Needing more time to think is exactly why this game works. ;^)
sure, but there's actually an unlimited amount of time. it's only once someone makes an accusational point that the clock starts. for a citizen to just assume their accusation is obviously true, and give the benefit of uncountered defense to the accused is silly, and frustrating.
Needing more time to think is exactly why this game works. ;^)
sure, but there's actually an unlimited amount of time. it's only once someone makes an accusational point that the clock starts. for a citizen to just assume their accusation is obviously true, and give the benefit of uncountered defense to the accused is silly, and frustrating.
There is not an unlimited amount of time.
Remember, once someone has been accused if they are not killed, they are immune for the rest of the day. Let's say you are sitting there figuring things out, you need to trust that everyone else just sits quietly and doesn't do anything. Of course, the mafia will start accusing each other. If you vote no, because you are still busy, then they have just immunified themselves. If you vote yes, one mafia is dead, but the other mafia now looks innocent having accused and killed their teammate.
You need to have every single player on exactly the same page, and not stupid. If anyone accuses anyone before the calculations are complete, then that person is automatically the one who must die that day.
I've found one of the most effective moves for the mafia to make is to kill a member of the mafia during the day. Generally that's why I tend to win as Mafia, during the day I'll make an accusation of one of my fellow mafia or a very overt second. Thus being labeled as someone who can't be the mafia because I accused a real mafia. Usually this is highly effective if the detective is dead but tends to work just as well anyhow because why would the mafia kill their own :-p As the mafia you want one of your members to be labeled safe as quickly as possible by other people. Best thing to hear when the mafia is someone else who is "safe" saying that you are not the mafia.
Also you get an awesome reaction out of your mafia cohorts when you sell them up the river. Hey the family has to live.
It is a valid strategy, but it only works once. Once you've won a game via such obvious treachery, you'll set yourself up to almost always be voted off because people hate that guy.
Then everyone starts arguing about who the moderator would pick in order to make the game the most interesting. Of course, the moderator would still do it randomly.
That only happens if you are not in a group of people who are all cut throat bastards..
If you are in a group who are all cut throat bastards, your strategy is already a known quantity and is generally going to backfire anyway.
Werewolf adds some roles that allow for third or fourth victory conditions as well. The "Lovers" and the "Piper" are interesting. But lovers only really works well if one is mafia and one is not.
It is a valid strategy, but it only works once. Once you've won a game via such obvious treachery, you'll set yourself up to almost always be voted off because people hate that guy.
Not true really, it occurs in nearly every game I play. And it especially happens whenever I am in the mafia. As long as the mafia still has most if not all of its members surviving killing off one purposefully is a great move.
Andrew used it, I used it, Scott used it. Its just what you do if things are in your favor and people are getting suspicious of you.
Are we talking about voting for a person in the mafia, or accusing. You should vote, certainly, but accusing as a trick to grant yourself immunity simply does not work with anyone I've ever played with (at least not beyond the first time). Nobody is immune unless there is complete certainty.
I suspect that optimal strategy for the Doctor (Archangel) is to always protect themselves. Is this allowed under your rules, Rym?
Yeah, it's allowed. The only drawback is that the one benefit of this tactic is that you keep a villager alive for ration purposes. The protector has no other role. So actually there may be times when it is optimal to risk dying yourself if it is going to protect someone critical on a critical turn.
True, but it's quite difficult to determine what qualifies as a "critical turn".
Another interesting fact is this - the Mafia's response to a self-protecting Doctor would be to never attempt to kill someone they've failed to kill, but then in turn the Doctor would stop protecting themselves after they've saved themselves once. However, the Mafia could instead adopt a strategy of always trying a second time, etc.
In other words, what's the optimal strategy for the Doctor in a game with only Civilians, Mafia, and a single Doctor?
Here's something interesting my brother thought of: Consider an end-game situation in which it is morning, and the remaining players are a Doctor, two Civilians, and a Mafioso, and the doctor has never stopped any night-time murders. Given game-theoretically optimal play, what are the chances of the citizens winning?
Here's what happens: The doctor always announces the fact that they're a doctor, and then one of the three other players is randomly chosen for lynching, resulting in a 1/3 chance of the citizens winning. This is better than the 1/4 chance that would result if no-one said anything.
