Mapping the Iron Republic [Spoilers]

Fallen London
1

I think that last sprint towards Courier’s Footprint may have cost me more than my eyebrows because the first place I went with my freedom from valuable OP cards was the Iron Republic. This lead to a curiosity as to how profitable this place could really be which required data. One thing lead to another and, well, I present the below built largely out of information from the wiki (major spoilers obviously).

Iron Republic Map

Basically, light blue squares are the days, yellow diamonds are choices, green trapezoids are success rewards, red trapezoids are failure rewards. Everything has kind of scattered notes related to probabilities but some of it will admittedly not make sense if you don’t confirm with the wiki. I think the lesson here is that after an intense session of star word studying the last thing your sanity needs is to go to a place where your ears can spontaneously grow teeth.

But on the topic of profitability, just how profitable is this place? Well, as long as you avoid going back out to zee (which means spending a decent amount of time in the 40 -> 8 loop) Changed by the Iron Republic can basically be exchanged at close to a 1 CP = 1 Echo rate. And and pretty much everything you do gives you at least 1 CP of CbtIR so we’re probably looking at between 1 and 2 Echoes per Action. Unfortunately, getting the exact number is going to require more math and line tracing than I’m willing to commit to this endeavor. Sufficed to say that it probably doesn’t beat the affairs of the box but could probably compete with Riding the Savage Cobbles and maybe Thefts of a Particular Character if you pick the right paths; although you’re locked off from potentially valuable OP cards.

2

Very nice map - thanks for sharing it.

3

I wouldn’t call them calculations so much as hand wavy assumptions resulting from squinting really hard and starring at a bunch of lines and numbers. The easiest way to make guesses like that is to eliminate as many variables as possible. In this case, I’m assuming that you spend so much time in the wheel of madness (40 -> 8 loop) that everything else is statistically insignificant. Out of say, a month of disagreeing with the barrister only to be hurtled back through time, the action cost of a couple zee journeys isn’t really a big deal.

4

Alright, so I got inspired to do some tracing and math. Assuming you can hit persuasive 217+ here are the paths that you can restrict yourself to within the Wheel of Madness and the CbtIR per action rates for each.

40, 42(1), 8(2), 17(1), 19(4), 32(2), 38(1), 40(3) = 14/7 = 2
40, 42(1), 8(2), 17(1), 19(4), 27(1), 34(2), 38(1), 40(3) = 15/8 = 1.88
40, 42(1), 8(2), 15(2), 32(2), 38(1), 40(3) = 11/6 = 1.83
40, 42(1), 8(2), 15(2), 23(1), 30(2), 38(4), 40(3) = 15/7 = 2.14
40, 42(1), 8(2), 15(2), 23(1), 30(2), 32(2), 38(1), 40(3) = 14/8 = 1.75

I’m pretty sure the right play here is to tank your Connected Revolutionaries so your likely to go from 15 -> 23 instead of 15 -> 32 but for the purpose of simplifying things let’s assume you have Connected Revolutionaries at 34+ so you will always go from 15 -> 32. This leaves the following branches with their probabilities (assuming you are an admirer of beauty and have a gang of hoodlums).

40, 42(1), 8(2), 17(1), 19(4), 32(2), 38(1), 40(3) = 14/7 = 2 (p: 0.4 * 0,4)
40, 42(1), 8(2), 17(1), 19(4), 27(1), 34(2), 38(1), 40(3) = 15/8 = 1.88 (p: 0.4 * 0.6)
40, 42(1), 8(2), 15(2), 32(2), 38(1), 40(3) = 11/6 = 1.83 (p: 0.6)

This gives an average CbtIR of 1.86. Now CbtIR can be exchanged for 15 echoes worth of items on a 1 echo to 1 CbtIR ratio but doing so costs 1 action. So the echoes per action of doing this loop over and over and over again and then cashing out in one very big cash out session is:

15/((15/1.86) + 1) = 1.65 echoes per action

Which is pretty much exactly the rate for A Boxful of Intrigue except that your locked out of the OP deck. You might be able to pull this up a little higher if you can tank both your Connected Revolutionaries and your Respectable but not by too much. And keep in mind that there are some rough edges being smoothed over that lower this number slightly like the fact that you can only make the exchange in 15 point chunks.

So the conclusion is that on the scale of things the Iron Republic can actually be quite profitable. It can certainly beat a number of the London based grinds if you follow the right path although A Boxful of Intrigue is still king if you don’t count OP deck based options like exchanging collections of curiosities with the tomb colonists.

5

Thanks for doing the math. I was almost finished with my own numbers, but you did a better job.