Change of rules suggestion for tie breakers and 2 players

[JCase16]

Ok... lol. I still think you're wrong lol. I'd love to see statistics if they were available for if there is a significant difference in who wins in 2 player PI games.

[Brisbane Roar]

JCase is absolutely right. A lot of top players play psychologically, meaning they try to understand your moves and think from your vantage point, and from that they can make predictions on what cards you’re holding. This actually occurs in every single game. However I still don’t know the best way to balance the game.

[N_Faker]

Being last is better by far. You get more information by what your opponents chose and you have the opportunity to completely deny your opponents any points from the round by solving your case before them.

[donkeykong66]

This has been on my mind for a while and so I decided to crunch some numbers. I reviewed my 2p games, and I managed to review 122 of them before hitting a review limit (I didn't even know this was a thing).

Out of the 122 games, I was first player in 62 of them, resulting in 38 wins and 24 losses. In my 60 games as 2nd player I won 36 times, tied twice, and lost 22 games.

It seems that might actually be little to no difference about whether you are first or second player. The obvious benefit of starting second has been mentioned, but maybe the benefit of going first is easily overlooked: on every board there are usually a couple very good suspect/location/crime cards to pick (usually those in central locations, or crime cards that cut your options in half). The first player has a choice from 9 cards, having easier and quicker access to more of these better cards. After the first move, new cards come in one at a time, and so each player is equally likely to have first shot at the cards that come up later.

[admitted]

Being last has an advantage in this game, especially for players like me that read into each of your actions and assign each options with a probability. This certainly outweighs the advantage of picking better cards as the starter. However, it's a very tedious process to create an variant of a game without publisher's approval.

I don't play enough 2p games. I play mainly 3p games.

[JCase16]

Arena league has removed my caring about this lol. I don't play tournaments anymore and that's where it mattered for me.