itch.io

If it comes down to it, is it possible to make read only, instead of removing it altogether?

Loving the 1.0 release! However, the temporary debuff placed during One Bite’s quest seems to never wear off, with the effect still showing up in the class screen two turns later:

Compact notes made over 0.7.x!

(Reminded via https://itch.io/t/5433111/each-electors-cabinate-member-score, with older versions for a few posted in the Election Strategies (Probably Some Spoilers) thread)

How to get it, yes. For a particular person, no. One touch, and you’ll never want to let it go.

Thank you!

There’s a typo “does of alcohol poisoning”, if someone wouldn’t mind fixing it? I’ve tried to sign up for an account, to no success so far.

Knowing more than I did then, I did try to see what happens. You do get a different ending, but it’s inconclusive what will happen from there.

Sounds like my notes! I posted them in the Election Strategies (Probably Some Spoilers) thread very early on. I’m happy to hear they were useful!

And for fun, the super quick spoilery doodle from the same thread: https://imgur.com/a/TkrxxBs

I’ve made more notes since then, and added some simple color coding, too. Might add those as a follow up post here later!

Maybe hints on the pet selection buttons, like there are hints about what skills might be tested for some choices? So Golden Viper gets a hint for Allure + Contortion, the Ebon Blot gets a hint for Big Guns + Hiding, the Mechanical Hawk gets a hint for Hunting + Repair?

(and acknowledging if he was asked to return to the Palace and didn’t reach it)

Ah, so that’s what happened!

…the alternative universe where he was annoyed enough early to ignore a direct request, and go to Myrkka I for an alternative source of orders, was pretty funny, though

:O

Impressive!

Oh! I had seen that referenced in the text after selecting the option on 11 before! But I’d already received genetic information that run, so I missed the significance. Good to know it’s enough!

I believe you also get this option, vs lbh ner jvyyvat gb jnvg hagvy Ibfuxbg gryyf lbh Qentbpra snxrq lbhe Zbgure’f qrngu sbe uvf bja checbfrf.

I can’t think of anything extremely early, outside of routing for the two options you listed.

It took many runs before I used the blackmail button at all, but it’s possible!

I did get that text! The description was brilliant and inspiring and wonderful after so many runs investigating the area! I have definitely never been engaged with Khdarr in that or any other run yet, but that might have been the run where discovering sensitive information early let me bypass a hard GR check for setting up a cool display?

I think I got the final answer on a galactic relations run jurer gur Hhmtun urycrq encvqyl pbzcyrgr gur rkgenbeqvanel cebwrpg, but maybe that was a separate check for completion rather than explaining what was happening?

My highest has been 20 twice, over quite a lot of runs. I’ve never tried optimizing for it, but I’m surprised that it’s possible to get that high, especially without any Emotion skill!

While it’s probably not practical at scale, it would be cool if some advisors with an agenda took the opportunity to frame things in a slightly different way whenever you had to rely on them for a check.

Maybe Ozara really stresses the importance of predictability for economics, if you have her around when you need to decide on the Jubilee date.

Maybe Krovos opens up some spicy dialog if he’s on board whenever Arrahil discusses her passion, or vice versa. He could also subtly describe information as about the “old” religion, if you’ve made Plans.

Maybe Branekka or Milan or both proactively ask you to spite the other, if you brought one along to where the other is present. (I’m curious about what was going on here, too!)

I’d especially hoped to see some consequences from Erilotti taking a very important position in cabinet. Maybe if she’s around, she frames species greeting sequencing by describing Mau as co-founders of the empire who expect to be acknowledged, or describing Heru as fiercely independent at best, unlikely to be offended if left last, but with an opportunity to portray unity.

It could be really fun if I get some early scenes when learning Intrigue for myself. It’s the knowledge skill that a player is likely to experiment with first, and would be another hint that sometimes, you’ll discover more when you learn knowledge skills for yourself. I could see her looking up salacious information at Student level. Maybe the results in having more to share with Kxenia on Turn 15. There could be some really fun easter eggs if the Grandmaster Intrigue flavour was something like “you’ve made a habit of investigating everyone you could meet” rather than “you’ve read up on all Electors”. Maybe discovering a few extra details about your friends and family, where you couldn’t perform a regular investigation.

