Riddler - Solutions to Castles Puzzle: castle-solutions-3.csv
Data license: CC Attribution 4.0 License · Data source: fivethirtyeight/data on GitHub · About: simonw/fivethirtyeight-datasette
84 rows where Castle 2 = 5
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Suggested facets: Castle 1, Castle 3, Castle 4, Castle 5, Castle 6, Castle 7, Castle 8, Castle 9, Castle 10
Link | rowid ▼ | Castle 1 | Castle 2 | Castle 3 | Castle 4 | Castle 5 | Castle 6 | Castle 7 | Castle 8 | Castle 9 | Castle 10 | Why did you choose your troop deployment? |
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19 | 19 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 2 | 16 | 18 | 15 | 14 | I have optimised this strategy to beat the average deployment from the last iteration of the game, by sacrificing castle 6,which was not well contested last time, so I expect it to be hotly contested this time round. |
41 | 41 | 1 | 5 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 28 | 28 | 28 | Because I'm trying my best. |
51 | 51 | 1 | 5 | 8 | 12 | 13 | 1 | 26 | 30 | 2 | 2 | I copied the first winner one minor arbitrary change. |
73 | 73 | 1 | 5 | 9 | 13 | 17 | 19 | 15 | 11 | 7 | 3 | Seemed like a good idea at the time. |
93 | 93 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 7 | 8 | 21 | 0 | 28 | 30 | 0 | optimize higher castles but never go in increments of five (leads to more ties which are inefficient). use 0 on castles that have a higher chance of being contested |
104 | 104 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 19 | 1 | 2 | 27 | 30 | Based on the last two games, those with less troops were overwhelmed. I figure most people will leave 9 and 10 relatively open, and 1-5 will be given 4, to take out the 3's from round 2. Let's see what happens! |
122 | 122 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 11 | 3 | 19 | 22 | 4 | 28 | 6 | Choose who I want in my main coalition based on trying to have some overlap and differences with both previous rounds, but come up with 2,4,6,7,9 without too much further thought. Allocate 85% of my army to this coalition to not leave others undefended (except 3, out of spite). |
152 | 152 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 15 | 18 | 20 | 0 | 28 | The Name of this game should be 55. Why? Well for a similar reason why your website is called 538. 55 is the number of total points a player could win in this game, but 28 is the number of points a player needs to win, like 270 in an election. If a player can get to 28 points then he automatically wins. (Said player can win with less if there are ties). Instead of viewing the board as 55 points I can win, I view it as 28 points I need to win. That being said, each point is worth 3.57 of my soldiers (100/28). I am making an assumption, that most people will undervalue lower point tiers. Putting 3, 5, and 7 soldiers on tiers 1, 2, and 3 respectively, 15% of my soldiers, but gains 21% of the points needed. A major victory for my army. 4 and 5 are tricky. They are needed to win if you go the 10,9,5,4 strategy (last season's winners did). But they were overcommitted to those areas. Being wary of losing them due to people overcommitting on them, I left them at 2. Every soldier needs someone to guard his back. Pick up the easy win vs those who bid 0 or 1, but don't lose out on those playing the 10,9,5,4 strategy. Probably a minor loss for my army. 6,7,8 are much easier. They deserve 21, 25, and 28 soldiers respectively (using 3.57x *point value). But they are also VERY underappreciated by both past winners, and the average submission. Capitalizing on this, I can gain these points by using a decent amount of soldiers, but near the amount they deserve. Another major victory for my army. I can count on wins by using only 15, 18, and 20. This leaves me with 9 and 10. And 28 troops. If history tells us anything, its that people like castle 9 more than they like castle 10. This is an either or situation, you won't win both unless you overcommit. I place all 28 in castle 10. |
177 | 177 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 12 | 12 | 26 | 26 | 4 | 4 | Overvalue the undervalued |
182 | 182 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 19 | 23 | 7 | 7 | 19 | 4 | 5 | I just picked a strategy that would beat the top 5 in the most recent battle and also the top 5 in the first battle |
192 | 192 | 2 | 5 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 16 | 3 | 31 | 27 | 4 | Random to avoid overthinking the problem |
214 | 214 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 17 | 19 | 1 | Prioritizing high-end targets while keeping out of Castle 10 battle - marginal gain on that castle is not worth the battle |
217 | 217 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 7 | 11 | 11 | 26 | 4 | 27 | Gut feeling |
