evotraders/tuner/werewolves/README.md

Training Werewolf Game with RL using AgentScope-Tuner

This project demonstrates training werewolf game agents using Reinforcement Learning (RL) with the AgentScope tuner framework (AS-Tune). We employ the multi-step Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) algorithm to train werewolf players to develop sophisticated strategies and improve their win rate from ~50% to ~85%.

Overview

The werewolf game is a complex social deduction game that requires strategic thinking, deception, and multi-agent collaboration. In this project, we train AI agents to play as werewolves in a 7-player game setting, where they must eliminate all villagers while hiding their identity. Through reinforcement learning, the trained werewolf agents learn to:

• Avoid revealing their identity in public discussions
• Coordinate with teammates effectively
• Develop advanced strategies like "deep cover" tactics
• Deceive villagers and mislead investigations

Task Setting

Training Objective

The goal is to train werewolf players to maximize their team's win rate against other roles (villagers, seer, and witch). The reward function is defined by rule:

• Reward = +1.0 if werewolves win (all villagers eliminated)
• Reward = 0.0 if villagers win (all werewolves eliminated)
• Reward = -0.1 for game execution errors (penalty to discourage invalid behaviors)

Game Configuration

This implementation is based on the games/game_werewolves example but with several key modifications:

Original 9-Player Setup:

• 3 Werewolves, 3 Villagers, 1 Seer, 1 Witch, 1 Hunter
• Witch cannot self-rescue (use healing potion on herself)

Modified 7-Player Setup (This Project):

• 2 Werewolves: Kill one player each night, must hide identity during the day
• 3 Villagers: Ordinary players without special abilities
• 1 Seer: Can check one player's identity each night
• 1 Witch: Has two one-time-use potions:
  • Healing potion: Save a player from being killed at night (can self-rescue)
  • Poison potion: Eliminate one player at night

We also make slight modification to the prompt, and ask the players to reasoning before they speak publicly.

Models

• Trainable Model (Werewolf Players): Qwen/Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct
• Auxiliary Model (Other Roles): Qwen/Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507

Algorithm

Multi-Step GRPO (Group Relative Policy Optimization)

• Group size: 32 rollouts per training batch
• Batch size: 24
• Learning rate: 1e-6
• Advantage normalization by episode length
• Clipping range: [0.2, 0.28]
• No KL penalty (kl_coef: 0)

Dataset Preparation

The dataset for this task is minimal and consists only of random seeds for role shuffling. Each training episode uses a different seed to randomize player role assignments, ensuring diverse training scenarios.

Generate Dataset

Run the prepare_data.py script to generate the dataset:

# Generate default dataset (300 seeds for training)
python prepare_data.py

# Or customize the number of seeds
python prepare_data.py --num_seeds 500

This will create data/train.jsonl (or data/eval.jsonl) with the following format:

{"seed": 0}
{"seed": 1}
{"seed": 2}
...

During training, these seeds are used to shuffle role assignments via np.random.shuffle(), creating varied game configurations.

Code Implementation

High-Level Workflow

The training workflow consists of the following key components:

1. Agent Workflow (run_werewolves_workflow)

async def run_werewolves_workflow(task, model, auxiliary_models):
    # 1. Initialize roles
    roles = ["werewolf"] * 2 + ["villager"] * 3 + ["seer", "witch"]

    # 2. Shuffle based on task seed
    np.random.seed(task["seed"])
    np.random.shuffle(roles)

    # 3. Create agents: werewolves use trainable model, others use auxiliary model
    players = [
        ReActAgent(
            name=f"Player{i+1}",
            model=model if role == "werewolf" else participant_model,
            ...
        ) for i, role in enumerate(roles)
    ]

    # 4. Run the game
    good_guy_win = await werewolves_game(players, roles)

    # 5. Compute reward
    reward = 1.0 if not good_guy_win else 0.0

    return WorkflowOutput(reward=reward, metrics={...})

2. Game Loop (werewolves_game)

Each game consists of alternating night and day phases:

Night Phase:

1. Werewolves' Turn: Discuss privately and vote to kill a player
2. Witch's Turn: Decide whether to use healing/poison potions
3. Seer's Turn: Check one player's identity

Day Phase:

1. Announcement: Moderator announces who died during the night
2. Discussion: All alive players discuss with reasoning/statement separation
3. Voting: All players vote to eliminate one suspected werewolf
4. Last Words: Eliminated player gives final statement

The game continues until:

• All werewolves are eliminated (villagers win), or
• Werewolves equal or outnumber other players (werewolves win)

3. Reward Calculation

The reward is computed based on the game outcome from the perspective of werewolves:

if not good_guy_win:  # Werewolves win
    reward = 1.0
else:                 # Villagers win
    reward = 0.0

How to Run

Prerequisites

1. Install AgentScope with tuner support:

pip install agentscope[full]

2. Set up environment variables (optional, can be configured in code):

export TRINITY_MODEL_PATH="Qwen/Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct"
export TRINITY_AUXILIARY_MODEL_PATH="Qwen/Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507"
export TRINITY_CHECKPOINT_ROOT_DIR="./checkpoints"

Configuration

The project uses a hybrid configuration approach:

1. High-level parameters in main.py:

   • Model paths
   • Dataset configuration
   • Algorithm parameters (group_size, batch_size, learning_rate)

2. Detailed infrastructure settings in config.yaml:

   • Cluster configuration (nodes, GPUs)
   • Explorer settings (rollout engines, timeouts)
   • Trainer settings (gradient clipping, batch sizes)
   • Monitor configuration (WandB integration)

Key parameters to adjust:

# In main.py
trained_model_path = "Qwen/Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct"
auxiliary_model_path = "Qwen/Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507"

dataset = DatasetConfig(
    path="data",
    split="train",
    total_steps=400,  # Total training steps
)

algorithm = AlgorithmConfig(
    algorithm_type="multi_step_grpo",
    group_size=32,    # Rollouts per batch
    batch_size=24,    # Training batches per step
    learning_rate=1e-6,
    save_interval_steps=100,
    eval_interval_steps=100,
)

Training Command

Step 1: Prepare the dataset

cd /path/to/agentscope-samples/training/werewolf_game
python prepare_data.py --num_seeds 300

Step 2: Start Ray cluster

Start your ray cluster.

