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Werewolf Strategy for Advanced Players (repost) Werewolf Strategy for Advanced Players (repost)

08-22-2013 , 11:43 AM
yeah, good post
Werewolf Strategy for Advanced Players (repost) Quote
09-14-2013 , 07:52 PM
The original wolf article presumed that the players would already be competent at behaving villagery as wolves, so it didn't discuss any of that type of stuff.

But people over the years keep asking for advice on it, so I'm going to give some basic ideas here:

1) Either bus a wolf partner or defend him, nothing else.

The most basic thing to look for in interactions is the players who are wishy-washy in their reads, especially their reads on players who end up being wolves. The best way to avoid being caught that way is to just not do it. If you're going to bus a wolf, then you make your case against him, and you make sure to have your vote there whenever the wagon is viable. You don't make a case against him and then look for excuses not to follow through with it. You don't just wait until the situation is hopeless and then start to bus. You either go big or go home. If you're not going to bus, then you find a reason to call him a villager and you stick with it. You don't show doubt on it, you don't waffle on it, and you don't flip-flop on it unless the player does something so horribly wolfy that all of his defenders are flip-flopping on him. Some players will hold it against you to be wrong, but many will recognize that villagers are wrong a lot too. If you're not going to participate in bussing, then the hit to your credibility is minimized by taking an active stance rather than doing nothing.

2) Bus early or don't bus.

The time to bus a wolf is when it becomes clear that he has no endgame potential, but before he's actually in danger of being lynched. You'll see the villagers grumbling about him. He'll be showing up on wolf lists. No one has him as a villager. This is decision time. You're either going to be a leader in turning those wolf reads into votes, or you're not going to participate at all. The big credit goes to the leaders. Jumping on the wagon after others get it started doesn't do much for you, and it can even look bad for you if you haven't already laid the foundation for your vote.

3) Don't make firm plans.

You can't predict how the day will turn out until after it's over. Some people will be villagery, some will be wolfy, some will be absent, and your actions will have to change to reflect that. You're usually going to have some villagers and at least one wolf somewhere on your suspect list. Even if your plan is to go for a mislynch, you may find yourself in a situation where the wolf on your list is the only viable wagon, and you have to be prepared to go along with it. You'll also need to adjust your list during the day in response to things that happen. Maintain a wide focus, talking about numerous people, and come up with a variety of plans that can be used depending on how the day turns out. Change your vote as necessary depending on how the wagons shift, and how your reads are forced to shift as a result of new posts.

4) Be patient.

As long as you get enough villagers lynched, it doesn't matter what order things happen in. Sometimes you'll have a mislynch lined up, but then the guy starts acting villagery. This isn't a big deal. You call him villagery, you adjust your list, and then you wait for him to act wolfy later, or for new evidence to come up against him, and then you try it again. Sometimes there will be heat on a lot of wolves. Don't try to force a mislynch over a bunch of wolf wagons. Take that opportunity to get yourself some credit by lynching a wolf, and then use that credit later to lead a mislynch. I've seen games where all of the wolves were in danger, but they continued to make failed attempts to get mislynches every single day, further incriminating themselves and leading to an ugly defeat. Many other times, the village has had the entire wolf team in their sights, but they became confused after a day of heavy bussing, letting the wolves catch up again in the following days. Sometimes, you'll have good arguments to use against a villager, but it's obvious that he won't get lynched because everyone finds him villagery for other reasons. Just save those arguments for later. If the situation changes and the player looks lynchable, then bring out your case on him.

5) Use recency bias in your reads.

Villagers do it, and you should too. If a guy says something suspicious, jump on it, regardless of how villagery he's been in previous days. If a suspect does something villagery, back off of him for a little while. This will help to keep your reads from becoming stagnant, and it makes it look like you're paying attention and thinking about things. And just as importantly, you can use it to bring clear villagers back into the suspect pool. If people join in with you, then you can possibly turn it into a mislynch. If it leads nowhere, then it's no big deal, you just revert back to your old read after your little bout of paranoia.

6) Spend time on the game.