227 | 227 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 20 | 20 | Used the previous results, and tried to pick the opposite strategies |
233 | 233 | 1 | 5 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 19 | 2 | 23 | 34 | 4 | 28 by way of 2,3,6,8,9 instead of 4,5,9,10 or 1(2),3,4,5,7,8. Mixed strategy which emphasizes 3 and 6 over 4 and 5 and splits the first two rounds emphasis on 7,8 and 9,10 by focusing on 8,9 |
267 | 267 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 28 | 29 | 32 | |
270 | 270 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 20 | 20 | 20 | |
276 | 276 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 22 | 1 | 26 | 34 | 3 | 5 | Trying to avoid over-spending on castles the opponent will deploy to. |
286 | 286 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 10 | 20 | 24 | 5 | 3 | 3 | I wanted to prioritize taking castles 1-7. Taking every single one of these castles will provide me with 28 points, just over half. I chose to escalate with the number and hope others would focus on the "big" castles", leaving me to win with the small ones. However, I still sent some troops to the small ones in case someone went all in on the same strategy. If they do, I'm hoping the small amount I sent+the variation in the troops I'm sending will allow me to win those matchups. |
312 | 312 | 2 | 5 | 8 | 10 | 13 | 2 | 26 | 30 | 2 | 2 | Took the winner of Round 1 and moved 1 soldier to beat it |
323 | 323 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 23 | 1 | 1 | 25 | 35 | 2 | My goal was to win 8 and 9. With that I only need 11 more points to secure victory. I sacked 6 and 7 given that they were low in the last one and more people are likely to focus on those. That leaves me with needing to win 5 and 3 and then either 1 and 2 or 4. I sacked 4 given that it was high in both prior events. |
345 | 345 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 12 | 21 | 26 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 0 | I did the math and discovered that 28 points is the magic number. 8, 9, 10 get you 27, and 1-7 get you 28. So, I punted on 8,9,10, expecting most people to stock up on those and give them a free victory there while they use the majority of their troops. Meanwhile, I'll be happy to take all the smaller castles because 28>27. I debated going for 8,9,10 and 1 to take 28 points, or even 2,3,4,6,7,8 to make 28, but figured my first thought would win more often than the other two, which would be harder to distribute troops since 8 would take so many to guarantee the victory. |
377 | 377 | 5 | 5 | 13 | 14 | 17 | 21 | 22 | 1 | 1 | 1 | I waffled between heavily targeting castles 8, 9, 10, and 1 to get to 28 points, or my submitted strategy of trying to nab castles 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. It seemed to me that using more troops on fewer castles was the more simplistic option, so I thought that more people might try that option, so I decided to go the other way and spread my troops out over more castles. It was fun to think about, but I doubt I'll do very well. I'm not mathematically inclined. |
405 | 405 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 16 | 27 | 10 | Reverse variant of Benford's law. Law typically only covers numbers 1-9, so I gave castle 10 the average weight of 10 soldiers, then reversed the probabilities of the Benford's law digits putting 9 highest and 1 lowest, and divided by the new total weight of 110. Probably suboptimal, but who knows. |
439 | 439 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 30 | 40 | Castles 3-7 are pretty lame |
450 | 450 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 10 | 5 | 5 | Compete everywhere, but not too hard for the low and high value castles |
470 | 470 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 8 | 1 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 17 | 19 | There are 55 points on offer. With 100 troops, that means deploying my troops evenly per the points on offer requires sending ~1.8 troops for each point in the castle. Most people probably figured this out, so I looked where they would round up/down to get to whole soldiers, and I sent 1 more soldier than that to each castle. This strategy required 10 extra, so I gave up on castle 5, which was taking 10 soldiers. Then, I moved 1 soldier from castle 1 (which had 3) to castle 5, so that if they did some weird strategy with no troops to 5 I'd win it, and only was increasing my risk at a 1 point castle. |
477 | 477 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 12 | 12 | 16 | 9 | 12 | 18 | Hoping other warlords don't put very many in the early castles |
509 | 509 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 5 | 11 | 30 | 11 | 8 | I felt like Castle 8 had the best view, so I really wanted to take that one. |
