WW LXXXIV -- Life Contingencies (GAME OVER)

[jeheinz72]

How spread do we go though? I mean if we're looking at a 6:3 or 7:2 start, if we concoct it to 1 vote for everyone, that doesn't seem like a great idea.

[jeheinz72]

And that is an interesting question for Pass, is a No Lynch vote akin to abstaining or does it enter in a chance that no one would get lynched.

I'll ask him

[Hannibal Lecter]

Reading the rules I see no chance for a no lynch, the more spread out it is the better off we will be.

[The Jackal]

Well, in the interest of spreading things out -

vote path

If we end up with 1 vote on everyone, that's almost entirely leaving it up to luck? Unless the Duke wants to get crazy early on.

I should be around all night.

[Lathum]

I was just replying to what heinze said, and the wording of it in the rules is very confusing.

[jeheinz72]

Quit forcing your belief on me Lathum

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by jeheinz72

Quit forcing your belief on me Lathum

hater

[Barkeep49]

Checking in. The odds are I'm a good guy. Odds also seem to make me think 2 baddies. I like this intimate setting.

[Passacaglia]

Sorry the lynch rules weren't very clear.

Votes of "No Lynch" are not allowed. There will be a lynch every day. I think what I didn't state is that each probability is not independent. So, in my example where the candidates had chances of 40%, 30%, 20%, and 10%, it's not four rolls where each has a seperate chance of dying -- it's one roll that decides which of the four candidates dies. 1-40, the top guy dies, 41-70, the 2nd guy dies, 71-90, the third guy dies, and 91-100, the 4th guy dies.

Also, I knew I forgot to mention something this morning -- we're having some people over to watch election results. I might get a chance to run these real quick (it shouldn't take long), but I'm not sure when. Deadline, obviously, is unchanged.

[hoopsguy]

OK, I've been thinking for awhile about how the game mechanics play out and I'm now of the opinion that a full reveal on Day 1 is the optimal play.

9 players, 3 roles, 2 wolves
- I would suggest that the roled players reveal themselves, but not their role. If we have more than three players who indicate that they have a role then we can cross the bridge of figuring out which players are contending for the same role.
- Today's vote should come down to a two person showdown among people who are not indicating that they have a role.

Each day we can ratchet up the pressure on those players who are denying having a role with our votes. If we get to a point where 4+ players are saying they have a role then we have a throwdown of role information right away and try to flush out who is lying.

The wolves only have a 40% chance of hitting the role they want to hit at night. Even in that case, the bodyguard potentially has a 40% chance of being on that same role.

I'll also indicate right now that I am one of the roled villagers.

I'm rarely an advocate for releasing information early, but this is a small game and I think the rules favor this approach. So I'm suggesting that we follow it.

I'm happy to expand on these ideas further. Perhaps people see some kind of a significant flaw in the logic. If so, then lets hash it out in the thread.

Last point - in the event there are three wolves (highly doubtful) then the math for following this approach becomes even more compelling.

Example:
D1 - we learn about three roled players, no disputes on the roles.
D1 vote - we have a 2/6 chance of getting a wolf instead of a 2/9 chance, since people will not vote for the roled players (right?)

D2 - assuming bad D1 vote, and wolves take out a wolf (non-seer). Seer clears another player, we now have 3 "good" players and 4 wolves in the mix. Chances of getting a wolf climb to 50% with two wolves, 75% if there are three (pretty sure there would be two in this game, but throwing it out there). Odds continue to climb for villagers making good votes, which is how we catch the wolves.

[hoopsguy]

I also recommend keeping our votes pretty narrow - two candidates is ideal if we don't have a sure wolf.

[Lathum]

I have no role

[hoopsguy]

Other areas that improve with release of information:
- seer can scan three "non-roled villagers", better chance of hitting a wolf
- bodyguard can put 40% guard on each of the other two roled villagers, 20% on himself, 0% chance of guarding a wolf
- duke can put 40%/40%/10% on "non-roled villagers", with remaining 10% on himself

All of these things help the roled players act effectively and increase pressure on the wolves.

[Hannibal Lecter]

Interesting thoughts, Hoopsguy. Did I tell you about the guard I ate in a basketball gym? Well I only ate his tongue, but it was delectable.

[The Jackal]

I think your plan has merit hoops, I just have one concern that jumps out - won't it makes the wolves lives very easy by letting them know exactly who to target for the night kills? I suppose it works both ways.. this will force wolves to lie and also give them info on who's who. Is that more beneficial for the village?

