Welcome and orientation for Capo IV

[Askthepizzaguy]

Very basic simple terms for how to play, not complicated



Capo IV is just like other mafia games, town versus mafia. Except, there's more, and competing, mafia families than you're probably used to, and the mafia can recruit most townies. There will be third parties which can likely win with the town or mafia but could be dangerous regardless, and they can also win outright; there will likely be a serial killer or two.



Day Phases:

During the day you vote for who gets lynched, and on some days you select a Director to carry out your lynching efforts.

The Director decides how folks die, and what to do in situations where the lynch vote is tied.

You can also discuss strategy here, and I'd recommend planning your night actions here in advance. Game moves quickly.


Night Phases:

You and your affiliates send your chosen actions to the game host. Remember, for group actions to succeed, everyone needs to send in the order; you may want to have redundant people involved just so you meet the minimums. People have real lives or are working against you; for your actions to succeed, sometimes an extra man or two becomes the pair of hands you require to meet the minimums.















Some very generic strategy



Goals as an incorruptible townie:

You can't ever become mafia, so your goal is to wipe out the mafia Dons as fast as you can and keep as many townies alive as possible. You'll want doctors protecting townies, detectives scanning for scumbags, you probably want to get some incorruptible townies performing vigilante kills against confirmed scumbags, because it is difficult to lynch all the scumbags. There are too many of them.

You may want to become a doctor, by forming protection groups as often as possible, and protecting anyone you think is likely to be attacked at night by mafia or townies. Protect people enough times and one of you can become a doctor; repeat as necessary and you'll make more doctors. There's also a way you can decline being a doctor, and you'll be offered a chance to become a different role after that. That's a lot of work, and it's high risk, but it may be possible and is a worthy goal.

Remember, you'll know the doctors by then. Have the doctors protect you while you scan.

Doctors and detectives, as many as possible, will help you win; remember that if you use incorruptible townies to vig the scums you won't have to worry about them becoming scum later on themselves.

Protect the identity of your doctors and detectives at any cost. While corruptible townies and wiseguys may be fodder for the scumbags, THEY ARE STILL ON YOUR TEAM and thus should be treated as townies. Your goal is to wipe out the Mafia Dons, primarily, and secondarily, to destroy active, full mafiosi. Going after folks who can become mafia is a waste of time because you're allowing the real mafia to survive and also kill townies while you kill potential mafia. Potential mafia are townies and are your vital team members. If they're going to be guilty, you can get them later on.

Note: Some of the above is factual, some is just opinion. Feel free to formulate your own strategies, but your goals as incorruptible townie should be to defeat the Dons ASAP and not worry so much about other things.




Goals as a corruptible townie or wiseguy:

See the incorruptible townie goals, copy and paste here.

However, if it looks like the town is being defeated, you have options. You can continue to stay loyal to the town and fight it out to the bitter end, or you can try to join the victors by playing their dirty game.

Corruptible townies can become wiseguys through vigilante kills that succeed. Wiseguys can become mafia by performing mafia (Don) sanctioned kills with Made Gangsters. The Don must approve of your hit, and you may not know who the Don is. However, the Mades will have direct or indirect contact with the Don, and the Don will likely approve.

The objective of going mafia is to join the winning family. If you join a family which is about to be annihilated, and you die, you're stuck as a member of that family.... and when they lose, you lose. Of course, joining a large family has its risks as well; suppose there are moles within the family, and they learn who everyone is. More members means more possibility of more moles, so there's a security risk of becoming too large. You join a family that has been infiltrated, you're probably going to get outed and destroyed.

You could also try forming your own family with other wiseguys and Made gangsters. Good luck with that, as the more established families are likely to wipe you out unless they've already been severely weakened. They do have a head start on you and have a Luca protecting their Don.

• Your objective could be to try to work as hard as you can for town victory, whatever the cost;
• Your objective could be to walk the line down the middle, ready to jump to the winning side when the winds shift;
• Your objective could be to just go mafia ASAP. Good luck with that when a detective scans you and finds out you're killing and trying to become mafia.

It could be a good idea to perform some kills so you can switch sides if you wanted to; the problem there is that if everyone does that, you're going to see a big pile of dead mostly-townies on the mornings of day two and day three onward, essentially screwing town's chances and making the odds a whole lot bigger that you don't survive long enough to see the day that you become mafia, while also causing your team's defeat at the same time. Careful use of vigilantism is advised, or don't do it at all, one might suggest.

