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
110 rows where Castle 2 = 4 sorted by Castle 5
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Suggested facets: Castle 1, Castle 3, Castle 4, Castle 5, Castle 6
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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179 | 179 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 27 | 0 | 34 | 34 | |
287 | 287 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 16 | 7 | 22 | 10 | 28 | watching Game of thrones taught me to just go for it! |
1152 | 1152 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 25 | 25 | 25 | 7 | Sacrifice what should be hotly contested castles (5 & 6) in favor of what are likely lesser contested castles (1,2,3,7,8,9,) and try to pick off castles 10 & 4 against forces trying to sneak away with them |
1248 | 1248 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 35 | 40 | The middle castles seem to be the most hotly contested and the lower ones were completely ignored. Secure the most valuable pieces with overwhelming force and pick up cheap points at the bottom. |
1288 | 1288 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 40 | 45 | Go nearly all in on the most valuable castles. Plus cheap wins on the least. |
1310 | 1310 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 9 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 21 | 24 | 28 | I chose something that held up well against different scenarios like previous winners and averages. |
57 | 57 | 1 | 4 | 9 | 10 | 1 | 13 | 16 | 17 | 14 | 15 | I assumed the number of soldiers necessary based a trend from the previous two events. I then added one soldier to castles 6 through 10 and subtracted one soldier from castles 1-5. I then decided to sacrifice castles 1 and 5 and minimize their defenses and put their soldiers on the other 8 castles. |
239 | 239 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 30 | 32 | 28 | going for the top 3 and hoping to get lucky and get one other |
663 | 663 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 23 | 1 | 28 | 39 | This is my second submisssion, I wanted to try a completely different strategy. Here I aim to win 10, 9, 7 and 2 against many opponents, when that fails, I hope to win enough from the rest as I expect many entries to have several 0's and 1's. |
1124 | 1124 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 11 | 1 | 11 | 22 | 6 | 5 | 32 | I started by noticing that most people only commit 3 or less troops to any area they aren't contesting, so I mostly kept my lowest number at 4. With the remaining troops, I contested one of each group of two adjacent castles (10 and 9: I chose 10. 8 and 7: I chose 7, etc.). As long as I win the ones that I contest aggressively, I should be at most one point behind, which I hope to make up by winning the 1 point castle. Finally, I tried ending with 1 or 2, as a decent number of people will end with 0, or try to end with 1 to beat them, so I should either tie or beat the people who ended with 1. |
1290 | 1290 | 1 | 4 | 14 | 22 | 1 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 11 | Focused on beating the winners from first game, then adjusted to also beat winners from second game. Then adjusted again to effectively concede castel 5 and castle 1 to allow for greater margin at others. Only beats 9 of the 10 winners from last 2 times. |
1317 | 1317 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 8 | 1 | 13 | 15 | 17 | 19 | 21 | Adjust forces to prizes, sacrifice 2 castles to be slightly better elswhere |
385 | 385 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 24 | 26 | 3 | 31 | 3 | Gotta take >half the points baby |
164 | 164 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 12 | 3 | 19 | 2 | 6 | 12 | 32 | Just wanted to beat the best of the last two battles... |
380 | 380 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 17 | 3 | 19 | 3 | 19 | 3 | 24 | This is a defensive strategy. What is the most straightforward way to gain a majority (4+6+8+10) and then a defensive distribution to pick off lone scouts in the advent that you get overwhelmed in the core 4. As an added bonus, the strategy beat the top 5 of both previous years. |
566 | 566 | 1 | 4 | 9 | 7 | 3 | 9 | 7 | 25 | 20 | 15 | Heavy on 8s and 9s thinking others would overrate 10. |
1083 | 1083 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 10 | 3 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 6 | 25 | 2-3 soldiers per point, with castles 5 and 9 adjusted according to the fact that they were so heavily garrisoned last time. These bids will win against others who neglect these castles for that reason, and will not be too costly of a loss against those who distribute soldiers more proportionately. |
