Riddler - Solutions to Castles Puzzle: castle-solutions.csv
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1,349 rows sorted by Castle 9
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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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1 | 1 | 100 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | because, I am number one! |
11 | 11 | 20 | 12 | 13 | 13 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Get to 28 by conquering the smallest towers |
19 | 19 | 15 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Target to win is 28 points. Concentrating deployment on highest-value castles means I need to capture 10, 9, 8 and 1 to reach target. Highest-value castles are likely to draw most troops by my opponent. So I am going to focus on capturing enough castles from the lowest value upwards until I hit the target, which is castles #1-7 inclusive. Divide troops equally, with the spares focused on 1 (crucial to the 10-9-8-1 strategy set out above) & 7 (because it is the highest value of my targeted castles). |
26 | 26 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 15 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | To win a war I need 28 victory points (round up half of the total number of available points). Figure most people are going to try to target the high value targets (8,9,10) which together make 27 points. So if I can capture the rest, I win. |
27 | 27 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 15 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | With limited math skills, my basic thinking is that in this 1v1 scenario I just need 28 points to be victorious since the total number of points is 55. 1+2, +7 = 28, where 8+9+10 = 27. So I'm able to capture the first 7 castles while leaving my opponent to deploy most of his troops on the higher value castles (because who wouldn't normally want the highest value castle?) then I have the highest chance of succeeding and capturing 28 points. Hope I won. PS I see that double half-zip. |
28 | 28 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 15 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | You need 28 points (a majority of 55) to win. I am guessing that it will be easier to do that if I focus all of my troops on 1-7 and none on 8 through 10, because I think the majority of people will overvalue those. |
29 | 29 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | There are 55 points total, and I need 28 to win. Most people will concentrate on the higher numbers. |
34 | 34 | 13 | 7 | 10 | 13 | 16 | 19 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | forfeit on 8,9,10, overweight 1, |
38 | 38 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 15 | 17 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | I gave up 3 castles and tried to win 7. My hope was that others would try to win the high point bases and I would therefore be able to steal the bottom bases and the win. |
39 | 39 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 13 | 13 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 0 | I assumed that the most popular strategies would be a distribution close to 10 everywhere, a distribution close to putting a number of solders in each castle equal to (100 * castle # /55) and strategies which only attack castles 7 through 10. This strategy requires that I win castles 1 through 7 so each castle is worth the same to me, except I need to make sure I steal castle 7 from the people only going for 7-10 (and one of the variations there is to play 25 soldiers across the board). |
40 | 40 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 13 | 13 | 13 | 13 | 0 | 0 | Trying to make them waste troops on 9-10 |
45 | 45 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 17 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | While last few castle have most points, they are also more heavily defended. I am shifting my troops down the order, and give up the big castles. Smaller castles are easily overwhelmed by the extra troops I placed. |
46 | 46 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 17 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | There are 55 total points available, so 28 points are necessary to win. I figure a lot of people will focus on winning the high value castles, so I will focus on winning enough low value castles. I didn't think about this strategy very long, but I hope I beat somebody. |
47 | 47 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Out of 55 points you want 28. You want to put more troops in higher valued castles, however by using only 1-7 (and conceding the highest 3 castles) I can reach the necessary 28 points. I divided it evenly between the castles with a singly increasing importance on each higher castle. The added remainder went to the highest sought after castle. |
48 | 48 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | sum of points for winning castles 1-7 is greater than points for 8-10. i'll let others win those. need to be able to beat people that send 1/10 to every castle, so castle #1 needs at least 11 soldiers. increased by one up to castle #6, then send the rest (19 soldiers) to castle #7 |
49 | 49 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 2 | We only need to get 28 of the 55 victory points to win. Castles 1-7 deliver that for us. Let others focus on trying to get Castles 8-10. Put a leftover 2 on 10 to counter anybody else trying a similar strategy of ignoring Castle 10. |
