[ Note: I have not played Android yet; but I have purchased the game and read the rules twice.]

I haven't seen this question asked anywhere else, so perhaps the answer is obvious; but I honestly can't imagine what it would be:

What possible motivation is there to visit Lily Lockwell when one could visit Jimmy The Snitch instead?

When visiting Lily, the following happens:

1. The player must spend one time if able (no choice) to speak to Lily.

2. If he does so, the player may pick one piece of evidence on one suspect sheet and turn it face-up.

3. The player is then able to see the value of that one piece of evidence; but so is every other player .

(Note that there is nothing wrong with the Lily mechanic itself; but it seems to be virtually useless when compared to the Jimmy The Snitch option.)

When visiting Jimmy, the following happens:

1. The player may spend one time if able (this is now the player's choice) to speak to Jimmy.

2. If he does so, the player may choose one suspect sheet and look at every piece of evidence it contains.

3. Not only does this give the player much more information than the Lily mechanic; but the evidence remains secret and only the player himself benefits.

4. On top of this, the player also has a whole other option of what to do when visiting Jimmy. Instead of looking at evidence, he may opt to secretly look at one other player's hand of cards.

So in a nutshell, why in the world would a player waste his time with Lily when the vastly superior Jimmy option is available? Unless Lily is much closer to the player's location than Jimmy or, for some reason, the player wants to share the information he gains with his opponents, I can't see any comparative benefit to the Lily option. It seems to be a completely redundant and virtually pointless mechanic as long as Jimmy is in play.

Am I missing something here?

I've often wondered this myself. The only thing that I can think of is that Lily isn't meant to be a benefit to the players - she's meant to be an obstacle. I'm not 100% sure, but I seem to remember that Lily is often positioned in places that the players can't or wouldn't want to avoid (supposedly), such as at the Scene of the Crime or the base of the Beanstalk.

But you're right - she's still pretty much completely redundant.

Yes, I had the same thought yesterday after I posted my question. When comparing the many ways in which Jimmy is superior to Lily, I wondered why they would make visiting Jimmy optional yet force the player to speak to Lily, particularly given how inferior she is. And suddenly it occurred to me that, as you said, perhaps she's intended to be an obstacle to be avoided, and that's why you have no choice but to visit her whether you cross her path.

I suppose this would explain her relatively low value - i.e. she's not supposed to be valuable, rather she's intended to act as a " trap " that forces you to lose 1 time while giving you almost nothing in return.

If so, then I think the problem is that the rules don't present her in this negative light. She's presented, along with Jimmy, as if the two of them are resources the players might wish to seek out. Furthermore, if she did nothing but waste 1 time, then she would obviously be nothing but a "trap". However, she offers help in return (although the benefit of that "help" is, admittedly, questionable), giving the impression that she's a resource and not merely a time-sink. Moreover, after speaking with her, she is moved according to the same rules as a lead - rules which are intended to make it difficult for the player moving a valuable lead to place it too closely to himself. So again, Lily is presented as if she's a resource you should want to be close to so that you can quickly access her.

Overall, though, I'm inclined to agree that Lily is probably supposed to be a "trap" mechanic rather than a resource. She's supposed to be something you avoid if possible and place in the paths of your opponents when you can. But if so, the rules or presentation regarding her should probably have been different in order to make it clear to the reader that this was her intended role in the game. The mere fact that we're having this discussion is proof that her "trap" role (if, indeed, this is her real role) is unclear.

Lily is a trap OK

Most often found in places where you might want to be - but.......... she is a honey trap

Regards

Nhoj

All of you forget that android is a game of bluffing and more also manipulation with other players.

You can use Lily to uncover the high value evidence that other player put on to point that suspect is probably his Guilty hunch.... what will others do with it, is simply their choice... but you have to convince them like this to put there hits, or negative evidence more often then on your suspect...

In other words, Lily isnt just a waste of time... you just have to understand, what the game is about.

Use them in conjunction with one another. If possible, use Jimmy to look at all the evidence. After that, use Lily to overturn one of those evidence tokens now that you know the values. There's no rule that says you have to mix the tokens around after you've used Jimmy to look at them.

One catch, though, is that even if you want to reveal a piece of evidence to the other players, I doubt it will be very informative unless you all remember who it was that placed that particular evidence token. e.g.:

"We all know that JIM placed THIS particular piece of evidence on this suspect. Thus, since this is a +4 token, this suspect is probably Jim's guilty hunch."

However, once the game gets moving, I doubt that many players will be able to recall with confidence which precise tokens were placed by which precise people. There will be several suspects, plenty of tokens, and probably multiple tokens in most evidence folders; making it very challenging to keep the sources of those tokens straight. And, in turn, a revealed piece of evidence will tend to be far less informative.

I'm thinking of house-ruling Lily so that she instead allows the player encountering her to choose one file on any suspect and turn all tokens on that file faceup. Not sure if this would have a useful gameplay effect, but at least her ability would be more significant.

There are plenty of benefits to making the information public aside from trying to reveal a particular person's hunch. If you want the other players to worry that a given suspect is going to be found guilty, you can show everyone that there's an especially strong piece of evidence on them. Get them to do some of your work for you by placing hits or exonerating evidence on that person. Alternatively, lull them into complacency about your guilty hunch by showing them that he/she has, for example, a surprise witness (and hope they don't find out that you've perjuried it until much later). And so on.

OverMatt said:

You are right, but anyway, as one said, evidence is always on same positions, so even if you dont remember who put it there you can turn one or two face up to show everyone there are high numbers.... You can also turn face-up evidence someone put this turn... not hard to remember is it ?

It is not useful to turn face up random evidence.... but no one forces you to use Lily, if you dont have stomach for bluffing. But if you dont bluff, why do you like to play android ?