I think that above all the goal with Politician is to be influential. If your influence gets the demon killed, great, you win. If your influence leads to evil winning, you will almost certainly flip to evil with them.
A lot of Politician gameplay seems like it goes for max chaos, which I am not convinced is the right approach. If you're making up info, make up info that supports specific world views, try to mesh it together with other info you hear, argue that based on your info plus what you heard from players A and B, that the demon candidates are D and E so town needs to execute both of them as the final two kills. And again, if one of those players is the demon, that's awesome cause it means you won. Your goal isn't to protect the demon, it's to be a persuasive voice.
^This is the best answer.
As the politician, you have to do enough to make people believe in you and vote with you, and beating the evil team is a just a means to an end. Lead with confidence, not chaos. Have a justification for everything and keep a positive attitude about vanquishing the demon. Your best bet is to stay alive so that you can nominate late in the game. If someone else has more influence than you and you are on the final day(s), consider throwing the game. Especially if you are getting to a fifty fifty.
Rather than spread misinformation, keep to the topic of the other person in private chats. Make them feel important and then leave to go do something productive with their info. Gravitate towards a claim that is tough to confirm. If you know you are the only outsider, claim to be another one.
Thirding this. I'm a firm believer in driving a narrative as a player, especially when evil, and you don't need to have a functional ability in order to do so. Think of the circumstances that minions often find themselves in: Godfather with no realistic prospect of getting a night kill? Baron with too much sus to catch a star pass? A Harpy who is victim of a night-one Preaching? All of these scenarios are ones where a strong player can still wreak absolute havoc for the good team by spreading shade and misinformation, drawing attention, voting weirdly, or whatever. A politician who is determined to flip can use exactly the same stratagems.
Sometimes it's hard for players to recognise the plays a politician can make that merit a flip. It doesn't need to be brazen, either, but it should be significantly influential. The best politician game I ever played was so subtle that the vast majority of town didn't even notice the nudges and steers that poisoned the collective well (but luckily the ST did!)
-kat
Note that if you are the most deciding factor in which team wins, you win, no matter which team that is. If you make up info that causes a specific player to be executed on the final day, you've just either executed the demon, letting you win with good, or executed not the demon, letting you win with evil.
You can bluff a role and give misleading information. You can vote against town. You can help cover for evil lies/bluffs (even without knowing for sure) by helping out those who appear to be double claiming or having nonsense info.
Honestly playing very good is fine. You can always go for the alternate win condition on the last day, refusing to cast the deciding vote on the demon.
You can screw people over in the final 3 provided you live that long. If good was going to win and you nominate yourself, you’ve done evil a huge favour.
You can hide being an Outsider to mess with Outsider count (If there should only be one, hide as a Townsfolk or even a Minion to let the Demon’s Outsider bluff have more credibility)
Make up information. Be the Empath with a 2. Be a Savant whose info frames a specific person or clears the Demon. Distract town as long as you can to protect evil.
Tie the vote on the final day. It will screw over good so well if you tie a vote on the Demon, or worse, over vote on a Minion so the Demon is safe.
Ultimately just throw the game for good. You need to be more responsible for good losing than the whole evil team, and that’s hard, but it’s definitely possible
you kinda have to be a very loud player and lead executions and hope to either accidentally kill the demon and win with good, or create enough chaos to take the attention off the evil team
I may repeat some of the previous commenters points, but I think that the Politician strategy is
1. Make yourself important(spread the information, work with everyone, try to explore different worldviews, prove theories if you can) — this will allow you to win with good if you and the team are solving everything correctly.
2. Lie if you need to — need to prove your theories? Bluf a savant or an empath, or any good role for that matter — this will allow you not only to make yourself more important, but also maybe pivot in one moment to screw the good team(or to screw them from the get go)
Hope that helps)
Personally, I always love playing as the politician, because it allows me to do just whatever I want. I can bluff any role and not be afraid of doble claims or I can try to be honest and help the good solve the game.
You can just make up your own info, and push that worldview- if you kill the demon then great you win with good; if you make evil win, and your pushing your false world is deemed the most responsible for evil winning, then great you still win
Be as unhelpful, harmful and deceitful to good as possible. Evil wins? Great! You hindered your team badly for the entire game, you'll flip and win. Good wins? Also great, you're on good alignment by default.
Make up a role and start giving out false information to get people executed. If you absolutely destroy the good team's sense of information and draw all the attention away from the demon, most STs will give you that win.
What I do is simple, cause Chaos. Try to get the best info role such as BH, dreamer, FT, or Sober VI. then push onto whoever you feel like. One of two things will happen. an evil will walk up to you asking if you are playing for them or the demon will die. in either case, you have found what to do with the rest of the game
I just had an awesome Politician win in a Leviathan game I storytold.
First off, they were suss enough that they got executed first, really limiting towns ability to execute going forward. They claimed bounty hunter (ironically a demon bluff) and helped through suss on other good players. They helped the minion find the damsel, and because their nonsense threw off the outsider count (and the others were a mutant and lunatic) they really made solving the game hard for good.
Every politician I saw just plays for evil. For me that makes the character very boring, and not because the ability is boring but idk seems like the meta.