50 | 50 | 11 | 11 | 12 | 14 | 14 | 18 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | The goal is not to win all the castles; the goal is to win the majority of the 55 points possible. I assume that more people will focus on winning the higher point values (7, 8, 9, 10) so I will take the opposite strategy. I can win 28 points if I win castles 1-7, so I split my troops among those castles, more or less equally. I can assume that, if people try a 1/8/9/10 strategy, they will not weight 1 as highly. |
52 | 52 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 13 | 16 | 18 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | I chose to not contest 8, 9, and 10 which may be attractive to go after since they are the highest point value castles, and save my troops for going after castles 1-7. If you are able to win castles 1-7, you automatically will win with a score of 28-27. I chose to at least put greater than 10 soldiers at each castle that I wanted to contend for, such that I would win if my opponent distributes evenly (i.e. 10 soldiers at each castle), that I would still win castles 1-7. I then increased my troop levels for castles 4-7 such that all 100 soldiers were distributed, with castle 7 receiving my most troops, in case my opponent tries to stack all or most of their soldiers at the higher value castles. Additionally, if my opponent also puts 0 troops at castles 8-10, we would split points and I would have a chance for an even larger number of victory points. |
54 | 54 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 13 | 17 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Castles 1-7 are enough to get the majority of the points. This allotment defends against putting 10 in every castle and putting 25 in the top 4 castles, and should beat many strategies that focus on seriously competing for the top castles. |
57 | 57 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 12 | 12 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 6 | I basically tried to come up with a solution that would beat the most common solutions I could think of. Being that I had no idea what others would submit, seemed like the best thing to do. |
58 | 58 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 22 | 23 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Over half the points are in 1 - 7 (28) vs (27) in 8, 9, 10. This will beat an even spread of 10 x 10, or 5 x 20 in the top 5 castles. This should beat most strategies that put most points into the top 3 castles. The only strategy it would lose to would be a 6 -10 castle strategy that weighted its troops to castles 6 and 7, not 9 and 10 - which seems an unlikely strategy to take and would lose to the commonsense strategy of putting more troops in 8, 9 and 10. |
62 | 62 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 20 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | I'm attempting to maximize my odds of getting 28 points out of a possible 55, this guaranteeing victory. I'm ceding 8-9-10 thinking most people will throw all their troops that way. I'm also thinking there will be enough people who assign 10 troops per castle, which is why I put 11 troops on the lower numbers. |
63 | 63 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 19 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 0 | I enjoyed this weekäó»s Riddler. I attacked it, not mathematically, but by brute force and trial näó» error. I learned that the best strategy would involve trying to win a few key battles (i.e. not all of them), loading to ensure victories in those battles, and that it would entail barely winning in the end; i.e. a small margin of victory. My first thought was to look at ways to lock up the highest-value castles. Winning the battles for the top 3 castles is 27 points, only 1 short of victory, so my approach involved throwing a lot of soldiers at the top 3, a chunk at a lower-value one, and deploying 1 soldier at the remaining ones (to win battles against zero soldiers). An example of this approach is 0-2-1-1-1-1-1-30-31-32. This wins against many strategies but fails against a simple one of 10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10. Loading up on one lower-value castle to 11 (to defeat that strategy) leads to too few soldiers at the higher-value castles. Then I thought of the opposite approach; i.e. concede the battles for the 3 higher-value castles and try to win the remaining 7 (which would yield 28 points, and a win). The best approach I found was 11-11-11-11-11-19-26-0-0-0-. The 26 is necessary to defeat a strategy of deploying Œ_ of oneäó»s soldiers (i.e. 25) to each to the top 4 castles, the 11 is to beat the 10x10 strategy, and assigning the remaining 8 soldiers to the 5th highest castle. This strategy works against almost every strategies, especially the ones that many people likely would choose. It fails against strategies involving loading up on the mid-value castles; e.g. 0-0-1-4-11-20-25-20-15-4. However, as those strategies lose to many other ones I thought people would not choose them. |
79 | 79 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 15 | 17 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | I think people may gravitate toward locking down high numbers. |
82 | 82 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 15 | 15 | 20 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | I figure castles 1-3 will be lightly deployed while 4-7 will be slightly more defended. But I expect most will focus on the big targets. If I can win castles 1-7 and "sacrifice" 8-10, they will only have 27 points. I will have 28 points and still win the war. |
