When you are a red citizen

Mafia Game Tactics

Explanation of terms

Black - a mafia member (regular mafia or the don)

Red - an honest citizen (including the sheriff)

Color of a player - the player's belonging to either mafia (black) or honest citizens (red)

Player X is Red/black for the table - player X is red/black according to most of the players' opinion.

Crossfire - a situation, when during voting 2 (or more) players get an equal maximum quantity of votes. In this case these players get 30 seconds each to justify themselves and then the voting repeats only between these 2 (or more) players. If 2 or more players again get equal quantity of votes, nobody leaves the game.

Critical situation - a situation, when if a red citizen leaves the game, mafia wins. Happens when at the beginning of a day, red citizens have only 1 or 2 players' advantage over mafia. E.g. 7 or 8 players with 3 mafias; 5 or 6 players with 2 mafias, 3 or 4 players with 1 mafia.

To split the table - to vote in such a way, that 2 players get into the situation of crossfire. Can be done in order for both of these players to stay in the game, or to listen to them once again and make a decision who must leave the table.

The sheriff reveals - the sheriff clearly says that he/she is the sheriff, whom he/she checked and their color.

The sheriff gave player X red/black - the sheriff revealed and said that according to his check player X is red/black.

A false sheriff - a black player who reveals and pretends to be the sheriff.

Orders - players appointed by the don to be killed on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd night.

To shoot by orders - (for mafia) to kill players at night according to orders.

To shoot out of turn - (for mafia) to kill some player not by orders.

Self-shooting - a technique used by black players, when their own black player is killed at night (usually he/she reveals as the sheriff.)

Guessing - a situation when there remain only 3 or 4 players at the table and one of them is black; there is not enough information to figure out the last black player and the red players have to guess who he/she is.

* according to our club rules it's impossible that 2 players leave the game as a result of 1 voting, but it's possible that all players stay.

When you are a red citizen

Some players think that the role of a simple red citizen is boring, because other roles are more active - sheriff, don and mafia members do something at night, while red citizens are just sleeping. Also they know more than citizens. But on the other hand, this role may be considered the most interesting (and it is by the majority of the best players), because you, like a detective, listen to everyone else, investigate, make conclusions and try to figure out who is who in order to win the game. In this chapter I will give some hints on how to do it in the best possible way.

The primary task of a red player is making conclusions about who is black and voting in the right way. The traits of black players are as follows:

1. They are nervous.
2. Their actions are illogical (e.g. they blame other players without a reason, or talk about one player all their speech and nominate another one, suspect some player, but do not explain why they think he/she is black etc.).
3. They do not analyse what is happening at the table or their analysis is poor.
4. They (not being the sheriff) say "I am 100% sure player X is red" - only mafia knows the color of all the players.
5. They vote for red players and do not vote for black players (who later turned out to be checked red or black).
6. They support the false sheriff (the one you are sure is false)
7. If there is a team of 2 or 3 players (they blame the same players, protect each other, and vote for the same players), and one of them turned out to be black, the others are most probably black.

However, with an experienced player, who doesn't make mistakes, you can only judge by whom they ask to be checked, whom they blame, whom they nominate and for whom they vote. Basing on these actions you can figure out who basically supports whom and who is against whom, and draw some variants of teams (mainly to suppose what 3 players might compile the black team).

Now imagine you see 2 players who are strongly against each other and both of them didn't make any certain black moves. Two good black players hardly would conflict each other. So either they are both red or one of them is black. How to figure out who is who?

The milestone is the sheriff's checks. If one of these two guys is checked black, the other is most probably red. But what if you have more than one sheriff? Here you need to make a choice, which of them is the real one. Think which one of the sheriffs has acted logically the whole game and which one made mistakes (see the chapter about the sheriff for details). If one of the sheriffs says you are checked red, he/she should have given you a sign. If this wasn't done, it's also a reason to think this sheriff is a false one. As a rule of thumb - don't believe the sheriff who reveals after another one gave him/her checked black.

Now some more hints:

• On the first day do not nominate anybody. Why? The point of nomination is to make mafia leave the game. If nobody is nominated and voted off also on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th day, mafia will just kill citizens one by one and will win. So you have to nominate, but on the first day it's still too early to do that, because red citizens still have a whole 4 players advantage over black ones, and it's much better to start nominating on the 2nd day, to listen to everyone again and only then make a decision who must leave the table. Otherwise, nominating someone on the 1st day, you have much higher chances to turn a red citizen out of the game.

Moreover, suppose somebody leaves the game on the first day. Then mafia shoots at night and in the morning of the second day there are 8 players at the table - a critical situation! Already on the 2nd day! As we know, in the critical situation the sheriff has to reveal. The sheriff reveals, than he/she is killed at night, and the city has only 2 sheriff's checks. If nobody leaves the game on the 1st day, the critical situation will happen not earlier, than the 3rd day (and the city will eventually have 3 sheriff's checks).

• On the 2nd day do not nominate anybody if mafia missed on the 1st night. For the same reasons.Just think - if you repeat the 1st day and do not nominate anyone now, The 3nd day will start with at least 9 players at the table, so the critical situation with 7 or 8 players at the table will happen on the 4th, not on the 3rd day, and the sheriff, revealing, will give you one more check. On the other hand, there is a danger, that the don found the sheriff at night and the 1st player (who is the last one to speak) will turn out to be black, will nominate the sheriff, and the latter will leave the game as the only nomination. But the probability of this situation is very low, and even if this happens, the sheriff, leaving the table, leaves 2 checks - one is the player checked on the 1st night and the other is player#1 who is 100% black. So it's still a good idea not to nominate anybody if mafia missed on the 1st night.

· If you are killed on the 2nd night (just before the critical day), in your last speech ask each player personally if they are the sheriff. This way you will avoid the situation when a false sheriff reveals before the real sheriff and gives him checked black. (In the latter case the city will most probably vote off the real sheriff!)

Good luck being a decent red citizen!

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16