Quoted from Adios:I had a good game last of the night yesterday. My son and I had a debate about it this morning on the way taking him to school. I'm on ball 3 just finished my second sparky multiball. I have snake and graveyard multiball lit to start plus crank it up. I choose crank it up make it half way through the mode and drain. Game over, he said I should of went for the mutliballs and not crank it up. What would have you done? I was trying for the big points, or should I have played it safe and just went for the multi? Damn, I love this game so many ways to attack it.
Typically in this situation, I would have started CIU, focused the 4 feature shots to light the CIU jackpot (and naturally made other shots by mistake) during the ball saver, and then make shots until you roll into the scoop to collect the (possibly small) jackpot and exit CIU. Then you are one shot to get into a multiball, and I would immediately bash the hell out of the coffin to get that MB ready as well, while also making progress to the next CIU.
While there are many more points in CIU, unless you are confident in your single ball shooting ability under pressure, the risk (on ball 3) is very high once that ball save turns off, so I will tend to exit the mode at the first chance on my final ball. My exception is if you had Fade to Black available and you're on a premium. The mode is quite forgiving (switch hits) and if you can dial in on the orbit shots the return to the flipper is usually safe-ish
But as a general rule, if I have a multiball ready, I will light the CIU jackpot asap and collect it.