A Bottle of Blood

In my quest for the aforementioned bottle, I find myself grinding out broken giant from the velocity de squad to up convert. My basic goal is to get my bottle before de gustibus arrives and was hoping from some advice from our more seasoned veterans, being a relatively fresh POSI myself. Any advice helps.

And of course, Merry Neathmas from Atticus!

I believe that grinding Absinthe via AotB is slightly ahead of Velocipede Squad, if your shadowy is high. You need to spend more actions converting, but AotB is more profitable even if you’re not taking candles.

The other way to accelerate the grind is to visit the Nadir every week and try to find The End of Battles. You can trade 3 sudden insights for an Airag, which saves you a bit of grinding and a draw of the Portly Sommelier card.

Finally, if you don’t need your Taste of Lacre for anything else, you can also trade 7 points of it to directly get a Tear of the Bazaar in the Nadir with the Catalfaqerie card. That saves a bunch of grinding and card draws.

The big limiter is probably going to be Presumptuous Opportunity draws. You can grind up lower wines and convert them to cellars of wine all you want, but you still need the Portly Sommelier for Cellars->Airag->Tears->Blood. Getting Airag directly (or Tears with Lacre) can save you some draws, and if your BDR is good enough to make Notability 7 relatively painless to achieve, you can grab Favorable Circumstances to force a draw and keep things moving. Just remember that you’ll also need Notability for the final conversion to blood.

Depending on your watchful level, you can also get a bottle of fourth city airag as an occasional reward from expeditions to the Shrine of the Deep Blue haven in the forgotten quarter. I typically get one out of every four or five tries. So far this has been my favorite method of gaining them as I dislike grinding for a single specific item. (I too am saving them up for a bottle of Master’s blood)
edited by Koenig on 12/1/2015

Good advice, all! Right now I’m sitting on:
1 favorable circumstance
1 bottle of tears
3 airags
23 cellars
A handful of bottles of giant

So hopefully I can draw the airags a few times in the Nadir. I doubt I’ll be getting tears directly though, as I am aiming for the Beth suite, remote lodging, and a cheap Noman (for the elemental secret, not the February grind)

[quote=Koenig]Depending on your watchful level, you can also get a bottle of fourth city airag as an occasional reward from expeditions to the Shrine of the Deep Blue haven in the forgotten quarter. I typically get one out of every four or five tries. So far this has been my favorite method of gaining them as I dislike grinding for a single specific item. (I too am saving them up for a bottle of Master’s blood)
edited by Koenig on 12/1/2015[/quote]
The actual number is 21 in 160, i believe- closer to 1-in-8 than 1-in-5. it’s still pretty viable, though. If you’re fine with spending money like water, you can do one expedition every 20 actions, at 152.381 actions per airaing. This sounds horrible, but it means between 3 and 5 a week, if that’s the main thing you work on and you have average luck.
(4 to buy strong-backed labor, 4 to use it for supplies, 12 to do the expedition if you don’t have the stats to constantly play the 3-supplies to 3-progress option. if you do, it’s 9 actions to the expedition, and 17 in total per try. which means a mere 129.53 actions on average per airaing.)

I think it’s much more efficient to use Connected: Docks for supplies. My quick estimate gives 5 actions for 3 supplies without any outside supply of items: 1.5 to get glim through Unfinished Business in Spite, three actions to turn it to Connected via the Tankard, 0.5 actions to get 50 rostygold (the five-action Watchmaker’s Hill UB option averages 500), and finally one action to spend the rostygold and connected for supplies.

In EPA yes, but not in actions per expedition.

With an average of 53 and a third actions per expedition for your method, as opposed to 20 per expedition. paying through the nose makes the expeditions 8/3 (~2.66666…) times as fast as doing it the economical way, (assuming 100% 2-action success, at least. the difference gets bigger when it’s 50 and 17, and smaller when it’s 61 and 28 [single supplu]) though those require overgoat and destiny and profession.) which means he’ll need 406.35 actions per airaing.

note that even this is not a negative average EPA, merely one that is very close to zero. (roughly, rounded down slightly, 8 pence per action, if the wiki is to be believed, and if you value the horsehead amulet at the 2 echoes it sells for, rather than the 8 points wounds it removes.) If you’re in a hurry to get airaing though, it’s the only repeatable airiang grind besides notability looping, which i’m sure is even slower or more expensive- (note how you still have roughly the same net worth at the end of the loop as at the begining. It also ignores the ~5.5 venom rubies for the wooden mask and the watchful-check ostentatious diamond for .5 echoes on the primeval hint. so it’s probably actually .08 epa rounded down very slightly.)

I assumed anyone who’s considering expeditions knows the most effective ways are that and the whispered secrets if you already have them- but if you’re in a rush, and he’s only got 2 months, this way is fastest.

(opps, i missed that you only need 35 to get master’s blood. sorry.)

Besides using lacre, ofc.
edited by Grenem on 12/1/2015
edited by Grenem on 12/1/2015

It’s worth mentioning you can only use the tankard between connected 10-20 - if you’ve at least 2 wounds you can use Take a Break from Dueling to up your connection for free to 10. Having tested it, it’s not as efficient as the Tankard when that’s usable though.

