The Comprehensive Secret Hitler Guide

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Written by Iconic

Prelude: Hello! Just a brief introduction before getting to the bulk of the guide. I won’t be going over how to play the game or anything, since it’s assumed you know how to play the game before reading this. If you want to learn how to play the game, either a) find the instructions online, or b) play the game.

Why write the guide? Since the player base on the io is quite undeveloped, and if players get better, then everyone who enjoys the game wins, so, I want players to get better.

Who is this guide for? For anyone looking to get better at the game. Naturally, it won’t happen if you just read the guide once, it’ll take time and you’ll have to practice a lot, but if you’re serious about getting better at the game, it’s entirely possible to go from green to yellow to orange to purple, and so on.

Table of Contents

• Common Terms You Should be Familiar With
• The Deck
• Pre-HZ
• Do I Give Choice? And Do I Underclaim my BBB?
• Who to Inv?
• The Argument for 1526 Meta
• The Segue for HZ - How to Give out SE Properly
• The Golden Rule of SH
• The Biggest Mistake Newer Players Make (Other than not following the Golden Rule)
• Being an Independant Thinker
• What to do if you Double Dip
• Who to SE
• HZ
• How to Find the Other Liberals
• Reading Votes and Your Conflict
• How to Make an Effective Shot
• The 3 v 3 Test
• Strategic Topdecking in Hitler Zone
• Veto Zone Governments and The Tracker
• A Quick Generic Fascist Guide
• What to do Going Forwards
• Final Notes

It is rather long, so feel free to ignore parts you don’t need, but you should probably read all of it. If you are in the show outline section, feel free to switch to parts that you find useful and skip those that you don’t.

Note: This guide will be covering solely 7P, but a lot of what is said here can be applied to every game type. 7P is just the most ‘fair’ and ‘balanced’ of all the game modes, and even then, it’s heavily tilted towards liberals by a margin of ~70% if all players are decent. It’s just how the game goes. To truly become a good fascist, you must first become a good liberal, at least in my eyes.

Also, the guide is focused mostly on how to better play as lib. At the end of the guide I will include some generic fascist tips, but being a good fascist is incredibly game dependant, and what works in one game might not work in the next, and so on and so forth.

*When you get to the Golden Rule of SH, please pay extra attention to it, since it’s called the Golden Rule for a reason. It should be embedded into your mind whenever you play SH and it should be followed without exception since not following it always harms libs. Or, alternatively, if you want to skim this guide do not skip over this section. I put extra emphasis onto this because this concept is really that important.

But more on that when we get there, now, onto the guide.

Common Terms You Should be Familiar With:

Side Note: Throughout the guide I might use either B or L to refer to Blue / Liberal Cards, and R or F to refer to Red or Fascist Cards (they refer to the same thing in both cases, and it’s fine to use them interchangeably).

HZ: Hitler Zone

SE: Special Election

Inv: Investigation

Bullet: The Assassination Power

R/BP: Red / Blue Pres

R/BC/BCC: Red / Blue Chancellor / Blue Choiced Chancellor

Silent Reds: When a President claims RRR (i.e., they do not conflict on their reds)

Lines: What someone claims to be the fascist team

CNH: Confirmed Not Hitler. Someone who has been elected chancellor during HZ without the game ending in a fascist win.

TD: Topdeck (When 3 gov’s fail in a row), the top card of the deck is enacted

Tracker: The counter that is moved forward every time a gov fails to pass. It maxes out at 3, at which point the top card of the deck is placed. The tracker then resets.

VZ: AKA Veto or Veto Zone -> When 5 fascist policies are on the board, if the president and chancellor both agree, the card selected by the chancellor isn’t put down (this counts as a failed government, so it moves the tracker forward)

BTEC: A total and utter fool at the game, or life in general

TL: Term Limit, when neither the previous president / chancellor can be selected to be in government (the TL is removed if a Topdeck occurs). If there are only 5 players alive, then the previous president is NOT term limited. Aka, if in your 7 Player Game, 2 players get shot, then the last president would not be term limited)

Conf Lib: A confirmed liberal. Aka, there is no doubt that this player is a liberal. It can happen in two scenarios in a 7P game.

• The First: There are 3 conflicts, each having only 2 players involved, ergo, the one person not in conflict is confirmed lib.

• The Second: There are two card conflicts and an investigated liberal who was investigated liberal by a player WHO IS NOT IN CONFLICT. Aka, 15 and 37 are both in conflict, and 2 investigated 4 liberal. 4 is confirmed lib since the only way he is fascist is if 2 is fascist as well, but due to the other 2 conflicts, that is not possible (since only 3 fascists in a 7P game). This does not however apply if say: 1-5 are in conflict, and then 2 card conflicted 6 and investigated 4 liberal. In this scenario 4 is not confirmed lib since the person who investigated him liberal is one of the players in conflict, and 4 can be fascist with 2.

Power Play: Generally a pretty irrelevant and seldom used term, but will include since it used to be a thing back in the day and is a part of the games history. When a player is in power for two consecutive governments, first where they are either president / chancellor, and the next government where they are the other. It’s not nearly as dangerous as people think, and there should never be a reason why you nein a government solely because it is a ‘PP.’ While I do agree that it is better to pick someone as chancellor who isn’t going to be the next president since you get more information on more players before Hitler Zone that way, it isn’t game breaking. Also, in Hitler Zone, this generally never applies, since you don’t pick anyone to get information on them anymore, you pick them if you think they’re lib, and if they happen to be the next person in power, so be it.

Cucu: Picking the person who investigated you liberal as your chancellor. If during a Cucu the President claims a conflict between the chancellor, the chancellor is confirmed fascist.

Conflict: When players claim that a certain other player is fascist: can be done via cards (the president claims they gave the chancellor a Blue, whereas the chancellor claims they got RR) or the investigation policy (someone claims another player is fascist via inv power).

Fas - Fas Conflict: When two fascists are in conflict with each other. Usually happens via Cards, and not the Investigative Policy (not to say that a fascist won’t conflict his own fascist by the inv, it’s just not nearly as likely).

