Elections guide

Fallen London
1

Greetings, fellow voters!
As there’s a lot of information in the threads, but spread a lot I decided to pile everything I find in this single thread. Pretty busy RL so don’t except it to be that fancy from the beginning!

Mechanics (more work needed here):
Pick a career, start getting resources and wait for the “Advance your Career” card to pop by; it has an Abundant frequency, but it’s not on Wiki at the moment. There is another card which does exactly the same thing (Advancing Your Election Career), but is usable only once after you pick your career and candidate (can someone confirm it’s the same now?). If you just started and happen to have both in hand, use the first one and keep the tutorial one in case of an emergency!

Update: FBG responded to the issue and deemed the request as solved. No extra details, but I hope solved means one won’t lose their level before selecting a new candidate. I’ll update as soon as I get a confirmation.
DO NOT click to change your candidate!!!
If you select the 0 AP action to do so, you’ll get your levels reduced. I find it a bit odd for this to happen so I e-mailed FBG with this matter.
So, if anyone is interested just to read the text, DO NOT! Only from selecting &quotChange Candidate&quot you’ll have your levels reduced!
This does not apply when changing careers. Thank you Dov!

The system is bound to tweaking in the following days as Campaigners have a great item and people with supplies can advance very fast while Fixers have a pretty hard life.

Careers
Campaigners:
Write a Compelling short story for Convincing Rhetoric and Public Attention
Investigate a Case for Convincing Rhetoric + wait for a card to use Campaign Resources OR Polite Invitation (level 12 Talk of the Town) for Public Attention. TotT gives you Favours you can use on writing stories.

Regarding materials for stories:
Romantic Notion: Doing the decent thing, get 500 honey and convert them to RN. About 9.55/AP
Tale of Terror!!: Steal Tales of Terror from a noted author. Gang and 100% success yields ~2.53/AP
Touching Love Story: A walk in the villa gardens in Polythreme. ~0.833/AP
Touching Love Story: Heists which may get you ~0.57/AP

If you’re thinking about gambling at a lower success rate I advice NOT TO do so. Did the math and the AP difference is very small to take the risk. With a typewriter, it costs about the same** do get a compelling story. This is because you’ll lose the AP required to start a story and get the manuscript pages if you fail.
It’s best to optimize your progress; like getting 4 Potential from lower option even if you use 2.5 E mat or 12.5 ones. It costs only one extra AP, but you don’t get menaces and save the materials for later uses.
**If you have the materials or not, if you use materials up to their limit, if you have high end materials pilled up and use them. In all of these cases AP difference rages from 0 to ~3; sometimes higher risks cost more AP. Mathematically, but bear in mind that RNG may curse you big times!

TLDR: Always get to 100% success rate no matter the method you use. The AP difference is minimal and you don’t worry about RNG.

Agitators: Flash Lays, no need for cards or for any other resources

Fixers :
Investigate a Case for Convincing Rhetoric + do a Flash Lay for Dirty Secrets (around 50 actions for one level)
Investigate a Case for Convincing Rhetoric + wait for a card to use Campaign Resources for Dirty Secrets

Gifts:
You are eligible for a 30 Fate-item for free, once.
Mutton Island Account: +1 Respectable, +8 Persuasive, +4 Shadowy (50 Fate, Weapon, 2nd Best Persuasive Weapon)
Seven-Times-Exiled Parliamentarian’s Guide to Electioneering: +1 Bizarre, +8 Watchful, +6 Shadowy (40 Fate, Weapon, tied for Best Watchful)
A Redoubtable Dame-Harbinger: +1 Respectable, +8 Watchful (30 Fate + Bishop only, Rat-Squad is better)
An Enfranchised Anchoress: +1 Dreaded, +8 Dangerous (30 Fate + Sinning Jenny only, Rat-Squad is better)
Reactionary Tomb Colonist: +1 Bizarre, +8 Persuasive (30 Fate + Contrarian only, 2nd best Persuasive Pet)
A Polythreme Drinking Vessel: +1 Bizarre, +8 Persuasive (30 Fate, Agitator only, weapon)
A Poisoned Pen: +1 Dreaded, +8 Dangerous (30 Fate, Fixer only, weapon)
Wax-sealed Boots: +5 Watchful (30 Fate, Campaigner only, best Watchful shoes, BEST EQUIPMENT FROM THIS FESTIVAL SO FAR)
A Venomous Caricaturist: (20 Fate, +6 Watchful, +3 Dangerous, fun intro)
A Pre-Lapsarian Speaking Trumpet: (10 Fate, Weapon, +4 Persuasive, -1 Shadowy, fun intro)

I’ll try and dig more information from the thread, but this may take a while. Decided it’s better to gather bits by bits instead of waiting to reread the whole thread.

