WW XCII Athens -- Destroyed by Wolves!
 

This is the thread for everyone in Athens.

Athens
------
Abe Sargent
Lathum
hoopsguy
MartinD
TheNorm
PurdueBrad

Here! :)

Lol All

Hey everyone!

This is an interesting group.

Yes. Some vets, some rookies, some big talkers, some UTR candidates.

It looks like Pass is forcing me to keep my promise of not voting for PB on day one. :D

Hi all.

Hi everyone

Glad Lathum is over here so we can vote for him. ;)

Okay, I'm not sure if this should be asked here or in the chatter thread, but since Pass made the point to keep talk there non-game-related, I'll ask here.

1. Do the wolves in the same city have PM rights? (I would assume yes)
2. Do the wolves in different cities have PM rights (across city boundaries)?
3. If the answer to #2 is no, do the wolves know who the wolves are in the other city?
4. Who are the wolves?
5. Do the wolves' PM rights they have here last into Hades? Or does a new PM group of wolves start there as they move there?
6. Can the wolves vote to kill someone in Hades if they don't have any wolves there? Or not until they have someone there? I am guessing the latter, from what was in the rules, but it was vague enough for me to not be sure.
7. Confirm or deny: the game ends when two cities are irretrievably in the hands of either the wolves or the villagers, right?
8. Are there any roles not listed in the rules? Are all the roles listed in the rules in the game?
9. Does anyone start in Hades?

Bummed I can't post some mad pic of Gerard Butler screaming "THIS IS SPARTA!"

I guess I'll settle for being a part of the hub of Western civilization. ;)

I'm still annoyed to be an Athenian, but hello fellow non-Spartans. :)

Damn CR

Well, sheesh, we might as well ask these questions now, right? ;)

1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. N/A
4. The wolves are the bad guys.
5. All wolves can PM each other no matter where they are.
6. By 'vote to kill someone' do you mean lynch or night-kill? Either way, the answer is no -- you can only do stuff in cities where you are.
7. Right.
8. No. Yes.
9. No. You get to Hades by dying on Earth, and no one has done that yet.

Morning, all. It is a beautiful day to be an Athenian. Death to Sparta.

I'll be ready to play full-bore this evening. Today I must safeguard the youth of Athens (my daughter) by returning her to her rightful home. We have journeyed far to visit our ancestors but will return by nightfall (Minneapolis to Chicago, 6+ hours in car with a two year old should be pretty awesome).

Hoops, I'm sure you know this already, but Tomah's a decent stop in between there. I do the Eau Claire to Madison haul quite frequently (family in Eau Claire), so 94 is like an old friend to me.

A few more questions for Pass...

1) If a wolf dies here are they revealed as a wolf?
2) Is CR a wolf?
3) Do the wolves get one night kill overall? Do the wolves get one kill per city?
4) Do roled players in one city lose their role when going to Hades?
5) Is Lathum a wolf?
6) What is the square root of 287?
7) I am running out of questions.... how are you?

1. Yes, with one exception.
2. That depends on whether or not he's one of the bad guys.
3. No. Wolves get one kill per city where they exist. I'll let you in on a little secret -- right now there are wolves in both Athens and Sparta, and none in Hades. So the wolves can make one kill in Athens, one in Sparta, and none in Hades.
4. No.
5. That depends on whether or not he's one of the bad guys.
6. I don't have enough space in this message for all the digits of that number, but I'll approximate. 17 squared is 289, so the square root of 287 has to be a little less than 17. 16 squared is 256. So somewhere around 16 31/33 roughly.
7. Good.

So Lathum is a wolf if he is one of the bad guys. He is a Mets fan which is by definition one of the bad guys so the next logical step in this sequence...

vote Lathum

I was worried about handing Hades to the wolves; as they could control that city if wolves got lynched on day one and if they only had one kill overall per day. Since they could have multiple kills coming in fromother cities it may eliminate that worry.

I am a little concerned that the wolves could potentially control the game through the use of Hades if they do put a wolf in there early. Of course this may be me posting a thought before I think it all the way through since I have a habit of doing that.

I am concerned that the wolves can communicate wherever they are. That is a huge advantage. That means, not only do they know how things are going on each city, they know reveals (both by game and by individuals), and can put together a master plan for all three cities, where we can't do the same with other city's villagers. It's an immense disadvantage, one I'm not sure I have seen as large in a WW game. So I hope we have enough advantages to counteract that.

