Advanced tactics in Mafia

If you're a friend of mine, it is statistically more probable that you've heard of Mafia than that you've not. Anyway for the uninitiated, it is a party game which has several other names and versions. The roles I'm used to are:

Mafia(s): Kills a person at the start of the turn. One person is chosen by all the Mafias together.
Detective(s): Suspects a person after the Mafia's kill. Suspected person dies if he is the Mafia and  survives if he is not. One person is chosen by all the Detectives together.
Citizen: No special powers. Participates in the Group Discussion .
Peeping Tom: Can Open his eyes(and ideally partially) and support the Mafia or Detectives by pointing them out to each other. Usually supports the Mafia who are supposed to be slightly underpowered in the game.

The tips that follow are to allow for better performance in the game and has no direct relationship with having fun. The most important aspect about the game is of course to have fun :). The 'advanced' strategies are:

1. In order to not get eliminated quickly either through the GD or otherwise, you have to be the kind of person whom others like in the game. This means that you shouldn't cheat, you shouldn't irritate/tease/insult others too much and you should not bee too quiet and boring. Finding the right balance of of these things will ensure that you stay in the game longer on an average.

2. One might think that the elimination methods in the game are fair to both mafias and detectives since mafias get to kill anyone but have a slight disadvantage in the GD since the detectives would already have wrongly accused one or two people and would have better information regarding who the mafia might be. The balance changes rapidly as the game progresses (having more citizens in the game makes the shift in power less drastic and the game more balanced in general- the amount of luck involved in determining the final outcome also reduces). In the initial rounds, mafia have the clear advantage since they can kill anyone and in the GD they're almost at par with the detectives after the first round of kills since the additional information possessed by the detectives about identities is minimal at that stage. As the game goes on, the mafia grow weaker and the vote outs tend to favour the detectives more. In the super late game, a detective can identify himself and ensure victory. As a mafia it should thus be top priority to finish off the game as quickly as possible.

3. There can be cases in the game where your being eliminated is the optimal choice for the city, especially as a citizen. One spectacular case of unselfishness was when I voted to eliminate myself during after a tied voting round to ensure that a detective did not get voted out (and the mafias had no chance of being voted out in that round). As a citizen, it is difficult to contribute much to the game and the two ways to contribute are through sound discussions and also by getting killed by the mafia and dying a martyr. It is not a bad idea to be thoroughly involved in the GD and be so interested in figuring out who the mafia is- that the mafia mistakenly identify you as a possible detective and waste a kill on you. This is a sound strategy but obviously a boring one since you get eliminated. It can be done in the latter stages of the game. It can be more optimal to not over-involve yourself if you value your skills in the GD as extremely high and your judgement sound enough to correctly figure out the mafia (and it is quite difficult to consistently do these things). Unselfishness can be taken to the next level by wrongly admitting that you're a detective (you can either 'identify' only yourself OR say that you're the only detective left- randomly claiming others as detectives can give a hint to the mafia that you're bluffing if you put a mafia's name in there)

4. In the first round, killing the person next to you is a very basic strategy that is used by an average mafia to ensure that the sounds made by the mafia(while pointing out the kill to the narrator/god) are not heard by the person nearby. Mafias can take advantage of this and kill a random person and accuse the person nearby and claim that this is the logic that he used. You might be able to get a detective voted out.

5. Never consistently team up with anyone during the GD. Similarly, never accuse someone too strongly. This ensures that people don't suspect that you to be either the mafia or a detective. This is since teaming up is generally done by mafias or detectives. If according to the rules you follow, the identities of the dead people are revealed(this rule is strongly recommended by me) it can be even more dangerous to team up with people since it might be revealed in the latter stages of the game that the person you teamed up was a mafia. Being open to others' opinions and being open to a change in your vote shows that you have no preconceived notions about mafias and detectives which they tend to have about each other. It's a good idea to change your vote as new allegations and new information comes along. And in cases where you have absolutely no chance of saving your mafia friend from being voted out, vote him out- particularly if the identities are revealed after death.