540 | 540 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 20 | 25 | 30 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Capture the low value castles |
548 | 548 | 3 | 5 | 6 | 8 | 0 | 12 | 14 | 15 | 17 | 20 | Scale investment to reward, but then abandon castle 5 and use the extra soldiers to try to beat other warlords scaling investment to reward |
585 | 585 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 14 | 17 | 20 | 0 | 13 | surrender castle 9 completely -- exceed the average of BOTH original and May average per castle strategies for every other battle. |
616 | 616 | 2 | 5 | 8 | 5 | 6 | 16 | 15 | 18 | 8 | 17 | Rd2 winners saw 2 trends v. 1: Entrants mimicked 1 and therefore 2 winners were differented from 1 winners in placement and throw-away towers were defended with 3-4 v. 1-2 solders to win. I picked a strategy that is different from 1-2 and increases throw-away defense slightly. |
636 | 636 | 3 | 5 | 11 | 18 | 2 | 19 | 19 | 17 | 2 | 4 | Already submitted but I think I typoed to have my totals over 100? |
652 | 652 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 12 | 23 | 14 | 15 | 14 | 2 | mystery |
658 | 658 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 9 | 11 | 10 | 26 | 28 | 2 | 2 | I looked at the first battle you had, added up the total on each castle for the top entries, then divided proportionally. There seemed to be something vaguely bell-curve-derivative about the winners. |
670 | 670 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 23 | 23 | 27 | 11 | 1 | 2 | Decided to weigh 7-5 the heaviest, as they are accountable for a good chunk of points. Didn't want to lose 9 or 10 if they were abandoned, so I put a few there (but mostly empty). Then I concentrated some on 8 (expecting that it would be defended less than 5-7 but not as minimally as 9-10). The lower values were kind of chosen randomly. |
693 | 693 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 6 | 25 | 36 | 2 | 9 | 9 | |
698 | 698 | 5 | 5 | 8 | 8 | 10 | 17 | 20 | 23 | 2 | 2 | Winning with the middle picks (maybe) didn't check the last results |
704 | 704 | 4 | 5 | 8 | 10 | 7 | 13 | 10 | 14 | 17 | 12 | Mixed strategy |
726 | 726 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 6 | 11 | 30 | 29 | 6 | 4 | Not quite randomly, I looked at a line graph of the averages of top scorers from the first and second iteration. Then I imagined the future iterations as something of a jump-rope moving. While over-caffeinated, this was the decided plan of attack: Let x1 and x2 be the vectors of troops deployed per castle. Let y3 = 1/2(x2-x1) Because x2+y3 gives negative components for castles 9 and 10, we assume that there is a "bounce-back" from 0. Now we need to re-assign the 31.8 troops over castles 1 through 8. So we assume "exponential decay" as a function of distance from castle 9 (alpha=0.8, chosen arbitrarily). Magic? |
736 | 736 | 5 | 5 | 20 | 5 | 5 | 20 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 20 | Not sure, just playing! |
738 | 738 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 17 | 19 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 18 | 14 | Played around with numbers in excel until I found a combo that would beat all of the top 5 entries from both of the past 2 contests, as well as the mean numbers from both |
754 | 754 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 10 | 15 | 22 | 28 | 2 | 4 | 4 | Mostly abandon the top tier castles and focus my forces on the lower values. However, send what are hopefully slightly larger scouting parties to the high value targets. |
761 | 761 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 20 | 21 | 8 | 13 | 20 | 2 | 2 | Optimized against those who optimized against the best strategies from last time. It ended up looking like the strategies of the first time the riddler was posted. |
765 | 765 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 9 | 16 | 13 | 17 | 21 | 8 | I went with my gut, I also glanced at the data of the past two matches |
766 | 766 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 35 | 30 | 30 | There is 55 points total. 28 is what you need to win. So win 10,9,8 and 2. Focus on the minimum amount of effort to win. Win by a little or a lot, a win is a win. |
