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#1: David Bouldin (dbouldin) on Jun 18, 2024 [HINT]

Line and color to 88%. All red except a little in the top left. All green. Guess there's not really a reason to struggle through with just LL and color since red appears to be unsolvable without it. Switching to moderate :)

David, I'm not sure I understand most of the solve terminology, and I'm not sure how to gauge how hard my puzzles are --- I always check until I know it has a unique solution, but as for making it hard or easy, I'm not sure how to finesse that. Plus my aesthetic is towards aiming for accuracy....I didn't try to county symbol because it is very detailed and squishy (but beautiful nonetheless). I finally tried to tackle it today because we're having an election today, but it's not very busy (not even 100 voters yet in my precinct and we've been here nearly 12 hours). I was intending to encourage people to take a look at the seal to see all the details I had to leave out .... https://www.loudoun.gov/232/County-Seal

I'm at 97% and cannot currently see a way forward without enough lookahead that I would call it trial and error (guessing). Trying a lot of EL + 2-way logic (with the 2 in r16) but I'm not seeing something at the moment.

I needed 2-way logic in a few spots (mainly with the black bits in the shield) but it did solve logically without having to look too far ahead.

Emimonster - try 2-way with the 2 in R12 and see if that helps. That got me a few squares including the 2 in R16.

Initial line & color logic solves 88% with red and black remaining.

C1: The red in R14C2 is going to complete either the 5 in C1 or the 5 in C3. This makes the red in R6C1 either the top of the 5 or the bottom of the 4, so R3-4 C1 can be marked red. LL.

C6: Whether R1 or R5 is red, R1C5 will be red. LL finishes the red.

C9: Whether R8 or R10 is black, R8C10 will be white.
C10: Whether R10 or R11 is black, C12-15 and C17-18 will be marked white in that row. This puts the black 2 in C13 within R8-10 and R9C13 can be marked black. LL.

R10: If C15 or C17-18 are black, C10 is invalid.

R12: The black 2 must be placed in either C14-15 or C17-18. If it is in C14-15, the black 1 would need to be placed in C12, which would put black in R9C14. This would make C14 invalid, so the black 2 must go into R12 C17-18. LL.

R30: Whether the black 2 is in C16-17 or C19-20, it places black in R29, so R29 can be marked white in C17, C20, and C21. LL.

R24: EL places black in C10. LL.

R24: If C11 is black, R19C13 and R22C13 would both be black, which is invalid.

LL to finish.

Found to be solvable with moderate lookahead by wombatilim.

similar solve to wombat. i wasn't trying to suggest that there was anything wrong with advanced/lookahead solves earlier. we need a variety of difficulty levels, so advanced/lookahead solves are a good thing! especially for the sake of accuracy in intricate or established images. thanks for the puzzle!

Great image and a difficult but enjoyable solve.

I would like to understand better what all of these terms mean. I can't think of a particular instance when I wanted to make the puzzle easier, but I know it's happened ... Thanks for the comments. I hope I will get back to my daily special celebrations endeavor, but the weird thing has been that I usually get started in the spring, then sometimes in the summer, my phone goes all wonky and I have to quit creating puzzles, which I never mean to be a long-term hiatus!

I had to use "all the ermines are going the same way" logic, to make it to the end.

Line and color [logic alone got me] to 88%. [At that point I had] All red except a little in the top left. [Also had] All green. Guess there's not really a reason to struggle through with just LL [("line logic")] and color [logic alone] since red [where it is independent of influence from black] appears to be unsolvable without it [("it" meaning lookahead/advanced logic)]. Switching to [advanced logic that will use] moderate [lookahead] :)

...I generally like to use line & color logic for as far as it will go so that I can mark it as only needing those if that's the case. So, for me, switching to advanced logic that requires moderate lookahead is a bit of a solve milestone. Similarly, I try not to use deep lookahead until I'm fairly certain it is needed. Not everybody cares about these distinctions and will use whatever they find in any order they see them, but I like setting the status of solvability confident that I'm being accurate about the logic needed...even though I'm not always right :)

Ok I used 2way on the 2 in R16 to determine that either way the 1 in R11 had to be either in C15 or C17, which gave me LL to finish.
This seems like less lookahead that wombat's I believe.

Brash - You were asking about terminology.

In the FAQ, which is here:
https://webpbn.com/faq.html
there is a section called "What are the abbreviations that people use when they talk about the puzzles?" that is helpful.

Also there is a FAQ page called "Advanced Puzzle Solving Techniques" that describes smile logic, edge logic, color logic, two-way logic, summing, etc. It's here:
https://webpbn.com/solving.html

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