Epicmafia

Janitorial 2.0

almost 7 years

There's always a lot of bad decisions being made in janitorial games, especially with night actions and basic logic. I’m looking to clear up some of these mechanical fallacies with this thread:

Statistical arguments provided in small text, skip them if you agree with the intuition.

Guilty Testing

Lynch in cop claims if you have two. Lynching the guilty is a cop out(no pun intended) used by bad, unconfident players to avoid taking blame in case they lynched the wrong cop. You get confirmed reports for the rest of the game along with a clear PR.

Situations + reasoning against guilty testing:

Uncc’d Cop

Why it’s a bad idea: you don’t know the janned role. At best, you lynch the lawyer; which is useless anyway since the cop dies right after (doc janned). If the cop’s fake and manages a lucky guilty on the miller you’re pretty much in autoloss. You also lose the ML.

P(RealCop) = 0.5 P(GuiltyMafia) = 0.66, 1/3 mafia is lawyered and a miller possibly alive. => P(GuiltyMafia & RealCop)= 0.5 x 0.66 = 0.33 ; i.e. 33% chance of the guilty being mafia
P(FakeCop) = 0.5 Even if the guilty’s mafia, there's still mafia in the pool outside.

Cc'd Cop

Why it's a bad idea: the real cop either has a guilty on the miller or the lawyer (nilla is lawyered). On the other hand, the janitor may have a lucky guilty on the miller, or bus his nilla. There still is reasonable doubt on who the real cop is.

P(RealCop) = 0.5 P(GuiltyMafia) = 0.5 => P(GuiltyMafia & RealCop) = 0.5 x 0.5 = 0.25
P(FakeCop) = 0.5 P(GuiltyMiller) = 0.2 => P(GuiltyMiller & Fake Cop) = 0.5 x 0.2 = 0.1 ; to put this into perspective, this happens once every ten games.

Cops With Contradicting Reports

If the cops have an innocent/guilty on the same player, only test the guilty if the miller is naked. The janitor might be bussing his nilla, and the real cop could have an innocent report on the same guy.

N1 Save

Always lynch day one after a docsave. The setup is balanced around the janned role n1, which means one can never be 100% certain on any situation. Lynching janitor takes away the mafia's ability to hide a role, making the setup extremely townsided. Even if the cop's uncc'd, you lynch day one for the lawyer/janitor. Getting either is a near autowin. You have at least two clears the next day, with a hypothetical five- cop, oracle, doctor, save, innocent (if the lawyer's lynched)

Oracle Decisions

Always orc cop if someone was janned. It confirms his reports to be legitimate and allows for report-deduction. Cop reports are extremely useful on LYLO.
If there will be another clear alive the day you die (say, the doctor), always orc your townread. If there's no clears alive the next day, orc your scumread.
A continuation of the previous point, always orc your scumread when there's only one mafia alive. Your TR might still mishammer on LYLO, but revealing mafia gives you a guaranteed win.
Sometimes, a player in the table brings up the 'oracle testing' strategy. This involves lynching the uncc'd oracle to reveal a cop claim, and sounds very appealing to new players. At least it's not as bad as guilty testing because you're now certain, right? Not really; you've still wasted the ML and lynched a PR. Now you're going into 3way with no clears at best. At worst, your doc was janned and the cop dies the next night, leaving you with 3 back-to-back LYLOs, one report, and zero PRs.
Even when not 'oracle testing', someone will always try to fish the oracle even when there are cop cc's. The oracle should claim only if the cop's uncc'd. Don't allow yourself to get fished, and don't unnecessarily roleswap with someone you don't particularly have a townread on.

Report Mechanics

Straight off the bat, any innocent is clear if the lawyer is last mafia alive. This is a very important deduction, and sometimes results in autowin on LYLO.
The number of the day is an indicator of how much more important a report is. The same report is thrice as important on day 3 than on day 1, assuming the player is still alive.
You can narrow down on mafia with reports on later days. Sometimes, there are 2 innocent reports alive on LYLO with 5 players. The oracle is usually still alive, which gives a direct cc between the two non-reported players (one is confirmed lawyer for sure). They could both be mafia too.

I'm pretty sure I had more situations in mind when I started writing this out, but that's all for now. Do post anything you think I've missed out on, I'll add it to the thread.

tl;dr:

guilty testing is not a smart idea
lynch if the doctor saved n1
use your brain as the oracle
basic logic applies to reports

Gerry

almost 7 years

tldr

just no jan or no kill for fun jan games

firecape

almost 7 years

xNotanalt says

Basically: use your brain to play. Cop being uncced does not mean doctor is dead. I've played plenty of games this round where maf simply decided to not cc cop even with blue/miller being janned.

