Trying to compile all the methods of grinding favors that are non-card dependent. I may mention how certain options could be used even better, but the focus is on turning action points into favors with no cards involved. I have, however, made an exception for anything that could offer three favors or more in one go- which sounds like an awfully convenient excuse to put in the secrets and spending grind, because it is. I am prone to digressions, please point out any that reduce the quality of this report, and tell me if i missed any grinds.
Secrets and spending:
Once the conversion is complete, the secrets and spending carosel will be the only way to grind favors effectively without as much card dependence for many factions. using closest to: great game or bohemians, you can, for 44 actions and two properly timed draws of secrets and spending- which is abundant frequency, so it’s not like it’s rare- get one favor of each of the following types: bohemians, great game, urchins and docks. It also has the side benefit of 12 echoes in intriguing snippets.
Of course, this isn’t that effective, but it’s a way to speed up gathering renown, and is 1/11th of a favor per action, with a nice, if mediocre, side payout of 27 pence per action. (you can also use it to speed up one of the other bundles- while you cannot get the entire carousel without cards for them, you can get the marks of credit in advance with GG or bohemians, then swap to an appropriate closest to: [benthic, summerset, society, the church and constables] or [hell, revolutionaries, tomb colonists, and criminals]. If they add the newly converted factions, like rubbery men to secrets and spending, this grind will be even better. Still slow, though.)
It requires possession of your soul, though, so some players will be unable to do it without cards- including, at the moment, me.
Slowcake’s amanumenis:
Given that this already gives 1 favors: docks, it seems likely that all connection sources will supply favors instead, and all drops will take favors. The loop is simple: reach notability three, prepare for notability four to force-draw the card if you don’t draw it naturally, "throw him out on his oily little ear", buy a new "entry in slowcake’s exceptionals" for 30 echoes. This will take all entries in slowcake’s, 2 points notability, one hell favor (<50 cp right now), one society favor (<50 cp right now), and some CP masters, if you have those, and give, in return,1 favors for docks, revolutionaries (<50 cp right now) and bohemians (<50 cp right now). It also gives ? cp scandal now.
At first glance this sounds horribly inefficient- 30 echoes per favor batch and costing favors from one faction for the ones for the other. But- there’s a trick- if you’ve already sold your entry for 27.5 echoes, you can still force draw it and kick him out, and now each loop is only costing you 2.5 echoes, the lost favors, and actions.
If you didn’t have favors society and hell, and already cashed in all your favors: masters, this would be quite effective. With proper BDR gear and natural sources of MW- like going to parties from a polite invitation- this could be, if not profitable, at least one of the cheapest ways to grind favors: docks, bohemians or revolutionaries.
Someone who’s spent fate in the right places could do this loop for 6 actions without needing any MW, making it practical enough i should probably not be posting it here. On the other hand, it isn’t really what you’d call cheap, so they might keep the nerf hammer away from it.
Docks airs grinding:
Shuffle Airs until you have Airs 96+ (about 25 actions, on average). Then spend three actions to follow a chandleress to her workshop and confide in her. it grants one docks favor, and shuffles airs. Generally, you’ll need to head back to london then, though one time in 25 you’ll reroll the same airs value and be able to get another favor.
This is a bit action-expensive if this is the only thing you’re shuffling airs for- 28 actions per Favor: Docks, but if you shuffle airs for other reasons it’s worth noting.
Mutton Island carousel:
One ending for the carousel- rescuing the shipwrecked zailors- rewards you with a single docks favor. This isn’t very fast- once every 19 actions, if you don’t fail any checks- and it requires leaving London, but it is certainly an option, and a better one if you want to build up "stormy eyed" at the same time. It’d be amazing if it were for a faction who didn’t have the better option of Airs-grinding. It’s less random, at least.
Deliberate Scandal Boosting:
Every trip to the Tomb-colonies gives a Favor:tomb-colonies on it’s own. In addition, this is one of the better places to get the tomb-colonies favors- though any other favors are still card dependent, you’re looking for two cards in a deck of 22 rather than one card in a deck of [substantially more than 22].
You can boost scandal at +6 cp per action by getting scandal dupe social actions from freinds or other forum users, and with scandal 6 can skip to scandal 8 with menace boosting gear. Probably not worth it without getting some benefit from card draw- as it will be, if you actively do this loop, 4 actions to get there[0] and then 12 actions to get home if you’re willing to burn echoes or connections, and 16 if you’re not. in short, it would be- currently, who knows how it’ll change when we swap to favors- a 16 action loop per favor at the price of 70 cp of either church or duchess or society[1], or at the price of 1400 candle stubs, or 350 primeval shreiks.
you can speed things up a little faster with proscribed material at 4 cp per 50 books, which will shave a single action off your time-to-return here, and cost 300 books- or 150, and then swap to an action that to reduces scandal by three points instead of four. [making it 15 actions per loop][2]
(there are probably cards that will help, but i don’t know what they are. Most only reduce scandal by one or two points.)