84 | 84 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 15 | 20 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | I know I need 28 pts to win. Taking castles 1-7 gives me 28 pts. Many people will likely put a large # of troops on one or more of the bigger point value castles. Of course, many people will think of this and do the opposite, making my theory kaput. |
85 | 85 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 15 | 20 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | If you win castles 1-7 you win the game. This strategy hopes the enemy will waste all or most of its army's to win 8-10, and not be prepared to win any one of the remaining castles. |
110 | 110 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | 15 | 22 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 0 | You do not need the castles worth 10, 9 and 8 to win the battle, so long as you have all the other castles. Therefore why waste men on the castles which are most likely to be attacked. |
116 | 116 | 7 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Split relatively evenly between less contested castles |
119 | 119 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 14 | 16 | 19 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 0 | I thought maybe most people would go for the big money, so if I can win the 28 points for the seven smallest castles, that would beat most strategies. |
120 | 120 | 7 | 8 | 11 | 14 | 17 | 20 | 23 | 0 | 0 | 0 | I expect that many others will choose to allocate troops to the highest values (8/9/10). If I can win with just Castles 1-7, it doesn't make sense for me to devote any troops to 8-10 since these troops will usually be completely wasted. The weakness of this strategy is that it gives me an extremely narrow path to victory -- I need all seven castles to win (in the absence of ties from 8-10). Therefore, each is essentially of equal importance to me (losing either 1 or 7 cripples my chances). My troop allocation, then, is more about where other players will choose to allocate troops. Most players will likely choose a proportional strategy, where higher values also have higher troop allocations, so I also have a proportional allocation. After distributing troops proportionally, I am left with two extras. My suspicion is that some players will try to allocate a couple extra troops to 1, thinking that it's an easy way to pick up a win. Because I need castle 1 to win, I have allocated these extra troops to castle 1 to ensure a victory there. |
134 | 134 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 14 | 18 | 20 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 0 | win all 7 and lower, sum = 28, higher than 8+9+10. |
135 | 135 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 12 | 14 | 24 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Guess from the bottom assuming most will picking from the top |
136 | 136 | 6 | 8 | 9 | 16 | 18 | 21 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
137 | 137 | 6 | 7 | 9 | 12 | 16 | 21 | 29 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Triage - concentrate forces to get minimum points to win. Abandoned castles worth most points in hopes opponents would concentrate their forces there and I sneakily win with the lesser valued ones. |
138 | 138 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 10 | 10 | 21 | 38 | 0 | 0 | 0 | There's two basic strategies: quantity(1-7) and quality(7-10). In either case, the 7-point castle is the most important one. I spelled out here a quantity strategy. To do so, I applied a Benford's law curve with the highest value on 7. Why Benford's? No reason, I just felt that a curve like that was a good representation of the quantity strategy. |
146 | 146 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 32 | 32 | 7 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Win more towers (with lower points each) so that total points compensate for losing highest point towers. Towers 1-7 have 28 of 55 points. Towers 1-5 have 15 of 28 total points among towers 1-7. |
153 | 153 | 5 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | I figured that if I won the bottom 7 castles, the total points (28) would outweigh the top three opportunities for points from Castles 8-10 (27). However, knowing the slim difference, I thought that breaking up the 100 soldiers to each Castle 1-7 would be the best strategy, knowing that if my opponent won Castles 8-10 they couldn't take any other Castle or else I would lose. |
156 | 156 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 15 | 15 | 20 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Assuming most people will try to take at least one of the high-value castles, I send disproportionately high numbers to the lower value castles in an attempt to sweep all 7, and win the war 28-27 |
157 | 157 | 5 | 9 | 15 | 14 | 16 | 16 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 8 | Winning all the castles from 1 through 7 gives you a victory no matter if you win or lose the remaining three castles. So using that I weighed my army heavily on the lower portion figuring most people's gut instinct would be to distribute their troops with powers relative to the VP for a castle. I gambled on people giving up on the lower castles so taking those for free points and putting a good number of troops in the middle range where I expected the most resistance to the strategy. |
161 | 161 | 5 | 7 | 11 | 14 | 17 | 21 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 28 points to win. ~3.5 troops per point. {10, 1} are focal, as is strategy: max points-per-castle (ie assign in descending order). Current distribution averages troops-per-point over castles least focal, with kinks at 1, 7 to account for bias towards those strategies. |
