Academagia Cliffs Notes

Academagia is fun, but the game is huge, sprawling and cursed with a terrible UI that makes finding and cross referencing information like pulling teeth. This guide highlights the essentials, what to focus on, and the most efficient strategies.

Preface

This guide started out as my own personal notes, so some sections might be unclear. If you find something confusing, let me know and I'll clarify that part.

My personal playstyle involves some savescumming, so if you don't like to do that some advice won't be as applicable to you (mostly raising attributes and getting clique members).

General beginner advice

• A parent skill’s level is determined by its third highest level subskill.
  
  
• You have to discover a subskill before you can train it. You automatically know all the subskills in whatever classes you have.
  
  
• Going to classes is optional, but every time you skip your overall chance of getting a detention (takes up a future timeslot) goes up for every subsequent missed class. Your detention chance goes down if you attend enough classes.
  
  
• Never use the “train” action. Study in one of the libraries since they raise other subskills as well.
  
  
• The library of mantele and library of the mantle of stars are better in the early game since revision and astrology are both useful. Once you’ve maxed those out the library of longshade is better since it raises a random skill.
  
  
• The list of skills is overwhelming at first, but you can get by 99 percent of checks with a set of “core” skills (check the common skill checks section for these)
  
  
• You'll fail most random events to begin with. This is normal, don't get discouraged - instead take note of the skills used and keep that in mind for training.
  
  
• A good rule of thumb is to never train a subskill if it will take more than one action to raise it a level. It’s inefficient.
  
  
• Skills are governed by attributes, which determine how many steps it takes to raise to the next level. The magic number for attributes is 5. Once an attribute is at 5 you can raise any subskill it governs in a single action (barring those that always require 2 steps to raise, like observation).
  
  
• Your score on tests is between [parent skill level * study level] and [parent skill level * 10] + whatever extra credit you have. There's a penalty if you're sick or injured on the day of the exam. Midterms are out of 50, finals are out of 100.
  
  
• The only “fail state” in the game is being summoned to the Praetexta Court and failing to defend yourself, or succeeding and being called a second time. This happens if you get enough reprimands, either academic or conduct, within a short amount of time. Nothing else will result in a game over, so if you want to experiment first raise your class skills and study level to max, and if you get a reprimand try to avoid getting any more for at least a week or so.
  
  
• The most commonly raised attributes from adventure rewards are intelligence and insight. The least commonly raised is strength.
  
  
• Don’t worry about the dueling mechanics, they’re terrible and you never need to duel unless you specifically seek it out.
  
  
• You can recruit other students to join your clique and get character-specific bonuses. The best characters are recruited quickly, so you should make this your very first priority if you do it at all. You don’t even have to raise their friendship level with you first – simply using the “befriend” action 3 times at the Great Hall (+10% success chance to recruit) will usually succeed for the first 2 or 3 members.
  
  
• The first adventure you should do is Oan’s tutorial adventure, as it’s easy, explains some mechanics and gives you a nice bonus at the end.
  
  
• You can boost your test scores by casting a spell that increases your skill level before the test. It’s possible (though largely pointless) to abuse this to an absurd extent and get over 900 points on a 100 point test.

Character Creation

The tricky thing about CC is that the majority of the choices are flat out bad in comparison to others, and it's impossible to tell what the good options are your first time because the game doesn't explain any mechanics until after you begin. The UI adds to the confusion, since there is no 'stat screen' or easy way to reselect previous choices, and going back and forth to see your options or reallocate a point is a pain. So, the best way to make a character is to open the Academagia wiki and choose ten traits (plus however many negative choices you pick). Once you know what you want you can go through the screens in the game all at once.

In general, boosting an attribute is far better than boosting a skill. Some character options give a point to an attribute as well as a few random skill points. Because they cost as much as raising an attribute one point, you usually should take them instead of buying stats. The differences are minor (a few extra skill points) but every bit helps and sometimes the boost is in a skill that can be annoying to inform otherwise. There are a couple of exceptions to this, however - boost int or charm if you don't want to deal with the negatives of Graverobbers or Sky Pirates. CC attributes on the stat select screen can't go above 3, but can be boosted further with other choices.

