Werewolf LXXII: Chess (Checkmate!)

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by RendeR

As I recall Pass said that you will see whatever you can see 'AFTER" you move. So tostart the game you start blind and must move to gain information.

Sort of. I just said I wasn't going to give out that information for "Night Zero" because I provided a link of how the Chess Board looks when a game starts. I also put it in code somewhere on the second page. Since you know what spot you're in, you know what's around you.

[Narcizo]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

So how does "line of sight" work in this game? For example, I have a certain amount of distance that I can see - but the PM doesn't include information about who is in the spaces around me.

I'd imagine you don't get info now because it's a standard chess set-up at this stage so there's no need to be given that info.

[KWhit]

Originally Posted by Narcizo

I've thought about this and I would imagine it's to prevent mass reveals. Say we lynch a white piece and then another white piece is night killed. What's to prevent the black pieces all outing themselves and targeting the other white pieces for a lynch?

That makes sense.

[The Jackal]

Checking in, I too need to refresh myself with the rules before I have any idea what I'm doin.

[Neon_Chaos]

Checking in. This is going to be either really great, or really confusing.

[hoopsguy]

Welcome to a Passacaglia game, Neon I'm hoping it turns out great.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

Welcome to a Passacaglia game, Neon I'm hoping it turns out great.

hahaha

[Neon_Chaos]

Never really realized that underneath the docile exterior he showed at BWW, there lies the brains of a mad scientist.

[PurdueBrad]

Checking in...and off to wikipedia to read up about my piece.

[Abe Sargent]

Hello my friends, I am checking in, and hoping my team doesn't get checked out.

[path12]

Clueless piece checking in. I should get a better sense of the rules before saying much, which means you likely won't hear much from me until later today/evening.

[oliegirl]

Checking in, and will be printing out a make-shift chess board soon. Like I said before, I have no chess knowledge, so hopefully I'm not in too far over my head...

[Barkeep49]

Pass:

The person who I'm PM'ing with is in on my side (black/white) but not necessarily on my side for villagers/wolves, correct?

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

Pass:

The person who I'm PM'ing with is in on my side (black/white) but not necessarily on my side for villagers/wolves, correct?

Correct.

[hoopsguy]

It looks like so far this game people are taking a cautious approach to revealing Black/White info - which is fine by me. However, that does leave us with a little less to talk about in the thread on Day 1.

So here are a couple of things that I think make some sense to discuss:
1. # of wolves: 20 players, no conversion option. I'm guessing that leaves 4-5 wolves.

2. Vote strategy: everyone knows someone (right?) on their Black/White team so I would expect people to instinctively protect their counterpart. However, getting a group of 2-4 players in a close vote is probably the way to go (ex - Pass as wolf last game flushed out the wolves on votes early, even if it wasn't properly identified and acted upon)

3. Thoughts on identifying your own team and teammates - I'm hoping that we'll be able to do this as we start moving about the board but I'm not exactly sure how that will work for those of us that are not bishops.

[st.cronin]

I'm not sure I see any upside at all to revealing black/white allegiance, hoops.

[Narcizo]

Ok. I've been thinking about the game today and I think I have a plan people might want to think about.

This game is dramatically different from any other I've played in as there are two villager factions. In my opinion that fact alone hugely benefits the wolves. Then there's the fact that the wolves have access to a lot more information in a game where information is key. More so, even, than usual. Presuming, for argument's sake that there are four wolves, if they spread out, they will be able to "see" pretty much the entire board, while we can only see 2-3 squares away (and, if we trust our PM partners, 2-3 squares from them). Then you add in the fact that they might also got access to some information from their PM partners and the wolves have got a pretty stacked hand in terms of chessboard strategy. They can co-ordinate their moves (and potentially those of their PM partners) to achieve maximum destruction while safeguarding the kings. It seems logical to me that trying to force the issue is going to result in a lot of dead villagers leaving the wolves in a position of superiority that is only going to get greater.

I suggest we take that advantage out of their hands by enforcing a "nuetral" zone across the middle two rows of the board. (Is it rows or columns? I think rows). Rather than blindly blundering around trying to capture opponents pieces we stick to the first three rows and concentrate on trying to weed out the wolves using traditional methods.
People might be thinking that this is some sort of ploy to get my team ahead but I don't really see how it could be. Teams can still maneuvre in their first three rows. All I'm trying to do is prevent the wolves getting more kills by steering events on the board.