162 | 162 | 5 | 7 | 10 | 14 | 18 | 21 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | I gave up (zero troops) castles 8, 9, and 10 and their total score (27). I then crossed my fingers and hoped that by heavily weighting the bottom end, I could sweep castles 1 through 7 and receive 28 points. Now that I look at the logic, I see other alternatives. meh. I'll stick with this one. |
163 | 163 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 12 | 15 | 22 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 0 | calculated that as winning castles 1-7 outscores winning 8-10, so I chose to concede castles 8-10 assuming that is where the majority of people chose to put their soldiers allowing me to put more troops where i assume less people put there soldiers |
167 | 167 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 14 | 18 | 23 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Assuming more people will try and fight for the larger point value castles. By not dedicating any resources to those top 3 point value castles I hope to win the remaining 7 and win each battle with a score of 28-27 |
178 | 178 | 5 | 5 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 0 | 0 | I don't have to beat everyone, just a lot of people. I figure most people will put a lot of emphasis on castles 9 and 10, so I'm just ignoring those two, in hopes of winning all of 1-7 or 8 and most of 1-7. I was originally gonna distribute evenly between castles, but thought that might be common so I decided to put slightly more than an even distribution in most castles, and leave fewer in 1 and 2, which I could lose if I win 8. |
180 | 180 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
181 | 181 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 20 | 25 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | I assume most would put their soldiers at the higher point castles. I placed mine at the top 7 which would give me the most points. |
182 | 182 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 15 | 15 | 20 | 20 | 0 | 0 | I figured a lot of people would load up on 9-10 so I focused on lower value, but easier to win (I hope) castles |
183 | 183 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 25 | 35 | 0 | 0 | 0 | If my opponent goes for high value, I could possibly win all the low values, which are collectively more points. |
184 | 184 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 20 | 30 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 0 | I win 28-27 if I win castles 1-7, figuring most people will go for 8, 9, 10 |
202 | 202 | 5 | 0 | 11 | 14 | 16 | 0 | 22 | 32 | 0 | 0 | Put all soldiers on acombination that adds to 28 and hope the opponent chooses a more even distribution |
207 | 207 | 4 | 9 | 9 | 13 | 15 | 15 | 17 | 18 | 0 | 0 | Concede the top 2 to overload the rest. |
208 | 208 | 4 | 8 | 11 | 14 | 17 | 21 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Needed to get 28 total points to win. Used win probability (number of soldiers allocated vs. the expected distribution) to allocate soldiers in the way that had the highest probability of getting 28 points. |
211 | 211 | 4 | 7 | 11 | 14 | 18 | 21 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | I considered having each soldier is fighting for (roughly as it's rounded) 1% of the total points (e.g. 2-4-5-7-9-11-13-15-16-18) but that seemed to be dominated by more concentrated strategies that ignore some castles. So I doubled up on the lower end to try to win all of 1-7 and ignored the top end where I'm hoping most people will put their soldiers |
212 | 212 | 4 | 7 | 11 | 14 | 18 | 21 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Castles 1-7 are worth more than 50% of the points. |
213 | 213 | 4 | 7 | 11 | 14 | 18 | 21 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Concentrate on lower values, expecting others to overplay on higher values. If I win these, I get just enough to win, no matter what happens at the higher value castles. |
214 | 214 | 4 | 7 | 11 | 14 | 18 | 21 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | I yield the 3 juiciest castles to my opponent, and try to win all 7 remaining castles. I deploy my soldiers to each castle in proportion to its prize (rounding to the nearest integer). |
215 | 215 | 4 | 7 | 11 | 14 | 18 | 21 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Get there firstest, with the mostest! Race to 28 pts. |
216 | 216 | 4 | 7 | 11 | 14 | 18 | 21 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | There are 55 available points, the winner needs 28. Working my way up, I allocated my troops according to the relative value of each castle (1/28 = 3.57% = 4 troops to Castle 1; 2/28 = 7.18% = 7 troops to Castle 2; etc.) until I ran out. |
217 | 217 | 4 | 7 | 11 | 14 | 18 | 21 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Placed a higher than normal interest in the Castles 1-7 and allowed enemy to capture the three highest valued castles. By capturing the weaker castles, I can earn 28 points, while only surrendering 27 points to the enemy. This is under the prediction that my opponent will target the higher valued castles, which many not be the case. I'm an irrational S.O.B. |
218 | 218 | 4 | 7 | 11 | 14 | 18 | 21 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Need 28 points to win. 100/28 = 3.5. People are more likely to over allocate to the top value castles. If I win 1-7 victory castles that makes 28 points. Allocate amongst those by the weighted value of each one. |
