Challenge #37: Go for Gold

[AbbeyManuel]

This week's challenge is based on Lord Reliant's suggestion (Thanks, big help!) from here. It's inspired by the summer Olympics currently running. Of course the Olympics stand in the shadow of the Society's prestige, but Pinkerton thought it would be fun to help the Games with some PR.

The Story

“Thank you, Agatha, for that extensive dissertation on…” Chairman Pinkerton looked down at his notes to remind him of the official title,” the ‘Virtues of Military Formations and their Effects on Archeological Treasures in Medieval European Nations’.” Agatha smugly accepted the unenthusiastic applause as she stepped off the platform of the great hall in Renowned Explorers: International Society headquarters. “Ahem. Now, on to our next topic. Pedrinho Pinheiro would like to make an invitation.” Pinkerton stepped aside as the Brazilian man rushed forward quickly onto the stage, followed by Bia Hekaton.

“Hey, how’s everybody doing?” Pedrinho called to the crowd of explorers, helping to wake them from their half-slumber. “I’d like to invite everyone to a new annual celebration. And what better way to do that, than with a PARTY!” Pedrinho reached behind his back to produce maracas and began shaking them with a broad smile.

“Bia and I were talking, and we think we should celebrate our diversity and do it in a way that promotes peace, friendship, and competition in the spirit of ancient traditions long ago. I’d like to invite one other explorer on an adventure with us as we tour the world. We plan to collect as much goodwill and gold as we can. Who’s with me?”
(story credit: Lord Reliant)

The Rules

- Your Captain is Pedrinho
- Crewmember #2 needs to be a natural Athlete*
- Crewmember #3 needs to be a natural Diplomat*
- You need to finish at least 3 expeditions with a Friendly reputation.
- Your score is only your Renown gained from Gold. This is shown by hovering your gold resource, make sure to include that in your Win screen screenshot.
*A natural for a perk is someone who can gain that perk by leveling.

- Play on Adventure Mode.
- Play on any Difficulty.
- Your game has to be played on Patch #18 or later

In the spirit of the Olympic Games only the top 3 entries (above 3000 Renown for gold), will classify for the Platinum medal.

The Goals

BRONZE: 1000 Renown from Gold (1 Medal Points*)
SILVER: 1500 Renown from Gold (2 MP*)
GOLD: 2500 Renown from Gold (3 MP*)
PLATINUM: (Top 3 only!) 3000 Renown from Gold**
* Number of medal points awarded when playing on Classic Difficulty. Easy and Normal give less, according to these rules.
** The platinum medal is extraordinary and can only be achieved on Classic or Impossible difficulty without losing. It doesn't increase Medal Points, but we will track how many you have.

STORY MEDAL: Have the explorers heard of sportsmanship? How do they incorporate international cooperation in their organization and behaviour?

We're keeping track of all the medals you gained in the Hall of Fame.

How to participate

You can participate with a highscore, a story or both.

Stories

1. Write a story. Use the Challenge theme as an inspiration by looking at the constraints. Find other stories in the Fan Story directory or by looking at previous challenges.
   
2. Post your story in a new topic in these forums.
   
3. Link to it here with a comment.
   
4. Include the first paragraph/few lines of your story in the post to show readers what your story is about.

Highscores

1. Play the game according to the challenge rules.
   
2. Post a screenshot of your Win screen (that is the screen right after the win ceremony) in this topic. Make sure you hover the Gold resource so that the tooltip is visible.
   
3. Submit by Wednesday, August 17th, 12:00 noon CEST / 05:00 CT. (Check your timezone here[www.worldtimebuddy.com])

Previous Challenge: Challenge #36 - Paper Pressure

[Lord Reliant]

Glad my suggestion for this week's challenge was helpful! I'll be interested in seeing how many people "go for gold". :)

[Staufen986 [Termination Corp]]

was a good run but I don't think I will get plat with it... good luck to everone else
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=741845855
and while I spend my insight I got 2 study tokens but I should only get one? same bug as Tactical Insight? http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=741836263
and I got some white number popping up also while spending insight... it seems they were the renown i got from each token... not sure if this is a bug or not
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=741836398

[The BlackVision]

Thought the 'bug' with tactical insight was known to apply to all bonuses, isn't it?

[dman11235]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Staufen986 Termination Corp:

was a good run but I don't think I will get plat with it... good luck to everone else
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=741845855
and while I spend my insight I got 2 study tokens but I should only get one? same bug as Tactical Insight? http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=741836263
and I got some white number popping up also while spending insight... it seems they were the renown i got from each token... not sure if this is a bug or not
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=741836398

Those numbers I thought were the renown yeah. It's been in there fora LOOOONG time actually. I think I saw it every time I spent renown. It's very brief but predictable, so taking a screen shot works.

The other part, I thought the double stuff from things like tactical insight weren't bugs, because technically the Africa places are two insight spendings, and same with Asia? Africa's are listed as 'collect/collect/study' and 'study/study/collect' when you hover over them too.