CC Attribute Bonuses

Fitness

Omen: Bloodmoon
Family: Sports

Finesse

History: Artisans of Skill
Prodigy: Life of Avarice
Apprenticeship: Spy
Omen: Three Suns

Charm

Family: Sky Pirates
Prodigy: Center of Attention

Strength

Omen: Island Lights
Deed: Lonely Sentinel

Intelligence

Omen: Shattered Mirrors
Family: Graverobbers

Insight

Omen: Islandquake
Prodigy: Spiritual

Luck

Astrology: The Comet
History: Descended from Heroes

CC notes

• Increasing universal Chance of Success is so powerful you ALWAYS want to pick Shattered Mirrors and The Comet. Never pick Negated or Bad Luck Magnet for the same reason.
  
  
• Avoid Sky Pirates - 10% chance to be caught trespassing is pretty annoying.
  
  
• Black sheep is good in Y1 because there are far more effective ways to get money than allowance, but it will have consequences in future games.
  
  
• Graverobbers is bad because having over 2 stress is extremely common. If you really want that INT just buy a raw point.
  
  
• If you want to get gates and mastery, take the secret heritage - secrets and silence will inform you of some of their skills, but won't provide you with easy training like SH will.
  
  
• Descended of Traitors is a very good choice. -2 to 10 relationships is easy to ignore since you'll never have enough time to do every student's adventure anyways.
  
  
• Battle Born is ok if you don't want to start with 1 strength, but know that there are ways to increase it as much as you want during the year, and it's the least important stat.
  
  
• Curiosity is useless, there are hardly any contested 'academic actions' and WTYD is inferior to studying at the library.
  
  
• Prodigy: social is outshone by tutoring: grifter (2% vs 5%) if you don't mind the allowance penalty, though getting both is valid.
  
  
• If you have spare CC points, prodigy: incantation and/or negation are fun to pick as well, especially if you don't have Negation as a class (it saves you the trouble of discovering the subskills).
  
  
• Life of avarice gets you a quest that can boost an attribute, while apprentice: spy doesn't penalize you. You can also just get both.
  
  
• For your first game pick the rock familiar. Effective familiar training requires you to know the game fairly well and you'll not want to waste a point on a familiar you'll never bother with (if you just don't pick you get assigned a bad familiar when you begin, so might as well get an extra point)
  
  
• Most of the inheritances are useless. Mysterious Package can be ok if you get something good, but it's totally random.
  
  
• Discovery: libraries is very useful because you can train from the start without a possible trespassing reprimand
  
  
• Bitter Hatred is a great deal unless it happens to Phillipe or Joana, in which case you should just restart

A good beginner character

Boost fitness and charm 1

1st page:

[Astrology] Comet (+1 luck, +1% CoS)
[Omen] shattered mirrors (+1 int, +1% CoS)
[Omen] three suns (+1 finesse)

2nd page:

[Family] sports (+1 fitness)
+ [Family] black sheep
+ [History] descended from traitors (+1 CC point, -2 to 10 random relationships)
[History] descended from heroes (+1 luck and glory)

3rd page:

[Deed] lonely sentinel (+1 strength)
[Prodigy] center of attention (+1 charm)
[Prodigy] social (+2 CoS on social actions)
[Prodigy] spiritual (+1 insight)

4th page:

[Apprenticeship] spy (+1 finesse)

5th page:

+ [familiar] rock

6th page:

skip

7th page:

[Discoveries] libraries (get mantele and mantle of stars from start)
+ [friendships] bitter hatred (+1 CC point) (note: if this happens to Philippe or Joana restart)

End result:

Fitness: 3
Finesse: 3
Strength: 2
Charm: 3
Intelligence: 2
Insight: 2
Luck: 3

College choices (best to worst)

Morvidus

(revision and zoology)
The best college as both their required classes are actually useful and give stat bonuses. You shouldn’t even need to buff for tests. They also get some very easy adventures which are nice for early boosts. Plus they sometimes get highest merit, though it’s dicey.

Vernin

(enchant and arithmetic)
Vernin is nice because they usually get highest merit, which gives some handy perks. I also am a fan of their college adventure. Enchant is worth training for the 6th finger spell and occasional checks. Arithmetic is utterly worthless but you don’t actually need to train it whatsoever since its buff is very easy to cast (2 dif/point), so it’s basically a nonfactor. Rated above Durand because it offers more freedom in choosing classes.

Durand

(botany, dialectic and negation)
Botany is super easy to train with Study the Fields. Negation gives a very useful point of luck. Dialectic is used for sphinx training, and logic and sleuthing are both good skills. A very solid college pick.