I think that above all the goal with Politician is to be influential. If your influence gets the demon killed, great, you win. If your influence leads to evil winning, you will almost certainly flip to evil with them. A lot of Politician gameplay seems like it goes for max chaos, which I am not convinced is the right approach. If you're making up info, make up info that supports specific world views, try to mesh it together with other info you hear, argue that based on your info plus what you heard from players A and B, that the demon candidates are D and E so town needs to execute both of them as the final two kills. And again, if one of those players is the demon, that's awesome cause it means you won. Your goal isn't to protect the demon, it's to be a persuasive voice.
^This is the best answer. As the politician, you have to do enough to make people believe in you and vote with you, and beating the evil team is a just a means to an end. Lead with confidence, not chaos. Have a justification for everything and keep a positive attitude about vanquishing the demon. Your best bet is to stay alive so that you can nominate late in the game. If someone else has more influence than you and you are on the final day(s), consider throwing the game. Especially if you are getting to a fifty fifty. Rather than spread misinformation, keep to the topic of the other person in private chats. Make them feel important and then leave to go do something productive with their info. Gravitate towards a claim that is tough to confirm. If you know you are the only outsider, claim to be another one.
Thirding this. I'm a firm believer in driving a narrative as a player, especially when evil, and you don't need to have a functional ability in order to do so. Think of the circumstances that minions often find themselves in: Godfather with no realistic prospect of getting a night kill? Baron with too much sus to catch a star pass? A Harpy who is victim of a night-one Preaching? All of these scenarios are ones where a strong player can still wreak absolute havoc for the good team by spreading shade and misinformation, drawing attention, voting weirdly, or whatever. A politician who is determined to flip can use exactly the same stratagems. Sometimes it's hard for players to recognise the plays a politician can make that merit a flip. It doesn't need to be brazen, either, but it should be significantly influential. The best politician game I ever played was so subtle that the vast majority of town didn't even notice the nudges and steers that poisoned the collective well (but luckily the ST did!) -kat
Best answer :) Thanks a bunch
Note that if you are the most deciding factor in which team wins, you win, no matter which team that is. If you make up info that causes a specific player to be executed on the final day, you've just either executed the demon, letting you win with good, or executed not the demon, letting you win with evil.
That's a good way to think about the ability that I hadn't considered before. "You win with which ever team you can help a lot."
You can bluff a role and give misleading information. You can vote against town. You can help cover for evil lies/bluffs (even without knowing for sure) by helping out those who appear to be double claiming or having nonsense info.
Honestly playing very good is fine. You can always go for the alternate win condition on the last day, refusing to cast the deciding vote on the demon.
You can screw people over in the final 3 provided you live that long. If good was going to win and you nominate yourself, you’ve done evil a huge favour. You can hide being an Outsider to mess with Outsider count (If there should only be one, hide as a Townsfolk or even a Minion to let the Demon’s Outsider bluff have more credibility) Make up information. Be the Empath with a 2. Be a Savant whose info frames a specific person or clears the Demon. Distract town as long as you can to protect evil. Tie the vote on the final day. It will screw over good so well if you tie a vote on the Demon, or worse, over vote on a Minion so the Demon is safe. Ultimately just throw the game for good. You need to be more responsible for good losing than the whole evil team, and that’s hard, but it’s definitely possible
you kinda have to be a very loud player and lead executions and hope to either accidentally kill the demon and win with good, or create enough chaos to take the attention off the evil team
I may repeat some of the previous commenters points, but I think that the Politician strategy is 1. Make yourself important(spread the information, work with everyone, try to explore different worldviews, prove theories if you can) — this will allow you to win with good if you and the team are solving everything correctly. 2. Lie if you need to — need to prove your theories? Bluf a savant or an empath, or any good role for that matter — this will allow you not only to make yourself more important, but also maybe pivot in one moment to screw the good team(or to screw them from the get go) Hope that helps) Personally, I always love playing as the politician, because it allows me to do just whatever I want. I can bluff any role and not be afraid of doble claims or I can try to be honest and help the good solve the game.
You can just make up your own info, and push that worldview- if you kill the demon then great you win with good; if you make evil win, and your pushing your false world is deemed the most responsible for evil winning, then great you still win
Be as unhelpful, harmful and deceitful to good as possible. Evil wins? Great! You hindered your team badly for the entire game, you'll flip and win. Good wins? Also great, you're on good alignment by default.
Make up a role and start giving out false information to get people executed. If you absolutely destroy the good team's sense of information and draw all the attention away from the demon, most STs will give you that win.
What I do is simple, cause Chaos. Try to get the best info role such as BH, dreamer, FT, or Sober VI. then push onto whoever you feel like. One of two things will happen. an evil will walk up to you asking if you are playing for them or the demon will die. in either case, you have found what to do with the rest of the game
Be loud, be bold, and believe you are correct regardless of the evidence.
I just had an awesome Politician win in a Leviathan game I storytold. First off, they were suss enough that they got executed first, really limiting towns ability to execute going forward. They claimed bounty hunter (ironically a demon bluff) and helped through suss on other good players. They helped the minion find the damsel, and because their nonsense threw off the outsider count (and the others were a mutant and lunatic) they really made solving the game hard for good.
Every politician I saw just plays for evil. For me that makes the character very boring, and not because the ability is boring but idk seems like the meta.