor and Jordan - we never had a strong citizen base to counter the spies' alliance. You don't have to be a great spy to manipulate the vote if there's no opposition - and there were at least four great spies in Spies 3.

Note also that "voting individually" doesn't help either. Matthew made the point that, apart from Carrie, he never voted with the majority because he didn't believe they were spies. Well, fine; but he wasn't exactly going all-out to convince the citizens to join him either. One vote doesn't make a blind bit of difference.


On the burg: in the Spies 3 forums I challenged everyone to come up with any specific piece of information that, if posted in the burg, would help the citizens. Nobody answered. But let's look at what has been posted:

- ROLES. So you have a great role that could really help the citizens. You've only told a couple of people. There might be a spy within those people - say Tenchi and Jessica know that you're the builder, perhaps? - but if you were to be imprisoned, it would point straight back to them, so it doesn't matter.

Then you go and post your role in the Burg. Whammo! All of a sudden you're in jail, you've gone directly to jail, and you didn't even get to collect £200 when you passed "go".

Nope, posting roles is plainly stupid.

- SUSPICIONS. Well one or two people DID post their suspicions - and immediately got ridiculed and suspected by spies and other citizens alike. See how well this works? Remember what happened to Arthur?

Suspicions should be shared among those who aren't suspected. Nobody else.

- EXILE SUGGESTIONS. Hmmmm... Jack posted an exile suggestion. The spies immediately went to work. Guess who was exiled next? Jack.

- EVERYTHING. In other words, do an Adriana. Divide the burg, make everyone incapable of cooperating, make it hugely obvious who has what role, and generally help the spies more than any other single citizen has ever done or is ever likely to do. I suppose you could always exile one of the strongest citizens in the entire game... that might work?

That's enough for now. Since Blake always leaves it fairly late to get online and meet the citizens, I'm going to do the same. See you at the opening chat!

Dear god why did you have to bring Spies 3 into this? Let that game be forever purged from my memory.

But it was a very good idea to look through the mistakes we made that game.

Sorry to lay into you like this, but you were never a threat to the spies, ever. You and Adriana was universally trusted, if not liked, and yet look what you did with that trust. We imprisoned Rashma before you (which was a strategic mistake, but only because of your role). You actually put less spies into the cards than a completely random choice would have done. You suspected Leo a great deal but you were completely inactive the round-and-a-half before he was exiled. You had nothing to do with Leo's exile (neither you nor Adriana voted for him, remember?) You never put Allison into the cards until the round before you were imprisoned. You never once put Tyson into the cards and your own suspect lists all have him near the bottom. The only time you ever suspected Tyson was before he even became a spy. Read your own confessionals.

Without any doubt at all, Nicole, Davoni and Tiffany were the leading lights in Leo's exile.

- You tried to exile Nicole.
- Adriana got Tiffany imprisoned by blurting out something that effectively revealed her role to the entire burg in an exile chat (there's a Mercedes moment for you if you like!)
-You did exile Davoni.

The only one who comes off with any credit at all in that debacle is Karl, who also he played a significant part in Leo's exile.

But more so than this, you and Adriana pretty-much single-handedly turned the cits against one another in a way that wasn't ever fixed until Karl and Rodney voted together in the very final round. If you hadn't done this, I still maintain that the cits could easily have won in six rounds. Tyson had made some HUGE mistakes and Allison was under a lot of suspicion. All you had to do was take Allison out, and then Tyson would have been dead meat the next round. Instead you turned on Davoni, one of the main instigators of Leo's exile. If you don't see what a HUGE blunder that was, I'm never going to convince you.


BTW, I don't say that you were the worst citizens, I say you were the worst ACTIVE citizens. An inactive is worse than any active citizen can ever be. (Although you went inactive for almost two episodes, remember?) But in three Spies games - even in Spies 3 - no citizen has ever consistently done more throughout their time in the game to undermine their own side than you and Adriana did in Spies 2.

