After much travail I have finally become creditable enough to enter the Court at the Shuttered Palace. Advice as to which connection I should draw upon would be much appreciated.
Society connections are easier to gain, less valuable to lose, and also a load of preening parrots. The Duchess is more select and a more interesting character. So, Society all the way.
But I do believe that the Duchess uses up less of your connections with her to enter, doesn’t she? And Society is also more profitable in many areas.
It depends on what you do for each of them. I free every cat-in-the-box that comes before my swift little fingers. Therefore, the Duchess and I are as bosom…friends. I suppose. In personal experience, Society reputation is more difficult to gain in the beginning, but then, once you are actually within the Shuttered Palace, gaining reputation with them is sinfully easy. They do so love entertainers, if you catch my drift.
Society requires far more connection to be spent than the Duchess, and as Duchess is one of the few connections that is not directly cashable I tend to use that. Also it’s fairly easy to gain if you publish poetry in praise of the Duchess at the palace (10 cp for the Duchess with the bonus of 31 cp bohemian - equivalent of 37,2 drops of prisoner’s honey). However, as Gourmadghast points out it’s quite hard to keep being on friendly terms with the Duchess if you indulge in the game of pass the cat. There is the posibility of using society connection to curry favor with the Duchess, and then using the exchanged favor to gain entrence to the court, which my friend tell me is noticably cheaper than using society directly.
Definitely the Duchess. As has been said, it’s still more economical to trade your connections with society for the Duchess, and then enter court, even with the turn loss. Perhaps I’m not far enough through the game yet but connections with the Duchess don’t seem to have many other uses, whereas you often need high connections with society.