[Tethrinaa]

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198000671591/screenshot/1625057712462564345

No star of africa, so I'm probably not going to score a plat, but i dont think i'm going to redo it.

[Kav]

Just curious, why are many people going highlands for #3 and not egypt? I've played my run through saxons and the carribean so far (both aggressive... gonna need to change that) and I'm leaning towards picking egypt next but I'm new to these challenges and not very good at planning these runs

[dman11235]

Now this is more like it! Lost out on roughly 1500 renown from gold because the star was a big dumb stupid face and didn't give me the collect option, but still, happy with the current third place (I believe?)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=742150930

And Kav, there's definitely room for Egypt in this, but the Highlands gives lots ot gold stuff as well, and also gives status which is useful for stacking up on merchants and such. Also, Egypt is rough if you don't have the perks for it, archaeologist being really important to get a lot out of it. So if you don't have that represented well, you're gonna have a rough time.

[Welsh Dragon]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Kav:

Just curious, why are many people going highlands for #3 and not egypt? I've played my run through saxons and the carribean so far (both aggressive... gonna need to change that) and I'm leaning towards picking egypt next but I'm new to these challenges and not very good at planning these runs

I went Friendly throughout Saxon, Mali, Egypt, Pirate Island (whose name escapes me) and then Lost Island... didn't get enough gold to warrant even a Bronze, so back to the drawing board. Did get Pedrinho's Crew Story now, so that may help.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[xploring]

http://imgur.com/a/iylfM

4801 with Pedrinho, Victor and Ivan. Good fun after a break. Didn't try very hard for gold until last expedition.

Was going to try Victor's card but it turned up too late.

Gave Pedrinho most perks for him to be a good insight spender but that means I could not get any collect token from Rio's specialists and only 1 from Stockholm. Not sure if that's the right decision. Lucked out with +15 gold per Collect at Rio. Ended 60 research short of Trade and Plunder, only 14 supplies at Lost Island meant I didn't explore part of the map.

[The BlackVision]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Kav:

Just curious, why are many people going highlands for #3 and not egypt?

Highlands compared to Egypt is a high risk, high gain principle; though to be fair, it's even riskier for a pure gold renown scoring system, as the big plus to Highlands is the amount of treasures you can get.

However, I think a lot of people will go Highlands because it's designed for Friendly teams, while Egypt can be a little worrying for the encounters (scorpions vs friendly without good gear = a bad day).

[Kav]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=742321928

Attempt #1. Going to have to give this another shot over the weekend. I can see why lots of people were avoiding Egypt, even as #4 I found it a little hard and just generally not so rewarding. I also opened the wrong shops (whoops) and didn't get enough early research. I maxed the gold research group and then went for the attitude group when I should have gone for (at some point) that first research group. Forgot that it gives bonus renown from resources as its completion bonus. Good luck to everyone

Edit: other partial reason egypt wasnt rewarding was because I had to choose research in the temple of thoth. would have loved to have gone greed there but hildegard...

[dman11235]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Kav:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=742321928

Attempt #1. Going to have to give this another shot over the weekend. I can see why lots of people were avoiding Egypt, even as #4 I found it a little hard and just generally not so rewarding. I also opened the wrong shops (whoops) and didn't get enough early research. I maxed the gold research group and then went for the attitude group when I should have gone for (at some point) that first research group. Forgot that it gives bonus renown from resources as its completion bonus. Good luck to everyone

Edit: other partial reason egypt wasnt rewarding was because I had to choose research in the temple of thoth. would have loved to have gone greed there but hatice...

You can always forgo having Hildegaard, that /should/ let you choose with that crew iirc. My first run had your same problem, but my second run, as you can see was much better, thanks to Liort psychically telling me his plans before attempting! (I had thought about doing that progression before my second attempt, then you did it, so I was more confident :D )

[nightscode]

http://imgur.com/a/prREd

Didn't realize that Steam + mac = non standard screenshot shortcut so imgur it is.
I might give this one another go but as it stands I got enough for gold. As everyone else has been mentioning, even with the high number of treasures I got in Egypt I don't think it was really worth it (I also got really lucky and somehow didn't get any scorpion encounters).

**edit**
Did another run and managed to get an in steam screenshot. Will probably just leave it at this, I don't really see myself pushing for a plat this week.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=743507824

[Tedi]

/edited/

[The BlackVision]

(moved this attempt to my end result to ease tallying up at the end for the Monks)

Because Ivan and Hilde need some love!

4268 gold renown there - not a top-three, but a very respectable score, and took a lot of tries and luck. Unfortunately suffered from only getting 4 campfire cards (grumble); but it wouldn't have raised the results that much as I'd spent a lot of insight early to get research.

Was absolutely paranoid that Mali wouldn't give the star, but got lucky, thank goodness. My multiplier suffered though for lack of the Crystal/Barked Face - may try another technique instead before the deadline (in which case, will renew this post once done)