[jeheinz72]

I like this plan, in a small game it makes sense as we can't afford to have the one or two bad lynches to kick off as we tend to have at times in a big game.

I am a roled villager

[hoopsguy]

Sure, the wolves are going to get good kills each night, as they can load up 40/40/20 (or some other split) on the roled villagers. But the tradeoff is that we essentially negate the chance of offing our roled villagers by lynch and likely have a 2/3 chance that the seer lives to add another cleared person tomorrow.

Even if we have to out the seer today, he still can only be a 40% target for the wolves with their night kill. And the bodyguard can put a 40% protect on him, meaning that we have about a 75% chance that he is around again tomorrow to clear someone else to take the place of a roled villager.

The goal is to put maximum pressure on the wolves. If they false-claim a role, we challenge that right away. That narrows our vote for today to a 50/50, rather than the 33% (assuming two wolves) that it is now. If they don't false-claim a role then we dial up the heat each day on our lynches.

The only way we get wolves is with good lynches. I think this plan gives us the best chance to have good lynches.

I don't think this plan would work as well in a bigger game, where there would be more vanilla villagers. But I think it is really solid for this smaller game.

Again, don't just take my word for it - run the scenarios through your own head, post them here, whatever helps you draw conclusions on this as good/bad. Discussion is nearly always good for the village.

[hoopsguy]

Roled - Hoops, Heinz
Non-Roled - Lathum

Undisclosed - everyone else

[Hannibal Lecter]

And what would happen if we have 5 people reveal as rolled villagers? We would know that 2 of them are wolves, but not which two. This has very interesting possibilities.

[The Jackal]

Makes pretty good sense to me, the alternative option is leaving it purely up to luck/the hope that someone slips up. I don't have a role.

So that makes..

Claimed Roles:

hoops
heinz

Claimed No Roles:

lathum
jackal

no answer:

everyone else

[The Jackal]

sure, cross-post me. bastard.

[jeheinz72]

I think it works out in every case really

If we have
3 R / 6 NR - Then we focus on the 6 and go to town.
4 R / 5 NR - We are either 1/4 & 1/5 or 1/4 and 2/5 and then we can decide which group to go for
5 R / 4 NR - We are 2/5 and either 1/4 or 0/4 and we go after that roled group
6 R / 3 NR - And we go after the roled group.

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by Hannibal Lecter

And what would happen if we have 5 people reveal as rolled villagers? We would know that 2 of them are wolves, but not which two. This has very interesting possibilities.

Yep, gets very interesting if the wolves decide that this is their best tactic to disrupt the plan. But now, assuming two wolves, we are in a position where we flip the script and go after the people claiming roles instead of the vanilla villagers. We start figuring out who is cross-claiming roles and go from there.

I don't think there is a good "hide" option for the wolves if there are two of them. If there were three, then maybe this plan would work better for the wolves. But I still think it is a loser. The best chance the wolves have, as far as I can tell, is to hope that random.org favors them this game. Because if it does not, I think their prospects for winning are pretty dim in D1 reveal scenario.

[path12]

Originally Posted by Hannibal Lecter

I am also curious as to how many will be awake until the early hours following the electoral masterpiece that is going to be reported tonight, this may lead to a very active evening, or a completely dead evening. I for one am fascinated by this McCain fellow, he may be old, but so is a 1961 Chateau de lief Chianti.

Old meat is tougher isn't it?

[path12]

Originally Posted by path12

I vote YEA to a new game!

Oh, and checking in and all. Two wolves IMO. Seer, BG, five villagers......of which I am one.

As indicated here, non-roled.

[hoopsguy]

Path, add the duke to the list of roled villagers. So two wolves, three roled villagers, four non-roled villagers. Or at least, those are my assumptions on wolves/non-roled.

Roles: Hoops, Heinz
Non-Roled: Lathum, Jackal, Path
Undeclared: Hannibal, Barkeep, Render, PackerFanatic

[Hannibal Lecter]

Originally Posted by path12

Old meat is tougher isn't it?

It depends how it is treated. I feel this McCain fellow would be nice and tender, years of Senate service has made him soft and pampered, ideal for meat aging!

[Hannibal Lecter]

I am a rolled villager.

[Hannibal Lecter]

I also love to post, especially on the cannibal cooking sites.

[PackerFanatic]

I am a villager with no role.

