I have a question about "Digging deeper" in "Conspiracy" section.

Text doesn't mention spending time when you "digg deeper", but the example in the bottom of the page (p. 25) says "In the diagram below, Louis spends 1 Time to dig deeper...". Or this applies to spending time to follow the leads.

Thanks for your answers.

alex monk said:

Yes you do spend time to move your hero marker to the next most valuable conspiracy pile.
It would cost you 1 time to take a shift piece (the default starting place for all hero markers); an addition time for take a favor piece (2 time total) and yet another time to take a baggage piece (3 time).
So you can see more valuable conspiracy pieces do cost more to obtain.
This is why the rules say it is sometimes better to wait for the shift pieces to get used up so that you start at the next highest pile of pieces.

And each time you take a conspiracy piece you must move your hero marker back one step to the next least valuable conspiracy pile.

I completely understand why you asked this question. The rules are pretty good but they're not prefect.

Thanks!

But i'm not agree with you in some points.

And each time you take a conspiracy piece you must move your hero marker back one step to the next least valuable conspiracy pile. "The player moves his own hero marker so that it is next to the least valuable pile with puzzle pieces remaining in it" - in the section "revealing infromation". And in "digging deeper" - "Since a player's hero marker resets to the least valuable pile of puzzle pieces every time he reveals information, this effectively makes a favor piece cost the amount of effort as placing two shift pieces at the start of the game..."

As i understand - "cost the amount of effort" - this means that you need 3 "follow the lead" to go to baggage puzzles (2 leads) and 1 lead to reveal puzzle. After that player goes to shift puzzles.

So when you follows the lead you can reveal puzzle (and go to the most left pile) or go right by 1 step. But! Do you need to pay additional time (after 1 time for "follow the lead") to digging deeper. I think not - digging deeper would be very expensive.

Thanks for your answer!

Yeah, you got it. The only time expended when digging deeper is the 1 time it took to follow up that lead. The example in the rulebook could have been worded better.

Thanks to everyone!

alex monk said:

I'm sorry if I miss-understood your question. And you're right. No, you do not need to pay an additional time to 'follow up the lead' after digging deeper.
You already paid your time for that.

As for digging deeper. You pay 1 time each time you wish to move your hero mark up to the next highest valued conspiracy piece.
So if your marker is at the shift piece it will cost 1 time to dig deeper to move to the favor pile and another time to dig deeper again to the baggage pile.

My post above was wrong about that. You will never have to pay a time to dig deeper on the shift pile because this is where your hero marker always starts (when the shift pile is not depleted).

Sorry about that!

1 time to 'follow up a lead' which means you can take a shift puzzle piece (or whatever is the lowest remaining piece type).
or 1 extra time to 'dig deeper and take a favor puzzle piece (assuming there are still shift pieces left).
or 2 extra time to 'dig deeper' twice and take a baggage piece (assuming there are still shift and favor pieces left).