A Trade in Reputations (Guide)

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A Trade in Reputations Summary
Fixed-Length Activity
Setup Progress End
0 A 15 A 0 A
Progress

Details

Raise Name Recognition.
Items Inputs/Outputs
Boosting
Outputs
Raw EPA 3.33

The Artful Advertiser has employed you to conduct advertising campaigns that will elevate certain products in the Neath into everyone's hearts and minds! The Naga Advertising Agency is available in the Bazaar Side-Streets after unlocking it from your lodgings anytime after becoming a Person of Some Importance. Currently, there are four advertising campaigns one can go on, each with differing rewards.

General[edit]

Your goal in each campaign is the same: Draw cards to raise Name Recognition as high as possible before the 5 levels of Campaign Duration disappear. The rewards for the Mrs Winthrop's Purifying Soap, Spirit of the Zee and The Cosmic Matchmaker campaigns scale with the penny value of Name Recognition gained. For example, Intriguing Snippets can be sold for 0.20 E each at the Bazaar, so if you finish the campaign with 1000 Name Recognition, you will receive 50 Intriguing Snippets. The last two campaigns are an exception to this: Sterling's Solar Hearth's Memories of Light only gives half of the expected penny value and The Cosmic Matchmaker pays in varying amounts of Proscribed Materials, depending on the amount of Name Recognition gained.

Campaigns[edit]

Campaign Name Rewards Payout if 3500
Mrs Winthrop's Purifying Soap /20 Intriguing Snippet ~175 (E 35)
Spirit of the Zee /50 Zee-Ztory ~70 (E 35)
Sterling's Solar Hearth /100
/2
Memory of Light
Shard of Glim
~35
~1750 (E 35)
The Cosmic Matchmaker[1] ≤1249 /4 Proscribed Material N/A [2]
≥1250 ( -1250) /4

1

Proscribed Material

Blackmail Material

~563

1

(E 35.02)
  1. Requires Prolific Advertiser
  2. Maximum possible Name Recognition here is 1249

Campaign Structure[edit]

The Enterprise quality changes the difficulty of most challenges and affects the quantity of Name Recognition you receive from most cards. Each venture has a starting Enterprise value which can then be further increased up to a maximum of 25 (for no action cost) or decreased for an action cost. This is done at the Raise the stakes storylet.

Each campaign starts with 5 levels of Campaign Duration, and every action decreases the remaining Duration by 1 Change Point. Thus, each campaign has a fixed duration of 15 actions all of which are spent playing cards. Choosing a campaign and cashing out do not cost an action. Along with increasing your Name Recognition, certain cards provide a chance to increase your Shadowy and Persuasive skills or gain Confident Smiles and Hastily Scrawled Warning Notes. The majority of cards can be played at any point during the campaign, but there are a few exceptions:

Recruiting The Guileful Copywriter & The Genre Painter via cards will allow new opportunity cards to be drawn that can increase the amount of Name Recognition gained per turn. Increasing qualities such as Respectable, Bizarre, etc. will also affect the quality of the cards drawn in a similar fashion.

Mixing campaign profiles can lead to to complications, in the form of new cards:

After each successful campaign, you are rewarded with 1 x Prolific Advertiser. Increasing this quality unlocks more options in the A cup of spiced tea storylet. Gaining 3 of these will unlock the final "The Cosmic Matchmaker" campaign.

Cards[edit]

In the below tables

  • E refers to the value of Advertising Profile: Enterprise.
  • Standard + Rare means the following distribution, while Standard means only the first row is applied:
Enterprise 0 1 5 6 10 11 15 16 20 21 25 26
Name Recognition Gain 167 167 172 174 200 212 267 279 305 307 312 312
Name Recognition Rare Gain 221[1] 222 228[1] 231[1] 265[1] 280 353[1] 368 402[1] 405 411 412
  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Assumed values


Regular Cards
Card Requirements Campaign Duration Challenge type Reward Notes
An urgent assignment 167+2E
Freshly-printed trade cards 167+2E
A bizarre campaign Bizarre All face options: Standard+Rare

Distance from ...: 215 or 230

Increase focus: 167+2E

A campaign of dread Dreaded
A respectable campaign Respectable
The efforts of the competition Luck 100+10E Often gives a random focus
Sampling the product 5 None 50+10E
A commission for the Genre Painter The Genre Painter 2-5 depends on choice; at most Standard
A serialised novel The Guileful Copywriter 2-5 , or None depends on choice; at most Standard+Rare
Have (Campaign Focus) Reviewed 2-4 Standard+Rare Extra option with Newspaper
Meddle with the competition 2-4 depends on choice; at most Standard+Rare Extra option with Gang of Hoodlums
Special Cards
Card Requirements Campaign Duration Challenge type Reward Notes
Cards that unlock options
The Genre Painter Unlocks The Genre Painter
The Guileful Copywriter Unlocks The Guileful Copywriter
The face of the campaign Unlocks options on BDR cards
Finishing Cards
A trade show Exactly 1 None 275+10E(with Violantly Mercantile Cuttlefish)
225+10E(without)
A stroke of luck 250+10E Very Infrequent Frequency
Directly into London's hands Mrs Winthrop's Purifying Soap 200+10E Depends on Campaign
A convivial affair Spirit of the Zee
A Workshop Tour Sterling's Solar Hearth
A questionnaire The Cosmic Matchmaker
'Tis the Season Christmas 175+10E
Menace Cards
Attend to your reputation 5+ Scandal / / /None - -2 or +2CP Scandal
Suspicious behaviour 5+ Suspicion or Standard, but will keep card -(2-3) or +2CP Suspicion
A troublesome ambiguity Bizarre & Dreaded 1-4 +

