The Godfather, Part 3 [Concluded]

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I would say that gut instinct is the best method for finding mafia, but like all instincts it requires experience to back it up. If you've ever played pool I'm sure you've noticed that at times you can sink every shot without thinking about it--if you've practiced enough so that you know what you have to do for each shot. Mafia is a lot more distracting than playing pool however--and your personal biases and blinders can distract your gut. Your head or some emotion can take over and pretend to be your gut if that makes any sense.

Analysis of post counts and write ups are important but won't find mafia imo. The "probing style" can often lead to good results, I think as a prober you have to do a full reveal of what you were up to quite quickly though else you risk distracting. If possible reveal to a second party privately what you intend to do. The problem with skynet is that first, a lot of the criteria used are faulty--mafioso appearing in the center of of the post count list for example--and second, it's not a good strategy to post a comprehensive list before endgame. The way Kommodus ran holmes, he'd wait till round 5 or six before posting any results and then focus on the key players and who he thought was guilty. We don't want to let the mafia know who we think is innocent, and it's always nice if they kill of our suspects. I'm guilty of saying people are suspicious when it isn't necessary myself. The problem with gut is that while it can work well ID'ing mafia, it's useless for convincing people--and without a solid reread you can be basing your gut of off something you just remembered wrong (kommo always said one of the most useful features of holmes was that it allowed an easy review of each persons posts).

The reason I think mafia often win is that people don't enjoy being townie that much. Not many make it their goal to make the case on a mafioso and get them lynched, which in turn makes it harder to tell whether people are town or not. It's also a lot of work and can be a pain, lol

Basically, being a mafioso is fun and games for the most part (sans detective), while being townie is a constant struggle. But that is what makes being townie that much more rewarding.