Ten Year Anniversary Game: Living Thread

[the phantom]

Remember Day 1 of The Republic? 12 pages.

We're slacking.

[McCaber]

My own opinion is that every day without a lynch is a day the wolves can build up an uncontested lead and a day that gives us no real information to build off of in the future. Early lynches, arguments, and voting patterns are how you build solid cases and catch inconsistencies. Delaying for three days just leaves us that far behind when it comes to detective work.

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

You know what can really open up the game of football? Sepp Blatter resigning...

Also I enjoy plans I haven't thought up my self (especially if I can take some credit for them), long walks at the beach, and killing Europeans.

In short: I hate you all for being so active in this way to complicated game.

Have a good night.

[Rikae]

Anybody who is suggesting an ordo self-sacrifice toDay (Nilp? Phantom? Lottie?) fie on you. With this many wolves, we simply can't throw away chances at lynching them, or innocents who will count in the final tally.

With a 25% chance of getting a wolf now, I say we follow our instincts and vote for someone who is giving off wolf-vibes. We're an experienced group of players - if we're careful, we can avoid the Day 1 traps of confusing "weird" or "seerish" with "wolfy". I, at least, intend to try. Mac, you mentioned the odds of a wolf-lynch being the worst on Day 1, but if I recall correctly, they were still better than pure chance would give.

That said, I like much of Phantom's post #34. I'm all for a plan that lets us use the extra vote to gain not one, but two additional pieces of information. It also doesn't require much vote-coordination (something I am usually against in principle), only that we agree to an early deadline for the living vote and then designate, after voting, who signifies the last lynchee was guilty or innocent, among the voters for the two biggest wagons. Yes, if there's more than a 1 vote discrepancy the dead won't change the outcome, but knowing their opinion of the runner-up is still desirable.

As for baddies swaying the dead thread, it's unlikely they'll have the numbers there, and if they do, we're doing well. If it comes to that, we do still have the resurrecting roles to inform us of the situation.

But yeah, until the dead thread has three denizens, I intend to play old-fashioned WW and vote at the deadline for someone who seems hairy and/or a little too interested in biting people.

Edit: X'd with Nog and phantom.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Rikae

That said, I like much of Phantom's post #34. I'm all for a plan that lets us use the extra vote to gain not one, but two additional pieces of information. It also doesn't require much vote-coordination (something I am usually against in principle), only that we agree to an early deadline for the living vote and then designate, after voting, who signifies the last lynchee was guilty or innocent, among the voters for the two biggest wagons. Yes, if there's more than a 1 vote discrepancy the dead won't change the outcome, but knowing their opinion of the runner-up is still desirable.

I have nothing against trying to work out ways to communicate with the Dead Thread or letting them guide us when it's possible - later in the game when we know something (or at least can make some inferences as to how this game works and what should be done). And with a situation where we have two (or three or...) strong lynching candidates later in the game it might be reasonable to try and make a tie so that the Dead might - if they knew something on those people and the innocents had the upper hand there - to help us with lynching a wolf with their swinging extra-vote.


Btw. how about we send the phantom into the Dead Thread as our first move? If he is innocent he is a great asset organizing things for us there - and there people could check his alignment (unlike here) so everyone would know whether to trust his ideas or not. It would be a win-win -situation.

[Rikae]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

Btw. how about we send the phantom into the Dead Thread as our first move? If he is innocent he is a great asset organizing things for us there - and there people could check his alignment (unlike here) so everyone would know whether to trust his ideas or not. It would be a win-win -situation.

Tempting.

His ideas seem pretty sound at this point, though, whatever he is.

Originally Posted by A Little Green

True, but we can't count on that. For one thing, we might go through the entire game without either a lover or the ranger dying, thus having no one return from the Dead Thread to shed light on things. For another, yes we're doing well if the Dead Thread has a baddie majority, but we won't know that - and taking advice from the dead in such a situation might turn the odds against us surprisingly fast

Hmm.

The only way to have a majority of allied wolves in the dead thread is either on Night 3 with great luck (two dead wolves and a ranger save within two days), or because one pack is completely dead.

The former is a situation that wouldn't persist for long, and the latter will be obvious because of the one night kill.

If wolves of two separate packs make up the majority of the dead thread (say, 4 wolves and 3 innocents?) they'll be gunning for the remaining living member of the other pack, anyway, as best they can.

[the phantom]

And just so you know, I'm operating under the assumption that any Wolf would be desperate to kill me in case I'm in the opposing pack.

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

So we are not going for a tied non-lynch today?

But rather we are going to at least attempt to get a baddie?

What a splendid idea! We all know what an incredible success rate we have on day 1, and obviously a well meaning effort always gets rewarded. Since when did sincerity become an excuse for failure?

ehm... I guess what I am trying to say, is that I still quite fancy that non-lynch thingy.

