A Simple Guide To Fallen London for the confused?

Fallen London
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Hello.

Now before I begin, I understand this may be a little controversial, and should it break any rules I apologize. Also, I ask for kindness and respect on the matter since I am also pointing out something about myself here.

Now, the first thing you need to know about me is that sometimes, for various reasons I will not go into here, I can get confused at some things that may seem simple to others and may well be simple. For example, I have seen some money making tips like this one on another thread I made:

[color=rgb(194, 194, 194)][quote]Hmm. For a new player, spamming social action seems to be good: a certain action gives you about 1.2 echo on average. For an advanced player, I know you could do the carousel for a collection of curiosity, sell them for 5 maps on the faction card, and sell the maps - 1.4 per action. But I have not visited the unterzee yet, so I don’t know much.[/quote][/color]
[color=rgb(194, 194, 194)]
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[color=#c2c2c2]Now, to many who are familiar with the game, this seems simple enough. But to [/color]ME [color=#c2c2c2]personally, this can be confusing. What is the action that gives 1.2 Echoes? What is the carousel? What faction card does he refer to? Are we talking about partial maps, map scraps, what? And what the heck is a Untarzee? is that a sort of unknown monkey? (Okay, that last one about the Untarzee was a joke. [/color]:) )

I know there is a advice for new players thread, but again aside from some parts of the first post it can be somewhat obscure.

My point is, a lot of tips can confuse new players or people that for some reason or other lack understanding, and I was wondering if it could be possible to make a sort of, for want of a better term (SPOILER AND FATE LOCKED CONTENT FREE) Idiot’s Guide To Fallen London for both beginner, intermediate and end game players, and for those who may be interested but for some reason do not quite understand what people are saying, the exchange rate math, what fate content is good without spoiling it, and anything else that is worthy of note while at the same time making sure to not spoil the secrets of the neath.
edited by Kylestien on 10/8/2014

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I have been working on a beginner’s guide to Fallen London… but it’s a guide to the setting and basic lore, rather than gameplay and mechanics. Not quite the same thing!

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[quote=Kylestien]Now, to many who are familiar with the game, this seems simple enough.[/quote]No, that was pretty confusing to me as well. I’m not aware of any social actions that pay out resources. There are recruitment actions for sending messages to ‘the Surface’ to get new players to join the game, and some of those pay out resources, so maybe it’s one of those?

As for the Collections of Curiosities, that’s an option for Persons of Some Importance who are Fighting a War with Assassins. That requires eleven Actions three times, then an Action to get the Collection of Curiosities (when your enemy is a former lover) and then you can trade it on Bandages and Dust: the Tomb-Colonies for five Puzzling Maps, which are worth 62.5 Echoes. But 62.5 Echoes in 35 Actions is 1.7857 Echoes/Action, not 1.4 Echoes/Action. So even though I knew what was being referred, that still didn’t make much sense. Unless that person accounted for failing the skill checks during the war of assassins, in which case it will take longer to get a Collection of Curiosities.

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It’s a difficult one really. Someone who has only just started playing the game would no doubt find a lot of the stuff on this forum confusing.

Honestly, I think a lot of the Fallen London vocab and basic understanding of things like carousels, factions etc. is picked up simply by playing the game.

Of course if there are particular things you don’t understand, the forums are one of a few resources available (there’s also the Wiki, which while it doesn’t contain a beginner’s guide, is still useful: http://fallenlondon.wikia.com/wiki/Echo_Bazaar_Wiki

To answer a specific question - the Unterzee is the “Under-Sea”, the sea inside the Neath in which London sits. Once your character advances you’ll be able to discover the Wolfstack Docks, and later build your own ship (or Zubmarine) and set sail!

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Actually there is a beginner’s guide on the wiki - http://fallenlondon.wikia.com/wiki/Beginner’s_Guide it does give some good advice.

To be honest I am not sure which social action is open to spamming.

A carousel is a repeatable story you have to play through to get a final reward examples are the Velocipede Squad or the Boxful of Intrigue. The carousel for collections of curiosities is fighting the war of assassins, which is a story that appears when you become a POSI at the end you can trade the cabinet of curiosities to the Tomb Colonists for a profit.