I feel like there should be more sensitive things to learn in the Quest from the Pahnei-Stooye Electors, especially if I’m taking a difficult dive for Military secrets.

I wish getting physical in neutral space would have been disconcerting enough to dislodge some interesting information. It’s a pretty hard to check to make on top of everything else!

I wish I had more opportunities to interact with my cabinet. They’re supposed to be my closest allies, yet I end up feeling closer to all the people I do personal and engaging quests for instead. What if they did get a say in Imperial Policy from the get go, or just took opportunities when they come? Probably not practical to do for everyone, but maybe Rejt comes up with a proposal for something around the Opera. Maybe that’s how you actually meet the Askold opera company - I mention meeting them, when they come up in conversation, but that seems to have happened “off-screen”?

I wish there was a way to have “close contacts in Heru II” for the epilogues. I’d beelined there to obtain one cabinet member and complete two personal quests for a fully pledged system, and it still was this remote mysterious system to me as far as the epilogues were concerned.

I haven’t yet checked to see if Jade reacts differently if you’re wearing the Domination outfit. That could be an entertaining easter egg if she doesn’t already!

Completely separately, I wish there was a way to still experience personal quests from people who really like you. I’ve finally been able to see Grojdana’s quest, and that was super fun. I had no military experience, but seized a victory in a fun parallel of what I’d been doing socially in the wider sector. :)

…I didn’t even know the Data Visor outfit existed! Quickly found, looks neat!

I still absolutely love the Toolbelt outfit. Something about all the brightly color coded screwdrivers against sepia leather!

Etiquette and Empathy above everything else, especially early. First impressions are ridiculously important, I want to have at least 70 Etiquette by Turn 34 for reasons, and it’s very useful in between. I often have runs with all of Interaction and Emotion at 75 or higher.

I usually get at least Student Piloting and Operations, as it opens up a lot of options. If I want to push for Top Gun, I go up to Expert Operations. I can usually fit in a turn of Big Guns lessons while rotating through Negative on the wheel.

I usually push Intrusion to 50. There are only one or two turns of lessons I ever spend without a study bonus per run, and Intrusion 50 is important enough to be one of them.

Defensively, Reflexes, Endurance, and Contortion tend to be picked up early. Tumbling gets raised to 30 very early, often on turn 1 to stay efficient. Strength eventually gets picked up so Reflexes can be trained higher. I like to flex 30 into Chain when I have the space, to keep the right hand side of the mood wheel open. It’s not completely useless outside of this, but I do feel a little sad.

I completely ignore non-Big Guns Gunnery unless I have a very specific need. Similarly for all of Domination and Environment. Engineering and Arts also get outright skipped surprisingly often.

Intrigue 100 is fun, but there are plenty of social actions to spare, and four days is a lot. I wonder what it would be like if your cabinet bureaucrat’s bonus was “you always get the staying-put action bonus” rather than a stacking +1.

You can train Spirituality (without an advisor) before meeting Ethexae. One day’s worth of lessons goes a long way towards knowing what the right options should be.

For the initial check, you remember that you might be able to approach her as an equal as Empress, but for now, you need to be submissive/supplicative.

Finally managed to keep Mirelle neutral through to the final turns!

Vg frrzf vanccebcevngr gb or fb fhecevfrq ol n fznyy syvpxre, fb fbba nsgre irel fvtavsvpnag riragf. :(

In the post-“exchange” chat with Korundi, it could be neat if you have the chance (with Rhetoric) to compare the request to the Tchk’uk request, if you understood the implication at the time.

Thank you!

I’m currently up to page 15 in saves, and I’m not even sure when the runs I picked up Erilotti were, unfortunately!

