AbOrigineMundi

Summary of the game

Weremail is the “mafia” or “werewolf” mind game played by email, where each game day is roughly equal to a real life day. The game starts with one moderator and 10 to 20 players, of which 2 are werewolf, and end when (1) all werewolves have been lynched or (2) villagers no longer outnumber werewolves. The game starts with a night were werewolves decide on a victim to kill. After each night, all players decide on which player to lynch.

Apart from werewolf, some villagers can take a special role. These are the most common:

• Seeer: this player can pick one player every night and learn wether this player is werewolf or villager
• Possessed: this player does not know who the werewolves are, but he wins or loses with them.
• Outsider: is seen by the seeer as werewolf, but is innocent.

The existence of these roles in the game greatly changes the dynamics of play. There are other roles that have a still higher impact on game play, and player groups can invent their own roles if needed.

An important concept is the alignment of players: werewolf and possessed have negative alignment, all other players are positive. With the standard rules described above, either + either – alignment wins the game.

Basic tactics

Basic tactics include:

• Pick the right victim to kill (werewolf bite or lynch)
• Claim a role
• Gain trust from other players
• Influence voting, for example by making other players suspect
• Ask other players to reveil their role

Endgame tactics

Definition of the endgame:  the part of the game that starts on the day of the final lynch (immediately after announcing a nightly kill) and ends with the end of the game. Players come out of the “muddy waters” of the middle game and players with negative alignment might even find out it’s reasonable to unveil their game role.

If there is only 1 werewolf left, the endgame is played with 3 or 4 players. If there are still 2 werewolves left, the endgame is played with 6 players. In the last case, there are two possible outcomes:

• A werewolf is lynched: the remaining werewolf kills a villager during the night, after which the 3 player endgame is reached.
• A villager is lynched: werewolves kill another villager during night, after which the end condition is reached. The town loses.

Therefore, we will study only endgames with 3 and 4 possible players. Tactics with 6 players alive are more closely related to midgame play.

Starting the werewolf tactics study with endgames is good for two reasons:

• If you know and endgame and you know your side has a high chance of winning it, you can work to it
• Since the endgame has only few players, tactics are more clear than during midgame play where possibilities are still endless.

The four player endgame

Four player endgames are simple, assuming the standard rules described above. If the werewolf is lynched, the villagers win (probability ¼ in most cases). If the werewolf survives, he will kill a player during the night after which the werewolves win by daytime massacre.

Special four-player endgames include:

• With a possessed: the werewolf can block a lynch if he can persuade the possessed not to vote or to vote for a nonsuspect player. During the night, he has a 1/3 chance to kill the possessed, in which case he loses because the villagers will know the identity of the werewolf, and a 2/3 chance of winning the game. Unless the werewolf is sure who the possessed is, he shouldn’t block the lynch. Simply letting it happen has a higher winning probability.
• With a seeer: if there is no outsider, the seeer has a higher probability of voting correctly. When an outsider is present, the probability of the seeer voting correctly is higher than that of a villager, but lower than that of a seeer when no outsider is present. The nature of the endgame does not change, only the winning probability is a little higher when the seeer is present.

The paradoxical result is that games starting with one villager more, actually mean a serious handicap for the village.
The three player endgame
With the rules described above, there are a few different three player endgames. The most basic endgame is played by 2 villagers without special role, and a werewolf.

Under these conditions there are 7 endgames : VV, VP, VS, VO, PS, SO and PO. This can be reduced to 5 since the outsider is only important if the seeer is still present: the VO endgame is equal to the VV endgame, the PO endgame equal to the VP endgame. Each endgame needs to be studied from the perspective of 3 players (except for the basic VV endgame, where both villagers are interchangable.

The assumption of “no information”

“The assumption of no information” states that basically, players don’t know for sure what other players are. Therefore,  when it comes to lynch voting, players have a W/(N-1) probability of voting for a werewolf, where W = the number of werewolves and N = the current number of players alive and N>2W.

There are a few exceptions:

• Every person knows their own role (therefore, 1 is subtracted from N in the above equation)
• Werewolves know each other. They usually don’t vote for each other, unless for tactical reasons. In this text, I assume werewolves have a 0 probability to vote for each other. (“Sacrifices” in real games are mostly jumping on the bandwagon when a werewolf lynch is inevitable.)
• The seeer sometimes knows who is a werewolf. If he doesn’t, he might know who is not werewolf. Generally, when reaching the end game, seeers are fully informed unless the other villager is an outsider.
• Players may play suboptimally. This condition is not considered, since it might well be a tactic used by the player.

Basic VV endgame: 1 werewolf and 2 villagers

All three players will claim to be villagers.

• W: the werewolf tries to gain trust from one V and make the other V suspect. It is a sensible strategy to appear to be in doubt.
• V: villagers look out for which player tries to gain their trust, then throw suspicions on that player. With good werewolf play, villagers will have difficulties doing so.

This “vanilla” endgame is likely to be the most common but also the most difficult to play since all players will behave more or less the same. V wins only if both V choose the W to lynch.

Endgames with special roles

Further analysis shows that the other endgames can be classified in two groups:

• Endgames with a possessed: if played well, this is a sure win for the negative side. The werewolf does not know who is P and who V. He knows that if he can avoid daytime lynch, he will win the game because he then kills any one player during the night, after which the end condition is reached. The possessed will agree not to lynch anyone, because he then wins with the werewolves.
• Endgames with a seeer but without a possessed: If the seeer survives the middle game, which is not likely, chances are that he knows the role of the other players. Only in the SO endgame, he is unsure because both other players are reveiled to him as W. Therefore, this endgame boils down to the vanilla endgame VV. For the VS endgame, the village has a slight advantage because the seeer knows which player to trust and can try to gain the trust of the villager himself, while the werewolf is unsure what player to choose. Generally, the werewolf needs to gain trust from both other players, which has a higher probability of being discovered by the + alignment players.

Winning probabilities

Under the condition that players don’t have more information than from their role, estimates can be made:

• In the vanilla endgame, the probability of the village winning the game is 1/3 since there are three players, two of which will hang the third.
• When a seeer is present, chances of a win for the village can be as high as 1/2. Assume that the villager votes randomly and the seeer votes correctly . This is the only situation where (assuming no information) the village has a chance of winning that exceeds random voting (1/3)

Opening and middle game tactics

• Metatactics: why werewolf is difficult
• Exception: being too smart is dangerous
• Voting patterns and the bandwagon
• Convincing others (not) to lynch during the day
• Picking the right night kill victim
• Picking the right player for the seeer – information value
• Role of the seeer – unveil role even if dangerous
• Mystifying by negative alignment roles

Reaching the endgame

Werewolves like to reach and endgame where (in decreasing order of importance)

• The possessed is still alive, for the three-player endgame with a possessed alive is a sure win for the negative side
• As many werewolves as possible are alive. With 6 players and 2 werewolves alive, the chances for the town to win are slightly below 1/3.
• The seeer is dead, since a living seeer will have information on who is the werewolf. 

Related posts:

• Weremail – modtool: a freeware tool for guiding a game of werewolf by email
• Kaarten weerwolf: in Dutch
• Weerwolf – spelregels: in Dutch