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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 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.

Sep-5-2006 07:26

To answer Crunch Patty and Roamie, the matching the innocent strategy works well even if you have multiples or even 3 of the same types of evidence. Just match innocent suspects to the evidence but don't blow the questions by confirming it.

In those cases the key is eliminating the non-same type of evidence. Such that if you have say 3 straight hairs and a heavy foot - work to eliminate the heavy foot and then you know your guilty person MUST have a straight hair.

If you have two straight hairs, a curly hair, and a heavy foot - again work to eliminate the curly hair and the footprint.

In those cases only ask the barber about innocent suspects with curly hair. IF you go through your 3-4 innocent suspects and you eliminate all of them and none have curly hair then your guilty suspect MUST be one with curly hair if you have also successfully eliminated the footprint.

Now you have just eliminated all suspects with straight hair and don't have to worry about them anymore.

I have successfully solved 14 out of my last 15 AI cases using this method, and my 1 quit I had only 2 suspects left but couldn't get W.E. to confirm which one was the guilty, so I quit.

It does take a slower, more deliberate use of questions to do it this way. Sometimes it takes me as long as 20 minutes or half an hour to solve a single case. But it works :>

Save questions, eliminate the evidence that is not multiplied and chances are good you will win the case.

Sep-5-2006 07:27

Serges is correct about having a good count. It helps a lot if you have only 3 valid alibis and 3 extra pieces of evidence. Even when you have too many valid alibis (either because that is how it worked out or because you somehow only got 3 pieces of evidence), you may get lucky and have the innocents share certain traits and not others so that you know which piece goes where. See my example above.

Sep-5-2006 07:29

My favourites are definitely the ones with 4 pieces of evidence and 3 suspects with real alibis :)