If cop is uncced and you're doctor, i.e., you should push hard for a guilt test because it either confirms cop was janned or confirms he bussed one of his partners (in this case you should not save to test for nk's, because since maf should know doc is alive they shouldn't go for cop). Either way it's a win/win situation for town. But the more important thing is: USE YOUR BRAINS. Every game has its own situation and a guide can't predict everything.

i think testing guilty and nling with a doc save are always optimal and from there its just scumhunting with a possible pr claim

firecape

almost 7 years

firecape says

PatrykSzczescie says

firecape says

exactly how is the jan going to be effective in this scenario?

So the town won't know if the jan'd role is villager or miller. Knowing which jan'd blue is could help in reports situationally.

this is barely ever important

also, forcing mafia to kill into 3 also comes with a chance of miller dying so there are equivalents in both scenarios

xNotanalt

almost 7 years

Basically: use your brain to play. Cop being uncced does not mean doctor is dead. I've played plenty of games this round where maf simply decided to not cc cop even with blue/miller being janned.

If cop is uncced and you're doctor, i.e., you should push hard for a guilt test because it either confirms cop was janned or confirms he bussed one of his partners (in this case you should not save to test for nk's, because since maf should know doc is alive they shouldn't go for cop). Either way it's a win/win situation for town. But the more important thing is: USE YOUR BRAINS. Every game has its own situation and a guide can't predict everything.

firecape

almost 7 years

PatrykSzczescie says

firecape says

exactly how is the jan going to be effective in this scenario?

So the town won't know if the jan'd role is villager or miller. Knowing which jan'd blue is could help in reports situationally.

this is barely ever important

firecape

almost 7 years

Zhuorb says

The setup's balanced because there can always be reasonable doubt on the janned role night one, if you take away the janitor before he can use his role it's almost guaranteed to be a town win

Jan after doc save is an n2 Jan after cop has already claimed, there is no x factor. Janned status of doc is a binary depending on whether or not cop dies, orc is a binary depending on if something is revealed. Gambiting is unviable

firecape

almost 7 years

Zhuorb says

firecape says

refuting that gulity testing is bad base don statistical evidence: https://epicmafia.com/user/104847 and teh atatched video

---===---===---===

refuting that you should lynch d1 with a doc save:

town always knows the jan role even after nling d1

if doc dies cop dies next

if orc dies you know

cop is claimed

exactly how is the jan going to be effective in this scenario?

ur just lynching into 4 way for no reason

if you know the janned role anyway then shouldn't the same logical deductions mean janitorial would be balanced if you replaced the janitor with another nilla

if cop is confirmed by claiming d1 there is no ambiguity whatsoever

scumhuntmachine

almost 7 years

tl;dr

bring frontier justice back

PatrykSzczescie

almost 7 years

I remember Janitorial 2.0 a year ago. Nearly 100% of games mafia's strat was to cc cop when blue/miller is jan'd and refuse to cc with doc jan'd. Some players were still thinking about claiming jan'd cop role.

And once I had a game with janitor non-janning a doctor and cop still hardclaiming on day start, I started wondering what the purpose of janning was. It was not even a Janitorial if town can easily work out what the jan'd role is.

Zhuorb

almost 7 years

The setup's balanced because there can always be reasonable doubt on the janned role night one, if you take away the janitor before he can use his role it's almost guaranteed to be a town win

Zhuorb

almost 7 years

firecape says

refuting that gulity testing is bad base don statistical evidence: https://epicmafia.com/user/104847 and teh atatched video

---===---===---===

refuting that you should lynch d1 with a doc save:

town always knows the jan role even after nling d1

if doc dies cop dies next

if orc dies you know

cop is claimed

exactly how is the jan going to be effective in this scenario?

ur just lynching into 4 way for no reason

if you know the janned role anyway then shouldn't the same logical deductions mean janitorial would be balanced if you replaced the janitor with another nilla

PatrykSzczescie

almost 7 years

https://epicmafia.com/game/6581382/review

This is an example that if I survived D3 and jan'd unchecked blue, my team could have had much more chances to win the game.

PatrykSzczescie

almost 7 years

firecape says

exactly how is the jan going to be effective in this scenario?

So the town won't know if the jan'd role is villager or miller. Knowing which jan'd blue is could help in reports situationally.

firecape

almost 7 years

JM123 says

Didn't read anything but here's a pro tip:

Always read everyone. Never stop reading.

I see many people looking for mechanical excuses to shut their brain off and make the game progress. That's just being lazy and not a good player.

go play forum mafia instead of this

firecape

almost 7 years

you really need to think through whether or not the jan is even efficate after a save befroe you try to claim that d1 lynch is good there lol.

if there was a guilty d1 i'd lynch it just because its a possible lawyer

other than that NLing is usually optimal there mathematically

firecape

almost 7 years

refuting that gulity testing is bad base don statistical evidence: https://epicmafia.com/user/104847 and teh atatched video

---===---===---===

refuting that you should lynch d1 with a doc save:

town always knows the jan role even after nling d1

if doc dies cop dies next

if orc dies you know

cop is claimed

exactly how is the jan going to be effective in this scenario?

ur just lynching into 4 way for no reason