219 | 219 | 4 | 7 | 11 | 14 | 18 | 21 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | I can win if I take all castles 1-7, so I allocate all troops to those castles proportional to their value... and hope other people allocate to castles proportionately, but allocate at least some to 8-10. |
220 | 220 | 4 | 7 | 11 | 14 | 18 | 21 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | To win castles 1-7 (total Victory points 28) |
221 | 221 | 4 | 7 | 11 | 14 | 17 | 21 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Avoid being beaten by concentrated bets. This strategy is fragile in that it seeks to win with minimum needed (28) while spreading across the most selections to do so. It chooses not to defend the three most valuable castles in an attempt to win all others. Anyone taking a variation of this approach will likely lose close decisive battles for the ultimate margin of victory against me - I hope. |
223 | 223 | 4 | 7 | 10 | 15 | 17 | 22 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | realizing I needed 28 points to win, (55/2 rounded up). I originally was going to put my troops on 4 key castles (9,8,7,4). needing 28 points i realized that i had 3.57 troops per point. I was worried though that was putting too much into on basket, so i spread out over the bottom rung (1 through 7) otherwise known as the lowball strategy. |
227 | 227 | 4 | 7 | 9 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 18 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 1-8 majority of points |
228 | 228 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 12 | 16 | 21 | 33 | 0 | 0 | 0 | The winner needs 28 points so I focused all my resources on towers tha will get me 28 points while avoiding the largest castles that most people would focus on. |
231 | 231 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 8 | 11 | 24 | 42 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Trying to win 28-27 |
237 | 237 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 13 | 17 | 20 | 30 | 0 | 0 | Try to get the minimum 28 to win by focusing on the lower ones. |
260 | 260 | 3 | 7 | 11 | 14 | 18 | 21 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Point weighted distribution of troops for the lowest 7 ranked castles (which constitute the majority of the points in the game). |
261 | 261 | 3 | 7 | 11 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 29 | 0 | 36 | I've no real knowledge of game theory so I'd imagine mine is extremely primitive but it was based on the idea of attempting to win exactly enough points to have a majority and not contest the other towers. Obviously there are a variety of combinations that come to the 28 points needed. I then calculated how many troops should go to each tower proportionally based on the value of the tower relative to the target value of 28. As for which of the many combinations adding up to 28 I selected? Well I stook my finger in the air and picked (10, 8, 4, 3, 2, 1), as I felt it had a nice balance of covering the Highest value tower, but also covering a decent spread of other towers. |
268 | 268 | 3 | 7 | 0 | 14 | 0 | 21 | 26 | 29 | 0 | 0 | The strategy in blotto games is always an attempt to win each castle that you win by as few soldiers as possible, while losing the castles you lose by as many as possible, in such a way as to get more than half of the available points (here the target is 28 points). I decided to chose the castles adding up to 28 points that I thought the fewest people would put significant resources in to securing, and roughly allocate my 100 armies to those castles proportionally to their point values, giving up completely on the other castles. |
269 | 269 | 3 | 6 | 10 | 14 | 18 | 22 | 27 | 0 | 0 | 0 | I focused on winning exactly 28 points against as many likely strategies as possible. |
272 | 272 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 15 | 18 | 21 | 16 | 0 | 0 | There are a total of 55 victory points on offer, so the aim is to win at least 28 points as often as possible. I chose to aim more heavily for castles 1-7, as I thought they are likely to be less often well protected. |
275 | 275 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 18 | 22 | 0 | 0 | I call this the Crowe-Nash deployment strategy, in honor of the nonsensical description of game theory in A Beautiful Mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJS7Igvk6ZM . The idea is that castles 9 and 10 are the blonde girl and everyone will deploy troops heavily to get them. By ignoring them completely, I make a heavy play for the other castles that add up to 36 of the 55 available points. |
281 | 281 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 11 | 11 | 16 | 21 | 26 | 0 | 0 | I think most people will stack troops at 9 and 10, so I will try to give those up and win almost all of the other castles |
283 | 283 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 13 | 21 | 25 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Going for middle ranked castles, and hoping to pick off lower castles for few troops |
284 | 284 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 13 | 18 | 24 | 29 | 0 | 0 | 0 | My approach is not to win as many points as possible, but to take the absolute minimum points to win the majority of the time. In this game you are forced to make assumptions about the enemy. I'm hoping that castles 8, 9 and 10 will be "lucrative traps." With the higher concentration of points, the enemy goes at them with a lot of resources. Instead of trying to take those with my own resources, I will sacrifice those 3 castles to try to pick up the remaining 28 points from the rest of the castles. Essentially, the idea is that the enemy will not have enough resources left for the smaller 7, and I can (hopefully) win them all with small margins. |
