Good writeup! Deception games like Secret Hitler, Werewolf, Mafia, tend to form cartels between players which creates really interesting dynamics. This is explicit in the “villain” team of these games, where fascist players are revealed to each other at the start of the game so they can collaborate. I think the optimal fascist strat is to insinuate yourself into a cartel of liberal players, so you can misdirect accusations/cast suspicion on liberals. Early game, the best way to do that is to play a liberal card when given a choice b/w liberal and fascist by a known liberal.
On the other hand, I think it’s optimal for liberals to always discard fascist cards because there are a limited number of liberal cards in the deck, before reshuffling. This means that every liberal card that is discarded increases the probability of drawing a hand of only fascist cards, which is worst-case scenario for information gathering (once a known-liberal president confirms only fascist cards were drawn, no real information is gained and the fascists gain a policy on the board).
Good writeup! Deception games like Secret Hitler, Werewolf, Mafia, tend to form cartels between players which creates really interesting dynamics. This is explicit in the “villain” team of these games, where fascist players are revealed to each other at the start of the game so they can collaborate. I think the optimal fascist strat is to insinuate yourself into a cartel of liberal players, so you can misdirect accusations/cast suspicion on liberals. Early game, the best way to do that is to play a liberal card when given a choice b/w liberal and fascist by a known liberal.
On the other hand, I think it’s optimal for liberals to always discard fascist cards because there are a limited number of liberal cards in the deck, before reshuffling. This means that every liberal card that is discarded increases the probability of drawing a hand of only fascist cards, which is worst-case scenario for information gathering (once a known-liberal president confirms only fascist cards were drawn, no real information is gained and the fascists gain a policy on the board).