Some Tips for Playing Prince

#1

So I figured I’d give some basic tips for Prince, in case you’re starting out or you’re having troubles with the class.

The most important thing is:

Jail someone every single day.

That’s by far the most common error I see princes making. Even if you’re distracted by all the drama in day chat, always jail someone, even if it’s someone at random when you panic at the last second. That’s always better than forgetting to jail.

Who do you want to jail?

  1. When you’re starting the game, you probably want to start jailing methodically, from the bottom up, the top down or by a system of your choosing. You want to do this for the first few nights while you get some claims.
  2. When you get at least 2 thirds of the living players’ claims, start jailing the ones that haven’t claimed anything, especially the quiet ones.
  3. When you’ve got everyone’s claims, start jailing suspicious claims (if 2+ people have claimed a unique class, or 3+ people have claimed a non-unique class, or you have too many neutrals).
  4. If you panic and jail someone you’ve already jailed or someone who already claimed in public, ask for their full logs or tell them you’re protecting them.
  5. If you’re fairly confident you found an evil, feel free to jail them for execution.

When do you want to execute?

I am not in favour of executing all neutral claims. You theoretically don’t lose your executes for this, but you DO lose one charge of your execute ability, as well as potentially losing an ally in the fight against evils. I would only recommend executing a neutral claim when there’s a strong suspicion they’re evil (Unseen, Cult or NK).

There may come a time where you have 3 claims and you put one up for execution and it turns out to be BD. Even if you jail and exe another, the third one may get away. This is why you don’t exe Knights/Alchemists “just in case”, because that’s the best possible time to ask them to bomb the remaining claim. Yes, you might lose your executes or get your Knight killed if they CS a BD, but if you’re certain one of them it’s evil, it’s generally worth it, especially towards the late game. If it’s the early game, you can ask different investigative classes to check the suspicious claims.

Always think carefully before executing.

When To Step Up For King?

You are by far the most valuable role for BD, so the only time I’d ever consider stepping up for King is if you have outed yourself and you’ve publicly lost your executions. If everyone knows that you can’t execute them, you’re a slightly better Mystic. People can be bolder when lying to you or refusing to claim in jail, because they know you can’t kill them, and you’re still a target for murdering. At least as King you are confirmed Good and have guards to protect yourself.

Giving People Tasks

The way I win games as Prince is by giving tasks to the people I jail and am not planning on executing. An example from a recent game:

Night 1: Jail Physician. Ask them to innoculate me.
Night 2: Jail Hunter. Ask them to wolf the Physician.
Night 3: Jail Butler. Ask them to wine the Hunter.
Night 4: Jail Knight. Asked them to stay on me.

When I revealed Day 5, I was able to confirm that the Physician was indeed Physician, that the Hunter was indeed Hunter and that the Butler was indeed Butler. The Knight even took out an Unseen assassin guarding me, their Deathnote confirming them as Knight too.

Then I had 3 Sheriff claims, so we voted one up, it was an actual Sheriff, I asked the Alchemist to bomb the second and I jailed and executed the third. The Alchemist regrettably bombed our second Sheriff, but I executed the Mastermind. I also executed an Inquisitor claim who allegedly yolobombed and nailed the Sorcerer. I normally wouldn’t do this to a confirmed Inquisitor, but since they got their win already (supposedly), it was worth checking to make sure they weren’t a Possessor.

Then I asked the Butler to poison the King and the Physician to heal him. King dies the next day (Evil King, lucky us) and we up the Physician and execute them, as we successfully deduced they had been converted.

This is a good example of how to take control of the game as Prince, even with an Evil King, and use the power that you have to give people instructions.

The key to playing Prince to its fullest capability is to ensure that every request you make of people and every use of your abilities (jailing and execution) give you a new piece of information for you to write down. Whenever you find a class, ask the class to do something that you can later use to prove whether they’re lying or not.

But of course, remember:

Always write down everything people claim to you and everything you ask people to do.

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#2

no… u

#3

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#4

Solid advice. Generally it’s a good idea to find 2 or 3 protectives and then out yourself to both of them. If one of them is lying then the other will save you.

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#5

Agreed. Generally you want to secretly out yourself to protective roles while writing in your will who they are and what you told them. Whenever the Prince dies, always read their will carefully. If they outed themselves to a Physician, Knight or Alchemist and died anyway, it’s worth upping those to see why they weren’t on the Prince.