Double Dip: A player claims two other players are fascist. E.g. Card conflicts one player and then claims another is fascist via the inv.

Gunpoint: To choose someone in conflict and place them under bullet. The idea is that if they are fascist, they will eventually play red, and if they do, the player they conflicted is likely liberal (re: Fas - Fas Conflict).

Vanilla Fascist: A term used to describe a fascist who isn’t Hitler

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The Deck:

Before we get onto the actual game itself, one thing that is important to understand in SH to get better is the Deck.

The deck consists of 17 Cards, 11 of which are R, and 6 of which are B. So yes, there are more fascist policies than liberal policies. This means that a liberal getting RRR is entirely possible.

Generally, what happens is, the first deck will have a total of 5 governments played before it is forced to reshuffle, since 6 govs would need 18 cards. This means that the bottom two cards of the deck will usually remain unseen*, what they are, not a single player knows. They could be 2 Blues, 2 Reds, or 1 Red and 1 Blue.

*Sometimes it is possible to see the bottom 2 cards of the deck if the table agrees to topdeck, which will be discussed later on (Strategic Topdecking). Generally, though, it is assumed that no one ever topdecks before Hitler Zone, since there are few, if any scenarios where it is good (just don’t do it).

When people say the first deck was 4B, 5B, or 6B, that means the number of blues that were claimed in the first deck. It is important to know the approximate odds of each deck happening.

6B: 40% 5B: 50% 4B: 10%

It’s just best to assume that every deck you play with is 5B since it’s more common than either other. Knowing what the current deck is at any time is incredibly crucial, since it gives you information and a bit of an idea of what to expect on the next card draws.

Ex: If 4B are claimed, you can safely assume 1 ditch is probably the most likely, maybe 2, or it might be the 10% chance that a 4B deck naturally occurs. At the end of the day, these are just starting odds for you, and you have to take player traits into consideration, since some players are more likely to ditch than others, and so on.

Finally! Now that that’s done, we get to the bulk of the guide, the game itself. For organizations sake, I’ll divide the game into 2 sections, Pre-HZ, and HZ.

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Pre-HZ:

The sole point of Pre-HZ is to collect information. And how do you collect information? Well, by the cards played of course. To you, a clueless liberal, information is the single most important thing in this game. It is what helps you decide who is likely lib (those who play Blues, typically) and who is not. If conflicts happen, great! You know at least one fascist is amongst those players, and work your way from there.

There are 2 prevailing methods of playing the game. 1526 meta, and 347 meta. This guide will focus on playing with 1526 meta, and I will explain why it is objectively better than jaing everyone (in a bit, but for now, take my word for it).

For 15 26 meta, you keep gov’s concentrated to solely blue players, and it goes something like this.

One Possible Scenario:

1-5: RRB

2-6: RRB

Nein 34 to 5

5-1 -> w/e

6-2 -> w/e

If a player is part of a red gov in 1526 meta, you exclude them from play in most cases going forward. So, in the above scenario, had 6-2 been RRR, then 2 would also be excluded from government, and 1 would play 1-x (x being either 3 or 4).

Another Common Scenario:

1-5: RRR (Since RRR, both 1-5 are both excluded from play, and now 26 37 happens)

2-6: RBB

3-7: RBB

6-2: RRB

• Now, what would the next government be? Well, you might assume following the natural progression of things, that it would be 7-3, however, that isn’t the case. There is no reason to play 7 over 2, 2 forced and 7 got forced (the person who forces is usually better than the one who gets forced), so objectively, your best bet is to nein to 2 and have him play 2-3, and then continue from there on out. And also, as will be explained later on, you want as little presidents to touch the deck, four being the optimum.
• As a quick note, the reason why 6 plays and not 7, is solely due to position, since you can nein to 6 without topdecking whereas you can’t do the same with 7.

A common question that arises from players is, why punish the RC for what they had nothing to do with?

The rationale behind that is, if a RRR-RR gov happens, the best thing you can do (as a liberal who does not know any better), is just pray and hope that at least one of them is fascist. And yes, this is the reason. Winning liberal games is incredibly easy, however, a lib-lib gov getting RRR-RR is one of the few cases where liberals will have a rather hard time winning (assuming the fascists are competent and capitalize on a lib-lib RRR). Don’t worry, though, in the vast majority of games that you play, if a gov is RRR-RR, there is more often than not a fascist in the gov.

Now, you may worry, but what if the pres is a fascist ditching a blue to freeze out a liberal RC? That is completely fine, because if they do that, the deck count will generally show it. Say, that the deck is 4B claimed, then RCs will be more trusted than RPs, and the Fascist Pres who ditched is likely never getting into power.

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Do I Give Choice? And Do I Underclaim my BBB?

Choice: You generally should not. If you give choice and a fascist conflicts you that is 2 blues gone right there. Another reason why is because if you claim RBB and your chancellor claims RB, liberals might think of it as either a) a fas fas signal gone wrong, or b) that you’re trying to cover up for someone by making up an extra blue.

Now! This isn’t to say that you should always force. There is one scenario, and only one scenario where I will not force, and that is on the investigation. I have a personal rule that I follow that if there is one conflict on the board I will always choice on the investigation, because to me the possibility of double dipping with a conflict on the board is something I like.

Another possibility where I might not force is if a conflict happening makes a strong player confirmed lib. For example, 1-5 conflict, 2 inv 6 as lib, and 6 is an incredibly good player. If I’m in spot 3, I’ll give 7 choice, because if he conflicts, then I know 6 is confirmed lib.

Other than those scenarios, I personally would never choice. Once you get better at the game you are free to form your own opinion, I have given mine.

Just beware, that when you choice and admit that it was RBB, fascists and liberals are going to shade you for it, so you should be ready to hold your own.

