Reads - WW strategy

[lastchance]

I like talking about WW theory, maybe a bit too much. However, I think this will be far more practical and useful than some of the other posts I've made.

In WW, reads are simply what you think about another player's role. Having good reads is when your reads are right a huge majority of the time.

This is, by far, the most important skill to have in werewolf. With good reads, you will get NKed a lot more, you will clear yourself quickly (well, in general), and of course, seer hunting is entirely about reads.

In long games, I go through a 3-step process when making reads.

1) First, you make an initial read. There are a bunch of things to look for here. At this point, anything can be made into an initial read. The more player-specific the better.

It's basically all here.

Advanced Villager Strategy

I don't think I can add much to this post. New villagers are generally either eager or confused. Anything that you find that is different from villagers to wolves can be used. At this point, just eff it. If I say "Hi" and you think it's wolfy, whatever. Make quick calls. In turbos, this is pretty much the only step you need.

2) If you have any specific arguments for why someone is a villager/someone is a wolf, you should take a step back, and argue to yourself the exact opposite. If you are unable to do this, you will have tons and tons of blinders, and not being able to 180 costs villages tons of games. This is what I use to avoid blinders. I think it's very important for people like me who think and read the game a lot and don't 180 enough (dustin, yeah, this is you). Of course, for those of you with less time and who don't get blinders, feel free to skip this step.

3) You should check to see your reads and whether or not what you're saying "makes sense." I fear this paragraph, because it will be easily used by those who do not comprehend it, but for those of you who do, it's going to be very powerful.

Villagers have certain tendencies. They talk with certain people, they argue with certain people. When they are right, they're right in a certain way. For example, 90% of the time, almost no one is going to clear me as a villager except Dustin/Shortline. You can use this type of knowledge, and it can be very, very effective. Ask yourself, "is what that villager saying make sense?" And by make sense, it's not whether or not you agree with it, or even whether or not it's right. By make sense, I mean, whether or not that villager SHOULD be posting what he's posting.

For example, fish would never clear me, dustin, and bojtun in ASXVII if he was a villager. I agreed with it, it was right, but it didn't make sense coming from fish (and I didn't push it hard enough at the time). Eskimo suspecting me on d5 was completely moranic (and wrong), but it was definitely a very, very natural thing for eskimo to do.

Villagers think a certain way. Each villager is unique in this, but some villagers think alike. This is very important. You don't need to be player-specific to do this, because some villagers think alike, but you better have put that villager under a group of people he thinks like. Villagers will say the same things. Wolves will say the same things. Villagers who think alike will often say the same thing as well. For example, both boj and supine said they wanted to lynch me the day clowntable got lynched in ASXVII. If boj and supine thought about the game completely differently, one of them is probably a wolf. But they didn't, and they weren't.

This is very, very player-specific and game specific. Shorty should think differently than Books. ScottHoward should attack Eskimo (something I completely missed in ASXVII). I should talk to Shortline a lot. Dustin and Bojtun should clear each other.

Since there are only 1/4 wolves (and 1/8 seers), for any weird interaction, there will be tons of natural ones. I suspect (and maybe hope a little) that after I have said this, people who do vote analysis and stuff (nich, antidan) will try to do this at a specific one by one level, but I think knowing what villagers should do is probably the more important side of this.

Figure out who attacks who, who argues with who, who agrees with who, who talks with who, who gets frustrated at who. Also, villagers will obviously not keep static reads (accuse the same players of being wolves EVERY game), but they will think certain kinds of postings are wolfy, and someone playing a certain type of game will be wolfy. And people will play a certain type of game based on the game itself, based on the events and what that player has done THAT game. Figure out what that person reacts to. I suggest analyzing yourself this way first, and slowly branch out to people like you, until you get to the point where you can do this with people you disagree with a lot.

Do not try to "make sense" of what people would do as wolf. Wolves metagame. Wolves try to fool you. Wolves will play differently based on who their wolf partners are. Most people play more villager games than they do wolf games. Most villagers don't know who the wolves are. Also, if you figure out what people don't do as a wolf, you clear villagers (which is fine). If you figure out what people don't do as a villager, you lynch wolves (awesome).

This is probably what makes shortline the best player in POG. He not only does this (which very few people do), he does this step extremely well.

Not only can you use a wolf's reads that don't "make sense" (which, btw, is far, far more incriminating then being wrong) to accuse a wolf, you can use the opposite. If someone's a villager, and always accuses player X of being a wolf but doesn't this game, player X is way more likely to be a wolf, and you should get them lynched.