But if it helps, the default choices I usually make are:

• Qrynl gur naabhaprzrag
• Nyybj Znmneva gb jnvg
• Fhttrfg ur’f ybbxvat sbe gur rzcrebe
• Fgnaq ol ng Qenht
• Artbgvngr ba orunys bs gur zrepunag
• Npprcg gur jvar
• Xrrc sngure’f whovyrr
• Vs V pna pnhfr n pbaivapvat ncbybtl, V sbepr vg; sbepr fborearff vs ninvynoyr bgurejvfr; chavfu sbe qehaxraarff bayl bgurejvfr
• Nccebir gur cbfvgvba
• Ercnve vg zlfrys vs V unir gur fxvyy sbe ng yrnfg n cnegvny fhpprff; ncbybtvmr bgurejvfr
• Chg gur fabj tybor ba qvfcynl vs V xabj ubj; chg va inhyg bgurejvfr
• Vs V pna unir Lnxnh ba fgnaqol, npprcg gur pbybal; qrynl vg bgurejvfr
• Npprcg gur chmmyr vs V vagraq gb fbyir vg; chg vg va gur inhyg bgurejvfr
• Fcyvg gur vaurevgnapr vs V unir gur fxvyy gb pvgr frirenovyvgl; xrrc gur fgnghf dhb bgurejvfr
• Sbphf ba gur fpvrapr onfrq erfcbafrf vs n cnaqrzvp unccraf; ernffher vg jnf angheny vs V unir gur uvtu fxvyy sbe vg; fhccerff ehzbhef bgurejvfr
• Terrg Gunexnaf, Ureh naq Znh va rvgure beqre, gura Zlexxnaf
• Tebhc pybarpuvyqera ol ntr
• Nyy vzcrevny tbbqf fubhyq or gerngrq rdhnyyl

Would it be okay if decompiled insights were kept behind ROT13, with a warning? I get that most people probably won’t mind, but I’d personally like to stay black-box for a little longer. :)

Khdarr has always been slightly negative or worse for me. Often hostile, if I don’t do well countering her rudeness in our first meeting.

She does well with Bureaucracy and Economics, refused me in every run with an “affected by elector approval” for Law, and outright refuses every other position.

I don’t know what it takes to have her accept the Law role. Dialogue indicates there would be some very spicy consequences with her in the role. If anyone has managed to leave a good impression, I would love to know how. :(

There are precise numbers behind the skill test bands. One (Practiced) test might require 40, another might require 50. You get the note about having completed a skill test band when you complete a lesson which raises your unboosted skill to beat the hardest test the band could pose.

I believe these are the thresholds, though I haven’t 100% tested the harder ones:

• 10: Basic
• 30: Student
• 50: Practiced
• 70: Graduate
• 90: Expert
• 100: Grandmaster

An Expert test means the test requires a skill of at least 75, 80, 85, or 90.

If adding multiple skills or testing a category, it’s scaled based on the number of skills involved. A Spirituality + Galactic Relations (Practiced) test could be testing as high as 100, or testing as low as 65.

Easier than Practiced is easy to flex. Harder than Practiced requires a deep commitment to the category. Practiced itself, depends on what the underlying value is.

An efficient 45 will cover almost all (Practiced) tests. An efficient 40 (two days of study and a friend/pet/cute outfit) will cover most. But there are a few important checks which need the full 50. 50 needs either commitment to the category, or accepting inefficient/wasteful lessons.

Maybe “Roughly positive”, for breadth and coarseness? This is hard. D:

Interesting! I can’t think of many choices which affect Eve. Might try different moods, or maxing out GRelations, to see if anything happens.

Fun stuff, thank you! Always interesting to hear about your process. :D

The tutorial “you can use their knowledge as if it were your own.” describes it well! For the longest time, I still thought the effective value was a sum, rather than taking whatever was larger.

I wonder if it would help to use something like the outfit bonus to show your skill being raised to their level, whenever theirs is higher? If there’s surprise when you see it’s still at the advisor’s level after lessons, it should at least be clear what’s happening.

It’s hard to show that your personal knowledge is still used in some specific situations. But maybe reading “To learn any more about Korundi, you’ll need the skill to investigate on your own.” would already be enough?

Super quick sketch for the idea:

I think most of the time everyone openly talks about Turns?

Early on, Korundi is outright hostile to a particular theory about what happened, if you raise it. A moderately good advisor will warn you why. If you pursue this angle obliviously, it can end very badly.

