The most important thing to bear in mind with these games is that they are all about the numbers.
I always make sure that I have at LEAST two F3 alliances with 4 unique players before the game even starts. Controlling 5/15 votes from the start is a huge reduction of risk.
Ideally, I would like to control 8/15 of the votes from Day 1, but this isn't always possible. The key to staying alive in this game is to either control the majority outright, or, if that is not possible, make sure the majority is splintered at least into two distinct groups.
Everyone is paranoid at the beginning, so if you are in control of only 5/15 votes, planting some extra paranoia between two players outside your alliance is usually enough to ensure that the first few eliminations are outside your core group.
If you are the lynchpin between two unique and disconnected F3 alliances, controlling 5 votes, and playing at least 2 of the remaining 10 players against one another, the odds are heavily stacked that you'll find yourself controlling 5/13 votes or better. If you guess correctly, and the two players you pick to manipulate initially are in separate alliances of their own, it's quite likely you can spark a mini-war that will narrow the field to 10 or fewer without ever touching yourself or a single one of your allies.
If you find yourself at 9 with control of 5 votes, you can pretty much buckle up to sail to the finals. If you want to shake things up and eliminate one or more players from your own alliance, plan these moves for the 9, 7, or 5 slots, as you can easily make these votes come out as 5-4, 4-3, or 3-2, making it far less likely that you will be suspected as a betrayer.
At the end of the day, if you've arrived at 9 with control of a majority of votes, either through sabotage or through artful diplomacy and forming multiple alliances, the game becomes heavily stacked in your favor. From that point on, all you need to do is keep the rest of the votes from talking to each other, eliminate votes you can't trust, and block the possibility of a majority building against you. If you can do all of that, there's no reason you shouldn't expect to make final 3 each and every time you play.
If you can keep the numbers in mind, and play to them, you will win games.
Well I just finished my 6th game of fasting, and I think I may have just played my first winning game. The results won't be in for 12 hours, but I feel like I covered my bases on most of the facets of the game.
I continued to refine my strategy of having two Final 3 alliances with one key player included in both with me. In this particular game, though, my double-ally had to leave the game at the 9 slot, and I was worried that I was going to lose control of my two alliances, but both of my alliances seemed to respect my strategic gameplay and listened to my suggestions. I was able to control every eviction from start to finish.
This game, I added two more pocket votes, by making a third final 3 alliance who I didn't strategize with, I just told them who to nom and who to vote for. They cooperated for the most part, and it was easy to burn them both between 8th place and 6th place. When I got to the final 5, I was in control of every vote left in the game, and I was free to choose between which final 3 alliance I wanted to take with me to the end.
I really appreciate alliances that demonstrate trustworthiness. When my secret double-ally left the game at the 9 slot, the other two in one of my F3 alliances seemed very upset to lose her and even wanted to bring her inactive into our final 4. At that point, I knew that they were extremely trustworthy, and decided that they were going to be my final 3 no matter what. There's another good lesson there: if you demonstrate extraordinary loyalty to your alliance, your alliance will demonstrate extraordinary loyalty to you.
The reason I suspect I may have won this game is that I was never nominated, and I won a POV for the first time ever. I was more active in the public chat than I've ever been before, and it paid off. I wound up with the POV at the crucial 5 slot, and was free to make my choice from there of who to take with me to the end.
I just had an interesting experience, where myself and another player were both in two alliances of 5. We reached out to one another and agreed that, if we worked together, we could play these two alliances against one another, cover each others' butts, and sail through to the finals. We were working together very well for the first half of the game, and since we were controlling almost all of the votes in the game, every eviction went the way we planned it to go.
But, my ally got scared when, with 8 people left, one alliance swelled to 6 (including us) and the other was still only 5 (also including us). He targeted a player that I had planned to take to my Final 3, and, without my knowledge or permission, had that player evicted. At that point, the trust between us was broken, and I couldn't have him exposing me for being in both alliances, so I had to take him out.
I was still able to navigate my way to the final 3 after losing him, though, due to a little luck and a solid final 3 alliance that didn't betray me, but my game would have functioned much smoother if that main ally of mine had just stuck to our plan. That's a good lesson for this game, you have to trust your allies, but you can't trust them ALL the way. Everybody is playing their own game, and if you really want to predict what a player will do, ask yourself what you would do in their shoes.
I'm new to tengaged, and have so far completed three games. I finished in 7th place in both of my first two fast casting games, due to my own sloppy strategic gameplay that ended with me on the wrong side of the numbers.
The 7th place boot is, to me, the most important boot of the game. I play from the outset to keep four votes on my side at the 7 slot, but ideally I would like to have 5, meaning two unique final 3 alliances with one outsider to burn.
I prefer to play a loyal game with small flexible alliances. If I can line up two final 3 alliances with 4 unique players, I haven't yet failed to navigate my way to that crucial 7th slot.
In my first game, I was recruited into an aggressive alliance of 5 that was run by a very aggressive strategic player. In that scenario, I should have been saving my move for the 5 slot, but I acted too quickly. I was intimidated by the aggressive leader of our alliance, even though she had promised me a final 3 slot before bringing in the additional 2. I still don't know for certain if she would have taken me to the end or not, but I suspected that she was not going to. I attempted to orchestrate a coup at 7 to flip the numbers on her and get her evicted, but others in my alliance were more loyal to her than to me and told her my plan. She acted quickly to evict me.
That's a valuable lesson: it's not smart to be too aggressive. Lay low, keep your numbers, and execute your moves only when the time is right.
I just finished my third game, and stuck with my original final 3 alliance the entire way. As time goes on, and I prove myself to be a loyal ally, I hope that players I've played with in the past will recognize me and begin to seek me out as a reliable and honest vote.
I haven't mastered how to play to the algorithm yet, but for now I'm content to get to as many final 3 endings as possible while I work on the other facets of my game. For example, I have very little public chat presence because I am always discussing strategy with my alliance in private. This hurts my chances of winning POV or pulling out a win because I usually finish games without any upvotes. I do take time to upvote posts by key members of my alliance, though, because giving them POV benefits me and my game, while allowing me to continue to focus my attention on strategizing in private.
On the other hand, I have been very successful at keeping nominations from coming my way. I finished my last game with only 5 total nominations--two of which came at final 4 where there just wasn't anywhere else to put a vote. If I can continue to keep heat off of me, I stand a good chance of making it deep into games. Flexibility is key to success.