[hoopsguy]

Roles: Hoops, Heinz, Hannibal
Non-Roled: Lathum, Jackal, Path, PackerFanatic
Undeclared: Barkeep, Render

OK, so at this point it should be interesting to see where our last two remaining "undeclared" people go.

[path12]

Well, since he's undeclared and it's always fun to vote for him:

VOTE RENDER

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by Hannibal Lecter

I am a rolled villager.

i find it interesting it took you so long to post this. It's almost as if you were trying to decide the best strategy

[path12]

Originally Posted by Hannibal Lecter

It depends how it is treated. I feel this McCain fellow would be nice and tender, years of Senate service has made him soft and pampered, ideal for meat aging!

I dunno. You've got those POW years to deal with. Maybe if you braised.

[Hannibal Lecter]

Originally Posted by Lathum

i find it interesting it took you so long to post this. It's almost as if you were trying to decide the best strategy

That is exactly what I was doing, trying to deduce the chances of this being successful, vs. the chance that Mr. Hoops is a wolf and trying to get us to reveal. Correct me if I am wrong, but planning and deduction are paramount in this game, are they not?

[Hannibal Lecter]

Originally Posted by path12

I dunno. You've got those POW years to deal with. Maybe if you braised.

I have an excellent recipe for smoked wolf shank, with a nice North Carolina red sauce. I do hope to try it out.

[hoopsguy]

The game ends with a villager victory if all the wolves are killed, and a wolf victory if the number of villagers is less than the number of wolves.

Also worth considering - if there are two starting wolves, and there are no weird "double kill" options (no reason to believe this) then they would have to get to 2-1.

Day 1: 7-2
Day 2: 5-2
Day 3: 3-2
Day 4: they got us

But I'm hopeful this strategy makes it nearly impossible for us to have three straight bad lynches and no bodyguard blocks along the way.

If there are three wolves, then the numbers look like this:
D1: 6-3
D2: 4-3
D3: 2-3 (wolves win)

So we have to get a good lynch in the first two days, which is much more likely with the role reveals.

[hoopsguy]

FWIW, I might try some kind of play like this as a wolf, but I would challenge anyone to find a +EV scenario for the wolves with the full disclosure here? Normally I don't try to make bad mathematical plays. Heck, I embrace the math in werewolf more than just about anyone else based on the backlash I often encounter in thread when bringing up those types of arguments

I'm pretty up-front with my thoughts as a villager, and that is what I'm doing this time around. I guess everyone gets to find out at the end of the game, or upon my death, if I was being sneaky wolf or straight-forward villager. But I'm the latter much more often than the former.

[PackerFanatic]

VOTE RENDER

Just so I get a vote in, I will try and get back after real voting tonight

[hoopsguy]

OK, a little bummed that two reasonably active WW posters haven't been around today to chime in on this and help with some clarity. I'm pretty sure we have lost at least Heinz for the day in terms of voting, so hopefully others will be around tonight to help us set up a good vote. I'll probably wait until around 8PM EST to put in a vote, in hopes that BK/RendeR have an opportunity to take part in the conversation.

[RendeR]

Sorry I've been out folks, I'm home sick and still trying to watch the munchkins while resting.

I dislike the fact that it is hoops coming out with this big plan. yes the numbers work, yes it sounds great, that just makes me even more worried that its a wolf leading us around by the nose, and we know for a fact that is exactly what Hoopsguy is best at =)

[RendeR]

Also I really don;t like the double up vote on me for no reason other than me not being able to get in here today. So this is purely defensive, no offense Lathum old friend.

VOTE LATHUM

[RendeR]

and to join in the "system" I have no role. I'm just another joe the plumber.

[Lathum]

unvote hannibel lechter
vote render

[Barkeep49]

I like the plan. I have a role. This is, in my mind the worst possible outcome with presumably 1 wolf in each camp, but it does give us a good place to go from here. I'll be voting for one of the nonroled people tonight.

[The Jackal]

Looks like RendeR is our 40%er for the night

[Hannibal Lecter]

Do we have an updated list on the reveals?

[The Jackal]

Though, if we're going by hoops system, I thought we were going after the roled people first. Here's the updated list:

Roles: Hoops, Heinz, Hannibal, BK
Non-Roles: Lathum, Jackal, Path, PF, RendeR

[The Jackal]

RendeR 3 - path (82), PF (89), Lathum (94)
Lathum 2 - Hannibal (50), RendeR (92)
BK 1 - Heinz (47)
path 1 - Jackal (54)

[The Jackal]

I'll probably end up switching to one of the roled people unless we've decided not to go that route.