I also added a small section on when to step up for King. Basically only if you fucked up real good.

#6

Early game should be jailing everyone who did not claim and this should be obvious. Late game varies on a per match basis depending on which faction/NK you’re up against and the current claims of the court. Jailing to see if anyone dies is a valid strategy to find the Assassin and the NK, for finding a MM or any Cult members, not so much.

I would only recommend executing a neutral claim when there’s a strong suspicion they’re evil (Unseen, Cult or NK).

Way too generic advice. Always execute Fools, Scorneds, Sellswords, and Inquisitors that have won and not claimed prior to the Sorcerer’s death. For Alchemists I have a policy that either they claim early, don’t bomb people for no reason, and vote alongside BD or they are executed on sight. Inquisitors that claimed and Mercenaries are fine provided that this isn’t very late into the game and we have no leads.

Then I had 3 Sheriff claims, so we voted one up, it was an actual Sheriff, I asked the Alchemist to bomb the second and I jailed and executed the third.

This was a misplay on your part. Here are the four situations here and their outcomes.

A) You execute the Mastermind and the Alchemist bombs the Sheriff - 1 Sheriff and 1 Mastermind are dead.
B) You execute the Mastermind and the Alchemist doesn’t bomb the Sheriff - 1 Mastermind is dead.
C) You execute the Sheriff and the Alchemist bombs the Mastermind - 1 Sheriff is dead, Mastermind survives due to Night Immunity but is executed during the day.
D) You execute the Sheriff and the Alchemist doesn’t bomb the Mastermind - 1 Sheriff is dead, Mastermind is executed during the day.

You shouldn’t have asked the Alchemist to bomb the other Sheriff here as the MM would have survived the bomb while the Sheriff wouldn’t. If there are two players competing for the same claimspace then execute one at a time to minimize BD death.

Night 1: Jail Physician. Ask them to innoculate me.
Night 2: Jail Hunter. Ask them to wolf the Physician.
Night 3: Jail Butler. Ask them to wine the Hunter.
Night 4: Jail Knight. Asked them to stay on me.

Outing yourself in jail is probably one of the worst moves you can do as a Prince. If the Physician was an Alchemist/NK or a member of the Unseen/Cult you would be as good as dead. Asking people to occupy/investigate a certain player works for confirmation, but never out yourself to Physician or Knight claims in jail as you’re relying too much on them being genuine BD for your own good. If you need to out yourself, you need to out yourself to several protective roles at once to prevent getting screwed up by a fakeclaim.

Ultimately you got lucky that game as the Physician and Knight were being truthful. If you had jailed an Assassin claiming Physician the first night then you’d have died the second night. The assassin would have been dead d3, but a Prince for an Assassin is a horrendously bad trade for BD.

Overall this guide works well as a way for the Prince to direct and confirm people, but always assume that the people you jailed are evil unless proven otherwise as it’s a far safer approach then your situation.

#7

I understand what you suggest is the way a lot of people play Prince, as a very strict, “neuts out”, highly distrustful role, but I don’t advocate for such a strategy. I’ve been on the receiving end of that and it straight up feels bad. It’s not fun.

I would much rather take the chance that I might die to the assassin night 2 because I outed myself privately to them than survive all the way to the end of the game and still be on the edge of winning or losing because I’ve alienated/killed all or most of the neutrals and we’ve slowly been losing BD to distrust and lack of communication.

Also, you claimed I misplayed by asking the Alchemist to bomb the last sheriff claim, but it coincides with the advice I gave: always ensure every action you take and every move you direct gives you a new piece of information. If I execute the Sheriff and the last Sheriff claim still lives, it doesn’t matter what the Alchemist claims happened that night, we found our MM and I would gladly trade my executions and a BD to take out the Mastermind after Day 4. Your executes are resources you have to win the game. If you trade them for a victory, you used your resources well.

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#8

Another thing I’d like to suggest. Be polite and friendly. Don’t jail someone, immediately hit the execute button and just ignore them while they ask you what’s up. That’s not fun for the victim who is a real person trying to have fun. Give them some reasoning for why you are killing them (if you have time and aren’t too busy writing logs). It’s less rough for the player that way, especially if they turn out to be BD, in which case you will seem like a moron.

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#9

I dont need your tips I have my brain!

#10

No you don’t

#11

I couldn’t agree more.

Be polite, be respectful, having a license to kill doesn’t give you a pass to be rude.

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