Associating with Radical Academics (Guide)

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What needs work: EPA needs reevaluation after the recent Rat Market changes and the September 2024 Tribute changes.
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Tiger Tribute Summary
Variable-Length Conversion Activity
Setup Progress End
0 A 1+ A 4 A
Progress

Details

Donate items to raise Tribute and turn in at the Court of the Wakeful Eye. Caps at 260.
Items Inputs/Outputs
Inputs
Outputs
Raw EPA 6.48

Associating with Radical Academics is a story in which your character first discovers the secret Dilmun Club and subsequently gets involved in business there. Being a secret club, it's not equippable in the sense of other clubs such as Sophia's or The Young Stags' Club. Eventually a membership in the Dilmun Club brings you on your way to the Court of the Wakeful Eye, where you can gain access to one or more of the following companions:

Each gives a +10 bonus in one of the main stats, and +1 in either Bizarre, Dreaded, or Respectable.

In addition, you can turn in a number of valuable things for Tribute and hand in Tribute for high value items, making it a potentially decent grind for echoes and rarer items.

Associating with Radical Academics is also a prerequisite for Embarking on a Voyage of Scientific Discovery. See Embarking on a Voyage of Scientific Discovery (Guide) for more info on this.

You can discover the club before becoming A Person of Some Importance -, but in order finish the storyline, you need the following:

Progressing Associating with Radical Academics[edit]

The first section of Associating with Radical Academics involves discovering the Dilmun Club. At the start, progress can either be gained on the The Seekers of the Garden card with sufficient Approaching the Gates of the Garden or on separate cards.

Unlock[edit]

One of:

Level 1[edit]

Level 2[edit]

Level 3[edit]

Level 4[edit]

This step needs A Person of Some Importance -.

Join the Dilmun Club!, storylet in Ladybones Road, which gives three options for your sponsor. Each option costs a variety of items and qualities.

This step gives you the Dilmun Club Lapel Badge (Adornment).

Level 5[edit]

Now you have to wait about one day in real-world time, then you get A meeting of the Dilmun Club in your messages.

Level 6[edit]

Level 7[edit]

To get to the next level, you have to get banished from the Empress' Court, visit the Foreign Office, and travel to Port Carnelian and serve at least one successful term as a Governor there. See Carving out a Reputation at Court (Guide) for a detailed description.

After you have done that, and returned to London, you'll draw the card Inching Ever Closer, which progresses you to level 10.

Level 10[edit]

If you haven't done so, finish the Making Your Name (Guide) Dangerous track to gain access to The Labyrinth of Tigers. Head to the fourth coil. Doing so requires Making Progress in the Labyrinth of Tigers 14. When you leave the fourth coil, you have a new option, Head to the Fifth Coil. Playing Meet the Tiger Keeper in his second office will advance you to level 15.

Level 15[edit]

Playing A Sufficient Tribute after submitting at least 80 x Tribute (see below) raises the quality to level 20.

Level 20[edit]

You may now set zail to The Court of the Wakeful Eye; like Port Carnelian, when selecting a destination it's located on The Elder Continent. Upon arriving to the Court, you will Accept a summons from the Banded Prince. This raises you to level 25 and costs 80 x Tribute. Progress until you reach Deepening Relations with the Court, and then request access to a Minister -- see below for your options. Selecting a Minister will set the quality to 75.

Level 75[edit]

At this point you may gather additional Tribute and request access to the remaining 3 Ministers.

This level marks the start of the Evolution serial story. See Evolution (Guide) for more information.

Offering Tribute to the Court of the Wakeful Eye[edit]

The storylet appears in the fifth coil of The Labyrinth of Tigers. Here, you must offer valuable items until you have increased Tribute to at least 80. You can later return to this storylet, even after you have advanced the story further.

Most of these options value one point of Tribute at E 2.50.

You can raise your Tribute up to 260 at most.

Requirement Option Tribute Notes
2500 x Penny Offer a sizeable donation +10
7 x Favours: Criminals Offer an unrepentant ex-convict who won't be missed +23
1 x Magnificent Diamond Offer a Magnificent Diamond +5 More efficient to sell in bulk.
1 x Puzzle-Damask Scrap Offer puzzle-damask +5 More efficient to sell in bulk.
1 x Cellar of Wine Offer a cellar of wine +5 More efficient to sell in bulk.
Copy of your Ode to the Elder Continent Offer an Ode to the Elder Continent +5 Can be obtained from composing poems at the Empress' Court -- see this Guide for more.
7 x Favours: The Docks Offer the labour of a zailor +23
7 x Favours: Bohemians Offer the talents of an artist +23
7 x Favours: The Church Offer a plump vicar +23
7 x Favours: Society Arrange the visit of a respected noblewoman +23
50 x Memory of Light Offer Memories of Light +10
1 x Mountain-sherd Offer a Mountain-sherd +35 See Underclay (Guide) for a repeatable source.
16 x Royal-Blue Feather Offer Royal-Blue Feathers +4
50 x Correspondence Plaque Offer Correspondence Plaques +10
1 x Strong-Backed Labour Offer Strong-Backed Labour +2 See Underclay (Guide) for a repeatable source.
30 x Lucky Weasel Offer a bevy of Lucky Weasels +5
Deshrieked Mandrake Offer a deshrieked mandrake to the Court +5
1 x Winsome Dispossessed Orphan Offer a winsome dispossessed orphan +25 Buying these at the Bazaar (Redemptions) and offering them is the most efficient way to turn money into tribute.
1 x Starveling Cat The starveling cat! The starveling cat! Bad idea to offer him that! -5

