Riddler - Solutions to Castles Puzzle: castle-solutions.csv
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1,349 rows sorted by Castle 7
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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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1345 | 1345 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 25 | 25 | 50 | My last and final submission! I ran every distribution of 30 troops / 4 castles to find that [0 7 8 15] performed the best against all others. For 12 troops / 5 castles = [0 0 3 3 6]. For 10T, 6C = [0 0 1 2 3 4]. I'm extrapolating / guessing that 100T,10C looks like this. |
1346 | 1346 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 100 | 0 | I figure many will put all 100 in #10 and thus have lots of ties |
1347 | 1347 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 25 | 75 | Because you told me to |
1348 | 1348 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 100 | Go big or go home. |
1349 | 1349 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 100 | YOLO |
3 | 3 | 26 | 26 | 26 | 16 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | The top 3 are necessary for a majority and the 4th is also needed. The rest are filled in case my opponent leaves them empty. |
14 | 14 | 19 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 25 | 25 | 25 | need 28 to win |
15 | 15 | 19 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 25 | 25 | 25 | The total number of points is 55 so you need 28 points to win the war. The smallest combination of castles to win 28 points is 10,9,8,1 so to maximize your chances you should just split your army by 25 soldier each. But this won't work because the other castles will be undefended and an enemy could easily put 90 soldier on Castle 10 and 1 soldier on each undefended castle winning the war. So Castle 1 is defended by 19 soldier to be able to defended the rest of the castles with 1 soldier. Running a simulation with a random number generator gives me a 98% chances of winning with this combination, althought it is sunday night and I might have made some fundamental mistake in the code |
17 | 17 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Evenly distributing troops at 6 castles gives me a great chance to win a simple majority, and single troops at the remaining 4 gives me an auto win if my enemy leaves any empty. |
35 | 35 | 13 | 3 | 13 | 31 | 24 | 11 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | I figured people would go after the later castles and keep their deployments balanced |
73 | 73 | 11 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 26 | 26 | 31 | Go For 28 points |
74 | 74 | 11 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 25 | 27 | 31 | There's 55 points, so you need 28 to win. 10+9+8+1 = 28; that's the fewest number of wins. Guard against people splitting their troops 10 ways by sending 11 to Castle 1, and don't leave anything uncontested by not sending any. That's 11 + 6 = 17, with 83 to spread out between Castles 8 - 10. I didn't overthink this. |
75 | 75 | 11 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 20 | 29 | 34 | There are 55 total points available, so you need 28 points to win, which is why I focused on castles 1, 8, 9, and 10. Winning those four castles gets me exactly 28 points. Assuming an average of 10 soldiers per castle, placing the amount of troops I put in each of these four castles should hopefully let me prevail more often than not and get the 28 necessary points to win the Battle Royale and rule Riddler Nation. |
76 | 76 | 11 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 25 | 28 | 31 | Assume enemy will try to be clever and will have assumed that I am targetting large castles. He will have allocated his troops to win lower castles. So I try to win the point total by reallocating to win castles 8, 9, 10, and 1. In case any of the middle castles (3-7) are ignored, send 1 soldier to prevent a point split and steal the win. |
95 | 95 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 27 | 28 | 29 | The plan is to get to the 28 points needed with as few castles as possible while also leaving a guard against other strategies that assign zero soldiers to some castles. |
151 | 151 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 21 | 21 | 46 | Because the optimal strategy should be to win with the fewest castles |
198 | 198 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 26 | 30 | 33 | OK, I figured that I need 28 points to win. Thus, taking castles 10, 9, 8, and 1 would suffice. First, I allot one soldier to each castle, should the enemy king omit any. With the remaining 90, I allotted them according to the proportional value of my target castles relative to the required 28 points, calculating this as, approximately 33 additional soldiers to C10, 30 to C9, 26 to C8, and 5 soldiers to C1. Having sent off my army, I prepare a huge victory parade that will have the largest crowds ever, no matter what the park service says. |