50 | 50 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 24 | 24 | 24 | 4 | 4 | I figured at least 4 in each would pick off the people who sent out tiny forces, but still let me sink in a few in more strategic spots. |
230 | 230 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 22 | 13 | 22 | 21 | 2 | In hic signo vinces |
275 | 275 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 8 | 4 | 11 | 16 | 8 | 23 | 19 | Macro economic model of optimizing against market inefficiencies as surmised from previous rounds |
637 | 637 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 25 | 25 | 26 | 2 | 3 | |
795 | 795 | 2 | 4 | 9 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 33 | 32 | Ensure I could beat both previous winners. This game is transitive, right?! It would be fun to know all the results! Maybe you can share the a google spreadsheet with everyone's answers, but maybe not our names and emails? :) |
933 | 933 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 31 | 4 | 37 | 4 | Try to guarantee 9 and 7 and pick up 12+ elsewhere |
1061 | 1061 | 4 | 4 | 18 | 4 | 4 | 18 | 4 | 20 | 20 | 4 | |
33 | 33 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 16 | 5 | 5 | 21 | 31 | |
262 | 262 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 20 | 20 | 20 | |
600 | 600 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 6 | 10 | 24 | 23 | 27 | I didn't put much into the lower troops, but went bigger into high troops. Tried to eek out a win at Castle 1, but other than that I went low. |
1161 | 1161 | 0 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 11 | 20 | 35 | I wanted no Castle to contain more than 40 troops. The higher the point value of the Castle, the more troops deployed. An even distribution would have yielded 10 troops per castle, so I had 3.5X that amount for my highest-point Castle, and 2X that amount for my 2nd highest-point Castle. One more than that amount for my third-best Castle. |
38 | 38 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 11 | 11 | 23 | 26 | A gradual top down deployment, going for numbers that would beat rounded off choices like 25 or 10 on some of the larger castles. |
878 | 878 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 21 | 25 | 30 | 0 | 0 | |
1265 | 1265 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 28 | 6 | 6 | 31 | ay81o |
11 | 11 | 1 | 4 | 12 | 14 | 7 | 16 | 18 | 20 | 3 | 5 | I focused on a combination that would get me to 28 points, but still tried to have above average on the castles that others might try to put 1-3 troops at. |
347 | 347 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 7 | 26 | 4 | 21 | 26 | 4 | This is the same strategy I used to defeat the Persian Army in the 5th Century. |
1299 | 1299 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 6 | 7 | 15 | 18 | 6 | 18 | 14 | Ran a bunch of simulations in Excel to pick the ideal strategy based on past results and then ran a final simulation designed to beat the "ideal" |
71 | 71 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 8 | 21 | 6 | 23 | 4 | 21 | get em |
232 | 232 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 15 | 23 | 35 | 0 | 0 | Idk, could work |
684 | 684 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 15 | 18 | 18 | 20 | 1 | They can all go after the top castle all they want. I am giving them the top castle to strengthen my middle. |
8 | 8 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 8 | 9 | 11 | 12 | 15 | 16 | 19 | Simple weighting according to expected value |
52 | 52 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 14 | 16 | 18 | Weighted distribuation |
56 | 56 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 16 | 18 | I took the ratio of the points for each castle against the total points possible (10/55) and multiplied it by 100 to determine the number of soldiers for each castle. |
75 | 75 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 9 | 9 | 10 | 19 | 15 | 11 | 14 | looked at prior results and then sort of winged it |
85 | 85 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 12 | 15 | 16 | 19 | Direct mapping. Soldiers per castle = (points per castle / total points) * total soldiers, with rounding, and leftover soldier goes to castle 10. Trying to win by playing simpler than people expect. :) |
140 | 140 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 16 | 21 | 23 | 1 | I place 1 troop #10 assuming my opponent will allocate a large contingent of his troops, thus increasing my chances of winning a majority of the others. |
165 | 165 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 16 | 18 | It was based on relative value. Castle 10 has 18% of the total points (55) so they get 18 troops, 9 has 16% of the total points so they get 16 troops, and so on. |