BBB: I typically underclaim my BBB and reveal it at the end of the deck, or once it hits HZ and the SE needs to be made. The reason I do this is since if you claim BBB, fascists are far likelier to ditch since they know they can get away with it because of your BBB. Not only that, but if I claim RBB when I got BBB and 5 blues have been claimed up to that point, then I know that there are no blues left in the deck. In this scenario, if someone claims the 6th blue, I can instantly call them out on it, it’s fun when that happens. Some players have differing opinions on this, and it’s totally fine even if you don’t like to underclaim, this is just what I prefer to do. As a plus, if you are known for underclaiming BBB as a liberal, it lets you do it as fascist as well.

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Who to Inv:

The proper investigation for you if you get RRR is generally to investigate your chancellor (assuming the govs are 15 26 37 or the reverse). The rationale being that if your chancellor is lib, you do not want to get them excluded from the game, your inv brings them back, and if they’re fascist, great as well.

This won’t always be the case however, since sometimes a fascist might conflict you and give you the inv, and if this is the case, you must ask the table who they want investigated, and get a consensus or at least majority vote on who they want investigated before investigating.

Sometimes you’re in neither of these scenarios, and if that is the case, the best thing for you to do is to try and find a liberal who you are confident will get the SE if they are investigated liberal. The best way to do this is vocally ask the table that, ‘if I inv x as Lib, who will Ja an SE on him?’ If the table mutually agrees then whoever they want inv is probably a fine inv. Note, that sometimes, even though people verbally confirm that they will ja someone, when it comes time to it, and that liberal picks a liberal in HZ, you might see an instant change of tone or refusal from them to ja it, so take from that what you will, be it a paranoid lib, or a fascist.

Do not be surprised if this happens often, it’s easy for a fascist to say that they’ll ja someone when it doesn’t matter, but when the time comes to do it, they can easily have a ‘change of heart.’

Note: Try to help your investigated liberal as much as possible, and if you can convince them to go to you during hitler zone, great. Don’t get too angry if they don’t think you are liberal, you can try to convince them, but if they don’t pick you in HZ, just work alongside them. You know 50% of the liberal team, so the odds of any other player being lib go down immensely. You should try as hard as you can to get your inv lib in as many govs as possible, and once in HZ, any gov that doesn’t include either of you has incredibly low odds of being ‘good.’

And lastly, if your inv liberal picks anyone (and they are openly stating that they are Ja’ing), you can NEVER nein, even if you think it is Hitler. More on this later (The Golden Rule of SH). You can (and should) nein naturally, if they state they are neining.

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The Argument for 1526 Meta:

If you have ever played 5P, you might have heard of the 1-4 meta. 1-4, if blue, nein to 4-1, and so on and so forth. The same reason why that meta is good, is the same reason that 1526 meta is good. The reason 1526 meta is more effective for liberals than jaing everyone is simply because the less amount of unique presidents that touch the deck, the better it is for liberals and the easier it is to ascertain who the likelier ditcher was.

A common argument against 1526 meta is that ‘oh but what if ‘1526’ has 2 or 3 fascists. The point is, even if it does, those fascists still need to play reds to win. Eventually the fascists in 1526 need to play red, and they either do that by conflicting (which is good for libs), or, they do that by silent RRRing and ditching (again, good for libs since you can ascertain that 1526 is fascist heavy and switch play to 347 if need be).

Granted, if a liberal gets RRR, fascists can play blues and skip over liberals, but if a liberal got RRR, then even jaing everyone wouldn’t change much since that liberal would be excluded from power regardless.

Alternatively, another way to think about why 1526 meta is better than is to play from the position of 1526.

If you are in spots 1526, why would you ever want to ja 347 over yourself? It’s nonsensical, you know your role, you don’t know 347’s, sure, they could be lib, but you’re 100% lib. It is always better for you to nein 347 and play yourself instead.

Now, in the spots of 47, I will explain why it is bad for you to ja 3-x. Jaing 3-x means that you as a liberal are allowing 5 different people to become president in the deck excluding you, and at least two of them have been fascist. The moment someone becomes president, you are letting them have influence over the game by virtue of them manipulating the cards (assuming they’re fascist). In most games, 1526 will always play, and if you’re a lib in 4 or 7, you want to keep it that way since it is easier for you to determine who ditched with less presidents touching the deck than it is with more presidents. Also, simple reasoning goes, the more players you allow to play as president that don’t include you, the more chance it is that a fascist is coming into play. If 5 players have been president, 2 of them have been fascist minimum, if it’s 4, the minimum is at least 1 fascist. Also, just another side note, if you are in spot 4 and ja 3-7 and it ends up being blue, that is the single worst thing that can happen for you, since it now means that 6 players have been into gov, all have been part of blue govs, and you know for a fact that 50% of them are fascist. Your influence on the game as a liberal will be really low, and that is not what you want.

If you’ve ever played Avalon, they use the same reasoning. “I won’t approve a mission unless it has me in it because unless it has me in it odds are low that it is a good mission.”

The only liberal who should ever want to ja 3-x after 1256 is blue, is 3, and no one else.

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The Segue for HZ - How to Give out SE Properly:

Now, this is where a very important rule of SH comes to play. The SE is one of the most important things that can happen in a game, and whoever is handing out the SE must obey this crucial rule.

You may not SE anyone without confirming that that person has votes from at least 4 different players. Why? Because SE is an integral chance for liberals to nominate someone they think is Liberal, and you don’t want to throw it. As much as you dislike it, the SE is not yours to give, it is up for debate and discussion from the entire board. Why 4? Because then it is confirmed that at least one liberal is jaing. If you SE without confirming vocally from four different players then you are objectively playing bad since if the SE doesn’t pass, it’s a huge detriment to the table.

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The Golden Rule of SH

(Aka, the Single Most Important Rule, if you’re going to take nothing else away from this guide, at least have this idea ingrained into your head)

Now, that brings me to one of the most important rules in all of SH. As some call it, the golden rule of SH. That being, if it is confirmed at least one liberal is jaing a gov, then every player is required to ja it, no exceptions.

Why? Because, if this is the case, then you can never stop the government if it is “bad.” A “bad” government is one that has a fascist president and / or Hitler as a chancellor. If it is VZ, than a bad government is one that has any fascist. You can only stop it if it is good.

