Guest
6/9/2012
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A high persuasive is very useful to farm up materials while you're there, but you could actually do content in Polythreme with no stats at all, simply luck. It's all due to how it works there.
Playing in Polythreme requires that you raise your Fascinating or Investigating to 12+ (Some options have bonuses if you hit 13), and there's also a money option for hitting 7 in both (Bonus pay for 8+). However, there is only ONE storylet that raises this directly.
Your "bread and butter" as it were is the "Paying your way" storylet choices, which give a guaranteed 10 CP to one, and with a successful luck check also give 10 CP to the other). This costs 25 surface silk if your unnatural exuberance is 8+ (so, first 5 times), 50 romantic notions if unnatural exuberance is 5+ (so, next 3 times), and costs 5 mysteries of the elder continent or collated research (depending on stat you're aiming for) if it's 2+ (so, final 3 times). Obviously, this gets expensive fast. Ideally, you'll want to only go with the cheapest option, by doing this no more than 5 times and at the start of your run.
Luckily, you can earn surface silk there. There's a storylet that has one option for each stat, dangerous and persuasive earn surface silk, while watchful and shadowy earn romantic notions. They're not equal either, persuasive and shadowy have harder checks, but earn 12 items instead of... 8 I think?
Now, once you've paid your way, hopefully you have some of both fascinating and investigating. You can trade one for the other: Pulling a mask off a clothes colony to trade investigating for fascinating (Basically "investigating" what's behind the mask to find someone to talk to) or talk to the clay broker to trade fascinating for investigating (Appealing to someone to get information on Polythreme). On an easy success, this trades 10 CP of one for 10 CP of the other. I haven't found out how much CP it gives on a failure, but I believe it's 5, while still taking 10 CP. Regardless, after doing this step you should have a fair amount of one quality.
Now for the juicy part: Cards! At first glance a lot of these appear the same, but some careful spading has showed a few trends. In fact, the cards seem to appear in pairs. There's two cards for each of the two qualities, one of which is more of a gamble then the other (4 cards so far), as well as 2 cards that deal with both qualities, with one giving both or nothing, and the other giving you one or the other. They are as follows:
"The Priest at the Temple" and "The Ruin". These have a 50% chance of giving you +15 CP of fascinating or Investigating, respectively, or only 1-2 on a failure. They also have an option to trade ALL of your quality (If it's 8+) for 60 romantic notions. Something nice about these cards, however, is that if you want both qualities, these are one of the few ways to raise one quality without damaging the other.
"At the Market" and "The Temple": More reliable, these offer pretty good odds of succeeding to get 10 CP of a quality, and even give 5 CP on a failure. They also have an option to spend some of your quality if you've got 4+ to get 20 surface silk. This offers a way for those with low stats to farm surface silk, just do a run of polythreme where you use cards to get investigating or fascinating (just 10 CP gets you to 4), then spend it on silk. With decent luck, you could be getting basically 10 silk an action. Though, something to keep in mind is that these cards will cost you some of the other quality when used.
"The Wax Wind Comes" and "The Masked Man": The former is a 50% chance, giving fascinating on a success and investigating on a failure (Not sure on CP given, believe it to be 10). The latter has pretty good odds, and gives 5 CP to both on a success... but gives nothing on a failure!
Finally, there's a pair of cards with unlocks. If you're in the middle of making a travel guide, you unlock "The Zailors at Polythreme's Harbour", which allows you to make a persuasive check to gain fascinating. This means anyone with high stats can get a guaranteed success. If you're in the middle of spying on Polythreme, you unlock "Fractious Furniture", which has a shadowy check to get investigating. Both of these cards will cost you some of the other quality, if you have any. Do note that if you finish your travelogue or report, you lose access to these cards until you start again. This can be a good thing, however...
Now, one important aspect is holding cards. Make good use of your opportunity deck by holding on to cards you don't want. For instance, if working on fascinating, hold on to the investigating cards, and probably "The Wax Wind" too. This serves two functions: It lowers the pool of cards it can draw from, as you can't have two of the same card, and it limits how many cards you pull up at once. The latter can be useful because, assuming you have stellar luck, drawing one card at a time can give you 6 of the card that you want with a full deck. If you're drawing 4 at a time, the most you can get is 2.
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Now, with all the descriptive stuff out of the way, here's my general way I go through: First, I get 75 surface silk. Then I pay that for whatever I'm working on 3 times, then convert any of the other quality I got into the one I want. Then, I hold onto the cards for the quality I don't want, and try to get the cards with a "pretty good odds" to raise my quality by 10. If I'll be there for a while, I'll also use my first run to start on a travelogue or spy run, so I can use the unlocked cards too. Using the unlocked card and the "pretty good odds" card, I usually have no trouble hitting 12 in my quality, and often hit 13.
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