From reading the wiki, it seems that the coming winter is a great opportunity to upgrade your lodgings through tastes of lacre. Having become a POSI during Hallowmas, and recently obtained a Reservation at the Royal Bethlehem and my first point of notability, I was wondering if anyone had any advice on how I can prepare best. There are several options I am considering:
Continue grinding at Court to increase Scholar of the Correspondence (currently 7) and obtain pearls to sell, to unlock the semiotic monacle option when examining an unusual pail of snow with high success. This may also later require obtaining Storm-Threnody’s to use obtaining unusual pails of snow (assuming the option reappears).
Continue grinding the boxful of intrigue item carousel for strangling willow absinthe, convert to cellars of wine, and wait for A presumptuous little opportunity cards to convert to Fourth City Airag, and then to tears of the bazaar (for obtaining tastes of lacre). A major drawback of this is the reliance on a relatively uncommon opportunity card.
Embark on expeditions in the forgotten quarter to work towards the cave of nadir, as I need to increase my archaeologist (currently 3) and obtain eyeless skulls. It would also have a chance of obtaining Fourth City Airag, and the cave of nadir (if I can enter in time) would make a decent source as well. I currently have connected 52 docks and 66 supplies.
I’m slightly favouring option 3 but maintaining enough strangling willow absinthe to use option 2 when it becomes available. Is there any other possibilities I’ve missed? On related note, I also need to increase my notability twice more (getting close to my second), so I may also need to obtain stuff to boost bizarre, dreaded and respectable (was thinking of god’s editors).
Get nightwhispers, you’ll be able to trade them for pails. Don’t bother with presumptuous little opportunity. It’s painfully slow, also in general you don’t get tears for lacre, you get lacre to convert it into tears in Nadir. Do open up Nadir ASAP. Monocle option is very good, grind Scholar if you can, but I am not sure how fast that can be done.
This is all based on last year, this year it could all be very different/some options could be nerfed into oblivion.
Night-Whispers will be useful if you end up needing pails after the price increase (assuming the same holds this year as the last). I would recommend getting your Urchin connection up high, as that was a necessary expenditure for two years in a row and will likely remain so.
Well, the Urchins love me (nearly 60) as I have been grinding that connection up so I can call in favours in the flit to recoup all the scraps I blew getting the necessary Night-whispers to complete the new ‘Bag a Legend’ ambition story…and it seems there’s a certain circular nature to things that has bitten me in the arse here!
All I want this Christmas is a five-card lodging. Even though it mucks up the UI, and the no-vices ones are probably better, it means more junky Nadir cards can be held.
What do I need to focus on to make sure I can get enough Pails/Lacre (I was still pretty new to FL last xmas, but that was what got me hooked) to get one of them? Preferably the spire, 'cause it looks nice, and I’d rather keep hold of my Master’s blood for something else.
You might not need Night-Whispers. I didn’t buy any after the price hike, and still had plenty of Lacre to get a Spire Emporium. If last year can be trusted you’ll need 9 levels, and the Semiotic Monocle option raises it by 3 levels so you shouldn’t need too much snow to get that.
It takes 27 symphonies in court to get from SotC 7 to 10. It’s significantly faster if you have the fate-locked Ocelot and Owl (I think it’s the Owl) because you can card draw while at court and each point is one symphony less. Surprise Packages have a little under a 10% chance of giving you a point, too.
I did it in about a week and a half, and I wasn’t being very efficient (because until halfway through I couldn’t straightforward the challenges), though I was playing a lot. So it’s do-able well before Christmas if you have the time.
Thanks for all the advice. Based on what you have all said, it might be worth going back to court and composing symphonies to grind scholar to at least 9, and selling the pearls obtained to help towards the monocle and buying strong backed labour for expedition supplies. I’m probably going to leave getting night-whispers unless I have time later, and hope that the price isn’t too high at the start. My urchins conneections are at 60 so I shouldn’t have a problem there.
I do still need to get my notability up though, so if anyone has any free evenings available for private suppers and is interested in another acquaintance it would be most helpful. My character is currently an author, and is available to attend salons.
In a similar vein, I just purchased my first Overgoat at the cost of almost all my resources and many of my items which is exciting but means I have fairly limited time to prepare for Sackmas. I’m a Correspondent and held on to my Semiotic Monocle so I should have that side of things pretty well covered (assuming it hasn’t changed) but does anyone have any advice on the kinds of items I should try to have on hand when Mr Sacks starts making the rounds?
Mr Sacks used to like wine (the '68, as I recall), but last Sackmas it appears that most of the masters took a turn, even including Mr. Candles. I’d suggest having to hand: bottle of '68, a few hundred honey, some nice diamonds, a few pales of lacre, some interesting reading material (I’d guess proscribed material),and there’s usually a nice option or two for spending fate, if you’re so inclined.
With the recent initiative to make better use of quirks, boosting them might not be a bad idea too…