Now, some of you may be wondering what it means that at least one lib is confirmed ja’ing. Take the following scenario, there are 2 conflicts, 15 and 26. That means that 347 has at max one fascist. This also now means that 347 have all the power in the game, and the moment that 2 of them agree that they want a government, that gov’t must go through. That is because if any 2 of them agree on something, it is confirmed that at least one of them is liberal, if not both. So now, lets state that 3 and 4 both agree to ja 4-x, that means a lib confirmed is jaing, so you are obligated to ja.

A common complaint people have is, ‘oh, but what if 4 is lib and I think he picked Hitler?’ That is completely irrelevant since if 4 picks Hitler, the government passes without your vote. HOWEVER, if 4 had picked a CNH, and you nein, then you may potentially stop the government if it is good.

So now, to quickly recap what has been said here, two main points are integral for you to become a better SH Player, those being the following.

• If you, or anyone else is handing out the SE, it is not your SE to give out, it is the table, and you must gather votes before handing it out. The moment that you have at least one lib confirmed jaing an SE, then you may SE that person.
  • E.g, 1-5 is conflict, you are in spot 7, get RRR, and then 3 people outside of 1-5 state that they want 4 SE’d. You must SE 4. Simply because those 3 players outside of 1-5 cannot be the fascist team and must contain one liberal. If you SE anyone but 4 at this point, you open yourself up to becoming ‘confirmed fascist’ since you threw the SE, since if 4 has 4 votes, then whoever else you SE doesn’t.
    • Now! This isn’t to say that if you think 4 is fascist you cannot try to change their minds. If you think 6 is more liberal than 4 is, then by all means, go ahead and try to convince the board that you want 6 SE’d, and if they budge, great! You can SE 6, however, if they don’t, you cannot.
• And lastly, the golden rule of SH. If it is confirmed that at least one lib is jaing, every lib must ja, no exceptions, ever.
  • Again, if you think a government is bad, you can convince people otherwise, but if they don’t budge, they don’t budge, and you must ja it.

Once Again to Reiterate: Sometimes people get emotional and out of spite nein, I’ve seen this happen countless times, and it throws so many games that would’ve been wins otherwise. The only (and yes, only) scenario where you are allowed to nein if it is confirmed a lib jaing is if someone you are 100% sure (ie, they are your conflict) is fascist is getting picked in a veto zone government - Duh. In any case, I’m sick and tired of players failing to follow this one rule. If it is confirmed a lib is jaing and you nein the government anyways out of spite / emotion or whatever other excuse, you are not only a bad player, but you are gamethrowing in every sense of the word.

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The Biggest Mistake Newer Players Make (Other than not following the Golden Rule):

One of the biggest mistakes that newer players, or even a lot of rainbow players make is that they are not vocal. If you want to play this game as a casual pastime and dislike speaking a lot, then you are being a huge detriment to your team, (regardless of your role). This is a game just as much about communication as it is about the cards played. The cards only tell one part of the story, the other is what people say. If you do not say anything, it is impossible to determine your role for other liberals, and they can’t hedge their bets on you being liberal, so if they assume you’re fascist since you are quiet, you have no one to blame but yourself. If you are a liberal, you have to openly speak and be vocal about what you think the best play for liberals is. Do you think someone is fascist? Great, now tell the board why you think they’re fascist. If you think someone is liberal, then do the exact same thing. You won’t always be right as a liberal, and that is completely fine, but by being vocal and speaking up you make it easier for liberals to determine who is who.

Whenever you are quiet, you allow fascists to speak up and influence the game to their liking, or even shade you and paint you as fascist. For example, if you’re in conflict with a fascist, and that fascist is very vocal and speaking up about the game and inputting their opinion, they are going to seem much more liberal than you are, and that is the last thing you want.

Every single player who has ever reached 1900 elo or above is incredibly vocal, and there is no player that is an exception to this rule. The more you talk, the higher odds your team has of winning. Now, don’t talk for the sake of talking obviously, what you say has to be relevant to the game and be eventful in guiding liberals to the win. You saying pure nonsense won’t solve anything, so don’t.

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Being an Independent Thinker:

Perhaps one of the most important trait for a liberal outside being vocal is being able to formulate your own opinions. If you don’t have an opinion on the game you open yourself up to being manipulated by better fascists into following their plan, one which will, of course cause you to lose. You should have a generic opinion on every single player in the game and how the game is going. Think about why someone you’re pretty sure is fascist did what they did. If you’re in spot 1 and get conflicted by 5, did they do it so that 3 gets into play? If a fascist conflicts thus letting you have the SE, why did they do it? Sometimes, there is no logical reason for why fascists do it, newer players often play red for the sake of playing red without much thought into it, but better players usually have an end goal. If you are in conflict, why is your conflict suggesting what he is?

You should keep up with people are saying and suggestion. Also, don’t be stubborn on holding one viewpoint, if you think someone is fascist early on but change your mind later, don’t be afraid to change views. Being stubborn is a fault that even many better players suffer with, once they formulate a opinion they stick with it and refuse to let it get changed. You should be open to other opinions but at the end of the day, you do something because YOU feel comfortable with it, not because someone else tells you (don’t be someone’s sheep, only mine). You will get more confident the more you play.

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What to do if you Double Dip:

Sometimes, you find yourself in a scenario where a fascist gives you the investigation, and then you end up finding another fascist via the investigation policy.

The first thing you need to realize in this scenario is that you look incredibly fascist to every liberal player in the game, so much so that if you conflicted both vanilla fascists, then Hitler will probably think you're his fascist.

Now, what you need to do in this scenario is realize that the other liberals are going to suspect you, and that is totally fine, do not assume mistrust of you is the last fascist. Naturally, if the fascists are any good, they're going to attack you. The best thing for you to do in this scenario is work with the 4 players outside of conflict. If there is already a conflict before your double dip then you know 2 confirmed libs, so work with them, but in most cases of a double dip, there won't be another conflict.