199 | 199 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 26 | 30 | 33 | There are 55 total victory points in the game, therefore a player needs to get 28 points. I assume that my opponent will then choose a strategy that only sends troops to castles to achieve the minimum of 28 points and not send any troops to the other 27 points. Regardless of which strategy he chooses my strategy will beat any strategy that chooses to completely ignore castles. |
200 | 200 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 25 | 29 | 35 | In order to win the war, I need to get more victory points than my opponent. With 55 total victory points at stake, I need 28 victory points to win. The top three castles are collectively worth 27 (8+9+10) points, so if I win those, I only need to win one more castle to win the war. The vast majority of my soldiers go to castles 8, 9, and 10 since they are the most valuable. I send five troops to castle 1 because I doubt most of my opponents will send many troops to the least valuable castle. I send one soldier to each of the remaining castles (2-7) just in case my opponent neglects to send any troops there. These six soldiers don't hurt me much in other areas. Overall, I think this strategy is the best way to win the race to 28 points. |
245 | 245 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 8-10 are 27 points and 1-7 are 28 points. This is to attempt to ensure a win at 8,9,10 and 1. If you bet me at either 8,9 or 10. I will win the bottom 6 castles and win. See if it works. |
246 | 246 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 30 | 30 | 30 | Aim to win the big three and then the smallest one to get exactly half the points plus 1. |
247 | 247 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 28 | 30 | 32 | Need 28/55 to win, 10+9+8+1 is 28, throw a few in the others in case they realize that and don't put any in 2 through 7. |
248 | 248 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 26 | 30 | 34 | You need 28 victory points to ensure victory over your opponent. Figured the most efficient way to do this was to hit that number contesting as few castles as possible, so concentrated on the highest value 3 castles and then only needed one more to get 28 so put a few extra in the 1. I hedged slightly by putting one soldier in each of the other 6 castles in case my opponent chose to not send anyone there. I distributed the remaining troops based on % of needed victory points per castle. |
251 | 251 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 30 | 31 | 32 | Heavy value on 10,9,8, and 1 as you would only have to win those 4 castles to win any battle. |
329 | 329 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 31 | 29 | 28 | |
331 | 331 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 1 | 21 | 23 | 11 | I'd like to pick my battles and win those by a little, and if I'm going to lose, lose by a lot. However, I figure some people will send zero troops to some castles, so I'll send one if it could result in an easy win. Otherwise, I just put an increasing number of troops on the castles I choose to fight for. Some numbers are designed to beat some common strategies like all 10's. |
362 | 362 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 1 | 12 | 1 | 1 | 19 | 25 | 27 | The goal is to win 28 or more points. It basically "concedes" 3 castles, allocating only 1 soldier to them*, in order to heavily weight the others. * The 1 soldier allocations are in case others use a more extreme version of this strategy allocating 0 soldiers to some castles. In that case, the 1 soldier would get a cheap win. |
437 | 437 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 14 | 21 | 1 | 30 | 21 | 2 | The best result from a somewhat improved algorithm. The old code is at http://pastebin.com/zT2PifR4, while the new code is at http://pastebin.com/Q3UYquxr. |
536 | 536 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 11 | 1 | 1 | 23 | 26 | 30 | High numbers at high value - give up a few mid range castles |
576 | 576 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 30 | 31 | 31 | I'm attempting to "guarantee" the 8, 9, and 10 point castles, and then I only need one more point, which I'm hoping to pick up from the "irrelevant" one point castle. Placing 1 point in each castle gives me any freebies. |
577 | 577 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 30 | 31 | 31 | kind of just guessing here. |
578 | 578 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 27 | 31 | 34 | I want at least a chance at each castle if someone deploys no one, and the highest 3 plus the 1 castle are enough to win, so I distributed the remaining troops proportionately to the point values. |
583 | 583 | 1 | 19 | 1 | 19 | 1 | 19 | 1 | 19 | 1 | 19 | Decided to go for unpredictability while still leaving room for pickups if the opponent tries to go *more* unpredictably; |
584 | 584 | 1 | 18 | 1 | 18 | 1 | 18 | 1 | 20 | 1 | 21 | Want to win every one that our opponent leaves empty, also want to win evens more than odds because this gets more points |
