Codenames 14 Lurker Thread

[T-hawk]

Well if there aren't enough people to start up a 15th game, we'll have to be content with lurking in 14.

Commonwealth -> Mass was a terrible leap of logic. Nobody cares that the state calls itself a commonwealth, and no good spymaster would expect his team to read Mass as Massachusetts.

Commonwealth -> Queen is bloody obvious, I have no idea why the team is outsmarting themselves trying to think that it's pointing away. The third word isn't as obvious but Capital seems strongest.

Yes, Australia is part of the British Commonwealth, and yes the Commonwealth recognizes the British Queen as its ceremonial head of state. But it doesn't actually matter whether these details are correct, it only matters whether the spymaster gets the team to say the right word.

[pindicator]

Even with the answers this round is worthy

[ipecac]

5-1, and it's Red's turn

[Molach]

Blue need an unlimited clue. An an insane amount of luck. Or red hitting assassin...

Red:
Fingering - thumb and piano, surely. As someone who has once tried to learn playing piano, beginner tunes have number written above each note, indicating which finger you should attempt to use.

I love the forePLAY reference though, would be fun if that really was it...

Blue:
Also thunderstuck that blue did not guess Queen with commonwealth. AFAIR one of the distinguising features about commonwealth members is that they have the queen as titular ruler. (After cheating with wikipedia: "The symbol of this free association is Queen Elizabeth II who is the Head of the Commonwealth.").

I'd guess conductor first with thunderbolt clue. Light was a probably foreseen as a necessary evil, bad luck to hit that first though.

[WarriorKnight]

Wow, this is an amusing game. How easy is it to get a hang of the strategy involved?

Tempted to join in the next one...

[Bacchus]

I would also say that commonwealth is a type of bond, which would also answer Bob's question of "Why not state/country". Capital is grey, I reckon.

[T-hawk]

Wow, this is an amusing game. How easy is it to get a hang of the strategy involved?

Around here, your teammates will have plenty of experience to show you how it goes. A quick overview of some levels:

Novice - Figure out what your spymaster is cluing. Figure out what your spymaster is NOT cluing, because if he were trying to link words X and Y, there would be a more obvious direct clue.

Beginner - Remember previous clues and use them for +1 guess each turn if you missed earlier. Remember the opposing team's clues and don't guess words that they're indicating.

Intermediate - Learn how games play out with the clue numbers and turn economy. Keep track of when the other team may be within one turn of winning and play more aggressively then. Realize that a neutral (or maybe even opposing) guess may not be wrong and that your spymaster may have planned for that and for you to catch up on a later turn.

Advanced - Know your spymaster or guessers, and the pool of knowledge and references that they would use to give or guess clues.

Expert - Realize that the game isn't even actually about matching words, it's just about getting the team to say it. A clue doesn't have to factually match its target, it just has to get the guessers to say the right word, by any means or reasoning.

I once successfully linked River + Berlin by cluing Danube. The Danube doesn't go through Berlin, but it doesn't have to, the guessers just have to think it's close enough to say it. Tying in with the previous point, that would not have worked for European guessers, but would for Americans who don't know any difference between Berlin and Bavaria.

[T-hawk]

Interesting endgame situation for blue. Should they guess for their remaining two words or hope red can't finish it?

I think the calculus almost always favors going for it and guessing, and certainly does here. It's so easy to convince yourself into all sorts of paranoia about hitting an opposing or black word, but that reallly doesn't actually happen very often. More often a wrong guess is an inconsequential neutral one.

And Conductor seems to me a pretty good guess for Thunderbolt.

[Bobchillingworth]

Commonwealth -> Mass was a terrible leap of logic. Nobody cares that the state calls itself a commonwealth, and no good spymaster would expect his team to read Mass as Massachusetts.

Really??? "Mass" is an incredibly common abbreviation for Massachusetts, and it's well-known that the full title of the state is the "Commonwealth of Massachusetts"- it's even called the "Commonwealth" in Fallout 4. I hail from the Commonwealth of Virginia, and Mass immediately jumped out at me, while the finer points of the "British Commonwealth" remained obscure. Given that our team is entirely or almost all Americans, I'm kind of astounded you saw any sort of leap of logic, much less a "terrible" one.

[T-hawk]

it's well-known that the full title of the state is the "Commonwealth of Massachusetts"

No. It's not. You just happen to know it because of the Virginia connection. But that's you, not everyone.

it's even called the "Commonwealth" in Fallout 4.

Which only matters for people who play Fallout 4. Which may be you, but not everyone.

And this whole thing requires reading Mass as Massachusetts. Which, again, may be you, but not everyone.

You can't just guess on what makes sense to you. You have to follow what your spymaster is likely to do. Did you have any reason to believe that DaveV would make any one of those jumps, let alone all three?