Two possibly interesting WW metagame plays

[DMBFan23]

Hi all,

Even though I haven't played in a turbo lately, I've still been reading them all. I have already been a strong proponent of the 1st strategy I'll list, but have never gotten a chance to use it. The second I am more curious on, and am just throwing it out there.

1) Lynch All Liars.

I did not come up with this metagame strategy, I got it from mafiascum.net. The name is self explanatory, anytime anyone is caught in a lie (i.e. faking seer) they are an auto lynch, no talking their way out of it, no new info required, just lynched. The goal is to strongly discourage lying from pro-town roles, since that causes confusion and we all know what confusion does for the village.

Of course, wolves can counter with the following tactic: a non-wolf claims seer, then the wolves night kill someone ELSE and the "seer" gets lynched the next day. then they get a kill and the seer gets lynched.

However, that should be ok with the village, since either that person IS the seer - in which case they can leave their last sight with them before they go, and the seer got one extra peek than if the wolves had just killed him the night before, the upshot being two guaranteed lynches of pro-town roles - or they are FAKING - in which case they have bought the seer extra turns (unless the wolves eat the real seer that first night while they are leaving the "seer" alive). Either of these plays seem like they have a better outcome for the village than if the wolves had just eaten the claimed seer.

Anyways, I really hope people talk about this one a lot and make it standard.



2) Don't vote for someone you don't think is a wolf, aka "Bandwagon theory isn't always right." I think this has a couple good benefits for all three roles (seer, villager, wolf) that I'll go into:

seer: basically you get to vote for people you've viewed as wolves (thereby leaving a clue that others can follow) without it seeming particularly wolfy or seer-ish

wolves: you can avoid voting for a wolfish brother of yours without being afraid to put the clinching vote on a villager. or if there are two wolves on the block, you might even be able to start a third bandwagon depending on where you are in the round.

villagers: if you are a very solid proponent of the two bandwagon theory or never wasting a vote no matter what, it seems to me like you can be herded into voting certain players just because someone is first to market with the bandwagon. if your vote isn't automatic, not only will wolves not be able to drive the voting early, but if the voting is close in a given round, people might persuade you to vote one way or another more than they would have if they knew you'd vote for one of the two anyways. this gives you information, and information is good.



As far as the first one, I'm pretty sure I'll always adopt this policy. I think that optimal WW strategy, while it will involve some lying in certain situations (I'm not good enough to know exactly when), the current environment of PoG with all the fake seer-ing almost requires this knee-jerk, steadfast, absolute treatment of liars IMO.

The second one, I'm a LOT more flexible on, I think that optimal strategy lies somewhere between this and the bandwagon theory, and I have much less of an idea where. Anyways, they're both just for discussion really and to get us thinking about strategies and how to play.

peace.

[Nicholasp27]

well, i'm a fan of fake seering (obviously) and feel it can help out the village

i'm also, of course, a big fan of bandwagon theory, but it mostly applies to day one, when u don't really know who is/isn't a wolf...some people are more 'feel' or 'gut' players and so don't care about bandwagons and such, but some people like to deduct things from the actions of others, especially with regards to how they act when wagons are on certain people


btw, confusion is bad for ANYONE that it confuses

if a villager fake seers, then that confuses the wolves as well...that's different than confusion that only confuses the village, as wolves already know who the non-wolves are

[Nicholasp27]

ps play in the turbo tomorrow morning

[DMBFan23]

yeah in the first round I agree that you usually don't have much to go off of, and you can usually use the evidence you get from a wagon later.

I had your fake seering from this morning in mind when I wrote that it can occasionally be good, but I do think it's overdone.

The two things are more a recentering, it seems like the v is where we are and optimal strategy is somewhere around x

|----less often-----more often-----|

"Lying" |---x-------v----------|
"Bandwagons" (First round excluded) |---------x---v--------|

[dknightx]

real seer is the new fake seer

[chuckleslovakian]

Another thing that needs to be discussed is having seers come out the round before a must lynch. It is now becoming optimal strategy in a must lynch round for a wolf to prepare a seer post and post as soon as the round starts. If done right its practically a coinflip on who to trust. In the very least the real seer needs to leave BLATANT clues the round before to ensure they are more trustworthy. Also, to minimize the chance of the real seer being eaten at night, every villager should leave blatant false clues.

[dknightx]

if every villager leaves blatant false clues (including wolves) how are we suppose to know who the REAL seer is?

[chuckleslovakian]

[ QUOTE ]
if every villager leaves blatant false clues (including wolves) how are we suppose to know who the REAL seer is?

[/ QUOTE ]
The point is for no one to know who the real seer is until the the must lynch round. Then hypothetically a wolf and seer both claim seer in the must lynch round. Then we can look at the clues they leave before. The thing is if no one leaves blatant clues the round before, a wolf can make just as a believable seer post as a real one.

[DMBFan23]

[ QUOTE ]
Another thing that needs to be discussed is having seers come out the round before a must lynch. It is now becoming optimal strategy in a must lynch round for a wolf to prepare a seer post and post as soon as the round starts. If done right its practically a coinflip on who to trust. In the very least the real seer needs to leave BLATANT clues the round before to ensure they are more trustworthy. Also, to minimize the chance of the real seer being eaten at night, every villager should leave blatant false clues.

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah I was thinking about this one too. In non must-lynch rounds, you can trade 1-1 (you get at least one wolf and give up either a villager or the seer), but that's not an option in a must-lynch round. I agree that the best option as a seer is to just come out the round before, or else wolves should absolutely also claim seer. but I've only been seer once so I'm not sure if that's right. Thanks for bringing it up.

[ChrisV]

[ QUOTE ]
well, i'm a fan of fake seering (obviously) and feel it can help out the village

btw, confusion is bad for ANYONE that it confuses

if a villager fake seers, then that confuses the wolves as well...that's different than confusion that only confuses the village, as wolves already know who the non-wolves are

[/ QUOTE ]

The wolves are only confused by a fake seer if the seer doesn't name a wolf as one of the villagers they "saw", as happened yesterday. If this happens, the only result is to confuse the village and to narrow down the possible night kill choices for the wolves.

Also, the seer is probably forced to waste a view on you since once a player becomes known for always fake seering as a villager, eventually they will try it as a wolf. If dmk had kept his mouth shut in the game yesterday, there's a reasonable probability I would have suspected you of this and lynched you.

Alternatively, you may force the real seer to come out prematurely.

In short, fake seering is only ever good if there's a high probability that you can get the wolves to eat you. For this to be true you must be pretty sure that two people are villagers, which suggests that your best play might instead be to use that knowledge to figure out who the wolves are and kill them. Fake seering is therefore best used either in a larger game where knowing who two villagers are doesn't help that much, or in a situation where the village is looking like lynching someone you are SURE is a villager.

Nich, if you keep doing it in every turbo, I will definitely start lynching you for it.