585 | 585 | 1 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 1 | 16 | 1 | 1 | The total # of points is 55, so you have to gain 28 of them to secure winning a round. It seems prudent only to aim at this minimal amount, forsaking 27. But instead I send 1 soldier to each castle, in case the opponent stopped reasoning at the previous step. That leaves me with 90 soldiers to divide. I count on many players fighting mainly for the 10 and 9, but you don't need those to win. Again, others may think similarly and go for the lowest: 1 till 7. But we need to take different decisions in order to win, so instead I divide my troops as equally as possible over six castles: 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2. 90/6 = 15, so I add those soldiers to the previous one for the selected castles. |
587 | 587 | 1 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 1 | 41 | 1 | 1 | Focus on what I'd assume would be a popular castle, 11s to beat those who use round numbers, and 1s in castles to punish those who leave anything blank. |
588 | 588 | 1 | 11 | 1 | 14 | 1 | 20 | 1 | 24 | 1 | 26 | Should hold its own against top-heavy developments, without ignoring mid- and low-level castles |
591 | 591 | 1 | 10 | 12 | 14 | 15 | 20 | 1 | 25 | 1 | 1 | j'ai í©vití© la 7 (rapport aux prí©cí©dents tests de distribution) ainsi que la 10 et la 9 (les plus fournies en points). |
592 | 592 | 1 | 10 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 16 | 1 | 26 | 12 | 1 | Blind luck |
607 | 607 | 1 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 29 | 29 | 29 | I'm assuming a relatively even distribution of soldier deployment across castles to be most common. I'm attempting to ensure victory by taking castles 10, 9, 8 and one other castle. I envision castle 1 being disproportionately targeted, so I am targeting castle 2 to complete my majority, with any other castle completely neglected by an opponent serving as a back up plan. |
611 | 611 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 13 | 1 | 19 | 1 | 25 | 1 | 32 | Minimal commitment to the odd-numbered castles and then distributed the remainder to the even castles based on relative strength of those castles. |
614 | 614 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 12 | 1 | 21 | 1 | 26 | 31 | 1 | try to win specific sports (just enough for 28 points), take any "free" victories |
615 | 615 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 6 | 21 | 26 | 1 | 37 | 1 | 1 | perfect combination of defense and offense |
616 | 616 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 38 | 38 | I let each soldier choose for himself |
625 | 625 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 11 | 1 | 21 | 1 | 26 | 1 | 33 | I brainstormed a lot of different strategies and played them off against one another. This one (focusing on the even towers) came out on top. I tried to look at different ways to get to 28 points, with perhaps some wiggle room. The obvious is just to aim for the high numbers. Towers 8-10 leave you one point short, so you can try to take the #7 or drop all the way to trying to sneak the #1. You can try to abandon the high numbers and just take #1-7. I thought of some sneaky in between answers, like taking towers #4-8. Generally the top heavy strategies worked well. Any strategy that focused more troops on the bigger towers did better than those that divvied out the troops equally. This final strategy of focusing on the even towers ended up winning the mini battle-royale. I suppose the point is to win the 10, while conceding the 9, win the 8 , while conceding the seven, and so on, netting just enough points to win with a little room to spare. I made sure to get at least one troop to each tower to sneak wins against folks who focus too heavily. I massaged some of the totals to keep them above any product of 5 (11, 21, 26...). I figured 33 was good up top, since most folks won't commit more than 1/3 of their army to any one tower. |
628 | 628 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 30 | 30 | 30 | |
734 | 734 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 24 | 24 | 40 | A top heavy strategy, hoping more people shoot for the middle, and then grab a couple of points extra if someone puts 0 for a group. |
760 | 760 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 16 | 20 | 1 | 26 | 30 | 1 | "What is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy's strategy" -Sun Tzu: The Art of War I chose to focus on trying to get outright victories in 5, 6, 8 and 9, since winning those Castles would give 28 points, assuring me of head to head victory no matter what happens with the other castles. I also took a small portion of my troops (8 troops) and allocated them semi-randomly to the other castles, in an attempt to set myself apart from (and hopefully above) anyone who would try a similar 5,6,8, and 9 strategy variant. |