285 | 285 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 11 | 14 | 16 | 21 | 22 | 0 | 0 | I am counting on most people to invest heavily in trying to win castles 9 and 10. Therefore, I am ceding those castles to them in hopes that my additional troops can win the remaining castles. This gives me a very narrow margin of victory (I can only lose 8 points in the remaining 8 castles), but against a top-heavy attack, I like my chances. I'm not convinced that this is the best strategy, but I know that in large-scale competitions, it is good to be an outlier (think of the NCAA tournament: pick the favorites, and you are likely to finish in the top 10%, but very unlikely to win the whole competition). |
288 | 288 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 11 | 14 | 17 | 20 | 23 | 0 | 0 | I predict people will over-deploy on the biggest castles. Thus I can save these troops and use them to win all the other castles. I added a bonus troop to castles 7 and 8 in case someone thinks like I do. |
297 | 297 | 3 | 4 | 8 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 30 | 35 | 0 | 0 | to not deploy forces to the most valuable castles where there would likely be the most competition. Place strength on mid value and low value targets to reach goal of 26 |
315 | 315 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 13 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Ran through a couple of scenarios in a simple model I built in Excel. I liked this one because it leveraged the strategy of keeping the enemy from winning vs the strategy of trying to win. |
330 | 330 | 3 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 10 | 20 | 10 | 20 | 0 | 25 | I shot for more points |
341 | 341 | 2 | 17 | 5 | 8 | 13 | 21 | 34 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
356 | 356 | 2 | 5 | 8 | 13 | 20 | 0 | 25 | 27 | 0 | 0 | get to 28 points |
357 | 357 | 2 | 5 | 8 | 12 | 17 | 24 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Sum of 1-7 is greater than sum of 8-10, so I'm forgetting those and doing a makeshift exponential function to divvy up the other troops. |
358 | 358 | 2 | 5 | 8 | 11 | 14 | 17 | 20 | 23 | 0 | 0 | I figured everyone else would send too many soldiers to Castles 9 and 10. I sacrificed those benefits with the hope that I would overwhelm them at most of the other 8. If successful I would win 36 victory points, at the cost of 19 victory points. I then roughly allocated the 100 soldiers eight ways proportionally -- sending 3 soldiers per victory point per castle. This added up to 108, so I took one soldier away from each to return to 100 total soldiers. |
359 | 359 | 2 | 5 | 8 | 11 | 14 | 17 | 20 | 23 | 0 | 0 | Ignore castles 9 & 10and try to win everything else |
366 | 366 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 21 | 31 | 41 | 0 | 0 | give up the high points castles to win the middle castle points with a small attempt to win the bottom two |
370 | 370 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 13 | 17 | 17 | 18 | 22 | 0 | 0 | Trying to stack where others don't. |
372 | 372 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 13 | 19 | 35 | 0 | 0 | Give up top two and win everything else |
374 | 374 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 16 | 20 | 24 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Most people I think would go for the castles worth the most points. I chose the opposite route - but who knows? |
377 | 377 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 13 | 15 | 18 | 18 | 24 | 0 | 0 | |
383 | 383 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 35 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 35 | Guessing that most would shy away from 10 to take 9-8-7-6 and secure the win. I'm trying to take 10 and 6 and then the bottom to slide past them. I only really need 10-6-5-4-3 to win, but it's better to bank the bottom in case of stranger distributions. |
445 | 445 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 12 | 17 | 23 | 30 | 0 | 0 | |
479 | 479 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 26 | 26 | 26 | 0 | 0 | Assume most people will concentrate on castles 9 and 10. Try to pick up enough points elsewhere. |
509 | 509 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 11 | 0 | 21 | 31 | 31 | 0 | 0 | 28 points requires 4 or more castles, I wanted to avoid the competition for the top spots as much as possible so chose a wider distribution assuming that fewer opponents would go for the 1/2/3 point castles. This is probably strong against 4 castle solutions (competing strongly for 8 and 7, then challenging at a weaker level for 6 and 4 should hit a weak spot in most 4/5 castle solutions). Probably weakest against larger spreads, and a bit of a crap shoot against other 6/7 castle solutions, just depends where you load up. Fun one, thanks. |
515 | 515 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 9 | 10 | 25 | 25 | 25 | 0 | 0 | Surrendered higher value castles and focused efforts on several medium sized castles in hopes that they would add to far more. |
572 | 572 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 7 | 12 | 18 | 26 | 31 | 0 | 0 | A mixture of probability, pop psych, a few borrowed bits from behavioral economics, and a lifetime of table top strategy gaming. |
594 | 594 | 1 | 9 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 20 | 30 | 0 | 0 |
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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 );