[quote=A B Nile]The whole Cheery Man / Constable thing has been on my mind recently, thanks to the introduction of Favours and Renown.
Is there any other early game action that, without a warning of any sort, completely locks you out of becoming Closest To a particular faction[/quote]This is a long standing problem (in my opinion) with the Cheery Man / Constable storyline.
(BTW, for a long while this also blocked people who chose the Constable from choosing Enforcer as their profession, since getting this via the Revolutionaries required a property which was only available in a specific Shadowy range. Thankfully, this restriction was since changed, so all players now have a path to Enforcer. But, as you note, 50% of players can’t be Connected To the Criminals.)
It’s not so much that there’s no warning - this is a story choice which is presented to the player almost immediately after starting the game and escaping New Newgate prison. Players often make this particular choice literally the first day they play the game, when there’s no concept yet at the possible long term implication of the choice.
I would also appreciate an option (with some cost attached to it) for switching this choice.
So we have a report that you can Take on the Local Champion on An Implausible Penance for 400 Rostygold at a cost of 1 Favour, which translates to 2 EPA (minus some potential Suspicion). Or you can use the Calling in Favours in the Flit card to get 900 Moonpearls for 3 Favours for 2.25 EPA with the opportunity cost of having to flip cards in The Flit. Someone on the wiki reports that Beating the Minister gives 14 echoes of diamonds for 7 Favours for 1.75 EPA. So at least one bulk conversion option is less profitable overall than a one-for-one, but since you’re liable to have more cards in your deck to add Favours than to spend, you might have to go for the bulk conversions to avoid wasting potential Favours with the 7 Favour cap.
Beating the minister is also the only perfectly reliable method of getting Magnificent Diamonds. (Others are either rare successes or can be locked out.)
I don’t think this has been mentioned yet, but it looks like converting Tier 3 to Tier 4 and Tier 4 to Tier 5 items now costs 1 Favour each, in place of Connected. For Criminals that’s the Rag Trade cloth items: Whisper-Satin to Thirsty Bombazine and Thirsty Bombazine to Puzzle-Damask. The amounts exchanged appear to be the same (at least on the cost side, requiring 50 Whisper-Satin or 25 Thirsty Bombazine) and they’re still "either way" luck challenges, but I haven’t done any conversions so I’m not sure if the bonus-rewards have changed.
Another new thing: you can get a Favour for 5 Intriguing Snippets (value: 1 Echo) with a new branch on the Alluring Accomplice card. Seems more costly than some of the other ways to get Favours, especially since getting RID of Favours seems to be the hard part. [EDIT: at least until "Crime or Punishment" and similar conflict cards are in effect again?] My main hasn’t drawn Implausible Penance OR Calling in Favours in the Flit since the new system went in, and now I’m chock-full of Criminal Favours at 7. I doubt I’d take the new Alluring Accomplice branch again… edited by metasynthie on 8/27/2015
Upconverting does give more bonus items if you succeed on the luck check now. Doesn’t really seem worth it to me, but as you said, spending favours can be the hard part. Also, if the value of the rare successes has been increased, that could be significant.
I just checked the Whisper-Satin-> Thirsty Bombazine conversion and got lucky. It now provides 4 scraps of Incendiary Gossip on a fortunate result instead of 2. I’ll need some more time to convert up scraps to see if you get anything on the unfortunate result.
Good to know; I’ll still upconvert a bunch on my alt to see what’s up with the Bombazine->Puzzle Damask conversion. If they doubled that one as well, it looks like Rag Trade conversions will be rather painful, though it’s not likely this will significantly impact very many people. Though we still have to see where the rare successes are at.
"Crime or Punishment" is in: it says you lose all Favours if you favor the Constables; I took the other branch, which gave only payout, no Criminals favours or renown. It requires 5 Criminals Favours and I believe still 50 Constables.
The other two cards are definitely present as well, and reports have been trickling in on their payouts.
If you find yourself with a source of Favours you don’t want to waste, you could cash the existing Favours in to increase Renown.
Just checked Beating a Minister myself, and it is 14 echoes of diamonds now (either that or they added a range). Knight of the Underworld is now worth 7.4 echoes for 3 favours
Tried another option: Arson and Avarice - burn it down. For 3 favours I got 600 Moon-pearls, 100 Primordial Shrieks, and 2 Dubious Testimonies. There’s a Ruthless gain (up to 10) and a Magnanimous loss.