The civilian opening playbook: your first 3 minutes

Civilian teams don't lose to Michael's mechanics — they lose the opening. While he's stalking NPCs for meter, the map is nearly safe, and the team that spends those minutes on the right jobs wins nights before they get dangerous. The corrected playbook, with the mechanics that actually govern it:

Minute one: the proximity sweep

Getting physically close to an NPC permanently unlocks them on your minimap for the rest of the match. That one rule makes the opening sweep the highest-value walk in the game: jog the block, brush past every resident, and your whole endgame gains eyes. Yellow-highlighted buildings hold Special Targets; blue glow marks regular residents. Warn and recruit as you go — you must talk to a resident (and pass the dialogue check — press both buttons on the prompts; see skill checks) before you can command them: Follow / Hide / Call the police / Escape.

Minute two: the police, delegated properly

The call matters — and who makes it matters more. Personality governs call speed, so a low-Personality hero phoning the police is a net waste of the match. Delegate: an NPC (the Call-the-police command is reliable), a high-Personality teammate, or skip the phone entirely — a flare gun fired skyward fills a badge instantly (the trick).

Meanwhile, lights on and doors handled as you sweep — the full system is lights, doors & noise, including why door-locking is a genuine trade-off rather than a rule.

Minute three: the three-job split

1. 01

   Escort — recruits and moves gold targets (max two followers, and run — NPCs follow better when you run; creeping leaves them behind). Best awareness/Personality hero takes it; Alexis was built for it.

2. 02

   Loot — fills the three slots against a chosen escape chain, checking relic spots en route. Ping finds (hold L1/LB) for the team.

3. 03

   Prep — works the route itself: boards, fuse, repairs. High Resourcefulness lives here.

The fourth player floats — usually shadowing the escort once Michael starts hunting people instead of meter.

What not to do

• Don't double-loot a house; coverage beats company early.
• Don't fight a fresh Michael — even winning feeds the clock, and hitting him mid-animation literally does nothing.
• Don't escape early. The ideal civilian is the last one out — leaving removes your hands from the match and abandons the residents you're scored on.
• Don't hand weapons to nobody: spare weapons go to NPCs (R), and a perk makes armed residents genuinely dangerous.