Alternatively, with a counterfeit head of john the baptist and hedonist 12, you can get sent straight to the tomb colonies, but it’ll give you 36 CP scandal, which will mean you’ll need to spend 17 actions to get home if you’re willing to burn echoes or connections [14 with proscribed materials], and even more if you’re not. If you’re planning on sticking around to draw the cards, it might be better this way, but it’s debatable, and getting/maintaining hedonist 12 is a real hassle anyways.
[If you want tomb-colonies favors, it’s better to accept that you’ll need to rely on cards in the tomb-colonies. if you do, you can get one favor every 11 card draws, on average, assuming you’re not using your hand. assuming you had the good fortune to avoid the artist and his model, you’ll get one every 10 card draws, and if you use your hand properly, increase your favor rate by another two. If you don’t plan on staying long- or even if you do- you might want to have 3/5 cards in deck- IIRC, it doubles the cards in deck, though not above your cap, when you head from london to tomb-colonies, meaning you get to flip 6/10 cards for favors right off the bat, which gives you an average of one favor every two/one trips/trip that way. You also should do the same thing when heading home, if possible.]
[0] optimally, 3 dupes and a 2 scandal action, such as "a decadent occasion" or "acquire an invitation to a scandalous party", or just by drinking four bottles absinthe for 20 cp, with a starting cp from scandal cling, will be what you acquire to get here. More will make the return trip slower. All future calculations assume you managed to arrive with 21 cp scandal. if this is impossible, for whatever reason, change plans accordingly. The fastest way to arrive, if you can’t manage 21 exactly from 0, is to take four dupes for 24 points scandal.[2]
[1] Society reduces scandal by four points rather than three, but has a 1-in-10 chance of giving 10 cp scandal instead- which averages out to only 2.6 cp reduction- but it’s so much easier to grind than church or duchess it’s worth considering using anyways. the optimal combo if you want to use society is probably use 3 instances of it, and 3 of something else, unless it gives you a backlash, in which case you’ll want to keep doing society until you land on the lowest multiple of three you can reach by reducing by four repeatedly.
[2] In which case, proscribed materials can shave off another action, meaning it can be 15 actions and 300 proscribed materials per loop.
[b]
[3] note: I am assuming you have neither high hedonist nor high austere. High hedonist means you get back with some scandal pre acquired, which is nice for repeated trips.
Fast Friends with Criminals at Excessive Expense:[/b]
Buy a few skyglass knives. Drive suspicion high enough to go to new-newgate. Give them to the fence- each one gives a criminals favor, IIRC. Wiki-confirmed to work. still, 12.8 echoes per favor is not a great deal- though it’s good enough that if you wind up in newgate with a knife, between that and the suspicion reduction, (-12 cp. faster than any other option), it’s not exactly a terrible deal, if you’re there anyways. more-so if you didn’t buy the knife for that purpose.
Shuttered Palace: A Patriotic adventure:
Write a novel, and make it about a grand patriotic adventure. Regrettably, it seems this offers only one docks favor for 32 levels of inspired. Sure, Inspired increases rapidly, and sure, it gives 60 echoes in moon pearls, but for grinding favors, there are better routes. However, other favors are quite likely to be added for bohemians, church, revolutionaries and society post conversion, as the rule of thumb seems to be "If it gives >30 cp and wouldn’t be ludicrously lucrative/grindable, give a favor.
The fastest route is 27 actions per cycle, but that either both challenges and reduces austere, as well as a pittance in jade- making it non-sustainable- or costs fifty pence in prisoner’s honey per action. Either way, while these are fast, they’re not profitable long-term solutions. the sustainable one is 1.72(repeating) echoes per action. the slower route is 36 actions per cycle, but can cost nothing- actually less profitable, assuming you already had the prisoner’s honey.
The optimal route actually mixes the two- two actions of one of the slower routes that provide 15 cp at no cost and 25 of the fast route. this saves you… one echo per loop. Probably wasn’t worth the time it took me to calculate that. Still, if you do that, the epa increases to 1.75(92) epa
A wedding of urchins/docksmen/rubberies:
Every when you get married, you can choose your guests at the wedding. If you choose to spend 5 points organizing a wedding to visit docksmen/urchins/rubberies, you get one matching favor. You can use items in your inventory and shop while your wedding is going on- though you can’t draw cards or leave until you’re done- which lets you cash in these favors.
