How do I play good with a larger playerlist

[UC Voyager]

I have found in decent in newbie games and micro games with smaller playerlist. But if I try normal games or mini theme or large theme and open, I always fall behind and I can't catch up. And then I get lost in the amount of people I need to sort. If I could get some help, I would highly appreciate it.

[Thestatusquo]

If you can't keep up you can't keep up, that's not really a solvable problem. you need to be able to keep up with the pace of posting. If the issue is that you physically cant keep up with the thread, there's not much I can tell you.

but if its a more process and organizational problem, this is my approach:

One thing I find helpful as town is to sort of narrow people down into buckets as the day goes on, esp. day 1. Those buckets can be as general as you want them to be, sometimes just "would be willing to see lynched today" vs "do not want to see lynched today" and "completely unsure" is good enough for me on day 1. And I sort of mentally sort people into those buckets as they post more.

keep in mind that day 1 is about getting information as much as it is about lynching scum. These buckets will form the basis of what you look back on later when you have flips and voting patterns and information on day 2 onward.

keep in mind you should be constantly reevaluating. if some post comes up that makes you feel differently about a person, don't hesitate to move them a different bucket in your mind.

I also keep a spreadsheet that I contains notes and significant post numbers to look back on, that I color code so I can see generally how I've been feeling about a player at a glance.

As more days go by you'll be able to have buckets that have greater granularity, as there are fewer players, more information, etc.

but thats basically how I do it.

[sheepsaysmeep]

yeah if this is a time problem it's not easy to solve
early game i like to just skimm through the iso's of the top wagons and ask for tldr's on cases
being caught up isnt too important imo

[Ranmaru]

Depends on your schedule. Is time your only issue? Also, I would say always play in only one mafia game at a time. I learned that the hard way. Also, keep playing more small games. That way, you increase your skills and confidence for large themes. I dislike larges anyway but I just pretend its a small when I play. Kind of like speaking to an audience, how would you think of them? Scary to think of them as many people, so think of them as a smaller number while you speak with higher chances of responses and votes.

[Thestatusquo]

oh yeah thats huge. I used to play multiple at a time, I think I was in 12 games at once back in HS. But now any more than 2 and I just can't follow. Even two is a stretch.

[beeboy]

Constantly posting (take constantly with a grain of salt) was something that helped me when I was newer to mafia to help me keep track of games since it allowed me to stay engaged and making posts as events occurred gave me a better understanding of them compared to reading in game events as I caught up (which for the longest time I just could do effectively). Overtime you just get a better feel for mafia and how to approach different kind of play styles and strategies which makes following games a lot easier.

One specific thing I used to notice was I saw you in a lot of games and over gaming yourself. Over gaming yourself is pretty bad in terms of how it effects play. It personally makes me less invested in each individual game and and games I am less interested just get put on the back burner which typically does not end well for my win con. Also I find when I am less invested in games I just don't take anything out of them either since I am not thinking about games critically. Try and figure out what your game limit is before you usually start to fail at keeping up with your games and try not to exceed that limit. Also post game try and identify what you could have done better or things that you missed which is something that really helps you improve at mafia and as you understand the game better reading large amount of posts gets much easier.


Although if you have any specific issues I could try helping you with those.

[Zachrulez]

In larger games I always tended to take a nonchalant attitude over who got lynched early on. It really is hard to try to solve the game when the playerlist is like 20 plus. It does help a lot to have flipped players in larger games.

[Thestatusquo]

looks to me like hes referring to normals as "large" here though.

[UC Voyager]

No. I dNt really even play in 13 player games even. I just can't keep myself active with a good reads lists when there is more than 10ish.

I will try some of the suggested things

[Ranmaru]

Yeah, regardless, just keep playing and strive to improve yourself, like with any competitive game. Eventually this won't be a problem. Don't bite off more than you can chew.

[Thestatusquo]

No. I dNt really even play in 13 player games even. I just can't keep myself active with a good reads lists when there is more than 10ish.

I will try some of the suggested things

yeah, thats why I suggest early on don't worry about being perfect. You just need a general feel and an idea of why you feel that way, and its ok to not feel strongly about everyone.

as the game goes on you'll need to be more precise, but on day one all you have to do is decide which group of people you're willing to lynch and which you're not.

[Zachrulez]

^ That's pretty good advice actually.