Duking 101
 

OK, so I think we need some serious discussion about the proper way to use the duking ability. I have said it a million times. I think it is a bonehead move to use a duking for the sake of using it. The odds of hitting a villager are so much higher it is a colossally poor play.

If you are on the block that is one thing, but if not why use it? You waste a day of voting records, potentially hit a villager at best and a rolled villager at worst. Yes, you may hit a wolf, but the results don't necessarily justify the play.

In a game with 14 people there are probably 3 wolves, so you have 10 shots at killing a villager. Isn't it best to just let the game play out for the time being?

Probably shouldn't be used to Day 3 at the earliest so at least then you have voting records and hopefully a lot of commentary in the thread by the intended duke victim. Plus the wolves have weeded out a couple villagers by then giving you a better chance to hit a wolf.

But yeah shouldn't be used just to be used. If you can somehow keep it alive to the late game it could be devastating to the wolves

did you get early-duked?

Yet again. For no reason. After I had cleared myself.

My orders were in before you cleared yourself.

Although I will say that in EF's game, where the teams are in competition the worst case was hitting a villager from a rival team. Yeah, I could've hit the seer but odds were much better that I would hit a wolf than seer. Normal game, I probably hold that another couple of days.

As a wolf, I totally supported this move. However, as a villager it would have driven me crazy.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Why do dukes keep using their ability on someone not in the vote at all (and could have an important role they they had no chance to reveal) as opposed to someone who was competing for the vote and can give out valuable info.

Because I was completely absent from the thread from 5 pm onwards and had no idea I'd actually be in the running, it was just a qualifying order, I had a family dinner last until well after 11.

That's more understandable then, guess it was just a bad break

I am honestly contemplating if the duke role is an advantage to the village or not.

Yes it gives a cleared villager, who is now vanilla, but I'm not sure the nature of it are helpful. Not only do you lose a days voting history, but you often take out an important role, and that person who gets taken out has no chance to reveal or defend themselves.

I think the best way to play it is if you look like you are going down reveal and say who you are going to duke, give that person a chance to step up and defend themselves.

Not sure of the best way, but I am pretty sure the best way is NOT putting in a blind call halfway through Day One on some arbitrary player in the game when you know you're not going to be around after that.

Well, at least he used it to save himself. The real problem with the Duke role is when people use it to save an uncleared player for some reason, and in doing so duke the vote to another villager. That always makes me nuts.

Well, I've always wondered what good the Duke is supposed to be, in the best of circumstances, really. The only time that power is truly useful is if you somehow knew who a wolf was, but they were not on the chopping block. But that doesn't really happen in games. So the duke is essentially just a villager with a day kill, which almost never works out well (except in that 24 game, grr). It's nice to have a verifiable power, but it's a pretty hard one to use in a way that is of any benefit. The only time to really use it safely is if you're in a tight enough lynch race with someone else that's close enough that you would expect the other person to have revealed if they had a role.

Probably the best way to use a duke role is to reveal if it you're on the chopping block. I know Jackal wasn't around, and that's why he didn't, but let's say he had. Then we vote someone else, the bodyguard can guard the Duke and we get a trusted villager. If it's a fake reveal the Duke is definitely worth trading for a revealed wolf, so it's a win-win.

It wasn't arbirtary, I put it on the only person I knew was voting for me. It would've been a worse play to let myself get lynched with no order in. Then you'd be yelling at me for a different reason. What if it ended up being a wolf?

And yeah Autumn, if I had been around I certainly would have revealed in the hours leading up to the lynch. Sorry for ending your game early only because you voted for me. I probably shouldn't have played in this game but I wanted to. And I'll likely be dead by tomorrow anyways so my work schedule/family schedule won't matter.

No, I wouldn't. It's Day One, and when you left, you weren't a serious candidate (no one was). No one would have blamed you for not being around to save yourself and would have recognized that to throw out a shot in the dark with no good information (sorry, a Day One vote on you doesn't count as reason to duke) would have been foolhardy. It would have been unfortunate that your schedule worked out that you could not be there at the deadline and that a run developed on you after that fact, but no one would have blamed you for it going down that way.

You pretty much chose the worst possible way to handle things, IMO. Sorry, Jackal, just the way I see it. We all make mistakes like these; I have. So this is your turn. Bad move, dude. Don't try to defend it; just acknowledge the mistake and play it better next time.

No problem, Jackal. Nobody's required to be around at deadline. The time I was duke I was around at deadline and made a really bad move, so I'm not going to chew you out.

Sorry CR, I'm going to disagree with you. I'm not saying what I did was a good move, it wasn't - but I still think it is the right play for the Duke to have a deadline order in if they are the lynch target. Hitting a roled villager/wolf in this game had the same percentage, and VV was the likeliest outcome. To throw away a roled villager when you can put in a order to avoid such is foolish.

And you say "no one would have blamed me". I disagree wholeheartedly. I have seen it several if not many times in the past when a duke or similar role forgets to put in an order that could've saved themselves and they are called out on it. You are welcome to your opinion on my play, but I'm going to defend the call.