766 | 766 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 30 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 62 | 1 | 1 | (1+2+3...10) = 55, therefore need to win 28 value of castles to win overall. Minimal number of castle is 4 (10,9,8,1) or (9,8,7,4) so assuming many people will pick one of those it might be possible to pick up 2,3,5,6 for 16 points with only 1 point per castle. This leaves 12 points left, which make for 4 & 8 required. People probably weight towards the high values, so splitting them 2:1 the same as the points weighting seems sensible. After further consideration of the split for ties decided to reduce each primary force by 1 to take full possession of any castle ignored by my opponent. Giving me 8 x 1 and one 62 and one 30 and to hope that I've guess what other people will try correctly. |
789 | 789 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 12 | 12 | 9 | 1 | 1 | 31 | 31 | It was not nearly as systematic as I would have liked to have time for. But I designed a similar adjudication tool as you describe you'd use in excel. Started with testing a strategy of comparing single troop deviations from an initial point-value weighting. This led to the realization that I'd have too many iterations to test this searching for the local maximum to fit in m excel. Knew that you just needed a winning coalition, not to represent on each castle (left one soldier on each to cut from cheaters, with slightly similar strategies, though thinking I maybe should've put two in each). Focused bulk of troops on 9 & 10 (my plan pretty much needs those to win, and realized I'd just need to pick up two of 4, 5, or 6, so put some troops there. I'm sure those who had more time probably tested their solutions against this type, but it's what I got. |
807 | 807 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 1 | 25 | 1 | 50 | It won the most random matchups I saw |
820 | 820 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 31 | 26 | 1 | 21 | 16 | 1 | Saw this idea used in "Kelly's Heroes". |
822 | 822 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 24 | 24 | 1 | 23 | 23 | 1 | I can't spend anymore time on this stupid castle game. I need to get back to work. This is the count I had in my Excel sheet when I decided I'd spent too much time on this. |
823 | 823 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 23 | 23 | 1 | 24 | 24 | 1 | Decided to play electoral college with this and focus on the 4 numbers that would get me half. I put 1 everywhere else to thwart other people doing the same thing |
824 | 824 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 23 | 23 | 1 | 24 | 24 | 1 | I didn't have any great ideas. But you need 28 points to win - might as well go for exactly 28. I think a lot of people will load up on 10. After that, just guesswork. Putting at least 1 on each castle is a cheap investment. |
825 | 825 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 21 | 21 | 1 | 26 | 26 | 1 | winning 5, 6, 8, 9 wins |
826 | 826 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 20 | 21 | 1 | 26 | 27 | 1 | Punted on the 10, concentrated troops to get 28 points (minimum to win), deployed 1 troop to remaining castles just in case. |
827 | 827 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 20 | 21 | 1 | 26 | 27 | 1 | Fill all with at least one - hopefully easy points - and take an unconventional path to 28 that didn't use the 10. |
830 | 830 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 18 | 19 | 1 | 26 | 31 | 1 | 28 points are needed to ensure victory, which requires at least 4 castles. The optimum way to get there is 9, 8, 6, 5, so my main goal is to win those. I tried to account for players using strategies that focus on higher castles by weighing 9 and 8 more. I also threw 1 soldier on all the other castles - it decreases my forces to use on the four castles I want, but it may give me big gains against anyone using all of their soldiers on 4 or 5 castles. |
831 | 831 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 17 | 20 | 1 | 27 | 30 | 1 | 55 points in total. 28 points to win. pick 4 (least castles need) to achieve 28 points. Avoid going for 10 because probably many people go for 10. leave 1 on rest of castles in case people put down 0 troops there. roughly leave rest of troops (94) proportionally on those particular 4 castles |
834 | 834 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 17 | 17 | 1 | 26 | 34 | 1 | Primary strategy is to win 4 numbers to get to 28. I chose 9,8,6,5. Psychologically I assume people will go crazy to win 10 so I avoided 10. I set my armies to beat almost all simple strategies using other sets of 4 numbers (4 25's or 3 33's + 1 or even split from 1-7). I lose to 25 armies on 10, 7, 6 ,5 but you can't win them all. The spread out singles are key to beating people that leave castles undefended, allowing me to lose 9,8,6,or5 and still win. Analyzing strategies might be a fun topic for a follow up column . . . |
