Game Theory Games

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Re: Game Theory Games

#81 Post by Squigs44 » Tue May 26, 2020 10:55 pm

Okay, I just spent probably close to 4 or 5 hours creating next weeks riddle/logic puzzle. It will be much more difficult than this week's for all of you who crave a challenge (lets be honest, the current one could be solved in a matter of minutes). I have had several more entries into the game, so it looks like this is picking back up pretty quickly.
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Re: Game Theory Games

#82 Post by Squigs44 » Fri May 29, 2020 11:07 pm

Reminder that you have a little over a day left to enter any submissions
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Re: Game Theory Games

#83 Post by Squigs44 » Sun May 31, 2020 9:25 pm

Detailed Riddle/Logic Puzzle Solution:
The first thing to do was to find out which country was eliminated by 01. Naples, Liverpool, Moscow, and Constantinople cannot be taken by a different country in 1901, leaving France, Germany, and Austria. Since Portugal and Spain must be captured in 01, France must capture a neutral SC and cannot be the one eliminated in 01. This leaves Germany and Austria as viable targets for being eliminated in 01.
Note that there are 22 units on the board. 3 come from the eliminated country, 3 are used to capture the territories of the eliminated country. 12 are used to capture the neutral SCs. This leaves 4 units left. In order for a whole country to hold, plus an additional unit to hold, Russia cannot be the one entering all holds, and any unit not holding or belonging to the eliminated country must capture a SC. This means that the unit in Rome cannot be convoyed to Tunis or Greece, and Rome must either hold or capture Trieste. Italy cannot be the country entering all holds, since Italy is the only country that can capture Tunis. Additionally, Liverpool must hold, since it cannot be convoyed. This ensures that England is the country entering all holds.
If England is entering all holds, then that leaves Holland and Belgium to be captured by either Germany or France. Since France is needed to capture both Portugal and Spain, it can only capture one of Holland and Belgium. That means that Germany must capture the other, and cannot be eliminated. Thus, Austria must be the country eliminated in 01.
If we examine the Balkans, we run into a small dilemma. Smyrna must either capture Bulgaria or hold. This means Ankara must either capture Bulgaria, Rumania, or hold. This also leaves Sevastopol to either capture Bulgaria, Rumania, or hold. With only two SCs available between three units, we have narrowed our holding unit to these three territories. Since Rome can no longer hold, Rome must take Trieste.
Next, let us sort out the rest of the southern neutral SCs. Tunis can only be taken by Naples. That means that Greece can only be taken by Constantinople. Serbia still needs to be taken, and the only unit that can now take Serbia is Venice. This means that we have also locked in the units needed to capture all of Austria: Rome, Warsaw, Munich.
Since Germany, Italy, and Russia are all now committed to taking a SC from Austria, Austria being eliminated, and England entering all holds, this leaves France and Turkey as the two countries that have all of their units capturing neutral SC's. If Turkey must have each of their units capturing a neutral SC, then this leaves Sevastopol as the unit holding.
At this point, it should be fairly easy to fill in the rest of the blanks (note that there is a little room for variation in some areas, for example Kiel could capture either Denmark or Holland while Berlin captures the other):
England: All holds
France: Mar->Spa, Bre->Por, Par->Bel
Germany: Mun->Vie, Kie->Hol, Ber->Den
Italy: Nap->Tun, Rom->Tri, Ven->Ser
Turkey: Smy->Bul, Ank->Rum, Con->Gre
Russia: Stp->Swe, Mos->Nor, War->Bud, Sev Hold
Austria: Gets out of the way

While I gave a step by step proof here, I originally solved this through trial and error, as I imagine most people did. If something I wrote was unclear, feel free to ask questions as well. Game results, as well as this week's riddle and game will be in another post soon.
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Re: Game Theory Games