You need to talk with and discuss with the other 4 players and urge them to work together, you know that there is only one fascist amongst those 4. If you think you know the last fascist via whatever, be it logic, intuition, or reads, then try stating it and explain why, and take it from there.

The Golden Rule of SH is integral in this scenario, that when any 2 of those players agree on something, you must go along with it, you cannot nein a government if 2 of them state they're jaing. If you have a bad feeling about it and suspect that one of those 2 is the last fascist, of course you can give your opinion. Either way, you have very good odds of getting a Liberal President, 75%, so in most cases if you can avoid Hitler as chancellor, you can win with smart play.

Anyways, point is, be as helpful as you can to those 4 players, and it is essential that you do not shut up, you already look fascist as it is, shutting up just makes you that much easier to shade by the 2 fascists and might give a wrong impression to libs. Offer useful things and try giving liberals ideas on how you think they can win, etc. Stand up for yourself, you are fighting against 2 other players, after all.

If someone gets the bullet try convincing them to shoot one of the two you conflicted, try sounding genuine or try using cards / logic to fuel your argument. Tough luck if you get shot or the last fascist managed to get a bullet, don't worry, it happens. Don't be salty if you get shot by someone who ends up being a liberal, that will also probably happen.

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Who to SE:

Depending on what your role has been in the game so far, when it comes time to SE, what you say is dependant on what your role is.

If you are in spots 347 and haven’t gotten to play, then try to find someone you think is liberal from those who have been in governments and offer your opinion to the chat. Say, I want x for SE because of so and so.

If you’re in a spot where you are a viable SE candidate, then absolutely fight for your government. Come up with whatever reason you can to get yourself SE, you are a liberal, try convincing others of that. I absolutely hate after the game when I find out that there was a lib who a viable SE candidate and just didn’t fight hard enough for it, thus letting SE go to a fascist and causing a loss. If you are a viable SE Candidate, you owe it to your team to fight for the SE, regardless of your role. Don’t shut up and stay silent when the time comes for SE.

Sometimes it just so happens that you don’t get SE, or you end up SE’ing the wrong person, and that is fine. You can spend a bit of time trying to convince the board to your POV, but if they don’t budge, don't stall for ages on end and accept that your role in the game has now changed from a possible SE to talking to the SE and advocating for lib lib govs. Remember, that even if you are not explicitly in gov, you still have a role to play.

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HZ:

Now, this is where games get fun. The SE has been given, 3 reds are on the board, and now every single government played is absolutely crucial.

In HZ there are 3 things you want to avoid at all costs (in this order, they’re all bad, but the first is obviously the worst).

1. Hitler as a chancellor

2. Any fascist in government during VZ

3. A Fascist as President during HZ (as they will take the bullet and shoot a liberal, forcing it to be equity. When equity happens most fascists topdeck, and since there are more Reds in the deck than Blues, Topdecking almost always wins it for Fascists).

The time to collect information is over now, and you’re forced to play players you think are liberal and try to get that 5th blue on the board.

Quick Tangent: While we’re on this topic of who you should and not allow into government, there is another mistake that newer players tend to make a lot. It’s as if the chancellor means anything, when, in reality, it doesn’t, at least not as much as you think. The President has much more power in the game than the Chancellor does during Hitler Zone. If a red is played, the chancellor has absolutely no say in who gets shot, and you better believe that if the president is fascist, he is taking the bullet.

When you state a ja on a government, you NEVER EVER DO IT for the reason ‘I’m pretty sure the chancellor is liberal.” It is the president who you want to be liberal, granted, ideally, you want the chancellor to be lib too, but if the president is liberal, it’s fine if the chancellor is a vanilla fascist, since they are under the bullet of a liberal.

It absolutely seethes me when I see players ja a government because they think the chancellor is lib without caring about the president.

Okay, now back to HZ.

The moment that the game enters Hitler Zone, you must immediately start planning. The way that liberals win the majority of their games is by getting 5 blues on the board, so that is what you should try working towards. The game can enter HZ with any amounts of blues on the board, 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4. Your job is to get 5 of them on the board.

If there are 3 blues on the board, then work on getting 2 others, if there is 1 blue on the board, you need 4 of them. This usually means that you need gov’s equal to the number of blues required. You cannot not have a plan. It is your job to be vocal and give your opinion on what govs you want. You also need to be a forwards thinker. What happens after this gov? Can I get myself in this gov? Do I trust the President? Etc.

In essence, you need to find the other libs. And how do you do that? Well, you have two tools at your arsenal to locate libs.

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How to Find the Other Liberals:

The Deck

• The most objective piece of information that everyone has. If one president has been part of nothing but blue govs, then by cards, they are quite liberal. If the first deck was say, 5B or 6B, then the RRB presidents are quite liberal for not taking the investigation. If the first deck had a few number of blues claimed, then those who have not touched it are statistically most lib. Also, the presidents who force in low blue deck counts are also quite lib.
• Important things to take into consideration are the following.
  • Early RRR - RR govs are typically not fas-fas (they can be lib-fas, or lib lib, sure, but typically not fas fas) since fascists do not play red with their own co fascists as it freezes both of them out of the game.
    • One case where it is possible that a fas fas gov gets RRR is the case in which the fascist president gets a genuine RRR. The president might either choose to make up a blue, or just silent RRR. So, if the deck count is high, say, 5 or 6B, remember, that an RRR-RR gov is entirely possible to be fas fas.
  • Fascists play blue with each other, early on anyways
    • I say early on for both of the previous points since eventually fascists do have to play red, and if the order forces them to be in gov with each other, of course they’ll play red.
  • If someone is RRB with you, especially on the investigation policy and the blue count was high, then they should be quite liberal to you. Since, they played blue with you, and you are liberal (so you know it’s not a fas playing a blue with another fas), so it’s not a bad shout to try vouching for them.
  • If someone took the investigative policy in a really low blue deck (say, 3/4B) count they are statistically most fascist, since fascists are the ones who have the most incentive to ditch blues and take the investigative power.
    • In more cases than not, if a player takes the investigative policy and the deck count is 3 or 4B, they are the single most fascist player on the board (by cards alone, naturally, you shouldn’t base it solely on that, but it’s a good starting point).