212 | 212 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 13 | 9 | 10 | 10 | 23 | 19 | 7 | I am no game theorist, but I figure a decent concentration on the higher and middle numbers couldn't hurt. |
327 | 327 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 20 | guess |
426 | 426 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 16 | 18 | On average, you can deploy 1.8 troops per castle point. This strategy sends troops to each castle based on their values. |
455 | 455 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 16 | 18 | Gave castles weighted amount based on their value |
507 | 507 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 16 | 18 | There are 55 victory points up for grabs, so I found the value of each castle (castle #10 was worth 18.1% of the points; #9 was 16.3%, etc.). From there, I placed troops with those percentages as the base (18% at castle #10, 16% at castle #9). However, I would choose to round up the number of troops if the decimal would have rounded to 1 decimal point (ex: castle #6 is worth 10.9%, so I placed 11 troops). So basically just expected value. |
660 | 660 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 16 | 18 | Figured the most efficient distribution is 0.55 points per man. Applied the ideal to to each castle and rounded to the closest whole number. |
702 | 702 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 16 | 18 | Based on value of castles. |
832 | 832 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 16 | 18 | Each point is worth about 1.8 troops. Distributing troops so as to pay approximately their value for each point led to this distribution. Seems to me that anyone overpaying elsewhere will spend more troops than they should for a castle, allowing me to pick up a different castle(s) at near troop value. The more they overspend anywhere, the worse this becomes for them. |
962 | 962 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 16 | 18 | (points for castle/total castle points)*100=troops deployed |
983 | 983 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 16 | 18 | I chose a simple strategy: based on the total points available, determine the number of points per soldier, and deploy the appropriate number of soldiers to each castle assuming they would win that number of points. While this strategy does not account for the slight differences in over and undervaluing deployment if one is rounding up or rounding down (since only whole numbers of soldiers can be deployed), it should (in theory) help to appropriate weight the value of all castles and penalize opponents who skew their distribution of soldiers too heavily in any direction. |
995 | 995 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 10 | 13 | 15 | 16 | 19 | Proportional representation of the troops based on the points of the castle |
1062 | 1062 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 16 | 18 | I calculated that there are 55 point in total, and for each castle, I assigned a number of soldiers proportional to the percentage of total points. I rounded up or down with fractions. I am pretty sure this would beat most people, since it is human nature to greedily focus on the large point values and overlook the small ones. |
1090 | 1090 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 9 | 0 | 19 | 21 | 23 | bit random tbh |
1093 | 1093 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 16 | 18 | just based upon slowly increasing value ... ignoring previous rounds |
1095 | 1095 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 16 | 18 | Idfk |
1185 | 1185 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 14 | 16 | 18 | I figure each soldier at .55 points and distributed in a way that most approaches that mean. It is an exploitable strategy, but I am expecting more people to try to exploit gambits than exploiting the obvious answer. |
1249 | 1249 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 16 | 18 | |
1263 | 1263 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 16 | 18 | The number of troops at each castle is roughly equal to the ratio of each castle's value relative to the total number of available points |
29 | 29 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 8 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 18 | Impossible to say. |
294 | 294 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 12 | 14 | 18 | 25 | 1 | By giving up castle 10 entirely I can distribute more troops elsewhere, with at least 2 soldier per point for castles 1-9. I did leave one soldier on castle 10 as a counter play for anyone who sends noone for similar reasons |
685 | 685 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 10 | 10 | 11 | 13 | 16 | 22 | I wanted to use just enough troops on the earlier castles to win them , and wanted to win 9 and 10. |