It is important to note that it's not in the mafioso's interest to claim to be a doctor, because if they do so then one of the two people claiming to be a doctor must be a mafioso - choose one of them randomly and then the citizens have increased their winning chances to 1/2.
This is quite interesting because it means that depending on the situation it can often be beneficial to announce your special role even if you don't have any extra information.
Here's something interesting my brother thought of: Consider an end-game situation in which it is morning, and the remaining players are a Doctor, two Civilians, and a Mafioso, and the doctor has never stopped any night-time murders. Given game-theoretically optimal play, what are the chances of the citizens winning?
Oops, my chance was off because I forgot about the doctor's power.
After the doctor announces their identity, there is a 2/3 chance the mafioso isn't lynched initially. If this occurs, the mafioso randomly chooses to murder either the last civilian or the doctor, both with probability 1/2. On the other hand, the doctor must choose to protect themselves with probability 1/2, and each of the others with probability 1/4. As a consequence, the mafia wins 3/4 of these situations, and so the overall chance of mafia victory is 2/3 * 3/4 = 1/2.
Note that the mafioso does worse if they simply pretend to be a doctor from the start. As such, the citizens have a 50% chance of winning in the situation described previously.
What, you don't already drink when you play mafia?
yeah.. i do not play drinking mafia well.
Here's something interesting my brother thought of: Consider an end-game situation in which it is morning, and the remaining players are a Doctor, two Civilians, and a Mafioso, and the doctor has never stopped any night-time murders. Given game-theoretically optimal play, what are the chances of the citizens winning?
Oops, my chance was off because I forgot about the doctor's power.
After the doctor announces their identity, there is a 2/3 chance the mafioso isn't lynched initially. If this occurs, the mafioso randomly chooses to murder either the last civilian or the doctor, both with probability 1/2. On the other hand, the doctor must choose to protect themselves with probability 1/2, and each of the others with probability 1/4. As a consequence, the mafia wins 3/4 of these situations, and so the overall chance of mafia victory is 2/3 * 3/4 = 1/2.
Note that the mafioso does worse if they simply pretend to be a doctor from the start. As such, the citizens have a 50% chance of winning in the situation described previously.
This is almost exactly the situation we had. I realized (as the doctor) that I should have flipped a coin (or rolled a die etc) to determine who to protect when I was uncertain, as opposed to trying to out-mind-game the remaining mafia. But my biggest error was buckling under the pressure.
I'm really looking forward to Rym's "roles to player ratios" chart. I'm now passable at running the game, but I don't have a feeling for setup. What's usually best for, say, 12 players? Four mafia, one Angel, one Archangel?
Used to play Mafia quite a bit but never in person, always on forums, which made things alot easier for the person running it. We did find that the more games we had, the more complex it got. Kind of died a slow death in the end.
Also, as long as the Archangel is alive, it looks like what the Angel should do is simply announce themselves and whatever they discovered at night, because the Archangel can protect them.
Also, as long as the Archangel is alive, it looks like what the Angel should do is simply announce themselves and whatever they discovered at night, because the Archangel can protect them.
But what's stopping a mafiosi from claiming that they are the angel and accusing a citizen of being mafia?
Nothing. However, that still means you have two people claiming Angel and one of them is definitely a mafia, which puts the mafia in a worse situation than they were in before. Unless the mafia then kill the angel, that also means the angel has a chance to get more reports and so the other mafiosi have a good chance of being discovered. Of course, if they do kill the angel, then the mafioso who claimed to be the angel is dead.
There has long been a Starcraft II map called Phantom or some-such in which the players are randomly assigned to either be Phantoms, Paladins, or regular players. Phantoms start with a huge lead and generate more resources than everyone else. Paladins start with the same lead, but generate normal resources. Regular players obviously start from scratch. You build units similar to Starcraft and fight with each other, but victory is somewhat team based. You can choose to ally/unally other players, and you can choose to share or not share vision.
There is a problem however in that you lose if you are eliminated, regardless of team. So generally you want to be a Paladin or Phantom, because otherwise you're just a pawn to be ran over in the crusade to kill the phantom (or eliminate all the players as the phantom).