Here's my early take: ;)

Abe Sargent - haven't played with enough to get a read on him in a game, my early guess is that he's a wolf (based on nothing but gut)
EagleFan - villager
USFLTecmo - My early guess is that he's a villager
Lathum - always screams wolf but I think he's a villager this game
hoopsguy - wolf, just has to be (that's my story and I'm sticking to it)
MartinD - Just guessing villager
Schmidty - He had his wolf run, probably a villager
Chief Rum - Hope he's a villager, has a good knack at coming out of nowhere with a good read on things
TheNorm - Your guess is as good as mine.


I guess based on that it's Abe and hoops we need to keep an eye on. Always keep an eye on Lathum though.

Then again, it seems like I am always a wolf (not so much lately though) so I would suspect me if I were you. I'm not, but you should suspect me anyway.

This kind of takes the politcal one to the next step with no common thread for all.

There is the possibility of the wolves getting near-unbreakable control of Hades early on (e.g. if two wolves are lynched on the first day, the wolves would be able to kill off one villager at night, then have a majority of the votes for the daytime lynch). Of course, this would mean that there would be two wolves less between Athens and Sparta, so the villagers would have a better chance of coming out on top in the two 'main' cities.

It will be interesting to see how this works out - as CR says, the wolves, being able to communicate irrespective of where they are, have a big advantage over the villagers, who will be kept in the dark about a lot of what's going on...

I assume the smiley means this is a joke, right?

By my count, we have heard from everyone but Lathum (who I expewct will be along shortly).

Anyone have any ideas how we want to approach the whole Ethor thing? Should we all just keep mum and just vote in private? Or should we discuss our choices here?

My PM didn't include anything on voting for the Ethor, so I assume we're relying on what Pass said in the rules, and that we have to PM him a vote for the position by the end of Day 1.

Another question for Pass:

Are the double roles (roles with two entities in the game, Hoplites, Marathon Runners, Historians) split between the two main cities at the start? Meaning one Hoplite, Marathon Runner and Historian per city (not counting Hades)?

Ethor is set up to be that way, and the Phoenix's start that way, but it isn't stated in the others. I would guess that is the case.

Assuming the answer to my question above is correct, we can probably make some reasonable assumptions about who we have in the village.

We will have an Ethor: whoever is voted, this could end up on a player already rol, and could end up on a wolf.

We will have a Historian: this role will always come up villager, and we will have one. This role may be good or evil. I find it unlikely that the evil Historian will be in the same village as the Evil Hoplite (although not mutually exclusive).

We will have a Hoplite: this role is either a villager or a wolf, so if the Hoplite in Sparta is a villager, we know the one here is a wolf (and vice versa), information that will probably only help us in Hades. Seems likely to have the opposite role of the Historian in the village (although not mutually exclusive).

We will have a Marathon Runner: this role is either a villager or a wolf, so same thing as the Hoplite. I would also guess that an evil Hoplite means a good Marathon Runner, for balance purposes (and vice versa). But once again, for all we know, Pass has determined placement by random.

The Phoenix are tricky. Seems to be a randomly determined role, so it could be good or evil. These could be a powerful tools for good, as they're the only way for the village to get information from Hades back to the cities. Which sets up the juxtaposition in Hades that the wolves will try to keep enemy Phoenix alive, rather than kill them, while we would want to send them on their way once they have useful information to send back to the cities.

But the Phoenix has a chance to fall on a wolf, which would almost game un-balancing bad. I have no idea if Pass would actually allow that in setting up his game, but his rules indicates he would. So that's troubling.

New question for Pass (and this also assumes that each role has one in each city, my last question before):

Is the placement of good/evil versions of roles related to one another? In other words, is there a pre-defined pattern that says that the Evil Hoplite shares his city with the Good Historian and the Good Marathon Runner at the start, for instance? Or did you determine this completely at random (so all the evil roles could theoretically land in one city)?

That's my interpretation - is up to each individual to send Pass a PM with their Ethor vote.

If there are people out there that want to get involved in fancy politicking to try to win votes, that's up to them. I'm probably going to keep my own counsel on this - will leave the discussion to those people who are wiser and more knowledgeable about the game (and hopefully pick up a few hints and tips as the game progresses... ;) )

A thought - don't see this in the rules anywhere, but I assume that the result of the Ethor vote will also be private? (In other words, the only people who know the result will be the person with most votes and Pass - until they use their ability to change the vote, that is...)

