Hello everyone, I am Giga13/Giga ( https://epicmafia.com/user/220988 / https://epicmafia.com/user/144777 ). If you're having trouble as town, especially after really dicey, in-your-face, poorly-handled matches, you might wonder "why does the town blow up so much? Is it my fault? Could I have done something different? What can I do to improve?"

Aside from things such as reading players and things of that nature, there are three super simple things that ANY town can do to increase their win chances.

So the question is, how do we avoid these silly outcomes? How do we avoid caps-lock raging, words-a-flailing, idiotic scenarios that usually result in needless massclaims day 1 and town losses not too long after?

STICK TO THE FUNDAMENTALS. DON'T TRY TO BE CUTE OR FANCY.

1. Do not roleswap unless you know the people you are swapping with are clear. Too often people roleswap uselessly, needlessly, and as a result, important roles that need to be protected are outted and the town ends up floundering into a loss because they don't know what to do or how to play.

2. Do not shout things like "ORACLE CLAIMS" or "DOCTOR CLAIMS" unless you ONE HUNDRED PERCENT KNOW WHAT IS STATISTICALLY AND MECHANICALLY OPTIMAL FOR THE SITUATION. Figure out what is optimal for the situation and ask/make sure of it and make sure people AGREE before telling someone to claim or before you claim yourself. Mafia might lie to you, so if there's any doubt, take the time to try and figure out what's best yourself and then discuss what you think is the best course of action. It could take some time, but it 's worth it as you really only have to do it a few times with different players before they all understand what the best course of action is given a situation in future games--and it could very well be the difference between winning a game or losing a game. Don't say you're right unless you KNOW you're right. Also, DON'T GET INTO ARGUMENTS over these things. Just discuss it calmly in order to prevent or before someone just goes nuts and claims or does something that is irreversible.

3. DO NOT do stupid tests or things like naked tests, faking a report, or fakeclaiming in general. Ask yourself: "How do these help the town?" The answer is: They rarely ever do. These hardly ever work, and sometimes they cause less experienced players to claim their role to avoid being voted at rapid speeds right away, which automatically puts town at a HUGE disadvantage, especially if they are a power role that is meant to be hidden. I've played over 2000 games with oracles in the setup and I will tell you right now that I have seen a naked test work TWO TIMES in TWO THOUSAND + GAMES. Do the math. That's a 0.1% success rate. It's useless. Don't do it.

DISOBEYING THESE THINGS GIVE MAFIA AN ADVANTAGE. THEY ALREADY HAVE AN ADVANTAGE, YOU DON'T WANT TO GIVE THEM EVEN MORE OF AN UPPER HAND. STICK TO THE FUNDAMENTALS.

Following these three simple, SIMPLE things will improve your chances of winning as town. These are three simple things that once were the norm in games, but seem to have somehow been lost in a lot of today's gameplay.

Thank you for reading, and happy playing! I can answer some basic questions if you have any, just post below.