Godina

(athletics, incantation, music)
Incantation is of course very good, and music can be trained pretty easily with the music room. Athletics has running and competition, Music has voice. Neither class is bad, they’re just not the best.

Avila

(astrology and geometry)
Astrology is very low effort because of the ease of training it, just do your training in the MoS until numerology is maxed (you should be at about astrology 8 when that happens). Sadly Geometry is garbage and buff phemes are 4 dif/point. Both classes have very few checks or abilities, so you have to pick useful classes yourself.

Aranaz

(history and calligraphy)
At first glance both classes look terrible since they have barely any checks ever, but Calligraphy has some surprisingly good abilities – if you pick Aranaz definitely train it up. History has some decent bonuses as well. Don’t pick the college your first game, but it offers some interesting variety. Both buff phemes are 4 dif/point. Bonus: they sometimes go for high merit.

Hedi

(glamour, grammar, rhetoric)
Overall the worst classes. Glamour is the least vital of the 4 pillars (also INS is the easiest stat to boost). Grammar is thoroughly worthless and hard to buff (6 dif/2 points). Rhetoric has useful skills but not ones you want to train on yourself. 3 mandated classes, of which 2 are bad puts Hedi at the bottom. To add insult to injury they never compete for high merit and their college adventures suck. Pick only if you want a challenge or variety.

Class notes

Some classes give a bonus when you reach study level 10.

Stat boosting classes:

Glamour: +insight
Negation: +luck
Music: +int
Dialectic: +insight
Revision: +finesse
Zoology: +fitness

Non stat boosters but still not bad:

Botany
Astrology
Incantation
Enchant
Calligraphy (yes, really)

Avoid if possible:

History
Arithmetic
Geometry
Grammar
Athletics
Rhetoric

Magic classes are best because those skills are used most often in adventures - glamour, incantation, negation and revision are the big four. Revision spells gives you wand amplification, glamour gives you adanella's wardrobe (good for stacking phemes on)

Specific class notes:

• Negation is very good both because training and discovering it is a pain (unless you picked prodigy: negation) and because luck bonuses are relatively rare.
  
  
• You usually want incantation class for the 'theory of incantation' skill (which unlocks esteban’s school), otherwise you need Ana Flavia to inform it. Plus you'll always want to get Incantation to max regardless.
  
  
• Revision is great with the library of Manetele, Astrology is pretty good with the MoS, especially with numerology being so useful.
  
  
• Glamour is never a bad choice, but it’s the least vital of the 4 main schools if you want to swap it out.
  
  
• Pick Zoology if you want to train your familiar at all, since Improved Familiar Handling is mandatory (train insects, birds and mammals)
  
  
• Dialectic is good since it’s used for the sphinx. It goes well with glamour thanks to the caves location.
  
  
• Enchant is good if you plan on Brisbane finesse boosting, as that will train it up quickly. Also 6th finger is the best pheme stacking buff in the game, so having high enchant is good on any playthrough.
  
  
• Music- voice comes up sometimes and you can train the class in 10 actions with the music room.
  
  
• Botany is super quick to train and has the negation wand questline.
  
  
• Arithmetic and Geometry are equally useless as checks for either are very rare and they have no good abilities.
  
  
• Calligraphy gets a control ability at 10 and some other very strong perks. If you train it you’ll want selective focus. Get orthography, forgery and illustration. If you plan to use its Control power train your familiar as well (familiar skills: bookbinding, ink compounds, forms).
  
  
• While Rhetoric has some useful subskills, they’re ones you should train on your familiar rather than you since they get boosted so often (translation: avoid the class).
  
  
• Athletics has running and competition, but there are better classes. Train wrestling as well if you do have it.
  
  
• There are a ton of History subskills, so if you want to train it look at the wiki – most of them have a decent reward or two, depending on what you want. The Early Empire is a safe bet for the sphinx scroll. Avoid the captivity of man and the history of magic. Or just get it as a class you don’t skip, which saves you from ever thinking about it.
  
  
• Grammar just sucks.

Common skill checks

(Bold skills come up extremely often)

Athletics - Running
Befriend
Blackmail - Observation
Compete - Planning
Glamour
Incantation
Negation
Plot - Flawless Timing
Research
Revision
Sleight of hand - Composure
Society - Persuasion

When deciding what to train, if there's a skill that looks useless it probably is. There are a lot of skills with very few (if any) checks in game, and most of them have an alternate option to use a more common skill.

