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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 19:38

Ham and Roamie, on the higher level cases you may want to rethink that strategy.

Quite often it is better check PE against Valid alibis rather than Fake alibis.

I was reminded of this recently and started to do some math on it. Not completely sure of when to switch tacks on questioning Valid or Fake yet, but I do know that both are things the top sleuths keep in their tool box.

Sep-4-2006 19:46

True. I've only completed Ridiculously Hard cases thus far. And, granted, I throw this out the window a little bit when on a crucial favor for a hunt—that's when I'm willing to take a chance.

I'm not entirely sure I see what you're getting at, though, Anstett. As I understand the game (and I'm still very much a novice compared to many of you), if a suspect has a valid alibi, they absolutely cannot be guilty. That's my understanding. Maybe someone wants to correct me on this?

My no-foiled-alibi, no-accuse strategy has certainly increased the number of cases I've quit, without question. It's also dropped me down to zero on FA's whenever I follow it, however, and that's more important to me. And I still do solve the majority of my cases, so I'm happy. As for what lies beyond Ridiculously Hard, and how strategies will have to change, I cannot say.

I'll find out when I get there.

Sep-4-2006 20:05

You are correct in that the PE against a suspect with a Valid alibi does not make him guilty.

But if you have 4 PE, and you can place 3 of them against Valid Alibis, then you have narrowed down who can be guilty.

Take careful notes, pay attention to how many questions you would have to ask to compare all the PE against your False/No Alibi then against the Valids.

No one wants a FA, I happen to be a little more stingy with quits than most. Solving as many of your cases as you can should be the goal for everyone.

Guessing is bad.

Sep-4-2006 20:13

Yes, you can eliminate lots of suspects instead of just one by matching people who are definitely innocent with a particular piece of evidence.

Lets say you have a female thread and a male thread, a curly hair and a slim footprint. You find three suspects who are innocent and match them with the threads and the curly hair.

The only suspects who can possibly be guilty at this point are suspects with no alibi AND slim footprint. You can eliminate all suspects with heavy footprints which will narrow down your suspects by a couple every single time.

Thanks to Lincooglerlinda for training me to do cases this way. It makes the higher level cases, especially AI cases, much easier to work from the definitely innocent side than the possibly guilty side.

Hope this helps :>

Sep-4-2006 20:31

Al has explained this to me several times and I'm still not sure I completely follow the line of thought....what if you eliminate PE and its the guilty one? aren't you wasting questions that way?

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.