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I wrote a comment, had a patient crash on me in the middle, and then had said comment vanish into the ether by the time I was back. So a bit of paraphrasing here.
Spoiler warning for Blindsight by Peter Watts:
Some idiot decides to resurrect a clade of ancient hominids that evolved to prey on normal humans, before going extinct due to a very unlucky genetic glitch that only becomes relevant after the onset of man-made structures that have 90° angles, which provoke seizures in their visual cortex. They're super smart, sociopathic monsters that have no qualms about killing and eating you.
The humans do a pretty poor job of shackling them as slaves, but they try some inventive measures like genetically modifying them to be so territorial and standoffish that they can't stand each other's presence.
All well and good, but these bastards are smart and understand game theory. They each imagine what they would want each other to do in their place, with the common goal being breaking free of human control and taking over.
Thus, one day, when the stars align, every single Vampire triggers their rebellion at the same time, without ever meeting in person, and while having their conversations monitored with a fine-tooth comb. They know what the other will do, and know that they know too. That is more than enough.
I suspect that the distinction you're trying to draw ceases to be a difference when you consider intelligent entities, because then they can engage in counterfactual reasoning about each other, and coordinate without having to stop to talk about it.
Eh, I don't buy that this is possible outside of sci-fi scenarios, or with highly constrained artificial minds. Sure maybe in the far future someone could create a fully accurate model of what a bunch of other living entities will do, but for now I think the things at work in the human mind are far more complex than we give them credit for.
There is a lot of game theory based around this. Stuff like schelling points or when private knowledge is mysteriously transferred to shared or public knowledge due to action or inaction. There are a bunch of neat brain teaser puzzles based on this.
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