Skill notes

Efficient training methods:

Skill	Ability	How to Unlock
Dialectic	Chauranglaith Path: Natural Spring	dialectic - famous dilemmas 8
Enchant	Brisbane 'assist the master'	enchant - magical appraisal 5, 200 pims
Mastery	Visit the academagia hives	mastery - mastery methods 4
Incantation	Esteban cortu's school	incantation - theory of incantation 1, 900 pims
Botany	Study the fields	auto informed at start
Revision	Library of manetele	library knowlege 9 OR CC Discoveries: libraries
Forge	Library of manetele	library knowlege 9 OR CC Discoveries: libraries
Astrology	Library of the mantle of stars	library knowlege 6 OR CC Discoveries: libraries
Gates	Schohanwicht School	CC: secret heritage adventure final reward
War	Mercenary Guild House	language - velocian 2

Fastest ways to inform skills:

Skill	How to inform
Running	use the athletic fields (raises a random athletics skill)
Acrobatics	During CC pick [Omen] Three Suns OR Adventure: the much rumored tower, stage 3 has an acrobatics check (must fail to inform the skill)
Gates	During CC pick the secret heritage OR get research to 10 and “research gates” at the venelicium
Theory of Incantation	Befriend Ana Flavia Bessa
Mastery	Adventure: language skills (need bassan 3) OR get research to 10 and "research mastery" at the venalicium
Bassan	raise language - elumian to 1, then meet professor Sido for tutoring for two random language skill boosts OR visit the admiratio vegetable market for a 50% chance to boost a random language skill
Planning	Insects 3 OR Adventure: Watching the Ships at the Docks (need astrology as class)
Calligraphy	Adventure: welcome to the club OR raise music - violin to 2 for the "flow" pheme, cast to unlock forms, raise forms to 8 for graffiti closet
Synchronicity	Adventure: An Outing.... (other than random boosts, this is the only way to inform it)

Skills that give attribute bonuses:

Skill	Attribute
Acrobatics 3	fitness
Planning 2	insight/int
Danger sense 3	insight
War 2	insight
Traps 10	finesse
Theory of arithmetic 10	intelligence
Athletics 8	strength/fitness

Interesting perks

Skills with a ! are best / most worthwhile to get

	Skill	Bonus
	Art- creativity 10	reroll challenges for 2 days
	Art - satyric revelry 6	clique relationship boost spell
!	Astrology - the everard equation 9 (aka Numerology)	3 day +10% CoS to everything ability
!	Bully - rally 1	cheer, +2% CoS til next rest
	Calligraphy 10	neutral control action
	Calligraphy- forgery 10	guaranteed +300 pims action
	Compete - planning 9	1 point bonus to spells, abilities and actions
	Compete - striving against the foe 10	when over 3 stress +1 STR
	Enspell 2	+1% spell success
!	Enspell - concentration 9	selective focus (reduce skill steps to raise skill level by 1)
	Espionage – infiltration 5	Weasel words (Spell which improves choice of instructor relation by 3)
	Espionage – infiltration 10	Common ground (100% sucessful spell to put someone in your clique)
	Explore 10	write travelogue (possible 1100 pims and glory point, explore/insight vs 30)
	Explore - minetan swagger 8	unlocks bassan
!	Heraldry - honor of mallen field 6	+2% CoS
	Heraldry - worldliness 10	-2% CoD
	History - early empire 8	no CoD for sphinx
	Natural philosophy 4	botany and zoology +1
	Plot - reason 10	+10% CoS spell for actions, abilities, spells, 3 days
	Rhetoric - confidence 11	+1 CoS, get through favor
	School Survival – test taking 9	+2 study level ability
	Sleight of hand 4	-1% CoD
	Spy - lockpick 4	CoS boost pheme
	Synchronicity – empathy 8	charm enemy (+3 to student relationship ability)
!	Synchronicity – instinct 10	+3 CoS

Note: Honor of Mallen Field is only unlocked at the start for Aranaz students, but can be discovered randomly through the Parse Broadsheets ability unlocked at Politics 5

Skills that always take 2 steps to train

(either have Milena or Zoe train these or use Selective Focus):

Art – art appreciation
Blackmail - observation
Beguile – storytelling
Calligraphy – forgery
Calligraphy – orthography
Enchant – palettes
Engineering - clockwork
Enspell - phemes
Heraldry – diplomacy
Heraldry – etiquette
Incantation – incantation spells
Revision – revision spells
Sabotage – perception
Religion – oratory
Gates – gates methods, gates spells
Mastery – theory of mastery
Synchronicity – mental bridging, instinct, serenity