706 | 706 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 10 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 18 | |
1112 | 1112 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 6 | 10 | 2 | 14 | 23 | 14 | 23 | Looked OK to me |
1156 | 1156 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 12 | 14 | 18 | 14 | 12 | I figure staying near the average from previous wars will, oddly enough, lead to either massive victory in the campaign or humiliating defeat. |
81 | 81 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 11 | 17 | 23 | 26 | 3 | 3 | |
283 | 283 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 11 | 11 | 21 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | I didn't want to overthink it. The last rounds, switched based on where people loaded up, so I wanted to do a fairly even distribution to take the ignored categories while maintaining something in each category to not give anything away. I loaded up on 6 to try to win it since the best ones in the previous rounds each essentially gave away 2 of the top 4 so winning the 5th highest could be very beneficial. |
330 | 330 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 16 | 18 | 20 | 1 | most people will load up heavy on the castles worth more points, i went for an even distribution slightly skewed towards the higher value castles. Based on the numbers 1-9 percentage of 45. IE 9 was 20%. I just took one off the lowest value castle in case someone did the same thing and put it on the 10. |
416 | 416 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 11 | 22 | 33 | 7 | 6 | 5 | I'm one step ahead of everyone else |
547 | 547 | 0 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 11 | 14 | 22 | 23 | 12 | 0 | I'll never tell. |
1285 | 1285 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 9 | 11 | 14 | 16 | 18 | 20 | 0 | Give away the "sexy" castle that others are likely to overpay to win and then allocate troops based on average available points per troop. |
35 | 35 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 12 | 12 | 2 | 21 | 3 | 30 | 8 | |
134 | 134 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 11 | 12 | 16 | 20 | 21 | 4 | 5 | Try to pick up a couple with my 3-5 at the ends and then win 4 of the middle ones where the strength is. |
504 | 504 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 9 | 12 | 2 | 27 | 31 | 3 | 3 | Built to beat Cyrus |
549 | 549 | 0 | 4 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 15 | 18 | 0 | 18 | 18 | Previously I had anticipated 10 to be the central battleground and abandoned it, the past two rounds the central battleground has ended up being 8 instead. I've abandoned contesting 8, focusing on the surrounding high number figures, and tapering off from there. 1 is also abandoned as low reward. |
650 | 650 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 10 | 12 | 2 | 27 | 28 | 4 | 4 | Slightly higher deployment from last time’s in castles 9-10. If people saw the last one and went for 3 soldiers to win it I win, if they didn't see it and behaved the same (average 2-3 soldiers) I still win |
664 | 664 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 7 | 12 | 3 | 27 | 33 | 3 | 4 | I need 28 points to win. Following the logic from previous iterations, I'm focusing on trying to secure 15 points from castles 7 and 8 while hoping to steal the remaining 13 points from winning 1 or 2 from castles 2-5 and 1 of castles 9 and 10. |
788 | 788 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 2 | 3 | 23 | 23 | I understand the changes between the last two games to show that my fellow warlords are smart but not going down the path of "if I do this then she does this then I'll do this and then she'll do this." Basically, they're making first-order adjustments. This deployment will hopefully work against both the average players and also the ones making first-order adjustments. That's shown clearly in the second digit of all my guesses--I think people naturally go for round numbers, and then smart players go one over round numbers to beat the round number players, so I'm going three over to beat the first-order guesses. I also focused on return on investment. Theoretically I can win most of the smaller castles with this deployment, and then I only need to win one or two of the big ones. |
1028 | 1028 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 11 | 12 | 0 | 15 | 12 | 19 | 21 | Not really sure |