784 | 784 | 0 | 5 | 9 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 21 | 26 | The strategy I chose is a tweaked version of “distribute troops proportional to the value of the castle, while abandoning the highest conflict Castles (historically 7 & 8) and the lowest point castle (Castle 1). I tweaked the exact numbers to fit my liking though. My goal with this deployment was not to beat the top performers - it was to beat the field. Beating the #1 warlord is the same as beating anyone else after all. I decided on this strategy by coming up with several theories on how to win, and testing them against an approximation of “the field” I created using the data provided by the previous contests and a Gaussian number generator. 333 “participants” were based off of the data from the first contest, 666 from the second, each of the top 5 strategies got 15 entries, and to make it an even 1150 the last participant placed 10’s in each castle. Hopefully there aren’t too many people who copy-paste the winning lists, otherwise I’ll lose! While I calculated a roughly 70-75% win chance in total vs the field, and a solid 80% win chance vs the initial top 5, I literally lose to each of the most recent top 5. So... good luck to me? Hopefully this won’t blow up in my face! |
785 | 785 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 8 | 8 | 12 | 12 | 16 | 15 | 19 | My basic strategy was to distribute the troops in a proportion equal to the percentage of total points that each castle holds, rounded, with a twist! Each of these proportions were (1/55 * castle#). I believe this is the best mathematical solution, but I thought that others might have thought the same, so I conspired to beat them. For each even castle I added 1 troop, and subtracted 1 from each odd castle. This way, I will win ties against those who shared my thought process. |
789 | 789 | 0 | 5 | 9 | 12 | 21 | 19 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 24 | My brother worked on this, and I think he was on the right track. But he failed to account for how many will just use variations of the plans that won last time. I used a set of info Thomas made from your last two warlord games and made a strategy that works almost as well, but specifically targets the winners of the previous two games. My goal here is to have just one or two more soldiers than my enemy in the areas I'm fighting, and abandon the places where my enemy puts the most soldiers. |
796 | 796 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 30 | 40 | Intuition and guesswork based on the past data. Most generals had more even distributions and none of the top 10 had any allocations above 40. So if I capture the highest value prizes and a few of the smaller ones that garner less attention, I figure I should be in pretty good shape. |
807 | 807 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 11 | 27 | 28 | 4 | 4 | 4 | Guess |
824 | 824 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 11 | 10 | 15 | 15 | 20 | 17 | 3 | idk it’s 5am |
828 | 828 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 12 | 14 | 17 | 19 | 3 | Forfeit the 10 points and win the others |
845 | 845 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 17 | 19 | 1 | Strategy distributes based on points, dropping 10 to pack enemy into valuble territory and give a better advantage overall. 1 point initially to all castles to win in the event of no compete. Remaining points distributed through castle 1-9 at a rate of 2:1 |
861 | 861 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 20 | 25 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | Expecting that the hardest fighting will be for the most valuable castles this should leave the lesser value ones relatively undefended and easier to pick off. However, for those who share my view a small commitment of troops is worthwhile in case others go for an all or nothing strategy and do not think high value targets are worth it. Expecting to win 15 to 25 total victory points remaining consistently around or above average. |
863 | 863 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 15 | 15 | 25 | If I can commit enough to with with higher value forts then the rest don't matter. |
866 | 866 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 17 | 10 | 16 | 19 | 15 | 5 | 3 | I reviewed and added both of the table of previous winners to an excel spreadsheet and manipulated the numbers until I won most matchups in against both sets of winners. The second winners appear to essentially concede 27 points (1,2,3,6,7,8) while the first winners in general sought their points in the 5-9 range. Unfortunately, you won't get an awesome math answer for my choices. |
871 | 871 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 20 | 25 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 0 | trying for a plausible counter-intuitive plan |
883 | 883 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 11 | 16 | 22 | 1 | 36 | 1 | 1 | Anticipating even, uniform placement with person using some 0s |
904 | 904 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 9 | 5 | 4 | 10 | 20 | 0 | 40 | I've done these things before, and I know that people stack the second-highest value. I decided to go a more conservative approach and split a lot of things, stacking on those where less soldiers would be and retreat where others would stack. |