Now the counter-argument is that if both sides go all out storming the opponents' king then it takes the initiative out of the hands of the wolves and could finish the game quickly. While this had merit I still feel that all that such a strategy (which, by nature, can't be organised) is a lot of dead pieces and the king not being overly threatened. Particularly as the wolves will be doing their best to make sure that neither side hits the king.

Another thing - knights can only scan for wolves within one square or a legal move away. If we aim to keep pieces grouped then I think there's more of a chance of them hitting a wolf with their seer scan. (although, to be honest, the chances aren't all that great anyway).

Thoughts?

[st.cronin]

Hm, well, I wasn't planning on moving anyway, so I'm ok with that.

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

I'm not sure I see any upside at all to revealing black/white allegiance, hoops.

Each player should at the very least strive to collect this information to help them make more informed decisions with votes and moves.

In terms of publicly sharing the information, I don't know that I consider revealing it to be optimal strategy. Not at this stage, anyway, where the two sides should be evenly matched.

[jeheinz72]

I'm not sure how I feel about Narc's theory.

I mean on one hand yes, we'll stop from killing each other, ergo slowing down the wolves. That I like.

But on the other hand we'll lose someone each night to the wolves, correct? What's to say I'm not going to just watch and see the wolves pick off my team quickly? Heck, I don't even know who is on my team save the one person I can PM, so I won't even know if it's going well or not. Compound this by it seeming like an un-fun way to play (ala the Cruise if we just never voted anyone over the threshold).

[Narcizo]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

Each player should at the very least strive to collect this information to help them make more informed decisions with votes and moves.

In terms of publicly sharing the information, I don't know that I consider revealing it to be optimal strategy. Not at this stage, anyway, where the two sides should be evenly matched.

Well, if we wanted to go down that route then now would probably be the optimal time, before one side gets the upper hand and can control the vote to vote off the other side.

I don't know really. In one way it's good because the wolves are going to have a lot of information that we don't have, so any sharing of information is likely to cut down on the (currently substantial) information difference. But revealing your colour is going to reveal to everyone that you are a king, queen or bishop (as they're the only ones to know it at the moment). Which we might not really want to do, as it will help the wolves further narrow down who the rooks and knights are.

On the other hand, if we're thinking 4 wolves (which I think sounds reasonable) then there's a good chance that they already know 8 roles (unless they got a paired couple). Leaving only 12 left for them to wonder about. That's a pretty big advantage. But in that case maybe we should be revealing what piece we are but not what colour (which is immaterial in the hunt to catch wolves). My instincts tell me that a mass reveal isn't really going to help in this case though, although I definitely don't think it should be discounted out of hand.

[jeheinz72]

Revealing the piece? Isn't that like inviting the wolves to snipe our Seers (the knights)?

[hoopsguy]

Narc, I like a lot of aspects of your plan. But the one piece that troubles me a little bit is that we are potentially limiting our ability to find the wolves. There are four knights that can issue scans - however, they'll end up being restricted (along with the wolves on their team) to a small number of spots if we enforce the "3 row" limit. I think the plan you are outlining puts an even bigger target on them as early wolf kills.

Let's make a couple of assumptions:
- two wolves per side (I like the symmetry to this if I'm designing the game)
- two knights per side who need to be within one space of a wolf to get a scan
- the wolves kill a knight during their first action
- now we have one knight who is able to catch the wolves on that side (assuming that there are no wolves among the knights in the first place)

This plan is a disaster if there is one wolf among the two knights on a side - particularly if the rook isn't able to pull off a protect. I think there is an element of "worst case" in the scenario I'm painting, but I would rather give my wolf-hunting roles the option to move about the board for maximum flexibility rather than tying them down to a small area.

[st.cronin]

Heinz - Narc is assuming that its possible that one of the wolves IS a knight, meaning the wolves already know one of the knights (also meaning we start one knight down). Personally I think its unlikely that a wolf would be paired with a non-wolf - I think there are 4 wolves, 2 pairs.

[hoopsguy]

Also, if you are the pawn in D2 please move to give the knights three options for their initial move. And put your action in early in order to make sure you don't block (1 is the earliest) the knights action.

