Lumen path: Royal Demeanor or Economics?

[ShadouFireborn]

I'm trying to weigh the pro's and con's of these two options for getting your Lumen crystal early. Going Economics has benefits both early and later, but so does having the Royal Demeanor skills. Economics gets you the early skills you need to get the printing press, and Trade has bonuses at several points later, including giving you the option not to eat the poisoned chocolates. But Demeanor allows you to drive off the Ixionites without killing, marrying, or offending anyone (besides the ixionites, but who cares about them?), and has bonuses to commoner and noble approval at various points throughout. I'm trying to find a "perfect" path, and my trail through the sociopolitical minefield of the first 20 weeks has me needing to marry Talarist if I want to both survive Week 17 and appoint Lucille to be minister of magic.

Anyone have any suggestions here, or just want to weigh in with their two cents on which option has the better end result?

[tiberiansun371alexw]

Perfect... I don't think there is such a thing. According to an evil site that will suck all yuor time, it is possible to recruit Lucielle, save the day with the power of music, have high approval, and still get sailor Briony. Is that what wou mean my perfect?

You can pretty much skip the printing press. Fun fact: If you get a partial success while on the parade, make a good speech, and fund the hosptial but then raise taxes... you come out ahead in approval and STILL have money. People don't like apying taxes, but if you put it to good use you can get that good willback.

On the other hand using Royal Demeanor to drive off the Ixonites seems silly. My favorite three ways to deal with it are Talarist, Logistics, and Fighting him off. Lumen 30 seems enough to avoid serious losses in a fight. It's true you can use a combination of prescence and lumen to demonstrate maical pwoers and awe them. I only use this in a high-weapons Elodie run so I can beat to death the assasin on the Parade (which everyone loves). But if you arn't going super polearms and you're going to marry Talarist, you don't need Deameanor to fend off the Ixonites. It may come in handy at the Gala though.

Royal Demeanor is my default Lumen path, but I'm not sure if that will get you the result you want.

Even on non-Lumen paths I like to get in the treasury. Treasury and sports give good mood manipulation if you combind it with the default activities.

[ShadouFireborn]

Right now my "perfect" path is still in its formative stages. I've been able to build a sequence up to week 20 so far. Key points are:

Fund both printing press and hospital
Uses Talarist's necklace to drive off Ixionites (and marries him... -_-;;)
Appeases the Duke of Io
Gives a good speech at the parade of the good lady (no assassin attack)
Overall positive result on noble approval from the gala
Banion does not plot
Appoints Lucille to minister of magic
Survives the crazy lumen's attack (and get his crystal when he strangles himself).

Having gone the Economics route rather than Royal Demeanor has allowed me to build the printing press and do pro-lumen propoganda, but I'm guesstimating I could have around 25 more noble approval and 10 more commoner approval at this point if I had the royal demeanor skills instead. But then, I'm also guesstimating that at this point my commoner approval would be 20, and noble approval 25 already, and I'm not sure that having them any higher yields any further benefit. Marrying Talarist and inviting him to the gala also has the benefit of giving me a legitimate out for making a fool of myself trying to dance, which avoids a -5 Noble Approval penalty.

I guess this just really brings up the question: Does Commoner/Noble approval need to be any higher than this for anything later?

[tiberiansun371alexw]

Commoner approval doens't need to be higher if all you want to do is finish the game. In fact, 0 is OK early game if you save the day with the power of music. Noble approval will affect you in game and the epilogue stabiltiy of Nova. I'd aim for +30, but if you either save the day through the power of msuic or simply kill Togami in a duel, what you have now is probably OK as long as Adair doesn't die. I don't know what you mean by "perfect" path but it seems to me you're doing well.

[ShadouFireborn]

By perfect, I mean a positive ending with all major players still alive. I've carefully crafted my plan so far with the idea that I don't want to have anyone executed or assassinated. I'm aware that noble and commoner approval are important later to avoid having a civil war or a commoner uprising. I know this sounds like an uneventful, boring playthrough, but I had to plan VERY carefully to make sure it is uneventful. Right now I'm trying to plan for what I need to survive the trip to Sudbury, and either keep Briony from going on her adventure or go with her and make sure she survives.

Surviving the trip is going to either be the easy part, or the hard part, depending on what I decide for my agents in week 18(?).

[The Baekin' Company]

When it comes to getting the Lumen Crystal Early either go for:

70+ Presence

OR

60+ Accounting + AT LEAST 25 in both Trade and Production

Those are the two routes I usually do.

Going the economics route will land you a stained glass window (if you approve of the printing press a few weeks in, which you'll need to know trade and production for though i've forgotten how much you need exactly...)

[Mireia]

If you're going for the printing press I'd just go for economics, since the classes that unlock the treasury are part of what's required to unlock the printing press. Kill two birds with one stone. You can also use the economics skills to negotiate with the Ixionites on week 10 if that's something you're cool with doing. You don't sound particularly eager to marry Talarist, so that allows you to skip him, too. (If you want the hospital, you can use Talarist's visit to push back the hospital lady a couple of weeks, giving you more time to build up Herbs + Battlefield Medicine - you'll need 60 points in Court Manners to question Kevan without it going badly on week 13 unless you max out Internal Affairs, so if you're already working on that it shouldn't be a problem to turn down Talarist on week 12 without it causing problems later).

It's been a while since I really sat down and mapped out a playthrough/messed with the debug console, but I don't *recall* there being any specific benefits to having super high approval from either nobles or commoners unless you're marrying Evrard (or a few lines in the epilogue if you have to move around some territory). IIRC the main issue is just keeping them happy enough to not rebel lmao

My two cents, since I did a "perfect" run once.