Hi!

We played Android once yet and came about the following issue: if a suspect has only one number-type of evidence in its strong or weak file area are all these tokens removed then at the end of game?

For example: Vinnie has only four +4 evidence tokens in his strong (document lead) file area but no other tokens in that same file. The rules state that all tokens with the lowest number are removed before counting up. Now there is only one kind oft number token (+4) which are the lowest and highest at the same time. Do you have to remove all these +4 tokens then and thus empty the document file area?

I had assumed the rule is there to make strong evidence count for more while weak evidence counts for less. But if I'm forced to remove even the highest evidence tokens from the strong area (or the lowest from the weak) because there are no others then it actually screws the original intention, doesn't it?

Just about Vinnie was the suspect with the most evidence and suddenly he's even less guilty than the other suspect that had only one -3 and one +1 evidence in its strong file. That seems wrong to me. More so because most cards/options allow you to view only one piece of hidden evidence on a suspect during the game. So if really wanted to know if Vinnie will be the guilty suspect and already inspected three of the four +4 evidence tokens (and I know the +5 lies somewhere else and therefore I'm very sure that he will be found guilty at the end) and then at the counting all the evidence is discarded because there wasn't a lesser number token in the strong file that can be quite frustrating...

Thanks for your help!

Yep, doesn't matter what the number is, everything with the lowest number gets discarded from the Strong area, and everything with the highest number gets discarded from the Weak area. A situation like yours is a bit unusual, in that typically you'd expect a couple of low numbers still being added by whoever wants him to be guilty (piling as much evidence on as they can) and some negative numbers from the person who wants him to be innocent, especially since you're confined to putting the evidence in certain places (document leads can only lead to evidence in the document area, etc).

I was a little troubled by the rule as written as well, only because (while not as extreme as yours) our last play saw some weak evidence get removed that were negative numbers, and some strong that were positive. Of course, we also were still working on the rules (and had a time crunch as well as people just getting tired), so we decided about day 2 or 3 that we were only playing one week, so I don't know how often this would actually come up in a full 2 week game.

Thanks for your answer.

The situation was that most of the other players were busy doing something else (following their personal stories etc.) while only one player actually concentrated on following leads. So most of the evidence got placed on one particular suspect and the other ones just got a handful each. Additionally if someone was able draw evidence it often ended up on this one suspect (maybe to counter the already placed tokens with negative markers?)...

I hope I can play the game again soon the check if the issue is really a problem

It's important to take strong and weak evidence into account when you are placing it on your guilty and innocent hunches. Make sure you throw in some high positive and negative pieces of evidence to make sure that when evidence is removed it will affect the numbers in the way that benefits your hunches.

What you described seems like an anomoly. Although unfortunate, it shows how important mixing up the values truly is.