villager/wolf ratio?

[hoopsguy]

Figured that I would stop thread-jacking another thread and start a new topic to explore this. Would love feedback from others as well on what they use as a rule of thumb or makes sense to them as players.

Chief had suggested a standard 6:1 ratio with 5:1 being the low end.

I had said that in a game with a lot of unique villager roles that I could see 4:1 - 5:1 being the range.

So, I figured I would check what I had run for my games in the past just as a litmus test.

Marvel 2: 31 players, 23 villagers, 5 wolves, 3 independents. Wolves win, due largely to faulty COT.

I would say that this is 23:5 or a 4.6:1 ratio, although the use of independents can swing that ratio one way or the other depending on what their conditions are and how they play. In general, independent players tend to tilt towards villager unless victory conditions are very anti-villager. I wish villagers had gotten more info from their intel powers, they were largely neglected.

Marvel 1: 25 players, 20 villagers, 5 wolves. Wolves win, again able to create trust.

4:1 ratio, villagers really struggled to collect info from their intel roles, partly due to poor construction of "The Twelve", a one-time game construct that was basically a bad guy blind target list.

Necromancer: 23 players, 16 villagers, 6 wolves, 1 independent. Independent win.

This was a weird one for ratio as wolves could not communicate at start of game, had to find each other and failed miserably. I would love to see how this game would replay with same ruleset, maybe without the independent just to see how the wolves would approach kill/seek options this time around.

Chuck Norris: 21 players (really 20), 16 villagers, 4 wolves, 1 independent. Villager win, independent did not come into play.

4:1 ratio, but the woles were set down by some tough random.org rolls back when I had that take on a much larger role in my games.


So, I've never gone as high as 5:1 on my ratios, but the villagers might suggest I do so to give them a little better shot :)

[Chief Rum]

I think you might be right that 6:1 might be pushing it, at least outside of a vanilla game. But I do think 5:1 is a good shot at the limit. Obviously, complicated roles/games make things a lot harder to pin down.

But the way I do it (and it has largely worked in my last three games) is I start with the concept of a 5 to 6: 1 ratio from a vanilla villager game. Then I add up the differences in my game from a vanilla villager and try to rate their impact, either for wolves or for villagers. Basically, I would rate something along the lines of Strongly Wolf, Slightly Wolf, No Net Effect, Slightly Villager, Strongly Villager and then I compare the lists. I ask myself, are my changes inherently Wolfishor Villagerish or in the middle? And then I adjust accordingly. If the wolves have tremendous advantages, I might go with 6:1 or even slightly higher. If the villagers have the advantage, I'll add a wolf. Or if I don't think the differences require wholesale additions of wolves or villagers, I'll subtract one of my changes on one balance side, or maybe add something to the other.

[EagleFan]

I've run 2 games so far:

Charmed
11 players
8 village
2 wolf
1 convert (wins based on team he ends game on)

Village wins, no conversion. 9:2 ratio based on no conversion.

Office Space
18 players
13 village
4 wolf
1 convert (wins based on team he ends game on)

Wolves win, conversion. 13:5 ratio based on conversion, had some items which could help the village in that game, actually some moments which were close to swinging the game to the villagers favor.

[Barkeep49]

I think 5:1, players to wolves, rounding to the wolves is a good ratio actually and is what I normally use as a starting point.

[Alan T]

It is hard to put a ratio on a game for me when I run a more complex game. I actually originally took an idea from BGG forums on how to balance the game based on player numbers and powers available moreso than just the numbers. That is how I ended up balancing both Tombstone and the Big City, where instead of adding more wolves, I added villager roles that could end up being harmful or counter-productive as a negative.

It seems to me that the larger the game gets, the more impact a strong wolf to villager ratio could have since the wolves are able to work together at the start and the villagers can not. So a 4:1 ratio in a game with 8 villagers and 2 wolves probably would be much more even then a 4:1 ratio in a game with 20 villagers and 5 wolves in my opinion.

[Autumn]

I think I had read elsewhere on a link to start at 6:1 assuming there are no roles at all. For each strong villager role you would add a wolf (seer, bodyguard). Middling villager roles (Duke for instance) would not quite be worth a wolf. Same with cunning and brutal, etc., in the other direction.