Q23

[rmolina8]

Very confused by “three sub zones in all” part. I took it to mean each section as 1 R but then remembered the first rule

[ohthatpatrick]

Yeah, understanding the setup of this game is historically challenging.

Zones = our columns (1, 2, 3)
Subzones = our elements (H, I, R)

When it says, "by city regulation, a total of no more than three subzones can be designated for each of the three uses",
we hear "I can use at most 3 H's, at most 3 I's, at most 3 R's".

So the stem in Q23 is saying "in this scenario, you have to use 3 R's", but nothing in the language of "three subzones in all are designated for retail" forces us to put one R in each zone.

We're not allowed to ever put R's in zone 1, as you said, so we'll have to allocate our 3 R's into zones 2 and 3.

Since there's an H in zone 2 on this question, the 3rd rule tells us that we'd only be able to use at most ONE of our 3 R's in zone 2.

So ... 3 R's to spend,
none can go in zone 1,
at most one can go in zone 2,
so at least two go in zone 3.

Knowing this, we can easily eliminate (C) and (D).

The other ones deal with H and I.
Since there's an H in zone 2, there CANNOT be any I's in zone 2.
Thus, (B) must be wrong. If there are zero I's in zone 2, then there can't be MORE I's there than somewhere else. (Zero can't be MORE than some other number)

Down to (A) and (E).

(A) seems possible if we do
HH | H | RRR, I

(E) is actually ruled out by our earlier inference, in a sneaky way.
We previously inferred that, since there's an H in zone 2,
there's at most one R in zone 2,
and at least two R's in zone 3

That means we can't put an H in zone 3, because then we'd have
at most one R in zone 2,
and at most one R in zone 3
(no way to spend our 3 R's)