6. Having said that it's not a great idea to team up with people, especially in the first couple of rounds it is a smart idea for the mafia to start accusing random people as a group. Even if the allegation is completely baseless, if two people or more (ideally two) accuse a person before any other accusations are made, there is high likelihood that the person gets voted out. This is particularly applicable in the first few rounds when there is limited information available to others and especially the detectives. Avoiding getting voted out in the GD is the key for the mafia to win.

7. Peeping Tom is in my opinion the most powerful character in the game. I consider him on mafia's side. He should open his eyes fully during the mafia's killing round to ensure that the mafia do not kill him and also to ensure that he doesn't vote against the mafia after the GD. During the detective's suspecting round, there is a tradeoff in opening the eyes in the first round as opposed to the later rounds. Opening your eyes in the first round ensures that you know all the detectives and can thus influence the game likewise but you risk being voted out after the GD if the detectives team up against you. Your overall contribution to the game gets limited as you move along in the game without knowing who the detectives are, and plus there is a chance that you might get voted out after a GD and end up not contributing to the game at all. Peeping Tom can come up with spectacular finishes to the game during the finals rounds. One possibility is to completely open his eyes during the detectives round(when one or two detectives are left) and try and eliminate them after the GD and the mafia kill round. Eliminating detectives through the GD becomes easier when there are several citizens but few detectives. Another spectacular finish is when the Peeping Tom knows say, the last 1 or 2 detectives' names and he is about to get voted out in the GD. He can openly tell the detectives names and if there are a sufficient number of citizens, it can be difficult for the mafia to be correctly identified even if you do this reveal(total people-detectives=citizens+mafia). This can give a strong chance for the mafia even if there is only one mafia left, provided there are enough citizens in the game

Happy, proud and BROKE

If there's one thing that unites all the people who are broke, it would be happiness. And if there were two things, the second thing would be pride- in either their identity, or the work that they do, or the work that they have done. I'm not talking about ALL those who are broke- some of them have never had a chance to make it big (or even reasonably alright). But if you are middle-class or above and have consistently underachieved in life, these two are the main reasons. I do realise that making money is not the purpose of life and hence if a person is happy with being happy and proud and broke, I'm perfectly alright with that BUT if you (kind of like me) wonder at times why you tend to just fall short of making it big the idea deserves some thought.

The underlying reasons for being happy (with yourself, and your surroundings) may vary- you might be too lazy or not have the motivation to accept facts and become sad about the shit that keeps on happening to you. Or you do not know enough to be sad about your unfortunate situation. To a large extent, I've tried to not be too happy with myself at any stage of my life because of this- though it probably has occurred more due to a subconscious effort more than anything else and I realise it in retrospect. The second reason- pride is however something that has plagued me pretty much throughout my life. From getting accolades throughout childhood (they weren't much but they were enough for making me 'overconfident') to naturally being afraid to show weakness or to fail, and in general having a slightly superior intellect-cum-IQ(see what I mean?) pride has definitely made me underachieve compared to others with similar skills.

In all models of economy which are not market-based, pride and happiness play a really important part. I've stressed in a few of my previous posts how maximising money isn't the sole aim of man and that there are non-monetary benefits that people look for. Now, if you're the kind of person who isn't too excited by your identity (for example you aren't too proud of being an Indian or a Hindu or a young bloke or being attractive or whatever is it) then there's not much motivation for you to go after the non-monetary benefits of doing things which would not pay much but make you happy/proud. While a religious person might spend a day at a temple say every week, you could save on that time and read up The Economist. It's well known that Roman emperors used to conduct games and plays so that people would not think too much about their poverty and revolt. While the normal lower middle class to poor person enjoys going to a play everyday and eating roadside food and the small things in life (mainly because his parents and their parents realised that these are the only things they can have) the prince knows that being rich and famous is the key to being really really happy. Thus, people cultivate different utility functions and everyone is happy being themselves and would not want to be anyone else in this world.

In environments where merit isn't rewarded with money or where , pride comes in again. This happens in PSUs, crappy companies, communist societies and in jails. Pride in small communities and happiness with otherwise pointless things crowd out the search for success and money(which are beyond a person's reach in these cases).

So, if you feel that you're not achieving as much as you should- think about your present situation deeply and consider how miserable it really is. Thinking about the billions of people who cannot even have food three times a day will make you satisfied (a kind of happiness) with what you have. Be sad, miserable and thus do something productive in life.