As the game proceeds toward a conclusion, several victory conditions are available to pursue. Naturally, any player that becomes deeply invested in the creation and embellishment of an individual story has achieved a personal victory and I encourage everyone to strive for this over the next several weeks.
Specific victory conditions have been roughly tied to the following conditions as Final Challenges:
Redoubtable Personage (Rank): those with the five highest Ranks will be competing with each other
Titans of Industry (BUS): those with the five highest BUS skills will be competing with each other
For Honor (MIL): the five highest MIL skills will be competing with each other
Immortal Bard (PER): the five highest PER skills will be competing with each other
A Lasting Discovery (EDU): the five highest EDU skills will be competing with each other
Spirit of the Age (FSH): the five highest FSH skills will be competing with each other
A word of caution: Min/Maxing will put you at a disadvantage in the Final Challenges. Until then, you are strongly encouraged to explore your character concept to the fullest and build a reasonably well-rounded character. The transition to Final Challenge mode will come late in the game and will be clearly demarcated.
Orders may not be split between public and private orders. The most recent order submission will overwrite any previous submissions and will be treated as such by @Bartlebot. Private orders are done with a very minor penalty to rank, as a proper gentlesentient has nothing to hide. Any cost to Rank incurred by private order submission will be kept secret between the player and the GM until that cost would drop that players rank below 200, at which point the character is no longer able to conceal the subterfuge. Furthermore, once Final Challenges are announced, all hidden Rank costs will be applied to the Rank score in order to put everyone on equal informational footing.
A crafty player may choose to submit one set of orders in public and subsequently submit an updated set of orders privately for purposes of deception and skullduggery.
(Embarassed aside: An example set of orders for both cases is forthcoming, as I’m still updating the bot code for this particular iteration.)
Excellent question. The rank is held as long as the lodgings are held. In the event that one wishes to upgrade or downgrade lodgings, one merely submits a new 'rent ’ order in a new round. The usual moving fee applies, the rent for the new season is paid, and the rank difference is applied.
For example, anyone currently renting a Spartan Apartment (rank+50, upkeep -75£/turn) that wishes to upgrade to a Modest Apartment would submit an order this round:
rent Modest Apartment
This would incur the one time moving fee (-25£), the new upkeep per turn would be -200£/turn), and would see an increase in rank of an additional +25.
It should be noted that moving to a less desirable address, say from a Modest Apartment to a Spartan Apartment, would incur the expected -25 to rank as well as an equivalent penalty of rank-25 due to gossip about the circumstances. Equivalently, downgrading from a Proper Apartment to a Modest apartment would see a gossip penalty of rank-75. Appearances must be maintained after all.
Are the stat bonuses granted by buying items applied the same turn they are purchased, or on the next turn (specifically with respect to Investment outcomes)?
For example, if, in Turn 2, I buy a Novel that increases my PER from 23 to 27, and also invest in Option 3, which has PER as a relevant stat, which value will be used to influence the outcome of that investment? 23, or 27?
I’m having a problem reconciling the high-tech aspect of the setting with the 19th century culture.
Specifically:
Let’s leave aside the whole question about a plague that can affect so many different species with different evolutionary histories, and the sheer foolhardiness of the entire empire, if modern epidemiology was one of the things discarded when reverting to Regency culture. I can, although it strains my suspension of disbelief, reconcile all that with wanting to create an authentic-feeling Space Regency setting.
No, what I want to know is:
Where along the continuum of snake oil - proven medicine do these remedies fall?
If we’re in the far future, having come from high-tech societies, we should have clinically-proven medicine available to us. On the other hand, actual Regency period science didn’t.
I’m having a really hard time trying to figure out how to roleplay this. On the one hand, my rational, skeptical side took one look at the post above and called bullshit, and then amplified that call by a factor of a hundred based on the futuristic setting. On the other hand, my character has fallen ill, and the way the information is presented, it’s clear that the offer of medicine is supposed to be somewhat compelling (despite possessing all of the traits that, to a modern eye, cause it to be flagged as snake oil).
My character’s previous thoughts on this issue (before tonics, etc., became an official thing):
As a relatively new colony world, Weatherby represents an largely unexplored opportunity. Although many aspects may have been previously studied from orbit in the general - native species, local ecosystems, planetary ecology - the introduction of local industry and multiple alien species will always disturb things to an extent. Specifically, as sorties, business ventures, and expeditions continue to stream out from the capital city, unusual and unexpected pathogens may easily find their way back to the concentrated populace.
In this particular instance, we’re probably closer to the Regency era of guesswork than we are to the futurist era of AI-assisted cures. Local chemists are likely to have a better understanding of regional illnesses, but any number of confidence sentients are likely to be jostling with genuine practitioners of space medicine to make a quick profit.