<ul>
<li>Obviously, if you are a digger and someone is continuously destroying your
tools, you might expect them to be a saboteur.</li>
<li>A less obvious
way is to detect who are diggers and use deduction. You know ahead
how many saboteurs there can be in your game so if you can eliminate
some players the chances for others to be saboteurs are getting
higher.  </li>
<li>Look at who is an obvious digger, and look at who is
destroying their tools, or blocking their paths. Obvious diggers are
easily targeted by saboteurs, so that is another way to spot a
saboteur. </li>
<li>You could argue that in the end the best saboteurs are those that remain hidden
for a long time, but this could also be a weakness, if you are a
digger and you find it hard to detect whether a player is a digger or
a saboteur, maybe they are playing hard to read because they have
something to hide. Arguably diggers have no advantage having their identity hidden so a player who is hard to read is more likely to be a saboteur.</li>
</ul>

<p>And if you still don't know, just call them a "saboteur" and see what the general reaction is. :-)</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-11-16T21:58:17.860Z
2012-11-16T21:58:17.860Z
Bazzz
<p>Another way not mentioned by @Bazzz is to keep an eye out for when people make rockfall spots.
As a Saboteur, it's useful to place paths in a way which you can claim to be good for the diggers, but with the real reason being that with a correctly timed and placed rockfall, the gap is harder to fill. Call out people who create these spots and encourage actual diggers not to do this.</p>

<p>This is something new players often have trouble grasping.</p>

<p>This flowchart is how a computer AI would decide(from <a href="http://www.ai.rug.nl/mas/finishedprojects/2012/saboteurs/eric.svcover.nl/MAS2012/index.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>), but is pretty useless  to humans. I'm just putting it here because I thought it was kind of cool: <img src="https://i.sstatic.net/nEtRG.png" alt="enter image description here"> </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-03T11:01:38.170Z
2014-02-03T13:39:47.280Z
2014-02-03T13:39:47.280Z
Conor Pender
<p>What are some general clues that indicate if someone is playing the role of saboteur? Obviously if player is going to put a troublesome dead end on the only path he's a saboteur. But some players are more subtle, and they come out of cover late in the game. How can I spot a saboteur early on in the game?</p>

<saboteur>
How to tell if someone is saboteur?
beam022
# How to tell if someone is saboteur?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2012-11-13)

What are some general clues that indicate if someone is playing the role of saboteur? Obviously if player is going to put a troublesome dead end on the only path he's a saboteur. But some players are more subtle, and they come out of cover late in the game. How can I spot a saboteur early on in the game?

**Tags:** saboteur


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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2012-11-16. Score: 3

* Obviously, if you are a digger and someone is continuously destroying your
  tools, you might expect them to be a saboteur.
* A less obvious
  way is to detect who are diggers and use deduction. You know ahead
  how many saboteurs there can be in your game so if you can eliminate
  some players the chances for others to be saboteurs are getting
  higher.
* Look at who is an obvious digger, and look at who is
  destroying their tools, or blocking their paths. Obvious diggers are
  easily targeted by saboteurs, so that is another way to spot a
  saboteur.
* You could argue that in the end the best saboteurs are those that remain hidden
  for a long time, but this could also be a weakness, if you are a
  digger and you find it hard to detect whether a player is a digger or
  a saboteur, maybe they are playing hard to read because they have
  something to hide. Arguably diggers have no advantage having their identity hidden so a player who is hard to read is more likely to be a saboteur.

And if you still don't know, just call them a "saboteur" and see what the general reaction is. :-)


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### Answer by username_2 on 2014-02-03. Score: 3

Another way not mentioned by @username_1 is to keep an eye out for when people make rockfall spots.
As a Saboteur, it's useful to place paths in a way which you can claim to be good for the diggers, but with the real reason being that with a correctly timed and placed rockfall, the gap is harder to fill. Call out people who create these spots and encourage actual diggers not to do this.

This is something new players often have trouble grasping.

This flowchart is how a computer AI would decide(from [here](http://www.ai.rug.nl/mas/finishedprojects/2012/saboteurs/eric.svcover.nl/MAS2012/index.html)), but is pretty useless to humans. I'm just putting it here because I thought it was kind of cool: ![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/nEtRG.png)


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