Okay, we know all the roles are in the game (or will be, once the Ethors are voted for), so we know for sure that we have an Evil Historian (villager, can't communicate with the wolves) in the game, an evil seer who wins with the wolves. The good news about him is the lack of communication outside of the city thread (and lack of ability to go into the other threads to communicate publically).

We also know for sure we have an Evil Hoplite in the game, and an evil Marathon Runner.

We have 19 total players, 9 here in Athens, 10 in Sparta. Since the Evil Historian is a sorta wolf, I can't see there being more than 4 actual wolves in addition to the EHist in the game. I am going to assume for now that we have a worst case scenario and that there are four full wolves in the game. So there is one roled evil villager, two roled wolves and two unroled wolves, not counting the random possibility of the Phoenix or the election results of the Ethors.

If Pass balanced the wolves, we will have two wolves among us nine, with the possibility of the EHist also being among us. We know for sure there is at least one wolf vote in each city, so best case scenario there has one wolf and eight villagers here, but I find that extremely unlikely.

Good question, I am not sure. Pass?

Here.

I need to read the rules and in my current hung over state that is going to be difficult.

Each city has its own Ephor, Marathon Runner, and Phoenix. Historians and Hoplites can end up anywhere.

Nothing quite so advanced -- I just made sure each city had its own Marathon Runner and Phoenix, and that the wolves were balanced between cities (same number of wolves in each city if the number of wolves is even, and one apart if the number of wolves is odd), and that's it.

Oh, sorry if this is repetitive, I just want to be sure. So two Historians can end up in one city, and two Hoplites in one city. Or even all four in one city?

That's correct.

Cool deal.

So it's possible for all the evil versions of roles to end up in the same city. Which will be pretty funny if the Evil Historian is in the same city as the Evil Hoplite (and they won't know it).

And so, if we assume four actual wolves, that means we have at least two wolves here. Only way to have one is if we back away from the four wolves concept and go with three. Does anyone see support for that? I suppose it's not out of the question to have three wolves and the EHist in a game of 19 players, especially with the advantages given to the wolves in this game. I would still prefer to go with the worst case scenario, though.

Correct.

You know, is there any role in this game (without corroborating information) that can reveal and be assumed to be that role, even if no one else speaks up? I think not.

I am almost thinking if anyone reveals in the cities, we're better off sending them to Hades. If they're bad, good riddance. If they're good, they'll still help in Hades.

The rules change in Hades, of course, where if you die (and you're not a Pheonix), you die. But here in Athens, we're not going to be certain of anything for a while, even with reveals.

I am announcing for the record that my early vote went to The Norm. Although obviously I'd like to be the ephor, since I am the only person I know to be a villager, I can;t vote for myself, so I went with a newer player to make sure he gets a fun role in his first game.

I know with one night kill this is definitely the case. With one in each city there could be the following:

Lucky results put 2 wolves in Hades day one: 2 W 0 V
A night kill in each city day one: 2 W 2 V

Worst case scenerio of a villager lynch in Hades day 2 makes it W 2 V 1.
Two villager lynches in the cities day 2 makes it W 2 V3.
Night kill in Hades day 2 makes it W2 V2.
Night kills in the other cities make it W2 V4 and the advantage is nullified.


That is why I was worried about there bing just one overall night kill as then it would be easy for the wolves to maintain Hades as slam dunk.

That depends.... you tell me...

Silly question, but I didn't see it set out. Is this a one or two deadline game? Meaning, 24 hour or day-night?

And what will be the time difference between day and night if the latter?

24 hour.

OK, back in Athens (Chicago) and ready to start digging into the rules. Based on the posts up to this point it seems like at least Chief Rum is a step ahead of me on this.

Initial thought - I think the Ephor discussion should happen publicly, at least in narrowing down a list of candidates. If we all go on a blind draw that means that the wolves can get a leg up on voting for a candidate and then control the duke. If we have public candidates we can see who proclaims their backing of the candidates initially as well as what reasons they give for their candidate.

I know that the Ethor will not be publically revealed until using their power, which means identifying candidates in the thread may put some kind of a bullseye on them. But the wolf post-game discussion in the last game suggests that several (many?) players question the value of targeting the duke even when it is a "cleared" villager. I do not think that the bullseye is all that big, when taken in this context.

The chariot ride was surprisingly uneventful. The youth of Athens was content to sleep for the majority of the ride and was exceedingly well mannered the rest of the time. At times like this I feel like the future of our city is in good hands.