MeteorNate's Guide on How I Play Town

Hello! My name is MeteorNate, and I'm a player who's been around on this website since relatively early on in its public existence. Every once in a while, I have someone who will ask about what they should be doing as town. Usually it's either a player who is frustrated because they feel that they often end up getting condemned as town or a new player who is lost on just where to start. To some degree, everyone is going to have their own views on how they like to play the game, and I think that's part of what makes social games like Mafia great. As a result, rather than writing a definitive guide on how you *should* play town, I'm going to run through some of the things I do as town that I think help me.

As a social game, Mafia does tend to have some types of play which tend to be generally accepted, if not promoted, and viewed as more "town-like". Although my primary purpose isn't to write a guide directed at this, I am someone who, as of writing this guide, very rarely ends up being miscondemned as town. As such, if your goal is to just look for advice that might make you play better or get miscondemned less, this might still prove useful. However, a lot of the decisions about what types of play are most accepted is very meta-based, and it could be possible that some of these things are no longer seen as town, or might even be shunned, as time goes on. As a result, some of the analysis about how players generally tend to perceive certain types of behaviors may need to be taken with a grain of salt. With that said, I'll start with how I play Day 1 and the early game.

### **Let the Games Begin: Early Game & Day 1**

As the game starts, you look up, and you see a town role. And so, the hunt for the mafia begins. However, starting out tends to be somewhat difficult. How do you make the first read? Until that ball starts to get rolling, it can be hard to really make meaningful reads on one another. In order to combat this, I often will start off by randomly voting someone. It might be voting someone I know in a no-deck game as a gag, or it might just be voting someone to make a funny joke in games with a deck. However, I think this is a great way to start getting the game going.

First, I'd like to briefly discuss why I choose to condemn on day 1 over no-condemning. Though this could probably have a guide in its own right, it briefly comes down to a few reasons:

1. Condemning day 1 (and each day) typically gives the most chances to vote mafia.
2. Condemning allows all of town to see the alignments of people who are the most scum-read, and determine whether they were indeed mafia or just town being miscondemned. No condemning causes only investigatives (e.g. Cop) to gain that information.
3. The mafia tend to have means of subverting investigatives in most setups. Although roles like Miller sometimes give town false information, no one knows who the Miller is, so it's harder for mafia to manipulate that information ahead of time, whereas mafia know who they use a Fixer/Framer on, or who is the Godfather.
4. Condemning forces players to ultimately choose a top priority when split between multiple scum-reads, which can provide useful information based on how players make that choice out of the split.
5. No condemning allows mafia to more easily kill the players who are most right (or the Cop) before they can push those reads into condemns.

Those are the reasons why I typically try to condemn on day 1. From there, it becomes a question on how I use random voting. This could also probably have its own guide, but is more varied in its use. I prefer to start with random voting, as it tends to put pressure on the people voted, creates reactions, and then we get interactions based on those reactions. Once we start getting these interactions, it tends to become a lot easier to continue interacting based on the interactions in the game, and the game is afoot. As a result, I rarely end up actually trying to condemn the person that I started off day 1 trying to random condemn. Usually, by the end of day 1, we have interactions off of which we can start to base informed votes.

### **Starting to Sort: The Mid-game**

As I enter the mid-game, I start to sort more players into who I think is mafia, who I think is town, and who I'm not sure about. I consider mid-game to start roughly when there's around 75% of the players initially in the game remaining. Town still has at least a miscondemn or two remaining before they would lose, but they should've condemned a few people at this point. Some micro setups end up being so small that they tend to only have 1 miscondemn, so they end up skipping the mid-game phase.

Sometimes, even in the mid-game, there isn't enough time to really make a detailed analysis of everyone in the game. As such, I sometimes will try to take a cursory glance at everyone in the game and look for anything that stands out to me at first impression. Sometimes, I might read a few things which seem more town-leaning at a glance, so I'll note that I lean that person as town and probably won't focus too much on them for the next day or two, until town approaches late-game or more pressing issues are addressed. Or, I might leave a player because nothing particularly stands out about them which makes them look particularly good or bad.

I usually end up focusing more on about half of the players who I think I have strong enough opinions on to formulate more meaningful reads. However, I don't set a hard limit on this at any particular player count, so it may be a bit more or less, depending on the game. It's important to note that, sometimes, who you strongly town-read can be just as important, if not more important, than who you think is mafia. If there are people who you town-read strongly enough that you don't think you'll ever end up voting them, it can make the game effectively an auto-win. For example: If you have 11 players alive and mafia doesn't have any special killing powers, 3 town are uncc'd PRs, you're villager, and you have 2 people which you town-read strongly enough that you don't ever want to vote them, you will be able to win regardless of who the remaining mafia are, so long as you can convince these 5 players to vote the other 5 players remaining. As an aside, I'm aware that some players believe that you should keep your town-reads to yourself, as you make it more likely that they will be night-killed if you out your read on them. I, personally, disagree with this idea because it can be valuable information for those that remain that you strongly town-read those people if you die for being too close to the truth later on in the game. Additionally, if your town-reads die instead, it tends to look good for you in the later stages of the game that you correctly town-read a number of people, especially if your reasoning for those reads is perceived to be good and valid.