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

Heinz - Narc is assuming that its possible that one of the wolves IS a knight, meaning the wolves already know one of the knights (also meaning we start one knight down). Personally I think its unlikely that a wolf would be paired with a non-wolf - I think there are 4 wolves, 2 pairs.

If wolves are paired together, along with wolves being knights (I think this is pretty unlikely) then Narcizo's plan gets worse because 50% of the board isn't going to yield a wolf.

I guess you could take the approach that it is better if you are on that side, as the chance of catching a wolf is much higher on the other side and votes would go to them - weakening their team relative to your own. But I would prefer that we have our wolf-hunters actively engaged as much as possible. That gives the best chance for a dual win - both as a color and as a villager.

[Neon_Chaos]

This game is useless without pictures.

[Narcizo]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

Heinz - Narc is assuming that its possible that one of the wolves IS a knight, meaning the wolves already know one of the knights (also meaning we start one knight down). Personally I think its unlikely that a wolf would be paired with a non-wolf - I think there are 4 wolves, 2 pairs.

I don't know about that. That could mean that the wolves have 2 knights then. I've PMed Pass about the selection criteria for the wolves, see if he has any response.

Hoops. I don't see how keeping pieces contained in a narrow area limits their ability to scan. Quite the opposite in fact. And I think it's pretty improbable to expect the knights to go wandering off to the other side of the board on a scan quest and expect them to survive. The best chance of keeping knights alive if for them to hang around on their side of the board. And then the best way for them to get useful scans is to keep as many pieces as possible around the knights. Which is what my plan does.

[jeheinz72]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

Heinz - Narc is assuming that its possible that one of the wolves IS a knight, meaning the wolves already know one of the knights (also meaning we start one knight down). Personally I think its unlikely that a wolf would be paired with a non-wolf - I think there are 4 wolves, 2 pairs.

Yeah I'd say it is likely we're at least one knight down (via a pair, or worse yet a pair of knights)

[hoopsguy]

Narc, here is how I see the consequences of your plan:
1. I think your plan puts a bigger bullseye on the knights.
2. As a result, it begins to force the hand of the rooks on their protection orders.
3. Which in turn allows the wolves to go elsewhere if they have a knight (or two) on one side of the board.

Maybe the other two already happen on the first turn or two. But after that the knights will have had the ability to make their move across the board if they are interested in doing so. I'm generally against restricting the options of the knights ... if you take them out of the mix then I'm fine with the remainder of your plan.

I would also be amiable to a proposal suggesting that both sides agree not to deliberately take out a knight with a "chess move".

[Narcizo]

Pass's response seems to suggest that it was "controlled random". Ie he selected randomly from 1-18 (excluding the kings) but binned a result if it didn't meet criteria he had already set up. That suggests to me that there can be (and probably are) wolf/non-wolf pairings and, maybe, that there isn't necessary an even split of wolves on the sides (although I suspect there will be at least one on each side).

That means people need to think carefully about what they share with their partners.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by Narcizo

Ok. I've been thinking about the game today and I think I have a plan people might want to think about.

This game is dramatically different from any other I've played in as there are two villager factions. In my opinion that fact alone hugely benefits the wolves. Then there's the fact that the wolves have access to a lot more information in a game where information is key. More so, even, than usual. Presuming, for argument's sake that there are four wolves, if they spread out, they will be able to "see" pretty much the entire board, while we can only see 2-3 squares away (and, if we trust our PM partners, 2-3 squares from them). Then you add in the fact that they might also got access to some information from their PM partners and the wolves have got a pretty stacked hand in terms of chessboard strategy. They can co-ordinate their moves (and potentially those of their PM partners) to achieve maximum destruction while safeguarding the kings. It seems logical to me that trying to force the issue is going to result in a lot of dead villagers leaving the wolves in a position of superiority that is only going to get greater.

I suggest we take that advantage out of their hands by enforcing a "nuetral" zone across the middle two rows of the board. (Is it rows or columns? I think rows). Rather than blindly blundering around trying to capture opponents pieces we stick to the first three rows and concentrate on trying to weed out the wolves using traditional methods.
People might be thinking that this is some sort of ploy to get my team ahead but I don't really see how it could be. Teams can still maneuvre in their first three rows. All I'm trying to do is prevent the wolves getting more kills by steering events on the board.