or +

167+2E Conflict Card

Pick which way the campaign should go

An awkward misunderstanding Dreaded & Respectable 1-4 +

or +

An inconvenient duality Bizarre & Respectable 1-4 +

or +

Strategy[edit]

General principles:

  • Start whichever campaign you'd like, depending on which rewards are more useful to you. The EPA is the same for all campaigns (At 3500 x Name Recognition, the EPA is 2.3). Once started, increase the campaign's difficulty as much as you can without making the checks hard. Remember that failing the checks decreases the amount of Name Recognition that you have. With highest difficulty, highest stats (enough to 100% every check you pass) and using only actions which give you 312+ Name Recognition, you can expect getting 5000 x Name Recognition (or more), bringing your EpA to 3.(3)+.
  • Go for the BDR stat that you can get the highest. This will typically be Respectable or Dreaded, but depends highly on your selected Club, tattoes and Ambition Rewards. As for now, it looks like BDR-conflict cards (i.e., An inconvenient duality) aren't worth it, so try focusing on one quality. Conflict cards can be drawn during duration 1, so it is best to have no conflicts nearing this threshold to maximize chances of getting rare cards. For ease of use, you can try combining your BDR-gear with your stats-increasing gear to allow passing all of the checks without switching gear.
  • Make sure to draw your cards so that you have few when you reach duration 1, so that you can draw new cards and have more chances at drawing good cards.
  • It may be best to skip getting help from The Guileful Copywriter and The Genre Painter by rejecting services of both of them/just one of them, if you can reliably pass checks on other opportunities. Rejecting costs zero actions and clears one slot in your hand.
  • It is best to have 5-sized Lodgings to maximize chances of getting Spokesperson from your first draw (and make some cards more profitable) and to almost guarantee getting rare opportunities with duration < 2.
  • A trade show(with ) > A stroke of luck > A trade show > campaign-specific cards (i.e., A questionnaire) > seasonal ones (i.e., 'Tis the Season).
  • You may in addition have a goal to increase shadowy and/or persuasive as much as you can, and/or gaining second chances for improving your stats.
  • Menace-reducing actions with black borders (i.e., Suspicious behaviour) are bad for EpA of grind; consider using other sources to reduce your menaces (like social actions). They may become profitable during Hallowmas, but only if used to increase menaces.

To maximize raising your Shadowy and Persuasive:

To maximize your grind EpA outcome:

  • Grab 5-sized lodgings.
  • Be sure to have less than 5 in both Scandal and Suspicion.
  • Start with choosing any campaign.
  • Choose some campaign focus (according to your highest BDR stat).
  • Immediately raise difficulty to the highest threshold that still guarantees passing all checks.
  • Start drawing cards.
  • On duration 5 it is better to play The face of the campaign than any other card. Choose anyone except for yourself. Playing this card raises your difficulty a bit (and may make it impossible to raise difficulty further afterwards), but this raise will come handy at duration 1. If unable to choose Spokesperson immediately, play Sampling the product - with 5-sized Lodgings you'll always have this in your first draw if you're unlucky with The face of the campaign.
  • On duration 4 to 2 play any card that allows you to pass its check and give maximum possible amount of Name Recognition while looking for The face of the campaign (if not drawn earlier), except for those: An urgent assignment, Freshly-printed trade cards, The efforts of the competition. The efforts of the competition may seem like a good card, but it can shift your campaign's focus which will spawn conflict cards, and those conflicts are both bad for overall EpA and can proc on duration 1, thus blocking rare options.
  • On duration 1 discard any discardable cards and use cards with colored borders (other than black-colored). Remember: A trade show(with ) is better than A stroke of luck which is better than regular A trade show; they are both strictly better than campaign-specific cards (i.e., A questionnaire and the others), and seasonal ones (i.e., 'Tis the Season) are worse than all other rare options. If your difficulty is higher due to selecting face of the campaign, rare cards will become more profitable and can help you grab another item or two during final conversion. If you chose your Spokesperson, have no conflict cards, no cards with black borders and no undiscarded helpers, you are guaranteed to spawn at least 1 rare card on draw, which helps with your overall EpA.