Social Reads

Now, the deck only tells one part of the story, and the next best thing to find out liberals is the social cues in the game. This part is kind of hard to write a guide for, since it depends on who you are playing with as every person is different and has different tells. The most I can tell you is that you get better at this the more you play. If you play with someone a lot, you can have a good read on them.

I can tell you some of the tells I use to find out who I think is lib, but keep in mind that the moment that this is read, they cease to be tells.

• If someone is incredibly frustrated / angry, they are probably liberal. This is probably the most consistent tell across most games you play. Some players are good at faking rage as fascist, but you learn about this as you go on, so keep that in mind. If someone is good at acting frustrated during fascist, I’d ignore this tell when applying it to them, unless you think they are genuinely frustrated (remember, fascists can get frustrated as well)
  • As an extension of this, paranoia is a huge liberal tell as well, it is up to you to determine whether you think someone is genuinely paranoid or not, though, I can’t teach you how to do that.
• Some players are incredibly vocal and talk a lot as liberal, and are incredibly whiny, this is also a liberal tell.
• One thing that I really hate about games but an inevitable consequence of the game is stalling. If someone is in a position of power and they talk incredibly long to pick / shoot someone, they are probably a liberal.
• Be wary of those that take a long time to claim, since no liberal should not claim quickly. Fascists might have a delay in their claim for whatever reason (if they want to overclaim together, etc) but liberals should not.
  • If someone stalls on their cards, or takes time on claiming, or misclaims, I will have a hard time trusting them.
    • ALSO: Side tangent: NEVER EVER, EVER misclaim as liberal, it has NO upside at all.
• As dumb as it is, some players as lib take a long time on their presidency when they get RRR, usually due to annoyance, or press remake upon getting RR. This is a very very iffy tell, and incredibly easy to fake as fascist, so beware.
• Some newer players are incredibly bad at being logical as fascist, so if a newer player is somewhat logical and suggesting things that seem liberal to you, they are probably lib. Note, this doesn’t apply to better players.

Sometimes your gut might just tell you that a person is liberal, and if it does, and you have no better picks, you might as well go with it. The more you play with someone, the more you get accustomed to playing with them. The best players are usually very good at masking their role as fascist, but every fascist has to go against the grain sometimes if the liberals are doing well, and this is when even the best players have to use a leap of logic to win.

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Reading Votes and Your Conflict:

With the advent of “The Golden Rule of SH,” reading votes is kind of a lost art, since all govs are either unanimously jad or neined. However, some people ignore this rule, so sometimes votes are split, and it is important to be able to read votes.

The most I can say about votes is that if someone you think is fascist ja’d it and were vocal about it getting ja’d, it might have been a bad gov for whatever reason, or it might not have been, it’s game dependent. If 3 players vote together, don’t be so quick to call them all fascist, and be sure to consider other info as well (social reads, cards, and whatever else) to make an informed decision.

There are times when the Golden Rule does not apply since you cannot confirm with certainty that those who are jaing contains a liberal confirmed, in which case, vote how you feel, and if the gov gets neind, you get information from those who jad. Example: If 1-5 is a conflict, 4 has the SE in Hitler Zone, and 134 are all stating they ja 4, where as 256 are stating that they want to nein. In this case, if you are 7, you can vote however you want, and the Golden Rule does not applied, since it’s impossible from your pov to know whether 134 or 256 contains a liberal or not, since either of those could theoretically be lines. It’s probably better for you to nein in this case and then take some more time to think it over via social reads and decide later on who you trust, there is no harm in that.

It is important to remember that Golden Rule only applies when there is no doubt or very little doubt that at least one liberal has ja’d.

Now onto your conflict. If you are in conflict with someone, you know something that no one else knows, aka, that x is fascist. You should pay special attention to what it is they are saying, and what governments they want to ja or are opposed to. Most of the time it is safe to assume that they will be vouching for governments that have a fascist inside them. Now, that isn’t to say that you should always refuse to ja a government because your conflict is vouching for it, they might be shading, so keep that in the back of your mind. At the end of the day, you shouldn’t make your decisions based solely on what your conflict is doing, but rather because you trust the government and are confident enough in thinking that ‘y is liberal due to xyz.’

Also, if you are in conflict with someone, accept that you are likely not getting presidency anytime soon, and just try to help lib in other ways, aka, find who the other libs are. Also, another quick note:

Do not nein gov’s solely because someone picked your conflict as chancellor, what matters is that the president is liberal, so if you think that the president is liberal, go ja it. Remember, the Golden Rule of SH! You never want to lose a liberal presidency.

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How to Make an Effective Shot:

Sometimes, you get the bullet as a liberal when getting RRR, which is frustrating, and you’re forced to make a shot. Naturally, since this is 7P, if you shoot a liberal, you are likely going to lose since it becomes equity.

By odds alone, everyone else has a 50% chance of being fascist. One shot that is always bad is a CNH, there is generally never a reason to shoot a CNH, unless you know for a fact that they are fascist (i.e., the conflicted you under bullet), then by all means, go shoot them.

If you really have no idea, and there are 2 conflicts on the board, it is almost always better to shoot into conflict than out of it, since it is entirely possible that a fas-fas conflict happens and there is a slight possibility that the other 2 players outside of the conflict could be lib.

Generally though, if the game has gotten to this point, you should have enough information and a gut reading on who you think is fascist. Maybe someone who was president in a low blue deck count, or someone who took inv in a low blue deck, or someone just sounds scummy to you. You can also refer to the liberal tells above if you want.

Also, if you were in the process of Gun Pointing someone, and you happen to get RRR, and despite trying as much you can you’re unable to find someone you think is fascist, it might be a good idea to just shoot their conflict, but this is a last resort.

