Commonly Asked Questions on Mafia Theory

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Post Post #102 (isolation #0) » Wed Jun 10, 2015 5:27 am

Post by LicketyQuickety »

I was going to ask some specific people this question, but I now realize that that would be inappropriate.

My question is, If you had to give your own personal philosophy on how you approach the game of Mafia in general, in the simplest terms, what would that look like? My game and playstyle are currently horrendous and I just need something to point me in the right direction.
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Post Post #107 (isolation #1) » Wed Jun 10, 2015 8:20 am

Post by LicketyQuickety »

Wow, this is... actually great! I was not expecting this kind of good advice right away. Thank you.

I have read pretty much all the A's in the articles and have done some other reading as well on the wiki. My problem is that, can't talk about ongoing games, but I am always a pretty strong candidate for being lynched day one regardless of alignment. On the plus side, it's forced me to get better at reading people because I don't have as much time to get my reads out there as others. I have never made it to late game and I have 6 games completed on another site (I know this basically means bananas since every site is at least a bit different if not completely so). I do try to model my play after people who are both good and experienced at this game, and as easy as one would think that would be, I am just a odd fellow and playing the way other people play doesn't usually stick (I'm far too individualistic to copy people and actually stick with it). I tend to tunnel people relentlessly and try to force them to make a slip by way of pressure. I guess that is one way I see how to manipulate emotions, but it does seem to be an effective strategy to force a particular emotion out of someone granted it takes a ton of skill to be able to do that which is not really what I am good at.

I will continue to read things on the wiki -it seems to be a great recourse. Of course as always experience is one of the better teachers. Also the whole seeing what I identify to be a strategy or tactic that I see being used by experienced/good players and borrowing those if I think I can pull it off also seems to be a pretty good shortcut from experience alone. I really should be watching the 'Mafia Championships' to see what I can learn from the people who are supposedly the best from their site, but I am pretty much overloaded right now.

I am ALWAYS open to critiques/advice about my game so please, if you have something that you think might be worth talking about do not hesitate to tell me.

P-Edit: Strong, strong advice from Vi as always.
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Post Post #108 (isolation #2) » Wed Jun 10, 2015 8:30 am

Post by LicketyQuickety »

@Vi, I don't expect you to respond to this but if you happen to read it it has to do with you.

I've tried to read some of you stuff on site and in the wiki and I found it just a bit too thick for me to digest right now. And by thick I don't mean dull or dumb. I mean thick with content that usually flies over my head. I have only been playing mafia since the middle of February and I honestly feel my experience that I have means that I should be better than what I am currently. There is just soooo much to this game.
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Post Post #110 (isolation #3) » Tue Aug 18, 2015 6:18 pm

Post by LicketyQuickety »

In post 109, Gale Wing Srock wrote:Guys, I want help in understanding how to better play as Town. I am not referring to present games, but I have one finished game that I want to refer to and try to understand how I could have played better and stuff.

Can someone please help me understand how to play Pro-Town and be successful at scum hunting?


The wiki articles are a good place to start. I can tell you that reading them has definitely helped me find scum.
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Post Post #112 (isolation #4) » Sun Aug 23, 2015 3:34 am

Post by LicketyQuickety »

In post 111, Gale Wing Srock wrote:
In post 110, LicketyQuickety wrote:
In post 109, Gale Wing Srock wrote:Guys, I want help in understanding how to better play as Town. I am not referring to present games, but I have one finished game that I want to refer to and try to understand how I could have played better and stuff.

Can someone please help me understand how to play Pro-Town and be successful at scum hunting?


The wiki articles are a good place to start. I can tell you that reading them has definitely helped me find scum.

Which article did you start from though? And which one did you like or learn the most from.


Start off reading all the ones in the A's. They are basic enough to understand and teach the fundamentals well.
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Post Post #113 (isolation #5) » Tue Aug 25, 2015 2:33 pm

Post by LicketyQuickety »

Seriously, it only take one time to find that someone is not scum hunting and catching them as scum and the reading will have made up for all that experience that it would take you otherwise to find that simple thing out on your own.
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Post Post #115 (isolation #6) » Wed Sep 09, 2015 9:00 pm

Post by LicketyQuickety »

In post 114, SilverWolf wrote:
In post 111, Gale Wing Srock wrote:
In post 110, LicketyQuickety wrote:
In post 109, Gale Wing Srock wrote:Guys, I want help in understanding how to better play as Town. I am not referring to present games, but I have one finished game that I want to refer to and try to understand how I could have played better and stuff.

Can someone please help me understand how to play Pro-Town and be successful at scum hunting?


The wiki articles are a good place to start. I can tell you that reading them has definitely helped me find scum.

Which article did you start from though? And which one did you like or learn the most from.


Try this to start:

http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?tit ... ory:Theory


I'd like to add that 'A Beginners Guide to Being Awesome at Mafia' is a must read.
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Post Post #117 (isolation #7) » Thu Sep 10, 2015 5:25 pm

Post by LicketyQuickety »

In post 116, Gale Wing Srock wrote:Thanks Guys, I am not sure how or when I will finish them. But I will give it a whirl this weekend.