If you have items sellable at the Bazaar and that are valued at E 2.50 per Tribute (mostly Magnificent Diamonds, Puzzle-Damask Scraps, Cellars of Wine, and Correspondence Plaques), then it's generally most efficient to sell them to Bazaar and then buy as many Orphans as you can afford from the proceeds, and offer those instead. As using the Bazaar takes zero actions, you end up using only a single action to donate an Orphan bought with e.g. 5 Diamonds (plus some pocket change), rather than the 5 actions needed to donate each Diamond directly.

Weasels and Mandrakes are, like Orphans, converted into Tribute at their Bazaar buying price, not selling price. As such, donate them directly, and don't sell them to buy Orphans. You can buy them to offer for Tribute but, again, buying and donating Orphans is more action-efficient. If you've already got a Mandrake you want to get rid of, though, dumping it here will get you more than selling it at the Bazaar.

Mountain-sherds are a good deal at E 62.50/35 Tribute = ~E 1.79/Tribute, versus the usual E 2.50 per Tribute.

SBL, however, are not. You can get 3x SBL from Underclay in 5 actions, plus 3 to offer them as Tribute. That works out to 6 Tribute for 8 actions. Twice the actions (i.e. ~16) at a middling 4 EPA grind would get you Echoes enough for an Orphan worth 25 Tribute (versus 12 Tribute for 6x SBL).


If you wish to get all four ministers (see below), it will cost 800 x Tribute -- which is 32 x Orphans at a cost of E 2073.60.

Also see the Tribute combination list for suggestions on using Tribute for Money-Making.

Other Means of Tribute[edit]

There are two additional ways to gain Tribute without directly offering items to the Tiger Keeper. Both are part of other, action-intensive carousels, and are notable mainly in that Tribute gained from these sources can exceed the softcap of 263.

A Carnelian work[edit]

After being Restored to Court, this ballet is among the new works you may create. When completed, you gain x 1 Tribute in addition to the usual rewards for a minor work There are many options for gaining Inspired... outside of Court, so the Tribute gain is a nice bonus for an already somewhat-profitable activity. Consult Artistry in the Empress' Court (Guide) for more details.

An audience with the Banded Prince[edit]

If you have raised Associating with Radical Academics to at least 15, you will receive a bonus of 5 x Tribute when you hand in your Striped Delights after any future term as Governor of Port Carnelian. This by itself is not terribly efficient, but you only need a single point of Striped Delights to do it. This means that during a term as Governor in which you spend many actions restoring Imperial Legitimacy, you can convert all SD to Silver Horseheads and cash in for Tribute, saving your payoffs for future terms when you will surpass the breakpoints and get a better payout in Antique Mysterys or Puzzling Maps.

Other than those breakpoints, the rewards scale linearly with SD/ SH, so unless the total is low enough that you'd otherwise choose Honoured with a State Dinner, shifting to Horseheads is generally a mistake; just shift everything toward Delights as long as the return is good (it virtually always is), and redeem for the usual payment in items plus the bonus Tribute. For further details, consult Port Carnelian (Guide).

Getting Rewards at the Court of the Wakeful Eye[edit]

Once you have submitted at least 80 x Tribute, you can play A Sufficient Tribute in The Labyrinth of Tigers.

Then you can set Zail to the Elder Continent (South-East on the map) and select the Court of the Wakeful Eye as your destination. See Zailing (Guide) for more information.

Once you have arrived, you can select one of the Ministers as a companion. Later you can select another minister for 240 x Tribute each.

At the Court, you have the option to spend time with a minister you already have. This costs 20 x Tribute and 4 actions. You must also have a certain 'stories' quality. It gives an item (or items) worth 62.5 Echoes.

Minister Stats Option Required Quality Reward
The Minister of Enigmas Shadowy +10
Bizarre +1
Join the Minister of Enigmas for teatime Seeing through the Eyes of Icarus 7 Searing Enigma
The Minister of Culture Persuasive +10
Respectable +1
Enjoy a bubbling hookah with the Minister of Culture Approaching the Gates of the Garden 7 Night-Whisper
The Minister of War Dangerous +10
Dreaded +1
Enjoy an extended walk through the fungal jungle with the Minister of War Touched by Fingerwork 7 Primaeval Hint
The Minister of State Affairs Watchful +10
Respectable +1
Join the Minister of State Affairs for a long afternoon Walking the Falling Cities 7 5 x Favour in High Places

Analysis[edit]

The Court of the Wakeful Eye is a reliable way to obtain very good companions, and several of the grinds associated with it have very high EPA in addition to being good sources of specific items.

The limit of max 260 Tribute means you cannot arbitrarily reduce the relative action cost of zee travel by operating in big batches.

On the plus side, selling items from the ministers through the Rat Market can boost the profitability. The general idea is to turn in Night-Whisper for Rat-Shillings, and then use those to buy items that you can sell at the bazaar at a favourable rate. This option depends on the various time-dependent conditions of the rat market.