Now the counter-argument is that if both sides go all out storming the opponents' king then it takes the initiative out of the hands of the wolves and could finish the game quickly. While this had merit I still feel that all that such a strategy (which, by nature, can't be organised) is a lot of dead pieces and the king not being overly threatened. Particularly as the wolves will be doing their best to make sure that neither side hits the king.

Another thing - knights can only scan for wolves within one square or a legal move away. If we aim to keep pieces grouped then I think there's more of a chance of them hitting a wolf with their seer scan. (although, to be honest, the chances aren't all that great anyway).

Thoughts?

I suspect there are a lot more than four wolves since I understand that every Knight is a seer. An equal number of seers to wolves? Seems dangerous. So, either some of those seers are wolves, or we have more wolves. I suspect one each of Knight, Rook, Bishop and Pawns if there are just four, and that doesn't leave a lot of room for mistakes by the wolves so I guess there are a more - perhaps six or so, which would still only be double the number of seers in this case (which is still dangerous for the wolves).

As for the interdiction, I'm not sure. I am convinceable though, if you want to go that route.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

It looks like so far this game people are taking a cautious approach to revealing Black/White info - which is fine by me. However, that does leave us with a little less to talk about in the thread on Day 1.

So here are a couple of things that I think make some sense to discuss:
1. # of wolves: 20 players, no conversion option. I'm guessing that leaves 4-5 wolves.

2. Vote strategy: everyone knows someone (right?) on their Black/White team so I would expect people to instinctively protect their counterpart. However, getting a group of 2-4 players in a close vote is probably the way to go (ex - Pass as wolf last game flushed out the wolves on votes early, even if it wasn't properly identified and acted upon)

3. Thoughts on identifying your own team and teammates - I'm hoping that we'll be able to do this as we start moving about the board but I'm not exactly sure how that will work for those of us that are not bishops.

And King/Queen as well, don;t forget them.

[Narcizo]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

Narc, here is how I see the consequences of your plan:
1. I think your plan puts a bigger bullseye on the knights.
2. As a result, it begins to force the hand of the rooks on their protection orders.
3. Which in turn allows the wolves to go elsewhere if they have a knight (or two) on one side of the board.

Point three's the thing I didn't think about. The wolves will try to move outside of the range of the knight and that will be easier if they don't have to worry about being taken by another piece. I'll have to think about that.

Don't understand 1 0r 2. 1 - you're actually protecting the knight by not sending it off into enemy territory. 2 - the rooks don't know who the knights are so how will they protect them. Unless they are allowed to specify a piece or a spot on the board or something.

I'm all for an agreement not to attack knights but I'm not sure if we can really rely on that. If an opponent wolf sees a knight, chances are he's going to try and capture it, which brings us back to why it's safer for the knight to stay on his own half of the board.

[KWhit]

I'm not a fan of Narc's plan at all.

From the rules:

The game ends in one of four ways:

1. If the White King dies, Black wins.
2. If the Black King dies, White wins.
3. If only the two Kings and wolves are alive, the Wolves win.
4. If only the two Kings are alive, the game ends in a stalemate.

The only way for a non-wolf to win is to take out the other king. Why would we sit around in the first three rows and not try to take out the other King. Every turn that we don't make progress in doing that gives the wolves another night to take us out one by one.

The way I interpret the game is that the 'villagers' have to go balls out trying to take down the other king and to protect their own king. The wolves are only an obstacle to acheiving those goals.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

Narc, here is how I see the consequences of your plan:
1. I think your plan puts a bigger bullseye on the knights.
2. As a result, it begins to force the hand of the rooks on their protection orders.
3. Which in turn allows the wolves to go elsewhere if they have a knight (or two) on one side of the board.

Maybe the other two already happen on the first turn or two. But after that the knights will have had the ability to make their move across the board if they are interested in doing so. I'm generally against restricting the options of the knights ... if you take them out of the mix then I'm fine with the remainder of your plan.

I would also be amiable to a proposal suggesting that both sides agree not to deliberately take out a knight with a "chess move".

As long as the Knight doesn;t take pieces, I'd be fine with that.

[Narcizo]

Originally Posted by Anxiety

I suspect there are a lot more than four wolves since I understand that every Knight is a seer. An equal number of seers to wolves? Seems dangerous.

Well, as I've pointed out the wolves have a lot of advantages in terms of information and the knight's seer ability is pretty severely restricted.