That said, your chosen strategy of how to play is really up to you.



Goals as a detective or doctor or other important role:

You're going to want to stay alive as long as possible to maximize your positive effect on your team.

Detectives will want to scan every night, and there are several theories as to who to scan, who is the best scan-

Some believe that scanning the active, talkative people will allow you to figure out the alignment of those dominating the discussion, which allows you to remove the more influential and convincing scumbags. Flaw here is that this is a very common tactic, and so therefore the scums can avoid being scanned by simply not being that talkative, and blending in with the large middle-talker mass.

Some believe that scanning the quiet folks will allow you to find lurking scum. This could be a good idea, but the obvious counter to this is that the scums can avoid being scanned by simply not truly lurking, and blending in with the large middle-talker mass.

Some believe that scanning folks who are less likely to be lynched or murdered (such as folks who are quiet but not lurking, not getting many votes, and haven't caused the deaths of many scums or have not made many big accusations) will yield more scumbags. This is an idea I happen to favor, but there's an obvious counter to this, which is being on the upper end of the middle-talker mass and being sure to accuse folks every round, talking a whole lot, or not talking at all.

Some think randomly scanning is a good idea; it could very well be. It could also cause you to scan a bunch of folks that wind up lynched or dead, and then your results are useless.

The idea of being a doctor is very similar; who do you protect? You can't protect yourself.

It's possible that a doctor protecting people who are training to become doctors is optimal strategy; then protect each other.

It's also possible that protecting investigators is your best move.

But really, the single greatest plan is to protect the people getting attacked every night. That may not always be as predictable as folks who are important roles; the scums want to inflict death on the town so they'll target folks who are unlikely to be protected more often than they'll straight up attack a power role, even an outed one.... especially an outed one.

It's a guessing game, how you choose to play is up to you, but the more townie deaths you prevent, the better. Sparing a detective who isn't finding mafia and isn't being attacked while bunches of townies die every night may not be optimal, even if it is generally expected of a doctor.


Goals as Mafa

You want to get rid of all the incorruptible townies as one of your top priorities, however if the other families are gunning for your family then your best move may be to cover up and protect yourselves.... Mades covering the Luca, Luca covering the Don. You need to survive, really.

You want to recruit as many corruptibles as you can trust. That means attacking wiseguys and certain townies isn't optimal, unless you're trying to deny them to a rival family.

Just remember, that rival family is already full of experienced mafiosi; which are the IDEAL additions to your own family should their Don be destroyed. Your goal should be to wipe out townies, then competing Dons; attacking corruptibles, wiseguys, and Mades might be a last resort, but of those, the Mades of another family are a target because they can murder you and investigate/grow their family. In summary, I would put the order of priority for who to kill as:

1) Townies who can kill and cannot become mafia (vigilantes or vigilante groups, incorruptible, are your worst nightmare)
2) Townies who can protect and cannot become mafia (doctors or protection groups, incorruptible, are a gigantic stumbling block)
3) Townies who can investigate and cannot become mafia (FBI detectives and townie detectives can cause you pain)
4) Serial Killers (These guys pose a serious danger to your family and can never join you)
5) Rival Dons (These guys could be allies against the town, but are one of your primary targets)
6) Rival Mades (You really want these guys on your team, but target them if their family is huge, or to cripple their family)
7) Rival Lucas (You really want these guys on your team, but they protect the Don, so they're a target)
8) Rival affiliated wiseguys (These can join your family easily, target the Don instead)
9) corruptible townies (They take a while to become wiseguys)
10) corruptible unaffiliated wiseguys (You only kill these to deny them to other families, otherwise killing them is very unwise)

Should be your priority of things to kill, it would seem. This may not bear out in practice, because it could be the case that the townies pose less of a threat than your rival gangsters at some point, so these priorities could reverse.

These are just suggestions. Converse with your mafia teammates and come up with an intelligent strategy you can agree on, but if your team has no idea what to do, this could get you started. And remember, it's important that your kills SUCCEED; targeting your primary targets doesn't help you much if they don't die. Kill things you can kill, otherwise the longer the game goes on, the higher the odds you or your family is lynched or vigilante killed or investigated.