#84 Post by Squigs44 » Sun May 31, 2020 11:15 pm

Sponsorship Game Results:
As always, it astounds me how many webdippers will submit the same (or very similar) strategies for these games, even if those strategies seem creative. For example, RoganJosh and 90kicvesb submitted these strategies (viewed side by side):
| A | 00 | 00 |
| B | 00 | 00 |
| C | 21 | 22 |
| D | 00 | 00 |
| E | 37 | 36 |
| F | 42 | 41 |
| G | 00 | 01 |

Note that they sponsored each player the same amount within a dollar of each other. Damo and Temasek22 each roughly split their money in thirds among Diana, Eddy, and Fiona. Several people split their money proportional to the player's skill levels with only slight variations. Pretty much the only player that stood out among the rest was Maniac, who spread his money in no organized way that I could see. That strategy actually did decently well, although it did not win.
The strategies that did well were those that realized that 19 was the magic number. People who spread themselves thin were beaten out by those that focused on getting a set of players that added to 19 skill. Even if their opponent won all of the other players, that only added up to 18 skill. This means that some players had higher wins without actually scoring a high amount of skill.
Here are the standings for 1v1 matchups:
| Username | Wins | Cumulative Skill |
| gimix | 8 | 206 |
| RoganJosh | 8 | 175 |
| 90kicvseb | 7 | 206 |
| damo666 | 7 | 163 |
| Maniac | 5 | 179 |
| Claesar | 5 | 158 |
| Temasek22 | 5 | 145 |
| BobMcBob | 4 | 188 |
| BunnyGo | 3 | 189 |
| Macca573 | 2 | 162 |
| yavuzovic | 1 | 156 |

As you can see gimix and RoganJosh both had 8 wins, only losing twice (Maniac happened to beat both of them with his maniacal strategy). Since gimix beat RoganJosh in their matchup and gimix scored more cumulative skill, I have no choice but to declare him this week's winner (and he really deserves it after getting second place so much last time we did these). Congrats on your win and on your new mod status!
Here was his strategy: A-3, B-7, C-15, D-31, E-42, F-1, G-1. In most matchups, gimix was able to win by securing the 5 lower skill players, which totals 19. Even if he lost Fiona and Gary, the other 5 players would allow him to win. The 1 dollar on Fiona and Gary didnt hurt either, ensuring he would pick up those extra points on anyone who didnt sponsor any money towards either of them. Sure enough, four people chose not to sponsor Gary, with one person remarking, "Gary is lazy and overweight. Past his prime. Complacent! Not getting any money from me."

The real winner of the day was Eddy, who made $286 off of sponsorships. Here is the breakdown of how much each player made:
A-28, B-50, C-138, D-160, E-286, F-285, G-153.
When Gary found out that Diana was making more than him with only half the skill, he was pretty upset. Stay tuned for the next game, coming sometime tonight.
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Re: Game Theory Games

#85 Post by Squigs44 » Sun May 31, 2020 11:26 pm

For this week's game, I wanted to redo the game that started this whole thing, but with a variation on how many points each SC is worth. Here are the rules below:

Each of the supply centers in Diplomacy is given a point value according to its name. Each letter is translated into its corresponding number (A->1, B->2, ..., Z->26) and then summed together. For example, Berlin would total 2+5+18+12+9+14 = 60 points. You are allowed to place a single unit, fleet or army, on a single territory on the map. After everyone has placed their unit, I will score the map in the following way:
Each SC will be awarded to the player who has the closest unit to that SC. Distance to SCs is determined by the shortest number of phases it would take that unit to reach that SC. For example, if I place A Kiel, I would be a distance of 0 from Kiel, a distance of 1 from Denmark, Holland, Ruhr, Munich, and Berlin. My army in Kiel would not be able to claim any SCs that it could not reach, such as London (no convoying allowed). Likewise, a fleet placed in MAO would not be able to reach Paris. In the event of a tie, points for a SC will be split equally among all players involved in the tie. Your goal is to score the most points.

If you have any questions about rules, feel free to ask them here or in a PM.

In order to participate, please PM me (don't post here) with the territory and unit type. I will be accepting participants until Saturday June 6th at 11:59 pm Eastern Time. I will then process the results and post the winner and the next challenge the following day.