837 | 837 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 16 | 19 | 1 | 28 | 31 | 1 | Victory requires 28 points, which requires a minimum of 4 castles. The sum of any castle and the 3 above it exceeds 28 points beginning at castle 6 (6,7,8,9), and then by 2 points. High value castles will be more competitive than low, so dropping castle 7 in favor of 5 places as many castles as possible as far down the list as possible. Weighting troop commitment by point value yields 18,21,29,32 for castles 5,6,8,9. In this case all castles are must win, one victory condition. Risking castles by diverting 6 troops (2 each from 5,6 and 1 from 8,9) picks up any remaining castle where no troops were committed by the opponent, laying claim to any of the remaining 27 points that might compensate for a tie or loss in the big 4. If the enemy also sends a token troop to every castle I still gain 13.5 points, within half a point of compensating for the total loss of any two of my must-win castles except for both 8 and 9. The solution is not rigorously tested, but it provides ubiquitous coverage while focusing maximum troop strength on the easiest targets necessary. |
839 | 839 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 15 | 19 | 1 | 26 | 34 | 1 | I want to win 28 points as comfortably as possible, and it can't be done with 3 castles. It can be done many ways with 4 castles, but 9+8+6+5 is the way that avoids the critical Castle 10; avoiding Castle 7 (versus playing 9+8+7+4) seems like a better choice as well. By playing 1 in each castle, this will also pick up points against other overloaded strategies that are likely to send 0. Castle 9 is set to be larger than 1/3 to beat heavily overloaded strategies, though it might be better to play it completely proportionally (17, 20, 27, 30 instead of 15, 19, 26, 34) This strategy will soundly beat "balanced" strategies or strategies that overload Castle 10. It's still beatable for sure, but I think it will do well. Thanks! This is a great idea. |
840 | 840 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 13 | 13 | 1 | 25 | 41 | 3 | If I can take 9, 8,6, and 5 I win. However, I dont want to leave the others ungaurded. |
851 | 851 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 11 | 1 | 31 | 41 | 1 | In order to win this game, you need to get the majority of points. 1+2+3+...+10=55. 55/2= 27.5. So the least amount of points you need to win is 28. There are lots of ways to getting to 28.1+2+3+...+6=21 so you need at least castle 7 to win. This also means you are guaranteed to win with 7 castles. 10+9+8=27, so you need to win at least 4 castles as well. If you are only going to use 4 castles, you need castle 9 and/or castle 10 because 8+7+6+5=26. My first strategy was to have at least one soldier go to each castle. That way if my opponent decides to only attack 4 castles, I am guaranteed 6. My second strategy was to try to win with only 4 castles. Since you need either castle 9 or 10, I figured they would be the most desired and soldiers would be sent accordingly. So instead of guarding both, I decided to pick one. I decided to go with castle 9 and not 10. After that, my options if I wanted only 4 castles were either castles 4, 7, 8, and 9 or castles 5, 6, 8, and 9. I went with the latter so I wouldn't have to win 7, 8, and 9. Once I chose my 4 castles, I had 90 soldiers left to play with and sent them by weight. 40 more to castle 9, 30 more to castle 8, and 10 more to both castles 5 and 6. I put 10 more in those csdtles, in case someone just put 10 in each castle. |
854 | 854 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 15 | 1 | 25 | 45 | 1 | I picked what I believe to be the easiest way to acquire 28 points, the amount required to win the battle. One needs to capture a minimum of 4 castles to achieve this, so this caused me to focus my troops on the four castles that would in my mind be most effective in achieving this. By giving up castle 10, it does not make any sense to pursue castles 1-4: their values are equal and it would be a waste of troops to capture one only for the other to offset the gain. To me, the only castles that matter are 5-9. Thus, I deployed troops in the way to most likely take the higher value targets while also hopefully overpowering the lower priority castles with troops gained by sending the bare minimum to half of the castles. Also, the marginal value of 1 troop is so low that sending one to a castle on the chance that no other troops are sent seems to make sense. |
864 | 864 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 31 | 1 | 31 | 1 | 31 | Randomly chosen |
877 | 877 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 16 | 1 | 26 | 26 | 26 | I'm a math teacher at a high school, we did this as an experiment all day and this deployment ended up being the winner. |
906 | 906 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 31 | 31 | 31 | Just in case... Ya know? |
907 | 907 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 31 | 31 | 31 | Since you need at least 23 points to win each war, I decided to throw most of my soldiers at castles 8, 9, & 10, for a total of 24 points if my opponent happened to underload those three castles. I also gave 1 soldier to each of the other seven castles, so if my opponent didn't bother with these castles, I'd win just by showing up. |