Credits:
Estelle Knoht (Lot of snippets from his posts regarding basic career description, actions required and item list)
Everyone else that helped with the information provided
edited by Skinnyman on 7/6/2016
edited by Skinnyman on 7/6/2016

2

Does anyone know what happens when you reach level 20 of your career? I’m halfway there and I’m wondering whether I should start saving up for something.

3

Think someone knows as the wiki page for the Campaigner has level 20 filled with the corresponding (I hope) text. Seems the Fixer page is the same. Now, who would share the knowledge?
edited by Skinnyman on 7/6/2016

4

Don’t forget the other public attention sources- if you have Talk of the town, a repeatable cash-in option for public attention becomes availible, though only at the end of a party. if you write newspapers, a pro-[your party] paper is possible to write with, iirc, 24 meritous and salacious copy. both might be faster or less expensive, though newspapers offer only marginal profit more suited to something for fresh, new players than experienced veterans. by which i mean their epa competes only favorably with working for the widow in spite, and similarly early-game storylets, if even that. (60 echoes to start, assuming you have a nice stockpile of the items already, 80 echoes best payout. yeah, no.)
edited by Grenem on 7/7/2016

5

Are Dirty Secrets of any use to a Campaigner?

6

Later you might be able to trade them in for something.

7

TotT is already there, but not the newspaper. Unfortunately, I delayed the newspaper and, at this point, I don’t own one. Same as yesterday, I’ll be very busy during the day so, if you have more information regarding the newspaper, I would enjoy a post here or a PM.

8

TotT is already there, but not the newspaper. Unfortunately, I delayed the newspaper and, at this point, I don’t own one. Same as yesterday, I’ll be very busy during the day so, if you have more information regarding the newspaper, I would enjoy a post here or a PM.[/quote]
Will do. I know it provides gossip, 3 favors in high places, and has no outlandish copy requirements. it requires only salacious and meritous.

So, the newspaper cycle is probably obvious to anyone who’s played it, but since you haven’t:
-It’s a 13 action cycle- 12 actions of cycle and one to initiatie
-every loop requires a whirring contraption, which is worth 60 echoes if you have all the requirements already, and an actions to boot (or 50 and 5 actions with the docks, unless you get the alternative success, which is vastly inferior for you.)
-you have 11 actions to gather copy for the paper as time passing decreases.
-the last action has an option to steal from your own paper. it provides 5 echoes in rostygold, but takes 3 pages of each kind of copy.

  • the first cycle action is not a skill challenge, but only provides 8 copy on success, all others provide 12. however, only the ones at hours remaining: 2 and 12 offer all three types.
  • at any time remaining over 1, it adds 3 frequent and 3 standard cards to your deck. do this in one sitting.
  • going to doubt street costs an action per trip.

in addition, for this one in particular:

  • you need to succeed 4 challenges to get a successful paper, 6 if you’re planning on stealing from your own paper.
    -you can’t skip ahead and print early, you must go from time passing 12 to time passing 1, 1 level per action.
  • generally, you can tell what kind of copy it gives from the description. rumours and scandal are salacious (as is tomb-colonist poetry, oddly. well, less so after you read the text, but the description doesn’t make it sound like that’s the issue), while general effort into research is meritous, and madness and conspiriacy is, well, outlandish.
    -if you really botch this, but stop before the hours remaining hits 1, you can draw the cards. the interveiws are social actions, and you can’t draw your own ambition. ask people with other ambitions for interveiws, and hope they accept. every interveiw is 3 of each kind of copy. each standard frequency card adds one type of copy, and neither consumes time. the latter, though, will consume time on failure.
  • the final payout is 34 gossip [17 echoes] and 3 favor in high places [37.5 echoes]. this means if you got your whirring contraption at the bazaar, you are certain to have made a loss on the affair, and if you got it from the docks [instead of spending 50 echos for 30 echoes in scarabs] your epa is 9.5 over however many actions it took to get it, if you bothered stealing from your own paper. which makes the epa about 0.475 under ideal circumstances.[i]

[You also should probably note the following beat best-in-slot (with the obvious professional exception) for non-fate players: [/i]A Polythreme Drinking Vessel (weapon), Reactionary Tomb Colonist (companion), and a mutton island account (weapon). yes, two of them are listed second best in slot, but if first place were availible to free players, i would go after it instead. also note the drinking vessel and island account are 3 points improvement over next best, while the tomb-colonist is only one. on the other hand, the tomb-colonist’s rival best in slot is both exceptionally expensive and seasonal.]

edited by Grenem on 7/7/2016