Once I've sorted the game into town reads, null reads, and mafia reads, I tend to create something of a PoE (Process of Elimination) process for voting. Of course, I tend to take my town-reads out of my PoE. I also try to consider pairs sometimes in who I vote. One of the most useful pairing tools currently in my toolbox is when I find two people who I believe aren't likely to be mafia together. In that case, I might be inclined to not vote either of them. At most, 1 mafia exists in them, and it might just be possible they're both town. This creates a smaller PoE among the remaining players where there's a chance that those which remain could involve a very high % of mafia, or at the very least, it still contains a relatively equal % of mafia. An example of this would be as follows: There are 7 people in the game, with 2 mafia. I town-read 2 of them (Perhaps because they're uncc'd PR, for example). Of the remaining 4 (A, B, C, & D), I'm pretty sure that A & B aren't mafia together. As a result, I know that at least 1 mafia should exist in C & D. If I'm lucky, both C & D might be mafia, even. As a result, voting between C & D becomes a much better vote, assuming I am confident in my reads. Another similar tool is something which many people use often: When you find 2 people which you believe to be opposite alignments, it becomes a much better idea to vote one of those 2 people so that you can have a good read on the alignment of the other one.

One possible flaw which comes with the different plays which I've described in this section is that they rely on your reads to be accurate (or relatively so) to work. I believe that, since these tools require less complete information to function, they tend to be more effective on the whole. However, we can all be wrong. You may assume that A would never do x with his mafia partner B, when, in reality, that's exactly what A was going for with their play. You still need your reads to be relatively accurate. However, this is something which, while sometimes guides can supplement your understanding, experience is a teacher for which there can be no true substitute. Additionally, many reads are often meta-based, so I won't focus too much on how to make accurate reads at this point in time.

### **The Solve/Prove Thyself: The Late Game**

As you reach the ending stages of the game, the pressure starts to set in. I would consider late game to typically be LYLO (or games where only 1 mafia remains, if town had a strong start). To some degree, I tend to play a bit differently when in LYLO with numerous/multiple mafia as compared to when only 1 mafia remains. Often, with multiple mafia in play, I will end up utilizing similar association and PoE play as I described in the last section. Often, one can find at least a few mafia from their perspective based largely upon PoE and some decent association reads.

Generally, in late game, and especially when using PoE reads, an important part of the game can involve being able to defend yourself well. The game might end if you get condemned, so it can be very important to make sure town don't end up voting on you. With this in mind, it might be important to note that I haven't spent much time talking about defending yourself up until this point. There are a few reasons for this. The first reason is that, in earlier stages of the game, sometimes it ends up being better to focus on actively progressing the game & pushing your reads rather than defending. Although it is important to attempt to address and refute reasons which people have for scum-reading you, part of your goal should be attempting to convince them that someone else is mafia. Ultimately, in the game of Mafia, your goal isn't always to look like transparent town, your goal is to convince others that the people who you think are mafia do indeed look worse than you. As a result, while defending yourself is helpful, it might not be sufficient to persuade people that they need to be voting someone else. This can be true in LYLO as well. As such, I try to keep my defenses relatively short. Sometimes, it can be good to briefly go over the pro-town things you've done, the mafia you've helped push, or the town you've helped defend. However, at some point, it can be important to move past "It's not me" and show where you're leaning on who it is, or, even if you're unsure, why it is that you're conflicted.

Often, when you're in late game, or even in the later stages of mid-game, it can be useful to look back and analyze the reasons why mafia killed some people. Sometimes, you might read through some of a person's logs and have no idea why mafia killed them, or you might think it simply ties back to a mafia member who is already dead, so it's less useful. However, sometimes you may read through what happened and lead yourself to believe that it did occur because a certain player is mafia, so that can be some useful analysis to have.

In general, late game tends to involve a lot more of a combination of reading past days and present-day play than the earlier stages of the game would have. Ultimately, whether you choose to place more emphasis upon past days logs (and potentially lose if the player bussed) or on the present day (and potentially lose if the player is just a very charismatic mafia) is something which will relate to your meta read upon the game as a whole and on the player. As such, it will be situation-dependent, and it's something you'll have to figure out for yourself. However, be sure to keep in mind any previous associative reads you had with the players, and see if any of those can be useful in helping to solve the alignments of those which remain.

### **In Conclusion**

When the game first starts up, I start off by random voting somebody to try to start creating reactions and interactions. That tends to help get the game started, and I can start using these interactions to generate more meaningful reads on the different players in the game. After a few votes go through and we start to reach the mid-game, I start to focus more on finding my stronger town, mafia, and null reads. From here, I create a PoE (Process of Elimination) pool, and use a mix of associative/partnership reads and the strength of my individual read on the players to order that PoE and help myself decide on who I want to vote in a given day. As late game starts to come around, it can be important to be able to briefly defend yourself as needed, but it's also important to remember that your goal is to show that someone else is mafia, not that you are town. If LYLO comes early, be on the lookout for mafia which might be outed based on PoE and your associative reads within that PoE. Take some time to look at those who have died, and ask yourself whether their deaths are meaningful as for who is mafia, or just something anyone would have done. If it's meaningful, pursue it more. In final 3s, it can sometimes be difficult to decide whether to focus more on past days or on the present day, so use your best judgment. However, don't forget to keep track of those past associative reads, in case they can be helpful in sorting people in final 3 now that you have seen everyone else's alignment.