Associating with Radical Academics (Guide)
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Early PoSI Content and Onwards |
| Tiger Tribute Summary | |||||||||||
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| Variable-Length Conversion Activity | |||||||||||
| Setup | Progress | End | |||||||||
| 0 A | 1+ A | 1 A | |||||||||
| Progress
Details |
Donate items to raise  Tribute and turn in at the Court of the Wakeful Eye. Caps at 260.
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| Raw EPA | 4.23 | ||||||||||
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:
- A Person of Some Importance -
- Your own ship
Successful Terms as Governor - at least 1
Cultivating an Acquaintance with His Amused Lordship is an advantage
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:
- A gathering of scholars opportunity card, needs
69 Watchful - The Seekers of the Garden opportunity card, option "Attend an assembly of academics", needs 5 Approaching the Gates of the Garden
Level 1[edit]
- Unusual Academics, opportunity card, requires 81 Watchful
- Finding the Dilmun Club from The Seekers of the Garden opportunity card, needs 5 Approaching the Gates of the Garden, 2 Bizarre challenge (equip all your Bizarre gear to make this easier).
Level 2[edit]
- The Museum of Mistakes, opportunity card, requires 93 Watchful
Level 3[edit]
- Can His Amused Lordship help you find the Dilmun Club? from The Seekers of the Garden opportunity card, needs exactly 3 Cultivating an Acquaintance with His Amused Lordship
- Find the Dilmun Club Headquarters from The Seekers of the Garden opportunity card, needs
1 x Secluded Address (which you lose on success)
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.
- His Amused Lordship
- Bishop of St Fiacre's, 4 Bizarre challenge
3 x Mourning Candle (lose even if you fail the challenge)
- Implacable Detective, 6 Respectable challenge
1 x Implacable Detective's Business Card (lose even if you fail the challenge)
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]
- Return to the Dilmun Club, storylet in Ladybones Road, gives you (depending on your previous sponsor)
- His Amused Lordship:
- Bishop of St Fiacre's
- Implacable Detective
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 initially value one point of Tribute at 
2.50.
You can raise your Tribute up to 260 at most.
Tribute gains taper off after offering a certain amount; this ammount is tracked by the following qualities: 
Offering Favours to the Court for Favours, Offering Orphans to the Court for 
Winsome Dispossessed Orphan and Offering Riches to the Court for 
Mountain-sherd and 
2500 x Penny.
If you have items sellable at the Bazaar and that are valued at 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 62.50/35 Tribute = ~ 1.79/Tribute, versus the usual 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 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 1 action. You must also have a certain 'stories' quality. It gives an item (or items) worth 62.5 Echoes.
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 decently high EPA for the midgame, 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.