I'd side with Jackal on this one - though I would agree that the Duke itself is not necessarily some great villager role

Yeah, I think you would've been called to the carpet for not duking it. Unfortunate choice sure, but it's also day 1.

I have come to think, in my errors and by looking back on my first two games when I duked well, that the duke needs to:

A- Unless there has been some sort of reveal by the other leading vote-getter, use the power to duke it to them

and

B- Continue to fight for their life like they had any other role. The longer the duke can hold out, the more beneficial a weapon he is. I think, and I know I did this the one game, our dukes aren't necessarily disappointed by getting lynched because it clears them and gives them a shot at using their power.

Those are the two rules I'll live by as a duke from now on.

Well, those and always duke it to Lathum because eventually I'll be right. :p

And normally that is exactly how I would play the Duke, PB, I just had an unfortunate schedule yesterday and ended up being the day 1 target, happens.

I had the best duke play ever. ;)

I know, and I don't fault you for that and frankly, I don't fault you for a bad day 1 duke because we know nothing about anyone. You hit a wolf, you're a genius, you hit a vanilla villager it's no real loss, you hit a roled villager, you're a goat.

I guess I am in the minority then, but in my book, it was a pheonomenally awful move. And not because of how it worked out yesterday--it was bad no matter what happened. If the best possible results came out, it wasn't a good call, it was just good luck.

The Jackal wasn't a lynch candidate at that time, no more than anyone else. If The Jackal was a lynch candidate, then his mistake wasn't the order, but not revealing before he left.

You don't blindly fire a loaded shotgun into a room of people and hope you hit a bad guy. And if people have been ripping into past dukes because they withheld their power when they weren't around at all to properly judge how to use it early on in a game with virtually no information, than I am playing with a bunch of dumbasses (and I don't think I am).

I did that just last week.

Bagged myself a car thief.

I'm actually with Jackal on this one, but would prefer to leave detailed conversation on it until the post game. Anything said up to that point could be construed as having some kind of ulterior motives and I would rather not have this thread potentially influencing the other one.

I'm with Jackal as well. The goal is to stay alive and in a normal games the numbers work in his favor to do a random duking. It's like going home with an immunity idol in your pocket, it should never happen.

Now duking when you are not on the block is a total no no, but I have no problem with him putting in a conditional order.

I think that the Duke should absolutely use it on Day 1. Hitting a villager is unfortunate, but just as likely without the duke using the ability. However, by Duking the village suddenly has a trusted player right off the bat. And there is little incentive to kill him by the wolves since:
A. The BG might be protecting him
B. Much better to try and kill the seer

Normally after a D1 the village has little actionable information. With a duking that becomes not true.

Well, I disagree on a few points technically. I think we only get actionable information out of it, really, if the duke dukes to the other lead vote getter. And again, I think you get all the positives you mention above by simply revealing as the duke. There's no chance the wolves counter reveal day one as duke, really. And so you've got the CoT of the duke, the chance that he's being guarded, and you don't have to kill a random person to get it.

There's obviously pros and cons to using the Duke power on day 1, so I guess I can't really blame anybody for trying it. For me, the chance of taking out an information-gathering role on day 1 with it makes it an instant no-no to use it on day 1. The benefits of getting a cleared player who now is just a villager with no powers to potentially taking out somebody like a seer is just not worth it to me. Now that I've said that, watch me get the Duke next game and have to make that decision, lol.

So why you might disagree with when and how someone uses the duke power, comments like Chief Rum's "pheonomenally awful move" are comments that make me want to play this game less. Say you disagree with it and move on.

I would chalk that comment up to the fact we have all played together for so long and a comment like that won't throw someone out of joint.

I think there is a certain level of comfort here that allows us to be brutaly honest with each other.

It's like in real life, I will be brutally honest with Saldana about stuff, but my new lab partner I met last week not so much.

Naw, forget it. It just ain't worth it.

I agree that a counter reveal as a Duke is unlikely, because then the Duke would just, you know, duke the other person.

But I actually think a duking is a higher % play than random voting, because the wolves can't sway a duking away from a wolf as easily as a vote.

I just noticed this thread. I'm not going to read it.

I'm going to say one thing to Lathum (assuming he's saying what I think he will*): WW isn't just analysis and logic. Intuition also plays a big part. Some of us have it, and others don't.

Just let people play without publicly roughing them up, and be happy. :)



*(If I assumed wrong, I'm sorry)

This thread is actually more about the discussion of the most poorly played role in the game than about venting.

Even if you have a feeling someone D1 is a wolf duking to them is a poor move for a few reasons. You could be wrong but also you are taking away voting history that can implicate other people down the road.

The better move is to try and get others to vote for that person based on your read and see how people react to your attempts. You will get much better info than just blindly duking to an unsuspecting player at the deadline.

Never been the duke but I figure when I am I will go with a strategy of duking to the first player to sign up. Being so anxious to get into the game means they must be a wolf...

:eek:

:devil:

Oh man, it's like you've managed to combine all of Lathum's pet peeves into one ;-)

And mine.

ban