Doing some reading on theory is a great way to improve your game. Reading the article I talked about will give you a very good foundation on how to play. I have caught scum who were much more experienced than I am simply by following the advice there. Like I said before, all it takes is to catch one person not scum hunting knowing what that looks like and the reading will have made up all the time that it would otherwise take to learn that through experience. It also taught me one of the most valuable lessens you can do to look townie when scum or town and that is to simply scum hunt. Scum hunting is the cornerstone of any game of mafia. If you see someone not doing that, you very well could have caught scum. Its a basic principle that scum don't scum hunt as much as town and once you get that through your head you will already be a pretty good player.
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Post Post #119 (isolation #8) » Tue Nov 24, 2015 3:24 pm

Post by LicketyQuickety »

Is there a wiki for analyzing post patterns? That would be a really juicy thing to sink my teeth into.
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Post Post #127 (isolation #9) » Thu Aug 18, 2016 7:42 pm

Post by LicketyQuickety »

I have a simple question.

If there is a clear cop and clear Vig, given there is no doc/bodyguard/other saving roles, who should Scum kill and why?
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Post Post #130 (isolation #10) » Fri Aug 19, 2016 8:50 am

Post by LicketyQuickety »

In post 129, callforjudgement wrote:Speaking from a purely mathematical/EV point of view, if there are an even number of players going into day (thus an odd number at the start of the night), shoot the cop, if there are an odd number of players going into day (i.e. evens at the start of the night), shooting the vig is better if close to endgame; shooting the cop is more viable the more players are still alive (although if you know that you can kill the cop tomorrow, you should still shoot the vig). (Note: I'm assuming NAR here: if shooting the vig prevents them from taking their shot, which is nonstandard but something that does happen in some games, the odd/even argument swaps the other way round, and makes shooting the vig a little more helpful in every case.)

This is because a cop confirms (as clear/scum) one player per night, whereas a vig confirms two players every two nights (because after the vig kills two players who would have been ynched anyway, that's effectively skipped two night phases; this gives you a spare mislynch which confirms the player you lynched and also confirms the player the scum nightkill). The cop's confirmations are more useful than the vig's confirmations because they're all aimed by town (as opposed to only half being aimed by town), so in the long term the cop averages as more helpful to the town. On the other hand, shooting a vig while the town's on odds will cause the vig shot to put town into evens, which doesn't help them at all, whereas leaving the vig alive another day would let the vig put town back to odds and give them another two confirmations. So while town's on odds, shooting the vig lets you strand them at an unfavourable player count, giving a short-term advantage. This is more useful than stopping a Cop shot close to the end of the game (and is more useful than stopping a Cop shot if you know you can get rid of the Cop tomorrow). Earlier in the game, it's probably worth taking advantage of an opportunity to get rid of a Cop if you aren't sure you'll get another one, because Cops will give the town a very large advantage over time.

In a real game (as opposed to the mathematical idealization), there are a few other factors to deal with. For example, do you know that the Cop is a full Cop? They're rather more likely to be limited-shot than a Vig is (and likely to have a lower limit when they are limited), and shooting a Cop that's out of shots hardly helps you. Another thing to deal with is that vigs rarely follow the optimal strategy (barring Jesters and the like, the correct shot for a Vig is to shoot whoever they believe is most likely to be lynched tomorrow); if a vig is acting as a loose cannon rather than playing as part of their team, and if their reads aren't great, leaving them alive may be helpful (because if a Vig shoots a townie who wasn't otherwise going to be mislynched, it only helps scum). You also have to take the players' reads into account (if a town power role is likely to investigate and/or shoot you in the near future, you probably need to kill them before they kill you).
Thanks, that's very helpful.
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Post Post #139 (isolation #11) » Sat Dec 17, 2016 1:42 am

Post by LicketyQuickety »

In post 137, callforjudgement wrote:at very little cost.
Can you talk about this more?
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Post Post #148 (isolation #12) » Sun Dec 18, 2016 3:44 pm

Post by LicketyQuickety »

Am I totally wrong in thinking Hiders should be compulsive?
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Post Post #150 (isolation #13) » Sun Dec 18, 2016 3:52 pm

Post by LicketyQuickety »

In post 149, Not_Mafia wrote:Nothing should be compulsive
Interesting. That would mean a different game then.
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Post Post #152 (isolation #14) » Sun Dec 18, 2016 3:58 pm

Post by LicketyQuickety »

In post 151, Ircher wrote:I disagree with Not Mafia.

Some roles should be compuslive, specificly, Visitors should be compuksive otherwise players would never use the ability.
You're missing something tho.. As a hider, if you don't hide, that opens you up to be targeted. I just think that because hider can hide behind Scum and die because of it means it should be compulsive.
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Post Post #154 (isolation #15) » Sun Dec 18, 2016 4:15 pm

Post by LicketyQuickety »

In post 153, Ircher wrote:I said nothing about hider specificly. I just said some roles pught to be compulsive by default.
My mistake, sorry.
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