[Narcizo]

Originally Posted by KWhit

The way I interpret the game is that the 'villagers' have to go balls out trying to take down the other king and to protect their own king. The wolves are only an obstacle to acheiving those goals.

How would you suggest we do that when we can't co-ordinate an attack or the defence as you don't have any idea who is going to help you or how, while the wolves will be able to do both of those things. Say you have a bishop - you need to know where the king is to be able to hit him otherwise you're going to go sweeping into the enemy's territory and then get picked off by whatever pieces are hanging around to cover the king's back. (probably a rook).

[Neon_Chaos]

I don't think that any of the Knights are wolves. It's hard enough for the four knights to scan everyone. Having one or two of them as fake would make the seer role practically useless.

[KWhit]

Originally Posted by Narcizo

How would you suggest we do that when we can't co-ordinate an attack or the defence as you don't have any idea who is going to help you or how, while the wolves will be able to do both of those things. Say you have a bishop - you need to know where the king is to be able to hit him otherwise you're going to go sweeping into the enemy's territory and then get picked off by whatever pieces are hanging around to cover the king's back. (probably a rook).

Hell if I know. But I know that we can't win the game if we sit around in a 3 row area waiting for the wolves to pick us off. We need to gain information - not about who's a wolf and who's not, but about who's white and who's black. The only way to do that is to move around the board a bit.

[Neon_Chaos]

To explain further, the knights have to be at a certain distance from a player, and he has to pick one piece from a number of possible pieces.... To do that to essentially a perpetually changing board (due to the movements that can be availed by everyone), is difficult enough.

[Narcizo]

Originally Posted by KWhit

Hell if I know. But I know that we can't win the game if we sit around in a 3 row area waiting for the wolves to pick us off. We need to gain information - not about who's a wolf and who's not, but about who's white and who's black. The only way to do that is to move around the board a bit.

In what way are we waiting for them to pick us off? We're playing a normal game of werewolf (with slightly odd roles, admittedly). It would be a 16:4 (probably) game. Seems like decent odds for the good guys - particularly as there's two dukes. Meanwhile the bishops are gathering info on who's white and black.

[st.cronin]

Originally Posted by Neon_Chaos

I don't think that any of the Knights are wolves. It's hard enough for the four knights to scan everyone. Having one or two of them as fake would make the seer role practically useless.

I agree with this.

[KWhit]

Originally Posted by Narcizo

In what way are we waiting for them to pick us off? We're playing a normal game of werewolf (with slightly odd roles, admittedly). It would be a 16:4 (probably) game. Seems like decent odds for the good guys - particularly as there's two dukes. Meanwhile the bishops are gathering info on who's white and black.

I just mean that our win conditions are not at all tied to the wolves, so focusing on them more than the chess game seems backwards to me.

[Neon_Chaos]

1. If the White King dies, Black wins.
2. If the Black King dies, White wins.
3. If only the two Kings and wolves are alive, the Wolves win.
4. If only the two Kings are alive, the game ends in a stalemate.

Okay. Is it more prudent for us to weed out the Wolves and then attempt to win the chess game. Or, do we attempt to win the chess game hoping the wolves don't pick everyone off?

Pretty tough choice. Either way, the wolves are probably going to pick us off one at a time anyway.

[mccollins]

Hello everyone! I've finally caught up and I'm trying to get a read on things.

A bit less than 24 hours til the voting deadline, eh?

[mccollins]

Originally Posted by Neon_Chaos

Okay. Is it more prudent for us to weed out the Wolves and then attempt to win the chess game. Or, do we attempt to win the chess game hoping the wolves don't pick everyone off?

Pretty tough choice. Either way, the wolves are probably going to pick us off one at a time anyway.

If all the wolves are gone, do we still vote to lynch? Or just play a chess game? (Albeit while both sides move at roughly the same time.)

[hoopsguy]

I think you can have your cake and eat it too - try to win at chess without putting undue jeopardy on the roles that can catch the wolves.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by mccollins

If all the wolves are gone, do we still vote to lynch? Or just play a chess game? (Albeit while both sides move at roughly the same time.)

Yes, you still vote to lynch.

[KWhit]

Originally Posted by mccollins

If all the wolves are gone, do we still vote to lynch? Or just play a chess game? (Albeit while both sides move at roughly the same time.)

I think at that point you try to lynch the players who aren't on your team.

In fact, I'd say that's a good strategy from the start.