3 step skills:

Ambush – danger sense
Brew – poisons

Note: Poisons' training modifier can be reduced to 2 by training Brew - Analyze to 5

How to train a familiar

First get numerology up to 5 to get "Calculate the familiar equation."
Cast until one of the bonds needs more than 1 skill step.
Get Zoology to 5 (best if you have it as a class already) for "Improved familiar handling."
Get your 'familiar kinship' to 9 for "The Familiar's Gift"
Get familiar's (or your) field medicine to 8 for 'empower' and 'blood' phemes
Cast the familiar's gift however many times you need to get fitness, luck and intelligence to 5
Calculate the familiar equation until bond is maxed

Bonus: Work the Number of Your Name and use "Investigate Magical Bond" to get other stats to 5

What skills to train (after stat boosting): don’t go for the main magic pillars (Negation, Incantation, Revision, Glamour) you already have trained, since you can pass almost all those checks without help. First max any of the four you don’t have trained up. Then get a ton of lesser used skills you have trained barely or not at all; 1-15 skill checks are far more common than 15+ checks.

Whether to train your familiar

There are four reasons to train a familiar rather than just training up or buffing all your own skills:

1) Your familiar can train faster than you can - 4 skill steps per Improved Handling means a +2 boost for you per action as opposed to the +1 you can get training yourself.

2) Familiar skill boosts are permanent, buffs are temporary and might need to be recast later if the skill comes up again. This translates to being able to pass more events without foreknowledge or looking skill checks up.

3) You can train up a familiar skill to max and still get rewards from passing those skill checks on your character that would be lost if you trained your own skills to max.

4) Every time your familiar gets an ability, action or pheme YOU are able to use it. So for example if you want a particular pheme unlocked by level 8 of a useless subskill, you can train your familiar twice and get it much more quickly than grinding it out yourself. However, only abilities you can "use" in a timeslot are unlocked - any items will not be received, and spells or passive abilities are given to your familiar, not you.

All that said, training a familiar is very much a "go big or go home" situation. Some numbers:

Setting up a familiar for training costs:

10 calculate the familiar equations
2-4 “the familiar's gift” spell casts
+however many for stat boost skills, varies by what the familiar needs
1 work the number of your name
18 investigate magical bonds (on average) to get all its attributes to 5


That's about 35 turns spent before you can actually start training useful skills on your familiar for bonuses, not even counting background ability boosts - if you don't spend background points it's even more, AND if you don't have zoology as a class add another 15 turns grinding skills you don't need. That time investment is paid back by 1 turn every time you train, since your familiar gives you boosts twice as fast as training yourself. That means to make your time investment worthwhile you need to train your familiar at least as many times as the number of turns you spent setting it up. Since every training after that is basically a bonus, you should train it as often as you can.

On a playthrough where you want to train a familiar you should pick Morvidus or take zoology class, and commit fully to training it as often as you can. Background attribute boosts mean fewer turns spent investigating magical bond.

If you train your familiar as often as you can you can get in at most about 100 improved familiar trainings, making your familiar more skilled and versatile than the majority of the student body.

Good familiar skills

(Bolded are more useful)

Ambush - Move Silently
Athletics – Running
Befriend – Conversation
Befriend – Listen
Befriend – Temperance
Bully - Brute Strength
Bully – Intimidation
Brew – Chemistry
Compete – Manipulation
Compete – Planning
Compete – Wit
Dialectic – Sleuthing
Enspell - Concentration (if you don’t already have it trained yourself)
Espionage - Infiltration
Explore - Animal Husbandry
Explore – Climb
Forge - Courage
Espionage - Deceit
Gossip – Bluff
Malice - Patience
Plot - Flawless Timing
Plot – Reason
Plot – Coordination
Raid – Navigation
Raid - Pure Luck
Raid – Tactics
Religion – Ethics
Rhetoric – Confidence
Rhetoric – Passion
Rimbal – Endurance
Sleight of Hand – Composure
Society – Awareness
Society – Willpower
Spy – Hide
Zoology – Birds

Stat Raising

How to start with no points in fitness:

• First day: befriend Silke Niederstatter (godina), she'll take away your stress and boost your max stress and fitness so you won't be ill.
  