906 | 906 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 32 | 32 | Put a lot on high value targets + pick up the forgotten points. We'll see how it goes. |
915 | 915 | 2 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 15 | 15 | 20 | 23 | 0 | 0 | Trumpian Electoral college: ignore NY and CA, go for TX, PA, FL |
916 | 916 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 20 | 20 | 10 | 10 | |
942 | 942 | 1 | 5 | 11 | 1 | 1 | 22 | 26 | 3 | 3 | 27 | |
949 | 949 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 14 | 19 | 24 | 7 | 7 | Wanted a reasonable chance of winning castles 6,7,8 along with a decent chance of winning the other ones by generally deploying 7 troops since it's likely that 2-7 will win some of them based on past history. |
954 | 954 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 15 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 34 | 34 | Designed to defeat the average player; effectively giving away castles 1, 5, 6, 7 and 8 (27 points) while focusing soldiers on castles 2, 3, 4, 9 and 10 (28 points) |
965 | 965 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 15 | 15 | 20 | 20 | 0 | 0 | Slightly higher than the average for each castle from the last two games. Ignored castles 9 and 10. Adds up to 36 maximum points, well enough to win. Even if losing castles 7 and 8, can still win. |
972 | 972 | 0 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 23 | 32 | I pretended I was playing against my brothers Devon and Nate. So hopefully people generally think like the two of them. |
974 | 974 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 18 | 25 | 1 | 1 | My starting point was to look at the number of men that would be needed to beat the averages from both previous battles -- {4 5 7 9 11 14 17 20 17 13}. Then, I figured out the cheapest way to get 28 points with that number of men in each castle -- I came up with {0 0 0 9 11 0 0 0 17 13}, using 50 men. I then tried to counter that strategy, eventually deciding on punting the "most valuable" castles 9 and 10 and reinforcing the castles I felt I needed to do best in (4, 5, and 8). |
994 | 994 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 25 | 18 | 13 | 10 | 7 | 6 | 5 | |
1003 | 1003 | 0 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 15 | 22 | 26 | 2 | 3 | |
1025 | 1025 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 16 | 2 | 2 | 32 | 32 | |
1046 | 1046 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 5 | 5 | It takes 28 points to win the battle. The easy way to do that is to win 8, 9, and 10 (allowing you to win by winning any of the other castles). But if a large number of people go with that strategy, you can get a decent number by winning 5, 6, and 7 and hoping to clean up the last ten points by having enough guarding 1-4. I am hoping that 19 points will be enough to have a shot at winning 8, and if not that those going with a top heavy strategy will not have enough left for any of the other castles. |
1050 | 1050 | 0 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 21 | 0 | 21 | 0 | 26 | 2, 3, 4 instead of 9, and then and 3 of 5,6,8, and 10 |
1072 | 1072 | 5 | 5 | 8 | 10 | 14 | 14 | 12 | 17 | 15 | 0 | Sending more men To the higher castles is more important than the others down the list. Ten isn’t worth it. |
1073 | 1073 | 5 | 5 | 8 | 10 | 14 | 14 | 12 | 17 | 15 | 0 | Sending more men To the higher castles is more important than the others down the list. Ten isn’t worth it. |
1079 | 1079 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 12 | 2 | 18 | 3 | 24 | 4 | 30 | People like odd numbers - so contest the even ones. |
1085 | 1085 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 20 | even spreading of troops....except 10 is prioritized highly, at the expense of lesser castles 1 and 2 |
1094 | 1094 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 11 | 16 | 18 | 2 | 1 | 15 | 25 | Easy points and late points |
1121 | 1121 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 30 | 30 | 2 | 3 | Gank those mid high castles bruh |
1191 | 1191 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 17 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 1 | 2 | 2,5,6,7,8 for the win |
1289 | 1289 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 10 | 13 | 3 | 24 | 26 | 4 | 4 | Random |
1305 | 1305 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 9 | 17 | 13 | 15 | 19 | 11 | 7 | Odd numbers between 1 and 19, centered on Castle 8 and distributed around it in descending order. |
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CREATE TABLE "riddler-castles/castle-solutions-3" ( "Castle 1" INTEGER, "Castle 2" INTEGER, "Castle 3" INTEGER, "Castle 4" INTEGER, "Castle 5" INTEGER, "Castle 6" INTEGER, "Castle 7" INTEGER, "Castle 8" INTEGER, "Castle 9" INTEGER, "Castle 10" INTEGER, "Why did you choose your troop deployment?" TEXT );