The only actual tells for a phantom are whether they have more units than they should at a point (difficult to gauge, but if they are incredibly obvious about it), if they break the 200 point unit cap (only they can), or if you kill them and the game declares that they were a phantom. And phantoms always know who the other phantoms are (but Paladins do not know each other).
I don't think I've ever won a game unless I was the Phantom or Paladin because of the whole being weak fodder for the slaughter mechanic. If the game goes on too long, the phantoms will eventually be the only ones generating resources... so there's a soft time-limit on the game.
Comments
Remember, once someone has been accused if they are not killed, they are immune for the rest of the day. Let's say you are sitting there figuring things out, you need to trust that everyone else just sits quietly and doesn't do anything. Of course, the mafia will start accusing each other. If you vote no, because you are still busy, then they have just immunified themselves. If you vote yes, one mafia is dead, but the other mafia now looks innocent having accused and killed their teammate.
You need to have every single player on exactly the same page, and not stupid. If anyone accuses anyone before the calculations are complete, then that person is automatically the one who must die that day.
Also you get an awesome reaction out of your mafia cohorts when you sell them up the river. Hey the family has to live.
The roles were not random. The moderated chose who received each card.
Werewolf adds some roles that allow for third or fourth victory conditions as well. The "Lovers" and the "Piper" are interesting. But lovers only really works well if one is mafia and one is not.
Andrew used it, I used it, Scott used it. Its just what you do if things are in your favor and people are getting suspicious of you.
Another interesting fact is this - the Mafia's response to a self-protecting Doctor would be to never attempt to kill someone they've failed to kill, but then in turn the Doctor would stop protecting themselves after they've saved themselves once. However, the Mafia could instead adopt a strategy of always trying a second time, etc.
In other words, what's the optimal strategy for the Doctor in a game with only Civilians, Mafia, and a single Doctor?
Consider an end-game situation in which it is morning, and the remaining players are a Doctor, two Civilians, and a Mafioso, and the doctor has never stopped any night-time murders. Given game-theoretically optimal play, what are the chances of the citizens winning?
The doctor always announces the fact that they're a doctor, and then one of the three other players is randomly chosen for lynching, resulting in a 1/3 chance of the citizens winning. This is better than the 1/4 chance that would result if no-one said anything.
It is important to note that it's not in the mafioso's interest to claim to be a doctor, because if they do so then one of the two people claiming to be a doctor must be a mafioso - choose one of them randomly and then the citizens have increased their winning chances to 1/2.
This is quite interesting because it means that depending on the situation it can often be beneficial to announce your special role even if you don't have any extra information.
As a consequence, the mafia wins 3/4 of these situations, and so the overall chance of mafia victory is 2/3 * 3/4 = 1/2.
Note that the mafioso does worse if they simply pretend to be a doctor from the start. As such, the citizens have a 50% chance of winning in the situation described previously.
This is almost exactly the situation we had. I realized (as the doctor) that I should have flipped a coin (or rolled a die etc) to determine who to protect when I was uncertain, as opposed to trying to out-mind-game the remaining mafia.
But my biggest error was buckling under the pressure.
Unless the mafia then kill the angel, that also means the angel has a chance to get more reports and so the other mafiosi have a good chance of being discovered. Of course, if they do kill the angel, then the mafioso who claimed to be the angel is dead.
There is a problem however in that you lose if you are eliminated, regardless of team. So generally you want to be a Paladin or Phantom, because otherwise you're just a pawn to be ran over in the crusade to kill the phantom (or eliminate all the players as the phantom).
The only actual tells for a phantom are whether they have more units than they should at a point (difficult to gauge, but if they are incredibly obvious about it), if they break the 200 point unit cap (only they can), or if you kill them and the game declares that they were a phantom. And phantoms always know who the other phantoms are (but Paladins do not know each other).
I don't think I've ever won a game unless I was the Phantom or Paladin because of the whole being weak fodder for the slaughter mechanic. If the game goes on too long, the phantoms will eventually be the only ones generating resources... so there's a soft time-limit on the game.