It's easy to catch the wolves who are floating along, and then decide to spend 20 minutes doing "work" which they post in the thread to show off for everyone. Instead of doing that, do the same things that villagers do. Reread the key passages, such as the last hour of each day. Reread the key people. When you find something interesting, make a little post about it. If things aren't interesting, don't post about them. These interesting passages and interesting people will invariably become a topic of conversation at some point, and you're well-informed and can respond to posts with decent insight. People think that you are paying close attention and trying to figure things out. This goes along with #4, being patient. You don't need to post everything you can think of to try to look villagery. It doesn't actually look villagery and you get stuck in a position where you've already said everything you can think of, so you're forced to repeat yourself if there is any further discussion of the topic.

7) Don't overexplain things.

You should (almost) always have a reason for what you do, but you aren't expected to provide that reason upfront. Post the strong reasons yourself, but wait until you get questioned to provide the weaker reasons. If you want to vote someone for weak reasons (for example, at the start of the game), just cast the vote without explanation. If you want to put someone on your villager list because of something generic like "tone", just put him on the list. You'll fit in with the villagers who don't explain everything, and you avoid drawing attention to yourself by posting stuff that sounds lame. If you get questioned on something and you don't have a good explanation for it, don't try to make one up on the spot. Just admit that either you have only a weak reason for it, or that it's just gut/feel/tone that can't be described. No one will care much about this unless you've done something to portray your read as being something strong that warrants a strong explanation.

8) Be wary of the low-hanging fruit.

Villagers do things that are weird, unexplainable, and just plain bad. Good villagers know that villagers do these things. And good villagers will be suspicious of good players who are trying to lynch players for those reasons. Depending on the lineup, you may be able to get some low-hanging fruit lynched, and you may need to do so in order to win the game. But if you expect to earn points for behaving villagery, you're also going to need to go after some people who haven't gift-wrapped you the excuses necessary to do so. You'll get more respect for pushing a tough lynch with solid reasoning than for pushing a lazy lynch on an easy target, and your credibility will take less of a hit for it. Conversely, you should also be wary of defending the low-hanging fruit too hard. Almost all villagers know that wolves love defending villagers who seem certain to be lynched. Unless you have a strong meta where you'd be expected to do the same thing as a villager, you're best off not drawing attention to yourself in those spots.

9) Take cues from other people's posts.

Villagers know that wolves like to copy things that have already been said by others, and they give credit to people who say things first. Sometimes you get opportunities to copy other people while making it look like you said it first. This happens when a villager makes a quick reference to something, but doesn't go into detail on the reasoning. For example, the villager may say that someone looks bad from the timing of a certain vote. Then, all you have to do is look up that vote, figure out why the timing could look suspicious, and then write out the full explanation for it, without ever mentioning anything about the post that you are taking your cue from. The villager who wrote the post that you copied will now think that you're thinking the same as him, and will give you villager credit for it.

10) Prepare for your wolf games when you're a villager.

When you're a villager, you will find yourself in many different situations, and you will see your own honest reaction to them. You'll see seer claims from the lead wagon, wolfy pop-ins, villagery posts from wolfy people, wolfy posts from villagery people, etc. Take note of your own reactions in those situations. Try to remember what things you wanted to post, but didn't post for some reason. When you are a wolf, bring out those saved posts in the appropriate situations. This will help to get the right emotional content and quick reactions in your posts. With some additional self-awareness about your villager game as a whole, you can also mimic the types of cases you make on people, etc.
Werewolf Strategy for Advanced Players (repost) Quote
09-14-2013 , 08:52 PM
on behalf of low-hanging fruit everywhere, thank you for this.
Werewolf Strategy for Advanced Players (repost) Quote
09-15-2013 , 03:33 AM
Ban Soah for hacking into my computer and finishing my half-written article on wolfing
Werewolf Strategy for Advanced Players (repost) Quote
09-15-2013 , 04:54 AM
captain binkles
high-hanging fruit
Werewolf Strategy for Advanced Players (repost) Quote
11-02-2013 , 06:49 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by soah
I'm hoping that one day I'll have the guts to substitute my strongest village reads for my dead peeks. But I'd feel like a selfish jackass if I screwed it up, so I don't know if I'd ever actually do it when hardclaiming.
My memory apparently isn't very good: It turns out that there was a game where I apparently claimed two village peeks when I actually had a wolf and a villager, and the wolf was getting lynched.

http://archives1.twoplustwo.com/show...fpart=all&vc=1
Werewolf Strategy for Advanced Players (repost) Quote

      
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