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Oh, I must apologize, I wrote that in a hurry.

The social action is actually an invitation: you can find it in your lodging:

Invite a friend to join you in something potentially dangerous.

All this blood has got you thinking about death.

It pays 50 surface currency on luck success, 20 on fail. Each currency can be sold for 0.03 echo. You’ll have to put in an email address by hand, though; so not really a good way to &quotspam&quot.

As for the carousel, Mr Gillsing has explained, and I seemed to have made a mistake, I thought it requires 44 actions.
edited by zbr308 on 10/8/2014

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As a complete beginner, I found the first day in the Neath very daunting. But then I should, shouldn’t I?
From a lore / RP perspective. I have no idea what I’m doing, what I’m seeing, where I’m going. There are strange rubbery men, clay men, devils and mushroom wine. The initial fear of jumping into the unknown was almost overwhelming. However, after a few tentative steps, some of which hurt a little, I believe I’m on slightly firmer, albeit slimy, ground.
Part of me is glad I didn’t know about the wiki guide until now, that I found some things out purely by trial and error.
I’ve never been into the ‘math’ of a game, so when I see things trying to explain how one action costs 1/2 an action point less than the other, I will tend to switch off and go for the one that looks most fun or the one that would be most in character, even if it is, by ‘math’ standards, really stupid.
Maybe later I’ll worry about Change Points and numbers.

All in all, I think what I’m trying to say to other absolute beginners is, don’t fear, it’s good not to know everything. It’s even better not to know anything. Things have a way of falling into place.

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I agree that worrying about the math and which is the optimum way to get so-and-so stats or how many items etc, is not worth it, not in the early stages. If the current content’s still new and you’re still exploring, just enjoy what you’re doing and you’ll learn as you go (and make money). Of course, there will be grinds here and there, at which point knowing item conversions can be very useful.

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Folks around here DO like the cryptic clue without spoiler, over the sledgehammer hint.

I admit to being occasionally frustrated by it.

Of late, not only the example in the first post but…

There was a brief, in passing, and confusing hint about a way to combine a cat and mouse case with mirror marshes in such a way as to pass the case, get into and out of the marshe, and make a prophet…

Now, the wiki says that that even if you pass all the luck checks on the pay options, your going to come out about 10 echoes behind, and spend 10 turns doing cat and mouse.

So any way to actually WIN that game without losing quite so much would be interesting to me, but I just don’t understand the hint.

Also of late I encountered…

The clay man side path, and found it was just written on a whim one day. It got rolled into content “somewhere” and it’s expected that I’ll find it “eventually” though that it can be unlocked at almost any time. I figure I’ll get there, or not, and ask back if I don’t find it.

On the other hand …

I might have already locked myself out of something useful for the late game. Seems that the warning about what happens when you work on two cases at once, is actually a hint that you might WANT to do it on purpose.

See, you are warned that you’ll spend all of “investigation, seduction, ect” if you complete one case, and have to start over on the other.

Turns out that you want to preserve some of these older missions, seductions, and cases that reward faster and better then trying to use the intended ones from latter in the game.

Might already be too late for me to do this though, as I have no clue what ones might be useful.

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Without meaning to offend anyone (and this isn’t specifically aimed at you, Ben) I’d like to offer an opinion:

If you’re very new to the game, and you use these forums or the Wiki to seek out optimal money making/grinding strategies then you’re going to miss out on a lot of really fun stuff that happens to be unprofitable.

Many people start second characters once they’ve become more experienced so that they can revisit the early stories. Don’t worry about making mistakes or not playing in the most Echo-efficient way. This isn’t Grinding London (well, not until much much later in the game, anyway).

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I agree, but for some it can help to have a idea of what to do and how some basic things work. Such a non spoiler guide done right and simple to understand could provide handy tips for the newcomer and point them in a fun direction to help them get the ropes, and the a more advanced section of it could be for those who have progressed further or are looking for money. maybe split it up into looking for Stores and looking for Grinding or something? I don’t know, I’m not a guide maker, I’m usually the poor (Insert word of choice) asking for help. XD