This is a lot of work for someone who isn’t doing it incidentally to actually marrying a character, but if you set up one of the simpler weddings, you can still get an absurd number of favors. (the fanciest wedding worth doing is the 1000 organizing, which will reward you and your spouse-to-be with 500 points organizing a wedding, enough to get 100 favors of your choice. Three weddings would be enough to hit renown 40, in other words. )
I can’t speak for how effective of a grind this is, but you have to admit that the payoff is dramatic.
Fate Locked Flute Street Carousel:
A 24 action loop of ~0.71 epa, which also gives one favor per rep. Not in london, though- it’s in flute street, like the name. once unlocked, it takes 10 actions to head down and five to head back, which increases the cost if you don’t have an excuse to head there already.
Fate Locked Finishing School Carousel:
A twelve-action loop with a 50% chance of a favor per rep, it also refreshes your opportunity deck. You need to select the Urchin for the final exam. [Credit to loredeluxe for pointing this out]
Fate locked Rubbery Pupil:
[Fate Locked, only one favor per loop, not a one-time payment but a per-loop payment, in short, too expensive to be worthwhile for this purpose. consider buying flute street instead, or buying instant favors if you must do this.]
[b]
Fate Locked: insta-favor:
[Fate locked. for 5 fate and one action, get one favor certainly, and a luck check. I have no idea what the luck check does, or the rewards other than the promised favor. if someone knows, can they PM me?]
Notability grind to force draw a faction’s card:[/b]
Self explanatory and Very, Very expensive. it makes every other option on this list look cheap in comparison! … Well, actually, it’s not as bad as it sounds for a very small group of people. With near-cap BDR- say, 27- it’s actually viable. A slow grind that is less efficient if you want all types of favors, though more focused, than the secrets and spending carousel.
Even with capped BDR, [BDR 30, i believe] it would be a minimum of 14 actions per loop, and require getting MW 6, 10, 14 and 18-- at least, Assuming we actually want it to be self-sustaining and don’t do the sane thing and beg someone for lots of first-points in notability. (12 actions, minus however many we spend paying them for their services and wherever you’re getting the waves from.)
Not counted:
Turning in a "Soothe and copper longbox" will give you three favors docks, but as there are no reliable sources until christmas, and quite likely will cost favors: urchins then for the snow to buy one, it doesn’t count.
Did I miss anything? Do any of these sound useful or viable?
Are there any other options or methods I missed?
A footnote:
[Corrected with new info]: 5->8 renown = 21 favors (optimally- could be more. Turn in consistently in batches of 3 or 7. +1 cp a favor)
8->15 renown = 35 favors (optimally- could be more. Turn in consistently in batches of 5 or 7. +2 cp a favor)
15 -> 25 = ~56 favors (+4 cp a favor, must be turned in in batches of 7, there are extra favors in there.)
15-> 40 = 175 favors (+4 cp a favor, must be turned in in batches of 7, there are no extra favors in there. 25 batches.)
15-> 50 = ~294 favors (there are extra favors.)
with the updated estimates that you gain 28, not 21, cp renown per 7 favors from 15 onwards, it takes a "mere" 294 favors to get from 15 to 50, meaning, not counting stat points, it takes 357 favors to hit the cap with no wasted favors. it only takes 175 favors to hit 40 from 15, meaning you can actually lock yourself out of the storylet pretty quickly, considering. In fact, it makes getting the 25 renown faction gear cost around 119 favors (17 batches of 7 favors), and the trip from that to renown 40 is actually cheaper than the trip from 5 to 25.
This makes the optimal amanuensis loop (one of the best options) take a "mere" 2142 actions- with 51 actions to spend the favors. it doesn’t sound much different but it definitely is: this is a difference of 500 actions from its previous calculation, and puts it in the range of plausible-if-difficult grind. On the same note, this makes the newgate grind require nearly 3000 echoes to hit 40, if you’re turning in seven skyglass knives a trip and getting all favors that way, you’d also get 33 different trips on your record.
While relying on cards doesn’t feel easy, it’s probably the cheapest, if not fastest, route, and if you get one favor per faction a day for a year, you’ll be able to hit cap in renown for every faction. [well, except for the current impossibility of acquiring the required stats. other than that, though…] On that note, you should try to maximize the cards that give favors with the relevant faction when possible. (That said, once I’ve achieved my goal of 77 vials of [bazaar’s sorrow], i will try to approach the cap in all renowns, and as it is I’m trying to pre-grind the less card reliant up to 321, while it’s- at least somewhat quicker, if not quick.)
edited by Grenem on 3/17/2017