Pragmatism is not based on the fact that there are fewer available sources of constable favors than criminals (though I’m not sure if that’s the case because I’d have to weigh in all the available sources by the time you reach the hinterlands). Pragmatism lies in what you can exchange those favors for, i.e., the utility of those favors. Criminal favors offer not only more options to spend on them (making them more versatile item-wise), but you can also exchange them for more valuable items than you can with constable favors. For an example, if you have 7 criminal favors, you can trade them for 23 points of tribute (which is a lot of tribute), and 20 points of tribute can be exchanged for one of three items of value 62.50 echoes each, or alternatively, for one that gives you five items of the same total echo value as one of those three (assuming you’ve unlocked at least one of the four companions that you can get only by exchanging tribute, which is an additional benefit of having a high source of tribute). Having an additional source of criminal favors improves your odds (at least in the hinterlands) of obtaining those favors over what you would already have. Now I don’t have all railway content unlocked so I’m not entirely sure if items that you can exchange favors with constables come in handy but so far I had no need for the highest value item that I got from their favors (I think). While items that you can get from tribute come in handy much more in particular enigmas (as those come in handy if you wish to speed up research in your laboratory).
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