Also I will have to vote quite soon.

[A Little Green]

Originally Posted by Rune

Since when did sincerity become an excuse for failure?

Since Immanuel Kant? ...ahem.

[mormegil]

Originally Posted by Macalaure

Now I'm itching to turn these into confidence intervals. But the sample sizes are small, so the result would probably not be very good.

Now he's talking Stats, must be a wolf! Burn him.

The more I've thought about it I don't like the tied voting because it would give to much ability to be manipulated by a small minority of the people to their advantage.

[Rikae]

Originally Posted by Rune Son of Bjarne

So we are not going for a tied non-lynch today?

But rather we are going to at least attempt to get a baddie?

What a splendid idea! We all know what an incredible success rate we have on day 1, and obviously a well meaning effort always gets rewarded. Since when did sincerity become an excuse for failure?

ehm... I guess what I am trying to say, is that I still quite fancy that non-lynch thingy.

Also I will have to vote quite soon.

Who said anything about "good intentions"? I want people to use reasoning and intuition to vote intelligently. Day 1 too often seems like the day to lynch anyone who behaves erratically, which is, to my recollection, a really bad strategy. When we do catch a wolf based on their posts, it's usually more of a "seems fair and feels foul" situation.

[A Little Green]

Originally Posted by Rikae

As for baddies swaying the dead thread, it's unlikely they'll have the numbers there, and if they do, we're doing well. If it comes to that, we do still have the resurrecting roles to inform us of the situation.

True, but we can't count on that. For one thing, we might go through the entire game without either a lover or the ranger dying, thus having no one return from the Dead Thread to shed light on things. For another, yes we're doing well if the Dead Thread has a baddie majority, but we won't know that - and taking advice from the dead in such a situation might turn the odds against us surprisingly fast. Finally, we also can't count on everyone who has died to be active on the Dead Thread, which might sway the thread in favour of the wolves even if they were not a numerical majority.

Sorry for being such a pessimist by the way, I think I might be channelling Lommy...


EDIT: x-ed with Noggins

[A Little Green]

Originally Posted by Nog

Btw. how about we send the phantom into the Dead Thread as our first move? If he is innocent he is a great asset organizing things for us there - and there people could check his alignment (unlike here) so everyone would know whether to trust his ideas or not. It would be a win-win -situation.

There are times when I'm extremely proud to be related to this man.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by A Little Green

True, but we can't count on that. For one thing, we might go through the entire game without either a lover or the ranger dying, thus having no one return from the Dead Thread to shed light on things. For another, yes we're doing well if the Dead Thread has a baddie majority, but we won't know that - and taking advice from the dead in such a situation might turn the odds against us surprisingly fast. Finally, we also can't count on everyone who has died to be active on the Dead Thread, which might sway the thread in favour of the wolves even if they were not a numerical majority.

Kudos for well spelled out reasoning Greenie!

We can't trust the Dead help us - or that we understand unanimously how they're doing it if they do. These are two different games after all - just bound togehter - and we shouldn't try to play the other one here or lay our hopes in the other game to play ours.

[the phantom]

I'll be an asset to whatever thread I'm in, Noggie. If you really want me in the Dead thread...

Hey Wolves. Kill me tonight. Ranger. Do not protect me.

There. We'll see if that works.

But no, I'm not going to volunteer for lynching. Totally pointless. If we're not going to purposefully tie the vote then we need to at least take a shot at a Wolf.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by the phantom

I'll be an asset to whatever thread I'm in, Noggie.

I know. But an asset on whose side?

So if you the phantom are a wolf we’d make Werewolf history suitable for the anniversary game by lynching a wolf-phantom on Day1!

If on the other hand you're not a wolf, we’d give you a chance to shine as the organizer of the innocent triumph from the Dead Thread coming up with plots and schemes totally outplaying the baddies.

In the Dead Thread we / they could be sure of your alignment though - and that's an asset over an asset.



Premature thoughs on toDays's vote.

If we had a good candidate for lycantrophy I would like to try lynching the most probable wolf first - altohugh I have no good candidates at least for the time being. That's the way this game is won - by lynching the wolves. And that's the fun / point of the game, to try and find the wolves.

I do not like the "let's not lynch anyone toDay" -meme (backed by the idea that we might lynch our Seer who is very important in this game) as the chances of lynching our seer are minuscule compared to any normal game and there are such loads of wolves around - and if we were to lynch the seer s/he could act on it before things get nasty thus at least securing another two dreams the next Night when the Ranger covered it for her/him...

There 24 players of which 1 is the Seer. The chances of hitting the Seer on D1 lynching = 1/24.

THere are 3+3 wolves in this game. The chances of getting a wolf on D1 lynching = 6/24 = 1/4. And add to that the practical stats we've just seen (a village is slightly better than random in picking up the villains), so yeah. Let's try and hunt a wolf toDay.

