Open 521: Jungle Republic (Alright. We'll call it a draw)

[Leafsnail]

Draws are anticlimactic and don't feel like the right way to resolve situations like this (where neither side really wants to kill because it lowers their chance of victory). Would it be better to change the rules so that either the town is forced to lynch or the wolves are forced to kill in future?

[Leafsnail]

If lynching were compulsory then there would be no problem getting mafia co-operation in lynching the werewolf, since mafia would no longer have a no lynch option to push for. And it would have been unfair to inject these rules into an ongoing game, but if you knew in advance that you'd be made to kill then it wouldn't be.

[Leafsnail]

My suggestion would be

- If there's a no lynch then a no kill the town has to lynch
- If there's a no kill then a no lynch the wolves have to kill

[Leafsnail]

I don't think it would really force anyone to lose, it would just force them to make a decision and have a chance at winning.

[Leafsnail]

Well you wouldn't necessarily need a plurality lynch in this case, at least not any more than you would in any other game. With the option of no lynch gone the mafia and town would both want to lynch a wolf, so a hammer could go through fine. As far as I can tell there are no Jungle Republic gamestates that would completely lock the vote (other than 1 townie, 2 mafia, 2 werewolves, but that should really be called as game over anyway because the town can't win).

And yeah, sometimes you have to take an action that has a less than 50% chance of you winning, particularly if your faction is losing. But that doesn't mean you should be allowed to shy away from the decision - you should be made to shoot for your small chance of victory, because a small chance is still a chance.

To bring up a similar example, at 3 player lylo, the town has to lynch, even though they have a 66% chance of losing based on the result. Is that unfair? Would you let them call it a draw if the mafia had no kill?

[Leafsnail]

In LyLo town isn't required to lynch. However not lynching reduces its chance of winning to 0% whereas a lynch increases it to 33%.

Well that's assuming the mafia can kill. If the mafia can't kill, as in Jungle Republic, not lynching will lead to a draw. Would it be acceptable to let town force a draw then, due to their unfavorable chance of winning if they lynch?

The 66% chance of losing by killing is worse than the 0% chance of losing by taking the draw. It's a perfectly reasonable alternative.

...

In any event, a draw is better than a loss, so don't all three factions have an incentive to go for the draw when none of them have a strong chance at winning?

[/quote]
That works if you're playing to not lose. But you're meant to play to

win

, and having gamestates that stagnate to a draw complicates this dramatically.

In addition, the mafia actually had a pretty strong chance of winning from their position (above 50% if the werewolves killed, barely below 50% if the town lynched).

And with the 1:2:2 setup, it isn't called because the moment town dies, werewolves lose. It's a tricky gamestate, and I'm actually rather pleased at the amount of dynamic interactions this setup brings. I mean, claiming scum is actually a reasonable strategic option here. It's so interesting.

But town can't win in that situation (barring a quadruple modkill), so it's basically just "a guy who can't win gets to decide which other faction wins". That doesn't really make for an interesting end to the game, and I think that's the reason why the town-wolf-mafia endgame is called in favour of the mafia.

I agree that Jungle Republic is a really interesting setup, but I feel that some of the endgames lead to anti-climactic draws, rather than interesting lylo situations where two factions are forced to work together to try and take down the other.