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Mar-14-2006 21:36

I think shady is a great idea for controling how well people play. But on the other hand "unsolvable" cases and human error can cause fauls acusations way to easy. I think shady should be changed for this reson. How you ask?

I think the cost should be lowered. I found myself not being able to do any cases for weeks having my agency back me on money till I could pay him off. All because of two cases were evry clue pointed to a certain person but the case said I was wrong. I spent so much money on bribes for those cases just to find out those bribes were worthless.??? Thats not right.

Also I think as your skill level incresis so should the amount of false acusations your alowed.

Fellow Sluethers, what do you think?

Sep-4-2006 20:33

Well there you go I just learnt somethig new!Lately during AV hunts I've quit like 1 in 12 AI cases (depressing that I haven't finished yet huh ;) ) and I've never even contemplated eliminating innocent suspects, but it actually makes a lot of sense! Especially in AI cases whe you consider the ratio of no alibis to real alibis vs 4 pieces of evidence!
Hmmm I'll give that a go when I finish my AV hunt. Check back for a post in 2007 :D

Sep-4-2006 20:35

... by the way I'm liking R Anstett's 'Guessing is Bad' statement on a Sleuth t-shirt :)

Sep-4-2006 22:27

WHAT? Squirrel did you say 1 in 12??? GAWD, I'm at like 1 in 4 or 5!

Yeah, I'm not that good.

This 'innocence' strategy intrigues me...I have a sort of vague sense that it works better if you have a more diverse range of evidence?

Al: say more words.

Sep-4-2006 22:38

biggie528 - The idea is that you know only one piece of evidence can come from the killer. All the rest have to be from suspects with valid alibis. Since you typically only have 3-4 suspects with valid alibis, it is easier to match them to the evidence (takes fewer questions generally). Whatever piece of evidence is left has to be from the killer. Sometimes, you can even figure out which piece of evidence matters because all of your suspects with valid alibis do not have the necessary characteristic.

An example from a case I just did. Through my PE contact and my partner's I knew who had two pieces of evidence. They both had valid alibis. What remained was a straight hair and a thin footprint. The other two people with valid alibis boh had curly hair, so could not have dropped the straight hair. Since there weren't many people with straight hair to begin with, I was able to quickly identify the killer.

As a related matter, using this method I've been able to accuse the correct person even if I could not verify their alibi. Once all the evidence is tied to people, and I know 3 of them have valid alibis, the last person must be the killer regardless of whether I could verify their alibi or not.

Sep-4-2006 22:47

The only caveat I have to offer for the "matching innocence" strategy (which I use somewhat frequently) is to be absolutely certain of your ratios.

In other words, make sure that your number of evidence pieces equals your number of valid alibis, plus one. Otherwise, you have a rogue innocent out there, that matches no evidence whatsoever, potentially wasting questions.

This reply has been deleted by a Moderator

Sep-5-2006 02:19

Anyway, "matching the innocent" has been (and still is) one of my favourite startegies as well from Incredibly and up, but I don't think I've gotten as much out of it on AIs due to the number of fakes and uncooperativeness of the townies - but when it can be used it's great :)

Sep-5-2006 04:42

Thank you TZ, Serges and Greyling :)

Sep-5-2006 05:32

I'm going to give these suggestions a try. Thanks everyone. Any suggestions on what to do when you are away from your equipment locker chasing villains and your charm gear is limited? Alot of times I will have 3 pieces of PE evidence for say the Barber. Two will say Strait Strait and one will just be Hair. So I am having to quit alot of cases. How do you even get started eliminating people when 11 out of 12 people have strait hair?

Sep-5-2006 06:27

Balanced skills of Tough and Charm along with balanced gear. I have found that the low smart skill (one my standard outfit) has not hurt me because I get two or three more questions out of having the added charm/tough.

There are lots of stategies out there to try and possible combinations.