What am I missing? Baccarat in the House of Chimes pays 3:1 on a 20 pence bet half the time, so it averages 40 pence per play. If I burn twenty actions I’d get an average of 8 echoes. I’m sure as I get further into the game that will be less attractive but in the early game isn’t that pretty good?
[quote=Lt. Tapper]What am I missing? Baccarat in the House of Chimes pays 3:1 on a 20 pence bet half the time, so it averages 40 pence per play. If I burn twenty actions I’d get an average of 8 echoes. I’m sure as I get further into the game that will be less attractive but in the early game isn’t that pretty good?[/quote] Currently the "Draft a brief article" option under the "Celebrate the Feast" story pays out 50 pence on the action without any chance involved.
But your assumption is correct: the endgame goal has recently jumped above 210 pence per action, and even with stats at 100 you’ll want to get around 100 pence per action. Early in the game, levelling up your stats and playing through the "Making Your Name" stories will be much more valuable in the long-run.
It’s only in the very, very early game that you can’t regularly outdo 40 pence per action. And even then, it’s usually better to do something that raises your stats so you get closer to being able to do better than 40 pence per action.
You may also check out "Celebrate the Feast" -> "Visit the Perfumed Pleasure Garden!" -> "The Wheel of Affection"
Luck challenge, (1E * 80%) + (0.2E * 20%) = 0.84 EPA at the price of 1 Carnival Ticket. An easy way to grind Romantic Notions, as well.
edited by Mr Coltrane on 2/10/2019
Of course, during the Feast you can simply Watch passers-by to get 0.4 Echoes in Inklings of Identity (or 0.8 Echoes in case of a rare success).
What are considered the best readily repeatable money grinds these days, anyway? Discounting all that business about optimizing your deck and minimizing the amount of discardable cards.
What are considered the best readily repeatable money grinds these days, anyway? Discounting all that business about optimizing your deck and minimizing the amount of discardable cards.[/quote]Expeditions to the Tomb of the Silken Thread funded with Strong-Backed Labour have a simulated EPA of ~2.27. This value can be significantly increased when complemented with Favours from the Docks for expedition supplies.
The orphan grind at the Court of the Wakeful Eye approaches 2.22 EPA as the number of orphans increases to minimize the cost of zailing. This entails investing in Winsome Dispossessed Orphans, which are then delivered to the Tiger Keeper for Tribute that is collected at the Court and sold to buy more children.
In my opinion, both are more properly reflective of the Victorian aesthetic than the Affair of the Box ever was. One makes a profit by selling the archaeological treasures of other cultures and the other makes money off of children.
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Expeditions using Strong-Backed Labour also relies on exploiting the working class, so it’s doubly Victorian theme.
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When you factor in the fact that you get to keep drawing cards and doing expeditions to the Nadir because you’re in London, the Tomb of the Silken Thread is decidedly superior.
But… where specifically should one get Strong-Backed Labour? In terms of efficiency?
[quote=Tystefy]But… where specifically should one get Strong-Backed Labour? In terms of efficiency?[/quote]Just purchasing them from the side-streets is the most efficient. Unless you have a surplus of supplies ahead of time, of course.
[quote=idyl][quote=Tystefy]But… where specifically should one get Strong-Backed Labour? In terms of efficiency?[/quote]Just purchasing them from the side-streets is the most efficient. Unless you have a surplus of supplies ahead of time, of course.[/quote] To elaborate on that, it’s monetarily cheaper to purchase in the Clay Quarters, but it’s not sustainable in the long term. Furthermore - and most importantly - it costs Rostygold, which is much better used in conjunction with Dock Favours, which is far and away the most efficient way to purchase expedition supplies.
Returning to a rather old conversation, but I finally got around to checking the math on this and I arrived at a somewhat different result.
Expedition value is 125E in rewards. Subtract 81E used to buy 6 labor, leaves 44E.
Actions: 6 to buy labor, 6 to convert them to supplies, 1 to begin expedition, 10 to gather progress, 1 to finish, so 24 in total.
So with this, it seems to me that for a standard expedition, this grind grants 44E / 24 actions = 1,8333 EPA? You can multiply it by 1.0333 to make up for the saved supply point from starting expeditions, but it still only comes to 1,89EPA by my count. Am I missing something here?
The biggest is “A sign?” on expeditions. It gives you faster progress and doesn’t consume supplies. Even occasional occurrences dramatically boost profit.
The minor oversight is that it takes only 29 supplies to complete the expedition, not 30, because the first progress is free.
[quote=Tsar Koschei]Am I missing something here?[/quote]There’s been many calculations and discussion of this topic on the subreddit. Reading through the comments on these two posts should clear it up:
But as already just mentioned, the rare success and the use of only 29 Supplies is probably what you’re missing.
[i]
[i]edited by idyl on 6/4/2019[/i]Does nobody else bother to collect 2 dramatic tension progress (as an incidental benefit every 2-3 visits) in the Nadir and then run a single iteration of the Missing Woman in Wilmot’s End for 4 Labour? It always seems well worthwhile to me.
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[quote=Tyrconnell]The biggest is "A sign?" on expeditions. It gives you faster progress and doesn’t consume supplies. Even occasional occurrences dramatically boost profit.
The minor oversight is that it takes only 29 supplies to complete the expedition, not 30, because the first progress is free.[/quote][quote=idyl]There’s been many calculations and discussion of this topic on the subreddit. Reading through the comments on these two posts should clear it up:
But as already just mentioned, the rare success and the use of only 29 Supplies is probably what you’re missing.[/quote]I did account for every 30th supply being saved – not accurately, I’m sure, couldn’t be bothered to make it very complicated. Still, it shouldn’t be a big factor.
You’re right about signs, I just discounted them since they’re quite rare but I forgot that they do save you a fair bit of supplies. The faster progress speed is mostly irrelevant since it only saves you an action if you get 2 or more signs in a single expedition, but the spared supplies do bring up the total. However, I do wonder if those models people have built take into account the cost of having to counter rivals. It happens every now and then that on the 10th and final action, as you get to the goal, your rival also reaches 10 progress at the same time, and taking precedence, has to be paid off. Brings down the profits a fair bit.
edited by Tsar Koschei on 6/4/2019
[quote=Tsar Koschei] It happens every now and then that on the 10th and final action, as you get to the goal, your rival also reaches 10 progress at the same time, and taking precedence, has to be paid off. Brings down the profits a fair bit.[/quote]It’s so very rare that it can be easily discarded!
I think it’s somewhere at 0.013%; that’s once in 7570 expeditions. But we do know that RNG can be cruel sometimes!
I’ve had it happen at least twice over the course of a few dozen expeditions.
So yeah, factoring in the value of signs I get something in the 2,22 EPA range, maybe a bit more when you work in all the details long-term. But those damn rivals do bring it down some.
edited by Tsar Koschei on 6/4/2019
[quote=Tsar Koschei]I’ve had it happen at least twice over the course of a few dozen expeditions.[/quote]Hitting it twice at 0.013%… you should go play some lottery tickets ASAP.