Also feel free to discuss strategy/game theory here, but remember that any info you give your opponents could sway their decision.
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Re: Game Theory Games

#86 Post by Squigs44 » Sun May 31, 2020 11:27 pm

For clarity, here is a list of each SC and how many points it is worth:
ANKARA 46
BELGIUM 69
BERLIN 60
BREST 64
BUDAPEST 88
BULGARIA 71
CONSTANTINOPLE 177
DENMARK 66
EDINBURGH 88
GREECE 43
HOLLAND 66
KIEL 37
LIVERPOOL 124
LONDON 74
MARSEILLES 113
MOSCOW 88
MUNICH 68
NAPLES 67
NORWAY 96
PARIS 63
PORTUGAL 110
ROME 51
RUMANIA 77
SAINT PETERSBURG 194
SERBIA 54
SEVASTOPOL 144
SMYRNA 90
SPAIN 59
SWEDEN 70
TRIESTE 96
TUNIS 83
VENICE 58
VIENNA 65
WARSAW 85
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Re: Game Theory Games

#87 Post by Squigs44 » Sun May 31, 2020 11:55 pm

And lastly, this week's logic puzzle (wow this is a lot of content, hope you guys enjoy solving these as much as I enjoy creating them). This week's puzzle should prove much more difficult, so feel free to team up to solve this if you think it will help you, post here asking for help, PM for a hint, etc. For those who enjoy easier puzzles, I promise next week's will be simpler. Here it is:

Things were going great for my E-sports Diplomacy league. Gary was a little upset that he didn't get as many sponsors, but he got assigned Italy in his first game and was able to execute a very nice Key Lepanto, so he was pretty pleased with himself. Yep, everything was going great... until week 2. See, Fiona and Eddy got into a little bit of a spat over who the better player was. Okay, it was more than a little spat. They both thought that they were the smartest players in the league, and the entire league has been annoyed by their rivalry. So Eddy issued a challenge for Fiona that he thought was impossible to settle the score. Fiona accepted, agreeing that if she could not find a solution, she would concede that Eddy was the better player, but if she did find a solution, Eddy would have to concede to her. Here is the challenge:

Enter moves for all powers for 2 years in a game of classic diplomacy with standard rules. During those 2 years, there are no builds, no disbands, and no retreats. All of the neutral supply centers remain neutral at the end of the two years. All 22 units that begin the game end in a supply center, but it is a supply center that belonged to a different country at the start of the game. Furthermore, these 22 units create a single unbroken cycle with each other. This means that the unit that started in territory A ended in territory B, the unit that began in territory B ended in territory C, ..., and the unit that began in territory V ended in territory A.

If that is not difficult enough, within this chain, there is a segment of 7 consecutive supply centers (territories A through G from above) that includes 1 supply center from each country in succession.

And just to make sure this challenge is as difficult as possible, we are also going to add in the requirement that England and Turkey have SC's in this cycle that are only separated by two other SC's. This means that a unit that begin in England/Turkey ended in territory X, the unit that began in territory X ended in territory Y, and the unit that began in territory Y ended in the other of England/Turkey.

Fiona, the clever girl that she is, was able to find a move-set that satisfies all of Eddy's criteria. Can you? If you are struggling to find a solution, try to find a solution that solves all but the last requirement, or the last two requirements. I'm also curious if there is another solution to this challenge that Fiona did not happen to find, so please let me know your cycle and move-set if you do think you have solved this. As always, let me know if you have any questions.
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Re: Game Theory Games

#88 Post by Maniac » Mon Jun 01, 2020 7:11 am

Thanks Squiggs

I wonder if you could tell us how many games were won by which score?

My strategy was partly based on games being won by a score of less than 19. I figured participants would either entirely sacrifice webdippers or bid very low for them. That would result, or so I thought, of a number of games being won with less than 19 points.