908 | 908 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 31 | 31 | 31 | I just need over half the point to win. So winning 8, 9 and 10 i enough |
909 | 909 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 30 | 31 | 32 | Go in at full force to get the 27 points from the most valuable castles, and hope the opponent leaves one of the other 7 undefended |
910 | 910 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 29 | 30 | 34 | Need 28 points to win so try to get 10, 9, 8 and then hope to split/win one other castle |
911 | 911 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 28 | 31 | 34 | This is a second submission, so please disqualify this one if only one submission is allowed. I wanted to see how "dominate the blue states" faired, so I proportionately distributed to castles 8,9,10 and then removed 7 (2,2,3) to distribute 1 per castles 1-7. |
912 | 912 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 21 | 31 | 41 | A bunch of 1s on lower castles to win points from the presumably many people who submit zeros. Then heavy deployment to the top three castles. |
984 | 984 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 23 | 28 | 40 | Winning castles 8,9 and 10 insures 49% of available points. Winning any other castle (other than 1) insures a victory |
1020 | 1020 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 4 | 8 | 5 | 1 | 21 | 23 | 30 | I made a bunch of random strategies fight and chose the one that won. I really didn't have any idea how to pick a good strategy. |
1049 | 1049 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 13 | 1 | 33 | 31 | 17 | I coded an evolutionary sim to test different allocations, seeding it and making it compete against both random strategies and some likely 1st- and 2nd-order strategies. The above allocation was one of a few that seemed to do well. |
1056 | 1056 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 15 | 38 | 41 | |
1073 | 1073 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 23 | 1 | 1 | 29 | 34 | Please send me results if and when available. Much appreciated. |
1097 | 1097 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 1 | 1 | 16 | 1 | 1 | 34 | 37 | I'm shooting to win castles 3, 6, 9, and 10 for a total of 28 points. I'm also putting one soldier at 4, 5, 7, and 8 in case there are easy points to pick up there in case I loose one of my preferred castles. |
1133 | 1133 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 14 | 19 | 1 | 20 | 28 | 11 | I wrote a (probably unreliable) genetic algorithm to test many different strategies and evolve an optimal one. It suggested that the ideal strategy was to aim for a coalition of castles 5, 6, 8, and 9. I am using its "best" result. |
1141 | 1141 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 18 | 19 | 58 | I'll explain if I win. |
1258 | 1258 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 | 22 | 1 | 28 | 29 | 1 | Consider the populations of strategies that will be submitted. Naive strategies include allocating 10 per castle or point weighting the allocation across all 10. Less naive strategies include targeting exactly enough castles to obtain 28/55 points. Some will go after 10-7 with 25 each or point weighted, others will target 7-1, likely point weighted. I put enough on 5-6 to win against the 7-1 point weighted strategy and enough on 9-8 to win against people targeting the large numbers. Of course, this strategy must win against all naive strategies, but probably does not have to beat strategies that would lose to a naive strategy. |
1269 | 1269 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 21 | 1 | 29 | 32 | 1 | Focus on minimum number of castles four. Focus on the least valued of those. 9,8,6,5 proportionally. Then adding a little bit back for possible 10,7. Little tricky because not working against random troop assignments but working against visitors of 538. |
1270 | 1270 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 21 | 1 | 28 | 32 | 2 | 4 castles are highly contested castles picked to add up to 28 points. Troop deployment numbers for these castles are near the 3.57 troop/point ratio that is the maximum number of troops that be deployed to win a point and still win the battle. Chose not to contest lowest 4 point castles at all and put very small amounts in castle 7 and 10 to potentially "steal" the points if uncontested or only contested with 1 troop. |