Originally Posted by tp

And just so you know, I'm operating under the assumption that any Wolf would be desperate to kill me in case I'm in the opposing pack.

Should I interpet this as "a wolvish defence reaction"?

[Formendacil]

Dear me, if this is when I show up most days, I shall be avalanched trying to keep up with things... whatever possessed me to think I had the analytical stamina to get back into this horrid sport?

Getting down to business, my mostly-likely-forgotten antipathy towards Days 1 is not returning with its usual force, because even if there's not actually any useful information we can use NOW for voting, at least the convoluted dynamics of the game require such thorough examination that we can do something productive.

On that note, I haven't been able to sufficiently wrap my head around the ramifications of communicating with the Dead Thread (this being my first Dead Thread game) to have anything intelligent occur to me to say, but I do like the idea of a tied-vote/no-lynchings being our plan for today. For one, this fits nicely with my feeling that Day 1s are useless information for lynching until there's some benefit of hindsight. For another, although 1-in-4 is a reasonably good chance of hitting on a wolf, it's still not as good as the 3-in-4 chance of missing one altogether.

As far as that goes, I'm among those willing to be one of the two lynch victims--but that's a rather paltry sacrifice to make, since I make it in the hopes that we'll tie it up and I won't die--but if there *IS* someone out there who wants to upset the apple-cart and kill off one of the two tied victims (thus revealing in all probability his/her own lycanthropy), at least I'd die in a lynch straightforward enough to have actually been of service to the village.

[Macalaure]

Grimoire thread, post #190

Chances of lynching wolves, based on the first 31 games played:
Day 1: 29% (sample size: 34)
Day 2: 31% (36)
Day 3: 43% (40)
Day 4: 35% (34)
Day 5: 34% (29)
Day 6: 29% (17)
Day 7: 55% (11)
Day 8: 0% (3)

All better than the random 25% we have, and it looks even better considering that most villages have a smaller wolf ratio than ours.

Now I'm itching to turn these into confidence intervals. But the sample sizes are small, so the result would probably not be very good. Maybe if I compiled it for all games played, but do I really want to do that?

[Rikae]

Originally Posted by Macalaure

Grimoire thread, post #190

Chances of lynching wolves, based on the first 31 games played:
Day 1: 29% (sample size: 34)
Day 2: 31% (36)
Day 3: 43% (40)
Day 4: 35% (34)
Day 5: 34% (29)
Day 6: 29% (17)
Day 7: 55% (11)
Day 8: 0% (3)

All better than the random 25% we have, and it looks even better considering that most villages have a smaller wolf ratio than ours.

Now I'm itching to turn these into confidence intervals. But the sample sizes are small, so the result would probably not be very good. Maybe if I compiled it for all games played, but do I really want to do that?

Actually I think ours might even be the usual ratio. The average game I remember is something like 16 players, 4 wolves or 12 players, 3 wolves.

Still, slightly better than chance. It is known!

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Rikae

Actually I think ours might even be the usual ratio. The average game I remember is something like 16 players, 4 wolves or 12 players, 3 wolves.

Still, slightly better than chance. It is known!

Even so, we can't calculate OUR odds of lynching a wolf off what has actually happened in the past, any more than you can say the odds of flipping a coin Heads or Tails on a given toss is anything other than 50/50--even if the ACTUAL flipping has come up 52/48 in favour of Heads. Although the Day 1 lynch rate for wolves has certainly been historically better than utter chance would predict, it is nonetheless close to what chance predicts.

So even if past games had a bearing on the chances of this game, we're still in a situation where past frequency predicts that we're better-than-70% likely to lynch an Ordo on Day, leaving me firmly in the camp of preferring that we not lynch anyone at all on Day 1.

The only exception to that would be if someone could correlate the frequency of lynching a Wolf on Day 1 to the likelihood of lynching a wolf on Day 2 (and 3, 4, etc). If, for example, lynching a wolf on Day 1 meant a 50% or greater chance of lynching a wolf on Day 2 vs. lynching an ordo on Day 1 meaning a less-than-50% chance of lynching a wolf on day 2, then there would probably be arguments to be made--but my own training in Statistics reaches no further than the ability to say that 25% chance of getting a wolf is the same as a 75% chance of getting an ordo.

Now, even with this preference for not lynching anyone, I realise that lynching someone today, at the very least, gives us SOME useful information to analyse tomorrow. What I'm not sure about yet is whether or not it's more useful to have that information or more useful to have that extra Innocent vote.

EDIT: X-ed with all posts since Morm #95.

[Nogrod]

So Form, do you suggest we'd let the baddies kill each other first and not try lynching any of them? Just sit back as sacrificial lambs and wait whether they kill us all or whether they happen to kill each other first, or whether our gifteds save the day or tell us what to do?

Playing this game kind of means we villagers play it as well - and not only those who have roles will play it.