Cheers
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Re: Game Theory Games

#89 Post by RoganJosh » Mon Jun 01, 2020 7:22 am

Squigs44 wrote:
Sun May 31, 2020 11:15 pm
As you can see gimix and RoganJosh both had 8 wins, only losing twice (Maniac happened to beat both of them with his maniacal strategy). Since gimix beat RoganJosh in their matchup and gimix scored more cumulative skill, I have no choice but to declare him this week's winner (and he really deserves it after getting second place so much last time we did these).
Can't really argue with the loss in the head to head matchup. But that I managed to get the same number of wins with less skill, I'll take that as that I'm the better coach! ;) :razz:
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Re: Game Theory Games

#90 Post by gimix » Mon Jun 01, 2020 9:01 pm

Wow! Thanks Squigs.
I must admit i agree with RJ though. But most of all i'm really curious about the "maniacal" strategy at this point :-)
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Re: Game Theory Games

#91 Post by Maniac » Tue Jun 02, 2020 7:29 pm

gimix wrote:
Mon Jun 01, 2020 9:01 pm
Wow! Thanks Squigs.
I must admit i agree with RJ though. But most of all i'm really curious about the "maniacal" strategy at this point :-)
You’re too kind calling it a strategy. My only strategy in these type of games tend to resemble a monkey typing out a Shakespearian sonnet.

Here is my sponsorship request

Fiona $9.00
Diana $6.00
Alex $1.00
Eddie $15.00
Gary $25.00
Bridget $11.00
Carl $33.00
Total $100.00
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Re: Game Theory Games

#92 Post by Squigs44 » Tue Jun 02, 2020 10:42 pm

In an attempt to show up Fiona and show people why he should be gathering more sponsorship, Gary has claimed that he has found an even better solution. His solution matches all of the criteria that Eddy laid out, plus an improvement. In his cycle, he also has a segment that links Turkey and England with a distance of 1. England/Turkey -> Territory X -> Other of England/Turkey.

*Thanks to RoganJosh for going for the extra credit and submitting this solution.
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Re: Game Theory Games

#93 Post by Squigs44 » Mon Jun 08, 2020 8:20 am

Sorry, I haven't had a whole lot of time today to be at my computer. Quick results from last game:

gimix - 511
90kicvesb - 400.33
Temasek22 - 348.5
Macca573 - 319.5
Maniac - 238.83
e.m.c^42 - 210.5
Theoneandonly - 186.67
damo666 - 186.67
BobMcBob - 168
yavuzovic - 136
ItsHosuke - 98

Congratulations to gimix for winning again! With an army in Moscow, he picked up just 4 SCs, but they were worth quite a lot of points, especially St Pete and Sevastopol.
As you noticed, we had less entrants than the first time around (hopefully I didnt miss anyone that tried to send in their entry). Even with the limited numbers, we still had two people select the same unit: damo666 and Theoneandonly both chose A Trieste.
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Re: Game Theory Games

#94 Post by Squigs44 » Mon Jun 08, 2020 8:26 am

As for the riddle, here is the impressive solution that RoganJosh found:
(This shows each units path, with an H representing hold and C representing convoying another unit).

Smy > H > H > Apu > Rom
Rom > Ven > Tyr > Mun > Kie
Kie > HEL > C > NTH > Edi
Edi > NTH > C > Nwy > StP
StP > GoB > BAL > C > Ber
Ber > Pru > War > Gal > Bud
Bud > Tri > Ven > Pie > Mar
Mar > Pie > H > Tyr > Tri
Tri > Alb > ION > C > Nap
Nap > ION > AEG > C > Con
Con > H > Sev > Ukr > War
War > Gal > Bud > Tri > Ven
Ven > Tyr > Mun > Boh > Vie
Vie > Boh > Sil > H > Mun
Mun > Bur > Par > H > H
Par > Bre > Lon > H > H
Lon > ENG > C > Ber > H
Bre > MAO > IRI > Lvp > H
Lvp > Yor > Kie > Lvn > Mos
Mos > Sev > Arm > Ank > H
Ank > BLA > C > Sev > H
Sev > Arm > Ank > Con > Smy

The key to this puzzle was to just keep trying. You couldn't really logic your way through this one, as there were several solutions, some of them looking completely different than others. I did see that in each of the solutions that satisfied the criteria you had to use some clever convoys. This solution has a creative path for Liverpool which convoys to Kiel in Fall 01 and then convoys to Livonia Spring 02 to end in Moscow. Another issue I ran into was that sometimes the area around Munich/Tyrolia could get crowded with units, so you had to be clever with where units ended in 1901 in order to avoid any builds or disbands.

