Esquestria: The House of the Sun - A pony cultist experience

[Earth-Destroyer]

We can get lots of money fast by selling minor artifacts they go for around hundred bits per level, and that for artifacts nobody knows how to use.

 

[Greymere]

ON THE OTHER HOOF... we're talking about spending HUNDREDS of bits on this summon. Most of our bits, in fact.

And I'm unsure if that's a better use of our resources than, you know, the unlocked expeditions we have, which are likely to get us artifacts, lore books, potentially rituals, reagents (maybe even rituals we could use to reduce the cost a bit), and "normal" treasures we could sell for bits.

IF Cadance or Steppes give us more money, that changes things. But if not... using all those bits NOW on the Forge Name likely means we won't be able to afford Canterlot Part 3 and Tall Tale.

We don't even know if we'll have to resummon Axe (and pay her ritual cost AGAIN... though we DO have wrong keys to use if we need to), and we'll soon have to pay for Biedde too.

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Tall Tale just isn't worth it imo, and we're unlikely to be doing BtRC Part 3 next turn anyway due to the AP cost (regardless if we're talking Followers or Velvet). 'Summoning' the Forge Name not only open up the ability to actually get our Forge Sacrament in a reasonable amount of time, but also gets us another Follower AP and someone who's actually good at Forge for expeditions, which our faction is pretty sorely lacking in beyond Velvet herself.

 

[Pittauro]

We can get lots of money fast by selling minor artifacts they go for around hundred bits per level, and that for artifacts nobody knows how to use.

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problem is, we don't yet know WHERE to sell them.

I hoped to use Steppes as a middleman, as he knows where the auction house is and could have probably sold things for us, but... well, it's no longer an option.

 

[Greymere]

problem is, we don't yet know WHERE to sell them.

I hoped to use Steppes as a middleman, as he knows where the auction house is and could have probably sold things for us, but... well, it's no longer an option.

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...we've been to the auction house though? We know where it is.

 

[Pittauro]

...we've been to the auction house though? We know where it is.

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...oh, I thought it had been another history. Fair enough, we could probably use a single confidant action to send someone there to sell things for us.

Considering Velvet's position they'd never refuse. Maybe send Mareinette if she can use Grail to get better prices? or Rarity, I suppose, and we could have her sell for us without mentioning our name. She IS a famous seamstress now, and one with a reputation of Mistery too, so it could fit.

 

[ses]

I think we should just go ahead and summon the Name next turn unless we have a pressing reason not to (Like having to pay bits and AP to resummon Axe). We've painfully learned the lesson at this point that getting Names is the correct decision. Consider the consequences of skipping Neighnia, of letting Baldomare lapse, and the narrowly avoided game over from almost having delayed Biedde another turn.

The Forge Name has plenty of useful things to do, it can give us a forge scrap in preparation for a turn 24 max influence personal Forge Sacrament, it can build us a prison, it can go on expeditions (Forge is the most common obstacle type on endgame high level expeditions! the kind where we wouldn't want Axe to attempt solo!), and it probably has some kind of crazy unique ability, probably something involving crafting. It could easily be something like "Spend an action to craft a free level 6 reagent", considering that Axe can spend an action to craft three level 3 reagents with upside for free and the Forge Name probably has a better unique crafting ability than Axe does.

Tall Tale is probably being handed to the Bureau, and we were never going to do BTRC3 next turn anyway, and we have should room in the budget for the level 7 book hunt expedition as well as summoning the forge name, though we'll find out more on that soon.

 

[Zxzx24]

The forge name could also work towards healing all those ponies. Like shining armor.

 

[Greymere]

Study Books(Moth 5 until complete, Manehattan Expeditions, if we got lucky and oneshot the moth book go ahead and attempt to read the Knock book)

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I really don't think there's much value in reading the Knock book. It doesn't get us to an important threshold, and the chances we'll be in a position to actually get to Knock 6 before All In seems vanishingly low; while we should be able to get the Level 7 book for Baldomare before her timer is up, having the safety net of the Knock book to refresh her timer if we can't is more valuable to us than a single Knock scrap and whatever trait we might get from it. Especially since while we definitely have been assuming the Level 7 book is the end of her friendship quest, we don't actually know that for sure. After all, the problem seems to be that Baldomare has some fundamental injury that causes her to bleed out light, and iirc the Level 7 book is so that Velvet can get a proper look at the injury and figure out how to help.

 

[ses]

I really don't think there's much value in reading the Knock book. It doesn't get us to an important threshold, and the chances we'll be in a position to actually get to Knock 6 before All In seems vanishingly low; while we should be able to get the Level 7 book for Baldomare before her timer is up, having the safety net of the Knock book to refresh her timer if we can't is more valuable to us than a single Knock scrap and whatever trait we might get from it. Especially since while we definitely have been assuming the Level 7 book is the end of her friendship quest, we don't actually know that for sure. After all, the problem seems to be that Baldomare has some fundamental injury that causes her to bleed out light, and iirc the Level 7 book is so that Velvet can get a proper look at the injury and figure out how to help.

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We have soft-confirmation that the level 7 book goes directly to befriending

You have gifted Baldomare a Level 6 book. Her summoning period has been reset.

You think you will be able to solve this enigma, and help her for good, if you gift her a Level 7 book.

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And yes, the Knock book is marginal, but I refer to the quote "You technically can reach Sacraments with just level 4 books. But level 5+ books were always meant to be special and more interesting, especially if you did not buy them from a store." It's only 25-33% chance of reading the Knock book anyway depending on if we spend a Lantern attention on the Moth book? It's very much marginal but the manehattan book is important and having +40 on the DC 90 rolls to study the Lantern artifact and Winter artifact are important. Might as well read it if we get the chance rather than write in that we wont read it even if we get lucky on the moth book.

Since level 6 books come with a guaranteed(?) trait, Level 5 books we didn't get from a store probably involve a roll to gain a trait, scaling with how old it is(Read: deciphering penalty). I'm expecting better than 50% odds of some kind of bonus from the Moth book, and decent odds of some kind of bonus from the Knock one. Also, the knock book is just... it's not going to get used for Baldomare. We have an entire extra turn to re-attempt the expedition if we somehow fail next turn.

Also level 6 isn't totally out of the question? It's certainly possible if Befriended names give two actions a turn and we DO need to do a solo mansus expedition harder than the red church after All In, so lore is still important to gain. Important enough to not write in that we'd let a reading slot go to waste for the sake of "we might fail the book expedition two turns in a row"

EDIT: lol that quote was in response to you in the first place. Didn't notice at first. But yeah reading level 5 books is good, especially better than just writing in "leave the reading slot to waste JUST IN CASE", and we're needing a Study Books action anyway.

 

[Pittauro]

We've painfully learned the lesson at this point that getting Names is the correct decision.

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in hindsight we should have gone for Neighnia over Lantern 6 book, yeah.

ALSO we should have NOT studied that book... but in our defense we only got Baldomare AFTER we started translating that book, so we didn't know she'd need books to rank up her friendship and/or to prolong her summon.

 

[Earth-Destroyer]

We can still scry for Neighnia. We have the Lateran Name she won't be able to hide.

And yeah that bit with Baldomare was a clusterfuck. A minor risk Selene's return being delayed by a turn was absolutely worth keeping Baldomare around longer.

 

[Talon Tiger Dino]

It really, really was. If nothing else it would have been three Lantern/SH scraps!

 

[Shaper47]

What I regret is no going to the Master for more lessons.

 

[Talon Tiger Dino]

Happy Easter everyone!