2 | 2 | 52 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 12 | 12 | 12 | I need to win at least 4 castles to win the game. Any combination of 7 castles wins the game. I assume that the border cases of trying to win 1-7 or 1 and 8-10 will be popular. If possible, I should like to be able to beat either strategy. One way to do that would be to play minimally on all numbers except for 1. Then I take the ones they don't want, but I also steal castle 1, which is less sought after. Of course, I lose to the "10s all around" strategy, which I imagine will also be popular. Notice that the key is not beating a randomly generated opponent, but beating the most opponents, which means I want to be able to beat the most popular strategies. Hmm. The method I've devised will beat "10s all around" and has a shot at beating folks who go all in on another strategy. I expect to get beaten a lot, though, by folks who pick a different set of castles they want to win. Oh well. I've already spent too long on this. If nothing else, I've given you another weird data point! :) |
8 | 8 | 23 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 23 | 23 | 23 | The ones and twos are mostly to pick up any undefended castles, while I hope to grab the highest castles to get me over 27.5. Have to admit I don't know much game theory, so it's mostly just a guess. |
16 | 16 | 18 | 18 | 2 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | To disrupt strategies that rely on lower value castles. |
187 | 187 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 20 | 2 | 2 | 30 | 16 | I seeded the competition with some sensible strategies, then added other strategies that tended to do well against those, then added others and so on. |
303 | 303 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 7 | 83 | I ran a few simulations in MatLab, starting with warlords who randomly assigned their soldiers and then using the most successful warlords of each previous generation to bias the assignments of the next. This is a rough average of some of the winning strategies after a few hundred rounds. |
328 | 328 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 28 | 29 | 28 | * Compete in the three most valuable castles, worth 27 points in total, and hope to win at least one more victory point by forfeit. * Counter similar strategies by not going all-in on the top three, hedge by covering the remaining 28 points worth of castles with at least 2 soldiers. |
339 | 339 | 2 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 2 | 2 | 10 | 10 | 2 | It is advantageous to send at least one troop to a castle, since if your opponent sends zero and then you can win all the points instead of half. I send two in case anyone else uses the one soldier strategy. That way my two will beat their one. I could send three or four but at that point I'm wasting troops that could be sent elsewhere. There are 55 total points which will require 28 to win. It is my personal opinion that people will either focus on getting the largest numbers to necessary (10, 9, 8 and then 1) to complete 28 points. The smallest numbers necessary (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7) . The best strategy would then be to counteract these two. No matter the strategy, people will focus their forces on the largest numbers they go for. Therefore it is best to stay away from 10 and 7. My strategy will then be to focus 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 9 which overshoots 28 points but it is best to have backups. |
343 | 343 | 2 | 12 | 13 | 13 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 26 | 26 | To win the battle you need to win at least 28 VPs. The combination 10,9,2,3,4 yields exactly 28. Castles 9 and 10 are worth the most therefore they need the highest troop allocations, the rest were split between 2,3,4 evenly while leaving 2 in each remaining castle to win them if they are under defended. This strategy beats common strategies such as: 10 in each, 0,0,...0,25,25,25,25 and 2,4,5,7,9,11,13,15,16,18. Other than that it's mostly a guess at how other players will place their armies! |
344 | 344 | 2 | 12 | 2 | 15 | 2 | 18 | 2 | 21 | 2 | 24 | |
354 | 354 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 12 | 2 | 18 | 2 | 24 | 2 | 30 | ??? |
375 | 375 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 16 | 1 | 21 | 2 | 22 | 5 | 21 | Livin' on a prayer. |
464 | 464 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 13 | 13 | 21 | 2 | 21 | 21 | 2 | I experimented with a few different reasonable placements (and several obvious options like 10 on all, 11 on top 9, 20 on top 5, etc) and this successfully defeated them all. It's a good balance of obvious and contrarian- so a good game theory approach. We'll see how it goes. |
471 | 471 | 2 | 2 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 2 | 2 | 26 | 31 | 2 | Goal is to win 8 and 9 (cede 10 as most valuable) hoping lots of troops end up there, and 3-5 (to get total to 29 points, 11 each to beat any 10s), put 2 troops at least on everything to cover anyone trying to scrimp there (and to cover anyone trying to beat anyone who would just put 1). |
473 | 473 | 2 | 2 | 10 | 14 | 16 | 22 | 2 | 28 | 2 | 2 | My strategy beats the ponderated troop deployment and gain advantage over strategies that let go some castles |
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CREATE TABLE "riddler-castles/castle-solutions" ( "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 );