Next week's riddle:
How many (if any) countries can guarantee controlling 4 SCs at the end of 1901? As promised, this question is quite a bit easier (mostly I didn't have as much time this week to prepare).
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Re: Game Theory Games

#95 Post by Claesar » Mon Jun 08, 2020 8:53 am

I was about to send in my entry :cry:
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Re: Game Theory Games

#96 Post by Squigs44 » Mon Jun 08, 2020 9:18 am

This week's game:

So I'm experimenting with different scoring and betting systems to implement here at webdip. One idea I have is to let people choose their own amount to bet in a game. This scoring system also happens to be winner take all. After a couple test games, I noticed a funny pattern. Whoever bet the second highest bet to get into the game always won in every test game. So that got me thinking, how could I maximize my points if the second highest bet always won. I set to work scouring the forums for some open games to test my theory. I was able to find 9 games on the forum to join. But I only have 255 points to bet!

For this week's entry, you will choose how many points you want to bet in each of the 9 games. Their names are listed below, with any special rules in parenthesis:
  • Backstab Your Friends Here
  • War in Europe Again
  • Key Lepanto Please
  • Not Gunboat, Please Actually Send Press
  • FRIGATE alliances rule
  • An Odd Gathering (your bet must be odd)
  • Prime Time Game (your bet must be a prime number)
  • High Roller Game (minimum bet of 20 points)
  • Newb Game (maximum bet of 20 points)
You can bet up to 255 points total, but you do not have to bet all of your points, and you are allowed to not join a game by betting 0 points on the game. Any points you do not bet you will keep. Out of every entrant this week, whoever has the second highest bet on each game will win that game and will be awarded all of the points that were bet on that game plus an additional point for each person in that game. If there is a tie for who has the second highest bet in a game, the points will be split evenly among those tied. In the event that everyone bets the same amount in a game, all points will be forfeited. Whoever ends with the most total points wins. In the event of a final standings tie, tiebreakers will be whoever participated in the most games, followed by whoever placed the highest bet.
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Re: Game Theory Games

#97 Post by Maniac » Mon Jun 08, 2020 9:22 am

Congrats gimix

I know squiggs is bust today but if anyone wants to share their entry copy and paste the following

gimix - 511 (A moscow)
90kicvesb - 400.33
Temasek22 - 348.5
Macca573 - 319.5
Maniac - 238.83 (A Serbia)
e.m.c^42 - 210.5
Theoneandonly - 186.67 (A Trieste)
damo666 - 186.67 (A Trieste)
BobMcBob - 168
yavuzovic - 136
ItsHosuke - 98

Did anyone go for Black Sea or North Sea?
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Re: Game Theory Games

#98 Post by Squigs44 » Mon Jun 08, 2020 9:23 am

Okay, one additional rule to prevent everyone from just betting really low. If the highest bet is at least ten times greater than the second highest bet, than the highest bet wins instead of the second highest bet.

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Re: Game Theory Games

#99 Post by Maniac » Mon Jun 08, 2020 9:45 am

So I'm a kind of shit or bust player when it comes to gambling.

I'm only making one bet on back-stab your friends here.

I'll be placing a bet of 240 or above. If anyone wants to risk taking me on, that'll be cool.
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Re: Game Theory Games

#100 Post by North Sea » Mon Jun 08, 2020 9:48 am

Just to note that my entry for the unit placement game seems to have been overlooked, unfortunately (F WMS).

Not a big deal, but it could affect other scores. Thank you.

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