And also BTW, this wasn't meant as a personal attack. For the record, if I wanted examples of the BEST citizens, Gindi and Monica would be near the top of my list. (I'm pretty sure that Summer would too, but we'll see what happens with the private game-related stuff for that one.) What I was looking for was people who'd done just about everything possible wrong for the best possible reasons. Rei, Bruce, Annie, Jack and others obviously counted there, but from my perspective, Jenna and Adriana were the worst.

But again - it wasn't meant to be personal, it's my own perception of how things turned out, and nobody else has to agree with it if they don't want to.


PS - Sorry for bringing up the past, Masaki and Kip.

The whole post is opinions, not just the bits about you. I'm not going to post "I think" before every sentence. And I must've read every confessional and convo twice over after the game was done. (Same with Spies 1 BTW.) I'm talking from my own opinion and the benefit of hindsight. That comes through in every sentence.

"Think before you say"? I worked on that analysis for AGES. And I'm just as negative on myself (the Reicheru bits) as I am on everybody else. Yes, I single out Jenna and Adriana, but again, there's a lot of very good reasons behind it that are backed up by evidence from all the confessionals and convos, including your own. There's nothing in it that's not thought through.

And once again, it wasn't meant to be personal - but if you're going to take it as such, I'd strongly advise you take a long close look at some of the things you did as Bev. Then ask yourself how easy it is to take things personally that weren't meant that way.

Actually I'm not going to disagree on Reicheru - especially when the Judith and Jakub exiles was concerned. That was killer. In Rei's defence, I did at least try to get Bebe and Tenchi out. And in both cases it wasn't my fault that I didn't succeed. But I do think Judith especially would've been a HUGE asset in getting spies like Bebe and Raphael out. I fucked up big-time in that one.

The other stuff - you're right, we're not going to agree, ever. So let's just drop it. People can read my thoughts, they can read yours, they can make up their own minds just like you did and I did.


DROPPING THE SUBJECT OF PAST HISTORY FOR A MOMENT: One of my major things in the losers' lounge was that the cits seemed intent on blaming the exiled citizens for their own exiles. It happened with me, it happened with Jeremiah, it happened with Ralph, it happened with Cain. (It also happened with Grace and Abrams, but that really was entirely their fault so I have no complaints there.) As far as I can recall this rarely, if ever, happened before Spies 4, but it seemed to happen constantly here. Nobody was taking any responsibility for screwing up, and they didn't seem to be learning anything about the spies as a result.

As a spy, do you think that happened a lot? Or was it just that we were only getting part of the story because we only had access to the Burg, and not the AIM stuff? Did some people shoot themselves in the foot by not looking more closely at the exiles that had gone wrong?

That's a matter of opinion (except the parting words from Sam bit). Opinions can't be true or untrue. I think your intentions were good; and I would NEVER say that any active citizen could be worse than any inactive one. (I reserve a special place in hell, with whips and chains and lawyers and everything, for the inactives.) But like I said in my previous post, we're never going to agree on this. Dismiss me as a judgemental SOB if you like. I don't mind that, I am. And I wouldn't mind one bit if you did say Reicheru was the worst citizen in Spies 3, I know how many mistakes I made that game.

But I'd still like your opinion - which, despite my harsh words on Bev and Jenna, I value - on the question I put in my last post. Did the cits shoot themselves in the feet by blaming citizen exiles on the exiled citizens? Or was this just something that occasionally appeared in the burg and there was a lot more going on than we (in the LL, without access to AIM chat logs etc) saw?

Judith-san too.

WHat? All this talk of Davoni and I haven't seen a single person say what must be said yet... So I'll take care of it myself:

BITCH!

Really I didn't mind Davoni after a while, we eventually began talking and working together, but... it's tradition, and also a sacred law that must never be broken... If the name Davoni is heard, then shouting bitch is a must

My turn.

Davoni
Davoni
Davoni
Davoni
Davoni

Dabitchi*

Did someone say Davoni?

BITCH!

I swear, when I saw the Davoni critique, BITCH popped right into my head.

And then I became BFFs with Trina ... god, this game is so weird sometimes.

My blood's boiling.

SOME LOVE FOR THE DAVONI PLEASE! She tried to save your ass. (OK, she tried to get Jenna sacrified instead, but even so...)