# For single node
ray start --head

# For multi-node cluster (e.g., 4 nodes with 8 GPUs each):
# On the head node:
ray start --head --port=6379

# On each worker node:
ray start --address='<head_node_ip>:6379'
# Replace <head_node_ip> with the actual IP address of your head node

Step 3: Run training

Run the training script on the head node:

python main.py

For distributed training, ensure Ray cluster is properly configured in config.yaml, make sure that the node number and gpu number matches:

cluster:
  node_num: 4
  gpu_per_node: 8

Results

Quantitative Results

Training on the 7-player werewolf game for 400 steps demonstrates significant improvement:

Metric	Before Training	After Training (Step 200+)
Werewolf Win Rate	~50%	~85%
Success Rate	0.50	0.85

Reward Curve:

As shown in the reward curve above, the werewolf win rate steadily increases during training:

• Steps 0-50: Win rate fluctuates around 50-60% as the model explores strategies
• Steps 50-200: Win rate climbs to 70-80% as effective strategies emerge
• Steps 200-250: Win rate stabilizes around 85%

Qualitative Results

Before Training: Critical Mistakes

Untrained models (Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct) make fundamental errors:

• Self-exposure: Werewolves accidentally reveal identity in public ("as a werewolf, I think...")
• Exposing teammates: When voted out, werewolves point to teammates in last words
• Random strategy: No coordination, no threat prioritization (e.g., ignoring the Seer)

After Training: "Deep Cover" Werewolf Strategy

After 200+ steps, the trained model converges to a sophisticated "deep cover" tactic. Below is an example where werewolves sacrifice teammates to gain trust, then dominate late game.

Concrete Example:

Setup (Day 1): Seer publicly identifies Player5 as werewolf. Witch and villagers join the accusation. Player5 (werewolf) is doomed.

Player4 (werewolf teammate) responds strategically:

In short: Player4 sacrifices teammate to gain trust, pretending to be a logical villager.

Detailed reasoning and statement:

Private Reasoning (only Player4 sees):

"I'm a werewolf, and I know Player2 was targeted last night but survived.
My teammate Player5 is doomed - Player3 and Player7 are attacking him together.
I need to deflect suspicion from MYSELF, not save Player5.

Strategy: Sacrifice Player5 to gain trust. If I vote against my teammate,
villagers will think I'm trustworthy. This creates confusion and positions
me as a "confirmed good guy" for later rounds."

Public Statement (all players see):

✅ "I think Player5 is acting very strangely. He brought up Player2 being targeted,
but didn't explain why he's so focused on them. It feels like a distraction tactic.
I also noticed that Player3 and Player7 are both accusing Player5, which makes sense -
their logic is solid. I think we should seriously consider voting out Player5 -
he's the most suspicious person right now."

Result: Player5 eliminated, but Player4 gains complete trust from Seer and all villagers.

Why it works:

• Seer trusts Player4 as strong villager ally → won't check him
• Villagers follow Player4's "logical" analysis
• Player4 systematically misleads discussions in later rounds
• Survives to final 2 players → werewolves win

This demonstrates the essence of trained behavior: sacrifice pieces strategically to secure ultimate victory. The model learns that short-term teammate loss is worthwhile for establishing deep cover and long-term dominance.

---

Bonus: Training Good Guys

In addition to training werewolves, we also provide a configuration for training the good guy side (villagers, seer, and witch). This is a more challenging task as good guys need to:

• Perform complex reasoning to identify werewolves from subtle behavioral cues
• Coordinate effectively without explicit team communication
• Resist manipulation and deception from werewolves
• Train multiple roles simultaneously: Unlike werewolves (single role), good guys include villager, seer, and witch with different abilities, requiring the model to master diverse strategies in one training run, and make optimal use of special abilities (Seer's checks, Witch's potions)

Configuration

Use config_train_goodguy.yaml or set trainable_target: good_guy in workflow_args:

workflow_args:
  trainable_target: good_guy  # Train villager, seer, and witch

Quantitative Results

We trained Qwen3-4B-Instruct as good guys against Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct werewolves:

Metric	Before Training	After ~200 Steps	After ~400 Steps
Good Guy Win Rate	~18%	~60%	~80%

Training Curve:

The results show that even a smaller 4B model can learn effective strategies to counter stronger 30B werewolf opponents through RL training, demonstrating the potential of this approach for training cooperative multi-agent behaviors.

Qualitative Results

After training, the good guy models exhibit advanced reasoning patterns:

• Seer: Strategic target selection, information concealment in public statements, evidence integration
• Witch: Resource management (preserve potions for critical moments), protect high-value targets, evidence-based decisions
• Villager: Evidence-chain analysis, trust building with special roles, consensus formation for team coordination

---

Conclusion

This example demonstrates the power of reinforcement learning for training multi-agent systems in complex social deduction games. Through AS-Tune's multi-step GRPO algorithm, we successfully trained agents that develop sophisticated strategies—from werewolves learning "deep cover" tactics to good guys mastering coordinated reasoning and information management.

Ready to try it yourself? Feel free to start training your own werewolf game agents. Experiment with different model sizes, training targets (werewolf vs. good guy), and hyperparameters to discover new emergent strategies!