(February 6th, 2016, 09:48)sunrise089 Wrote: Do you all know if the mail-delivering pigeon is also the extinct kind? I think the mail one is a carrier pigeon and the extinct one is a passenger pigeon, but am not confident about that.
Yes, that's right.
I want to say that Pigeon Point is a place, but I can't say for certain. Maybe I just like alliteration.
I didn't see a good way to clue the blue words in fewer than 4 rounds, while the red words seemed doable in 3, so I decided to gamble with a 0-clue targeting red and black words to force a couple of 1-clues in response, which would hopefully clear the way for me to clue WAKE and LIMOUSINE with "Hearse 2." My team would still have had to dodge DEATH by remembering "Pox 0," but I had faith
"Bean 3" was supposed to clue POLE (beanpole), BERRY (some beans are actually berries, notably coffee), and INDIA (legume-rich cuisine), and I was surprised and pleased that my team toyed with SOCK and WAKE as well, though not so pleased with CHICK, heh. Part of giving the 0-clue was to imply that you were on the right track, except for that one. I'm still quite pleased that both teams avoided any wrong guesses.
The opening clue was especially tricky, because every candidate is in play, and any mistakes can cause lingering doubts for the rest of the round. Even after thinking about the list from a couple of different angles, I couldn't think of a solid clue for 3+ words that wouldn't generate false positives. If any of you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them.
Much props to everyone, especially El Grillo who clued valiantly. He made plenty splendid clues and maneuvers given his situation, but it almost felt like taking out martial artist with a machine gun with set of cards I've been given. I doubt game would have become this close should I have been blue. I too am also impressed that all words have been guessed without fail!
From the initial look I could immediately group [COPPER, MARBLE], [PLANE, SKYSCRAPER, EAGLE], and [PLANE, EAGLE, CHICK] (Wings) together.
You can see from here I was uncertain whether to clue Soaring 3 or Wings 3 at very beginning. The wildcard for me was SPOT and MAIL. El Grillo thought all the words could be guessed in three turns, but I couldn't find a way to reliably group these two words together, let alone including SKYSCRAPER or CHICK. This is one of the reason why I finally planned to use Soaring at turn 2, as I couldn't find a way to group SKYSCRAPER any other way. At least I could group CHICK together with MAIL (my initial idea had been Hot 2: "Chick" as a girl and Hot"mail" ).
Thus my initial plan TURN 1 Mined 2: Copper, Marble
I really wanted to make Civ joke here regarding the double production modifier, but couldn't think how to clearly clue only these two words while doing that so went with the boring route.
I chose to do Mined 2 first over Soaring 3, because Copper and Marble did not have double meanings and less likely to be associated with other words; blue would not likely choose them accidentally, and I wanted to leave open Plane and Eagle for El Grillo to play around for one turn.
TURN 2 Soaring 3: Plane, Eagle, Skyscraper
I explained above I chose to use Soaring because I couldn't find a way to group SKYSCRAPER with MAIL or SPOT. By end of the blue turn 2, I now had more reason to avoid using Wings 3 since I wanted to leave Chick open for wrong guess.
TURN 3 Hot 2: Chick, Mail TURN 4 Found 1: Spot
I'll discuss turn 3 and turn 4 specifically after discussing rather ingenious Pox 0 clue, which made me change my plans. On retrospect this was pretty interesting move - it essentially took out Black and two Red words from the blue team's roster. It did cost blue team one turn, but I think it was still kind of efficient because almost all of the actively considered guesses for bean in Turn 2 actually was Blue! (color me surprised here too. I thought Bean 3 was fairly ambiguous, if necessary, clue to give)
Either way, El Grillo specifically pointing out Chick as dangerous gave me an idea. First it made me think of new clue - Pigeon 2. I formerly thought using bird-related clue might not work well for CHICK because one only normally thinks of Chickens, but I thought El Grillo specifically pointing out the word would make my teammates more suspicious and consider CHICK over any other words.
Secondly I thought it gave me enough time to pull off a gambit. If I clue Pigeon 2 immediately and only have one word left, El Grillo might pull off Hail Mary gambit to conclude the game. I necessarily couldn't find a way to associate all remaining four blue words, but the fact that Bean clue had been so successful made me afraid of Blue team's efficiency. However if I clue Found 1 first... I would still have two words left, and El Grillo perhaps would think I couldn't find a way to clearly clue MAIL and CHICK together... leading him to believe he had one more turn. Secondly, Found 1 would leave MAIL for El Grillo to play around with next turn, which is benefit leaving behind SPOT did not have since Pox 0 already eliminated it decisively; I also thought MAIL and LIMOUSINE was quite closely associated. Either way chance of Blue team successfully winning off Hail Mary play would be lower.
So I chose to reverse the order of planned Turn 3 and Turn 4 clue... and regretted it immediately. A way to bind FALL, INDIA, WAKE, and LIMOUSINE together?! Am I on meds?! I should have not tried to min-max for fringe possibilities, because if I gave Pigeon 2 turn three, even if my teammates failed to guess CHICK, at least I can try to find a way to give secondary hint at the final clue. This does not matter if Pigeon 2 clue is blatantly obvious, but apparently my clue-giving abilities are terrible.
The fact that Found 1 turned out to be not so clear for the team is what made me worried and think of above fault in my gambit. I wanted to use Dot 1 but couldn't because of POINT. There is probably better way to give one-off clue for SPOT only? Still can't think of any at top of my head. Either way the brief discussion regarding DEATH at final turn also made me sweat but thankfully my teammates followed my thinking. Regardless my assumption "More attention is given to Chick, and therefore more likely to be picked!" turned out to be as much of fallacy as "There is better ways to clue word A, so it must not be A!". Perhaps if I gave Pigeon 2, right immediately after Pox 0, the team would have believed the chance of CHICK being black word was less likely? Either way not using unorthodox strategies again
).
I should have not tried to min-max for fringe possibilities, because if I gave Pigeon 2 turn three, even if my teammates failed to guess CHICK, at least I can try to find a way to give secondary hint at the final clue. This does not matter if Pigeon 2 clue is blatantly obvious, but apparently my clue-giving abilities are terrible. 