This is probably the most important thing I can say about werewolf. Certain events (attacks, votes, lynchings, etc) should happen in a game. Because some people are wolves (and others are seers), some of these events will not happen. You can use the lack of certain distinctive events to find wolves (and evaluate whether or not you're right).

Generic Reads
If you do not have time to play werewolf, you should not try to be nitty. The important thing to do is take a step back, find out some really general things about how they play werewolf.

Example: I question people a lot more when I am a wolf, whereas I comment as a villager.

Example 2: Shortline tries to lynch villagers when he is a wolf. He tries to lynch wolves when he is a villager.

Keep these in the back of your head, and while rereading the thread, see which of these comes up. Since generic reads are more accurate than reads about a specific post and they take a lot less time, this is an excellent way to save time while still being effective.

Please have a different type of read for different types of players. I use how vocal players are and how defensive they are a lot, but too vocal is obviously reserved for certain types of wolves, and not vocal enough is reserved for other types of wolves. Do not have the same reads for everybody. You can have the same reads for groups of players, but make sure you don't have the same read for everybody.

For most people, you can read at least one or two players (probably more) very well while not really having any postable reason for why this is the case. Realize who these people are and make these reads (and shove them). These are a huge % of turbo reads (a lot less of long game reads), but very valuable for their accuracy. Also, note: Don't even try to use these reads on players you can't read. For players you can read this way, these are sheer gold.

Make sure that your generic reads have reasoning behind them if you are wrong about a particular player a lot though, else you're basically lynching the same people every single game (bar the few people you can read well).

The thing about using reads which have a very short reason based on a lack of posts or many posts is that they are far more accurate than specific, detailed reasoned out reads. Whenever your generic read and your specific read disagree (and thinking about what makes sense does not work), go with the generic read 99% of the time.

Unless you have multiple specific reasons for why someone is a wolf, specific reads are very likely to be wrong. Whereas, one generic read is absolutely excellent (and obviously, you're not going to be wrong about soul reads often, else, you shouldn't call it a soul read).

I probably need to streamline this post a little. This is not original. Shorty and traz basically taught me most of this in a bunch of chats. I word it differently than they do, but yeah, this is basically what I think about reads right now, and I think I've gotten a lot better at this game.

TLDR: Generic reads >>>> Specific reads.

Every villager reacts a certain way to the game they're playing right now. Figure out what it is, and you can figure what doesn't belong, which will pwn wolves (and seers).

Also, lynching wolves >>>>> clearing villagers (but I've said this so much).

[Bulletproof Monk]

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Eskimo suspecting me on d5 was completely moranic (and wrong), but it was definitely a very, very natural thing for eskimo to do.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol wtf.... are you still mad that i owned you so hard in the last long game?

[Bulletproof Monk]

the only reason i suspected you or scott at all was because you guys were still alive and not posting, scott especially kept making excuses

i was like 99%+ on clown and dustin, nothing else really mattered

[lastchance]

No, I'm just making an argument. And yeah, you owned me in the long game previous to this, but seriously, look at the context of my post.

And yeah, I was and am a bit pissed that I suspected 4 wolves (and like 2 villagers?) and was still up for lynch candidate.

[lastchance]

You realize that entire paragraph was based around the single point:
Certain Villagers think a certain way. Use this to find wolves and figure out what makes sense.

And I think eskimo is proving my point w/o knowing it.

[traz]

[Bulletproof Monk]

heh... honestly its too long for me to read, i generally just skim threads to see if my name is in them

[lastchance]

[ QUOTE ]
Trying to enumerate everything that I find wolfy would be a futile task, as much of it depends heavily on timing and context.

[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Look at what people don't say, not what they do say.

[/ QUOTE ]
I basically wrote a page expanding the above 2 sentences.

Some people shouldn't clear you. Some people shouldn't attack you. Some people shouldn't talk with you. Don't just attack people because they're attacking you, attack them for NOT attacking you.

Also, more stuff: For almost any reasoning you have to attack wolves, you can read a different person correctly using reasoning that is the opposite of the original reasoning.

Example: You can attack someone for being inconsistent. You can also attack someone for being too consistent.

More stuff: You can nail wolves because villagers are right and wolves are wrong. You can also nail wolves because villagers are wrong and because wolves are right.

[DustinG]

this is a really good post LC

the point that you make about Fish in ASXVII is very good.

[valenzuela]

tl; dr