1167 | 1167 | 0 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 12 | 19 | 2 | 2 | 24 | 30 | To win you need 28 victory points which gives about 3.5 troops per point (which suggests it is not worth sending more than 3.5 troops per castle point). Finally the last two rounds showed a the field adopting the previous strategy and the winners planing to win against it. Assuming that people are still seeking patterns and have detected the shift and will now have the default as the shift, whilst still keeping some value on the high value castles. Also from examining the averages the 7,8 castles are over valued compared to the 9,10's suggesting a strategy strong on these will do well. Also this means that if both of these are won only an additional nine points need to be picked up elsewhere. Finally the minimum should always be 2 as it beats both zero and the cheap guess which beats 0. Except for one because I believe that 2 soliders will have a more effective return elsewhere |
9 | 9 | 4 | 4 | 14 | 13 | 13 | 2 | 15 | 15 | 10 | 10 | I mostly trusted my gut, but did a back over the envelop best response iteration. |
99 | 99 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 10 | 13 | 14 | 17 | 16 | 8 | 10 | Deception combined with winning the battle in the trenches |
358 | 358 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 11 | 13 | 7 | 6 | 21 | 26 | 3 | Many people are math adverse. When dealing with 100, people may be inclined to use numbers like 5, 10, 25. Numbers like 6, 11, 26 may get close wins and save more soldiers to put into other spots. |
742 | 742 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 9 | 13 | 17 | 18 | 21 | 4 | 4 | Assumed trend toward more rational actors with castle troop distribution trending toward implicit value, anticipating some over-correction on most favorably imbalanced |
305 | 305 | 5 | 4 | 12 | 12 | 14 | 20 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 22 | DAVE ALWAYS WINS |
618 | 618 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 4 | 4 | 34 | 4 | |
867 | 867 | 2 | 4 | 10 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 18 | 20 | 2 | 2 | Strategy :) |
195 | 195 | 4 | 4 | 10 | 14 | 15 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 4 | 4 | 4 each seems like it will win 9+10 pretty frequently based on past distributions. Then, big numbers at 8,7,6,5 all will lose to even bigger ones of course, but will do well against people who followed either of the strategies of the past two winners - big numbers on 7/8 or on 4/5 - and hopefully win enough of the castle 3 in addition to take the battle. |
613 | 613 | 0 | 4 | 8 | 10 | 15 | 5 | 30 | 23 | 5 | 0 | Putting more troops into the medium level castles |
25 | 25 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 16 | 4 | 16 | 28 | 16 | 4 | To mess with the averages |
382 | 382 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 8 | 16 | 16 | 22 | 22 | 3 | 3 | try to conquer 5,6,7,8 and win |
924 | 924 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 12 | 16 | 18 | 20 | 22 | 0 | 0 | |
437 | 437 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 9 | 17 | 19 | 30 | 4 | 4 | 4 | With the power of my brain. |
98 | 98 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 14 | 18 | 24 | 33 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Assuming more valuable castles will be more contested, negating their points advantage. 28 points wins, so it only makes sense to contest castles worth that many total. I took 1-7 (28 total pts), with troop allocations focused on the hotly contested 5,6,7 castles. I'm hoping to 'pay' for those by taking 1,2,3 cheaply. |
679 | 679 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 15 | 18 | 21 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 31 | I dunno, I tried to win all the battles I picked. My strategy does well against last time's winners and beats the average distribution, I guess. |
1255 | 1255 | 3 | 4 | 8 | 15 | 18 | 23 | 29 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Only fight for enough castles to win |
245 | 245 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 1 | 19 | 1 | 27 | 1 | 36 | 1 | I needed to contest every castle in the event someone did not place any troops there and I could get it for "free". Then I figured out there are 55 total points available, so I needed to get 28 to win. If you divide the points available of each castle by the 55 total, you can get a % of points for each. If you then multiply by 100 you get what each castle is "worth" in manpower. I figured if I roughly double the "expected worth" in manpower, I will win the castle more often than not. I then picked a combination of castles to focus on that if I won them, would give me 28 pts. I wanted to avoid #10 because I expect there will be a lot of fighting for that one, so I concentrated on 9, 7 and 5, to give me a good base of 21 pts. I then focused on the bottom 3 castles because I expect them to be lightly guarded. If I happen to "steal" a castle from someone since they put no one there, even better. |
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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 );