It is also helpful to notice what other players are suggesting on who to shoot, sometimes someone might slip up and say something illogical, etc.

Also, another quick thing, if someone gets the bullet, being rude towards them is absolutely pointless, if they are fascist, they’ll shoot a liberal anyways, but if they are liberal, they might perceive your attitude as fascist. The best you can do is just suggest who you think is fascist and try to persuade the person with the bullet to shoot them.

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The 3 v 3 Test:

A common scenario you will encounter once you’ve gotten the bullet and shot someone fascist is for the table to ask for a 3v3 test. Essentially what this means is that the table wants you to prove that it is not equity by jaing a president outside of yourself. You can usually accept that unless the table thinks you are confirmed liberal, you are usually never going to get 2 bullets since the majority of the table will be paranoid of giving you fascist majority.

If, upon getting the bullet and refusing to ja anyone else, the table will perceive you as fascist and it will be hard for you to get into government later on, so it’s fine to ja someone else as president, even if they’re fascist, since they can’t do much harm.

Let’s assume that you’ve shot a fascist, now, it really does not matter who you ja next, even if they’re fascist, since the most they can do is out and make it 3v2. However, what you do want to avoid is Hitler as chancellor, so you should discuss with the rest of the table on who is a viable candidate.

If you do prepare to ja a president outside of yourself to prove its not 3v3, you should prepare for the off chance that they’re fascist and leave your ‘dying words’ to the table. Aka, how you want them to proceed if the next president gets RRR and doesn’t obey your shot (they should obey your shot since upon jaing them you become confirmed lib to them).

You should give the libs a gameplan on how to win in case you’re shot (taking into consideration that the chancellor of that gov will be term limited and it’s going to be veto zone) or the fascist outs and shoots a liberal you wanted in gov later on.

Most of the time, when someone jas you after they shoot someone else, they are usually liberal (they could be fascist, but most of the time, they’re not).

NOW! Some players are paranoid and are reluctant to ja presidents even after they’ve shot someone due to not wanting a fascist to shoot a trusted liberal. This is also fine, if you want to say, topdeck to someone you trust instead of another bullet, you need to convince the table of it and give logical reasons as to why. If you can get 3 other players to be on board with your plan, then by all means, go for it, but if they don’t agree, you should start deciding on which president you want most for bullet next and who their CNH pick is going to be.

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Strategic Topdecking in Hitler Zone:

Note: This is not saying that you should topdeck into Hitler Zone. Topdecking into or anytime before Hitler Zone is absolutely foolish. Never do it. The topdeck is likely a red and you are giving up getting information on Players / the Inv Policy (even if the one with the inv is fascist, it’s better than not having an inv).

What this refers to is the strategy that people employ in Hitler Zone to Topdeck intentionally. Whether it be because they want more information on the deck, or because they want to “Topdeck Repeat” or because there are good odds of topdecking the last blue.

One example of this may be if it’s Hitler Zone and there have been very few blue claimed. Remember when I said that you will never know the bottom two cards of the first deck? That is generally true, yes. But in some cases, what can happen is if the deck has 5 cards left when it hits Hitler Zone, players will advocate topdecking twice, leaving 3 cards left in the deck. This way when a government is played, liberals will get complete information about the deck.

Furthermore, if the deck has incredibly few blues claimed, like say, 0 or 1, and there are 5 cards, odds of a blue being topdecked are quite high. So not only do you get free blues, but also ‘complete’ information.

There is a caveat to this, however, that if both cards TD’d are Red, then you’re kinda screwed, since it is now Veto Zone, and you must have complete lib lib govs.

Now, another case when people Topdeck Twice is when there have been 4B on the board, and the deck is perceived to have 2B4R.

The rationale is that if people trust the deck, then topdecking twice gives an 80% Win Rate. Either a blue is topdecked, and if it’s not, then liberals still have good odds of winning because as long as the gov isn’t fas-fas or x-Hitler, then even if it contains a fascist, 50% of the time you win since the draw is RBB.

The only way fascists win if you topdeck twice is if: It topdecks red twice, and libs lose the coin-flip and the blue is at the bottom. Odds of it topdecking twice in a row and the last card being blue is 20%, which is how the 80% lib win rate comes into play.

Generally, in this case, if it does topdeck twice, you exclude either President from being in the Veto Zone Gov, for obvious reasons.

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Veto Zone Governments and The Tracker:

Perhaps the most stressing part of the game. Typically by the time you get to Veto Zone, you need just one more blue to win, however, before, where it was fine to ja a Liberal President even if the chancellor was Vanilla fascist, now it is not.

You must get a lib lib government in veto zone for liberals to win, and you cannot allow any fascist in play.

I won’t touch upon any tips or anything, because everything in this guide has been focused towards telling you on how to get better at finding libs.

What I do want to touch on, however, is how Veto Zone works with the Tracker. You need to remember that the tracker does NOT reset if a Veto is successfully ja’d, it still counts as a failed gov, and moves the tracker forward.

Remember, that if 3 governments fail, then a topdeck occurs. This means that it is entirely possible for you to get a lib lib government in veto and still lose. How? Because, if, say the tracker was on 3 when the government occured, even if both players ja the Red, it counts as a failed government and maxes the tracker, thus causing the top card of the deck to be enacted.

As an extension of above, consider this very common scenario, if there are 4 blues on the board, and 5 reds, it is the final gov of the game. There will be 2B and 6R in the deck, meaning that the odds of drawing RRR are about 35%. If a lib lib gov gets the RRR, the tracker will move forwards. If when the gov happened, the tracker was 1 and 2, it now moves one forward. Now, in this case you do have another chance at a lib lib gov. Generally though, by this point, you’ll be hard pressed to find another lib lib gov since the two libs who just jad the previous veto are likely term limited (the chancellor always will be, unless they’re in position to be the next president, and if there are 6 or more players in the game, so will the president).

Anyways, the point is, when veto zone comes, make sure to keep an eye on the tracker, if the tracker is on 3, remember that this government is the absolute last gov, and once it goes through, if RRR, you get no other govs, and have to rely on the deck (in this case, you have a 40% chance to topdeck a blue if you successfully ja the veto).