I don’t know the specific odds, but the Gallery of Serpents fairly frequently gives bottles of Tears, and I think it also occasionally gives Airag.

From the christmas in the neath thread, page 1.

Hmm. Perhaps I don’t need another remote lodging this year. I already have the Marsh House. So if I were to get the Suite at the Beth, and the Noman at his cheapest (with intent to gain an elemental secret) how would I best go about gathering my Lacre? Might I then be able to use spare taste on tears in the Nadir?

any option gives you a bucket of so-called snow, except the fate one.

If you do not buy any, you should get 5 this season, plus the days of Mr. sacks. if you have SOTC 10, you should be able to get 3 points TOL per bucket up to 6, then use sacks for #7, Then cash in at nadir and repeat.

If you use the last 2 buckets optimally, and reach your 7-8’s by sacksmas cards, you should be able to get 1 vial of tears.

Assuming optimal choices- unlikely, if you don’t use the wiki but likely if you do: Mr. sacks should give 4 points and 2 bucket, which means the optimal route is probably as follows, assuming you aren’t going to trade night-whispers and storm-threnodies for lacre:
1.
Grab the bucket each week, every week, including the one from the advent calendar. this will give you 5 buckets.
2.
Use 2 buckets for 6 ToL (if you’re buying buckets in large quantities, using 3 for 7 is more viable, but given your limitations… 6 ToL it is.)

Use a days of mr. sacks, or an advent calendar card to reach TOL 7. (this order can be swapped.)

immidiately after you draw that card, Cash in at nadir- hopefully, you can draw the needed card on the first try. if not, chance a second try. If that fails as well, this might not be viable- doing this will delay the noman, after all- and Mr. sacks day 2 doesn’t show up until Dec. 26th. Whether you suceed or fail, don’t hold onto your current state when the 12th day has been released.

Cash in. reach ToL 6 again from buckets, then keep doing Mr. sacks. until you unlock the wicket. you should have one bucket left, and with optimal choices, no less than ToL 8, possibly ToL 9 or ToL 10.

Buy the lodgings of choice in the wicket-gate.

Leave wicket gate

Use bucket of lacre for +3

Buy the noman in the wicket-gate.

if you have more buckets, use them to reach ToL 7 and cash in again. If you have ToL 1 or 2, you can reach tears level with 2 buckets, if you have ToL0 you’ll need 3, but you can use the 1-ToL action in the wicket, to go to 5, then use another bucket, so as to get 8, rather than 7, ToL out of it.

Remember to cash in all buckets by Feb 1st- though de gustibus shows up on the 30th-31st if we follow last year’s schedule.

You should, ideally, get 1-2 Tears out of this, though if you pay the urchin’s prices you might get 3 or more.

If it comes down to the wire on your last bucket- if you’re close to 7, but not close enough, you can gamble with tears. 20% of the time, the tears will be lost, though, so i’d only do it if you’re within 2 points- so that at worst, you break even.

Here’s a listing of the options in sacksmas for lacre:

[quote=Rupho Schartenhauer]
Day 2: The day with the most options: for ToL +1 you can give him Greyfields First Sporing, or play on your Violin (the latter needs Connected: The Masters 2). If you have neither, &quotTake my good name&quot is another option (requires Connected: Bohemians 20, Society 20, GreatGame 20, Masters 1, Notability 1). Or you can give him a Touching Love Story (caps at ToL 5)
Day 4: Today you &quotonly&quot have to decide whether you’ll want to spend Fate!
Day 5: Align yourself with the Celestial school of poetry at the Singing Mandrake and &quotGive Him Your Dream of Skies Untainted&quot for ToL +1
Day 8: Invite the man in whether you know him already or not, and receive ToL +1 for the cost of a single bottle of Greyfields 1882.
Day 9: &quotAccept his Heart and Lights&quot will get you a Pail of Lacre!
Day 11: Now’s the time to be a Doctor or Notary as only they will receive a further ToL +1.
Day 12: &quotTake Advantage of the Situation&quot will get you ToL +1 and a Pail of Lacre! Note that this is a rather heartless choice that some role-playing characters might feel uncomfortable with.

edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 11/9/2015[/quote]
edited by Grenem on 12/1/2015
edited by Grenem on 12/1/2015

Thanks so ever much to all of you. Ok. I think I have my orders.

I’m gonna hope for Nadir luck with airag, and grind out an expedition or two for tears. Pairing that with the detailed instructions for Christmas I should get 2 tears from the catalfalquerie. It’ll be tight and depend on my draw luck. But it’s doable. If it gets embarrassingly close I’ll drop a little fate for my last presumptuous opportunity draw. THE CRIMSON BOOK SHALL BE MINE.

I’d go with the boozer early on, due to the bonus constable rep gain, and then anything you like. Except the hard case! He only gives 1 cp instead of the 2 offered elsewhere.

And I thiiink that the funeral gives the highest reward, but only slightly. If you’re here for the wines then it’s the riots in watchmaker’s hill. I imagine you already know that, but shrug
edited by Schmidt on 12/2/2015