When is a temporary buff/penalty used, versus a temporary skill category, versus making subsequent checks harder? I was confused about the effect of the Exhausted penalty, but eventually saw it had updated the overlay, and was surprised at how brutal the effect was. I’m not entirely sure what “Stance” references. I can sort of guess, but the notifications suggest Stance’s effect is negative? Noticing when a check is Deception (Expert) on one run but was Deception (Graduate) previously seems like you’d need a lot of detailed notes, or a very good memory. :)

Etiquette and Empathy are universally useful. If nothing else, throwing a big party for your friends to efficiently spend two early days on these skills makes your life a lot easier.

Science (50+) provides an extra unit of movement during navigation. This is one of the most important bonuses you can obtain.

Bureaucracy (50+) provides an extra social action.

Media (70 sufficient, 30 is not) can let you poll the entire empire to see how every elector in zones you’ve ever visited feels about you. This also lets you see if you’ve upset any of your cabinet, which is a very bad situation. Character icons will always display the most recent source of information, even if that means replacing a precise “92% positive” assessment you had just performed in person with a “generally positive” assessment.

Law and Economics don’t seem to have an inherent bonus, but are relevant to many checks.

Advisors are important. The skill value used is your personal knowledge or your advisor’s knowledge, whichever is greater. Two Practiced ratings in the same subject will give you the Practiced rating, not sum to give you a Grandmaster rating.

There are a few specific situations where an advisor wouldn’t be able to help you, and you have to rely on your own knowledge. The earliest case is made explicit, where if you want to learn more about Korundi, you must be skilled enough to investigate on your own. Other cases can be less obvious.

Some events happen in response to you personally learning more about the subject.

Advisors can help you learn at +15 instead of +10. (Not in the actual lesson-as-social-action way, that’s limited to Kxenia and Vasily. I was surprised when Rejt wasn’t offering to talk about music on the side!) This bonus is based on how far away you are from their level at the start of the day. If you have an advisor at 50, learn half-day then full-day, you’ll end up at 45. If do it the other way, full-day then half-day, you’ll end up at 40.

Advisors can hold you back. The start-of-day logic is the same as for bonuses. The highest score you can reach with an advisor at 50 and six lessons is 75: half-day, full-day, half-day, full-day. If you would be learning a knowledge skill at +5 per lesson, you can fire the advisor to return to the basic +10 per lesson.

Firing a cabinet member usually makes them very unhappy. Depending on the relationship, you might be able to reassure them that it’s what’s best for the cause, or right now you need to keep your enemies closer. Some were never interested in keeping a position long term, but it’s very obvious.

You leave impressions on more than just Electors.

Moods can have many unexpected effects on events and interactions. A specific mood could open up possibilities that weren’t available otherwise, or even have you do something which is completely different from what you normally do. You will get a notification if something changed because you were affected by a mood. You won’t get a notification if something could have been affected by a mood.

“Zl Orfg Sevraq Pbasrffrq Ybir Gb Zr Naq Gura Ghearq Vagb Na Nyvra Zhfuebbz Mbzovr!” nofbyhgryl uheg zl fvqrf! Gurer ner fb znal nznmvat yvggyr guvatf.

Absolutely loving the new post-loss election scene!

V jvfu V pbhyq frr zber bs gur pubvprf grnfrq vs lbh fheivir. Ohg V pna haqrefgnaq vs lbh jnag gb yrnir vg gurer, naq/be fnir gung sbe yngre hcqngrf!

There are a lot of post-climax corner cases I want to explore. Is it possible to keep some of the opinionated electors neutral (and so have buttons available) for this long?

V xabj fbzr pna or fhqqrayl syvccrq arhgeny vs gurve cyrqtr orpbzrf vainyvq, ohg V unira’g orra noyr gb gevttre gung va guvf ebhgr. Tvira uvagf nobhg jul, vg znxrf frafr, gubhtu vg’f abg pyrne jura qrgrpgvba unccrarq.

In a super niche situation (which I was happy to find had been considered!) negotiating with Branekka with Milan as Logothete: She asks if you’re familiar with Milan, Elector of Kedrow, Logothete of X, and Zorana asks if she means the Logothete of X. Maybe there was a helper for someones full name and title, which was changed to also have the cabinet position mentioned, some time after this was written?

It’s a bit hard to just go back to election after an exciting showdown. You do get some very nice lines, though I’m a little sad there’s no extra commentary from some checks for Branekka.

Still, there’s no shortage of other threads to explore. Long live the empress!