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A Quick Generic Fascist Guide:

As promised, I did say I’d include a brief section on how to play better as fascist.

• Do not play Red with your co-fascist if you two are in gov together early on, since it excludes both of you from the game. Naturally, if it’s later on, playing blues on is risky, so you must do a risk-reward assessment on whether playing blue or red is better.
  • For example, if the fascist team is 246, on 2-6 you should definitely play blue. Now, if 1526 are blue, and 5-1 is also blue, then playing blue on 6-2 is massively risky since you put libs up 4-0 and a lib lib gov is next. HOWEVER, if the fascist team is 26 + either of 1 or 5, then playing the 4th blue on 6-2 is totally fine since the next government will always be red as 1 or 5 has a fascist. It pays dividends to tunnel vision as fascist and you will never become a good fascist unless you can do this.
• If a liberal gets RRR, capitalize on it by playing blues, but only if you are sure that you can get back in play by doing this.
• When your seats are dealt, try coming up with your win condition right there and then.
  • E.x: You see that fascists are 347. Your only win con in this scenario is to pray that one liberal gets RRR, and try to get back into play from there.
  • 136 are fascists and you are 1. In this case, playing Red on 1-5 makes a lot of sense since that means both 3 and 6 get into play. However, I personally would not conflict since that gives liberals information and you want to deprive liberals of as much information as possible, silent RRRing this spot is the best play.
• Be vocal, try shading liberals who are likely to get into power, but at the same time, don’t act incredibly fascist. If you have the means to shade them (either via cards, or reads, or whatever), then do so. Sometimes it is also fine to ‘out as fascist’ as long as are sure that your other fascists can win the game for you. Probably not a good idea to out as fascist as Hitler because you don’t know the board (your teammate positions).
• How to make a shot as Hitler:
  • Generally, if you are Hitler and get the bullet and are unsure of who is fascist, as long as there is even one conflict on the board, you can always always shoot a liberal. All you have to do is out and ask both players in conflict who the other fascist is, the fascist will say someone, and the liberal will say someone, then just shoot someone who neither player said, since that person is always liberal.
  • Or, if there are 2 conflicts on the board, then you know the 2 players outside of conflict not including you are both liberals, so just shoot one of them.
  • If you manage to get the bullet when someone has already been shot, wait for a few seconds, if the player who got shot was a liberal, then your fascist team will out and tell you who to shoot. HOWEVER, if your fascist team does not out, that means the player who died was indeed your fascist. Now, what you do here depends on what you think is going to happen:
    • If you think you can get yourself back in gov again, and are 100% sure of it, shoot whoever the table wants.
    • If you are not confident that you can get into government again, then just shoot the most liberal player on the board, there is no harm in doing so, since no one can shoot you now. All you have to do is pray that your last fascist can somehow get himself into gov, and you make his job easier by shooting a very liberal player (usually the one who shot your co fascist)
  • And lastly, what perhaps trigger me more than any other. If there are absolutely no conflicts on the board, you have the bullet as Hitler, and someone outs to you and says they are your fascist, they are probably your fascist. I have seen so many games where a fascist outs to Hitler and are the first one to do it by a margin, and then every liberal starts spamming ‘omg no your fascist team is xyz’ or what have you. If you as Hitler find yourself in this spot, your best bet is to listen to the person who outed to you first, not those that spam after. Don’t be that idiotic Hitler that doesn’t bother to read up or use common sense to figure out that the first person to out is usually your fascist.
• Being a good fascist is about seeming liberal while at the same time getting reds on the board and your other co-fascists in play. You have to be a critical thinker and constantly think of ways to win.
• It is also a good idea to know when to conflict and when to not. Whether or not you conflict is dependent on the game you play, sometimes it’s better to conflict, sometime it isn’t, it’s hard to teach. Just remember that, whenever you conflict, you give liberals information, if you do not, they lose out on having conflicts, which is better for you, and if the chancellor is liberal, they get frozen out too. Just know that if the deck count is low, you are going to be one of the people to get most accused for being fascist (due to RP in a low blue deck count).
• It is also about being opportunistic, if you see liberals fighting with each other, then pounce on that and try to cause chaos and side with one liberal.

One other thing to note is that, sometimes, even if you play perfectly as fascist, you will lose. The better the table is, the more likely that liberals are to win, and by a hefty margin as well. This game is tilted towards liberals. As fascist, you need a combination of good seats + libs getting RRR and charisma to win.

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What to do Going Forwards:

The best way to improve going forwards is to play, play, play and play. You get better only by playing, and experiencing mistakes yourself. It is one thing for me to tell you about it, but another for you to live them. Every time you lose a game, go back and watch the replay, figure out what it was that you personally did wrong, if anything .Was there any way that loss could have been prevented?

Another thing to do is view games in real time of high elo players to learn from the best. If you don’t want to watch them in real time, you can also just view their last 10 replays and read their game chat to see what it is they do in certain scenarios.

In either case, I think retrospective inspection on your games is the best thing you can do.

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Final Notes:

• Courtesy of SilentPlayer, The Art of Never Being Wrong

Congrats on getting to the end of the Guide! I tried to include virtually every thing about how to play liberal in this guide, and my promise to you is that if you can master what is contained in this document you can consistently win ~60-70% of every liberal game you play. The best you can do now is just play, and try to play with better players as you get better. It’s a fun and addicting game, and I wish you nothing but the best of luck on getting better.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask other players who on the site (anyone with over 2000 elo is what I’d recommend), don’t be shy!

Also! Shoutouts to everyone who helped me out during the writing of the guide, including, but not limited to: Dev, Drew, Canaris, Will Farnaby, Tom / Gamethrower, Spite, Naizea, Ray / Bob Saget, Rsarv2a, Majstor, Shun, Acro et al.

If you have any questions directed towards me, feel free to ask https://www.reddit.com/r/SecretHitler/comments/ap0jsx/secret_hitler_guide/

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