Though I’ve tried to avoid spoilers on the game, I’ve gotten annoyed with trying to prepare for expeditions. I’ve only done "Learning the Customs of the Forgotten Quarter" and "Finding a Thief’s Cache", but frankly, the time and expense involved in both of those was excruciating. I’m at Watchful 81, Shadowy 42, Dangerous 10, and Persuasive 62. Are there any decent ways to build up supplies quickly, or at least money for the secrets for supplies, at these levels of skill?
Well, first off, definitely don’t buy secrets to buy supplies with them. Use Whispered Secrets if you happen to have them, but don’t bother buying them from the Bazaar when just spending the cash 10 echoes for 4 supplies is more efficient.
Your stats aren’t terrible for Expeditions, since it’s mostly keyed off Watchful, but you may want to go do some other content for a while both to build up your other stats (just on general principles) and, at the same time, build up resources you can use to buy supplies. If you pursue other interesting stories and just run back to buy more supplies when you have enough banked, then run an expedition when enough supplies have accrued in the background, it will feel less laborious than grinding specifically for expeditions.
You’ve probably learned by now that different areas target different abilities, but different areas also work in different ways; the ‘starter’ areas tend to build resources and connections, while areas like the Forgotten Quarter are basically there for you to burn those things to progress in storylines related to the appropriate skill. For example, one way you can buy supplies is with Connected: Docks and Rostygold; you will get plenty of both if you focus on building Dangerous for a while. (Although you don’t need more Docks than you can get at the Carnival anyway.) In the same way, Whispered Secrets are currency in tons of early storylines.
All that being said–Expeditions are expensive, laborious, and risky, but pay off with expensive rewards. That’s just the type of storyline/venture they are (Heists and Sea Voyages are similar, I find.) At higher levels, they are more fun not because they get a ton easier, but just because you have more capital built up to pour into them (including a margin for insurance) and because the risk doesn’t hurt as bad if you fail.
edited by Breckner on 11/2/2014
If you don’t want to go the route that Breckner suggested (it is good advice, though I didn’t do it myself), your present stats are best suited towards Looking for Curios in the Forgotten Quarter, though you should be aware that the results will be random and even successes will often raise your nightmares. Still, you can sometimes gain as much as two hundred fifty whispered secrets per action (that is a high-end result, not to be taken as any sort of average) as well as many other trinkets that you may find useful or that you may wish to sell (fourth city artifacts) to buy more useful equipment.
After that, your best bet is in Veilgarden, if you have Demands of High Society storylet open, your persuasion may net you a more modest but reliable source of whispered secrets.
Aside from that, I would echo Breckner’s advice and suggest you spend some time at Watchmaker’s Hill or more time in Spite.
Don’t get too far ahead of yourself my darling…the correspondence stones may call to you, but you may wish to explore a bit more of the neath before you tamper with them…
Notice: if anyone needs an Eyeless Skull for the Cave of the Nadir I can send one to them through an option available on your end when you reach said stage. More to the point, my character Lanzo Hoffman has it, and he is distraught that he cannot get rid of the thing for 63 Echoes because the Revolutionaries do not trust him enough.
My stats are a bit lower and I’m taking a differnt path.
I’ve bought the tankard of ale, and cashing in docks connection (kept between 10 and 20) for suplies. Comes to 150 glim and 50 rosey gold, and 4 actions for 3 suplies.
I’m honestly just doing thieves cashes and building up my skills.
I’ll have to locate a good way to get connected to the crimanals a bit better in a bit, but as long as I don’t push my luck I can get more glim then I spend getting the suplies, and the rewards can roll well enough to keep me happy with them.