• Relatively soon use the athletic field to get a point in running, then run a crippling route twice and rest to boost fitness.
  
• Acrobatics 3 also raises fitness.

Raising strength

• Raise numerology to 9 for 'work the number of your name' (CoS +10%)
  
• Raise acrobatics to 6 to unlock the strength and fitness gyms
  
• Use 'work the number of your name,' and then use strength gym for the next 3 days. You are now swole.

Raise finesse

• At magical appraisal 5 you can secure apprenticeship and 'assist the master' for 3 percent chance of raising finesse along with skills.
  
• (Optional) Use selective focus (-1 steps to train skill a level) on jeweler
  
• Use “work the number of your name”
  
• Assist the master for 3 days.

Raise charm

• Dance 4 unlocks dance school (register at Avandia’s school), 200 pim entrance fee and 5% chance to raise charm

Cliques

Best clique members

Student	House	Clique Ability
Silke Niederstatter	Godina	Ffitness +1, -3 min stress, +4 max stress, -3 stress on recruitment
Emilia Picotti	Avila	Charm +1, Befriend, Listen +2, Conversation +1, Beguile +1
Carmine Sturzo	Aranaz	Chance of Discovery -3%
Zoe Melis	Hedi	Ability: Use Notes (Study Level +2 and Skill Step +2)
Malacrasta Verdi	Aranaz	Universal CoS +1%
Alan Driscoll	Godina	Luck +1, Explore, Dedication, Concentration +1, Conversation -1
Hector Per Vittoria	Mordivus	Familiar Bond +3
Ana Flavia Bessa	Avila	Th. Glamour/Th. Enchantment +1, Th. Incantation/Th. Revision +2, Th. Negation +3
Vuillaume Eparvier	Godina	Revision / Incantation / Negation methods +2

General clique advice

• The more people you get in your clique the harder it is to successfully Befriend someone else
  
  
• Once per member per year you can "sacrifice" a member of your clique to automatically bypass a skill check during an adventure.
  
  
• Cliques are random. Sometimes nobody else makes a clique for a week. Sometimes five spring up on the second day. Fortunately since cliquing is random reloading is effective at preventing people from joining cliques before you nab them.
  
  
• You want Carmine early if you plan on getting him, as he tends to clique pretty quickly.
  
  
• DO NOT get Milena di Montors and Zoe Melis in the same clique, Milena hates and antagonizes Zoe and you’ll have to waste time constantly gossiping to raise their relationship or let them split
  
  
• Train your Company: unlocked by War – Manner of a Champion 6, can be used to train clique members’ skills for stat boosts (best used early). To inform it get language (vilocian) to 4 for the revile pheme (random war SS boost). Or, if you’re willing to spend a background point tutoring: combat will likely inform it as well.
  
  
• Impart understanding: unlock by illustration 10. Can use in the same way as train your company. Note it’s a spell so your familiar can’t unlock it for you.
  
  
• Sometimes your clique members will invite someone else into the clique who hates you, and then your clique will split. Check the clique tab often to make sure you catch this before it happens.

Good early adventures

Adventure Name	Reward	How to Unlock
Search the Abandoned Warehouse	+insight and intelligence	Complete "Request a meeting with your mentor" adventures
Watching the ships at the docks	+finesse, good robes and some pims	Enrolled in Astrology
A bump in the road	+Max stress ring (need Zoology)	No prerequisites
Carnage on the Fields	+2 luck (1 from item, 1 stat point)	No prerequisites
Cloudy Skies	+finesse	Do before midterms, go along with the expedition to find the wizard
Exploring for the sake of...um...	Go left, then right, then stray off the path for +insight	Explore 3
Community Service	+insight (need high persuasion)	Enrolled in Negation
The Much-Rumored Tower	Valuable sword of Kush, good for selling to get into the incantation school	No prerequisites
The Shop	Golden Apple, +1 intelligence (be consistently nice and moral for the best rewards)	Enrolled in Morvidus

Good spells

I don't often use spells - they only provide temporary bonuses, so I prefer to train for permanent ones. However, there are occasions where they come in handy, these ones particularly:

Cleanse and remake (get piety to 7 by praying at the temple or giving charity) - increase charm by 4 and all other attributes by 3, but give a penalty to ability, action and spell rolls. Useful in the early game when your attributes are low if you want to train a skill to 10. Best used when you're doing nothing but studying.

Wand Amplification (revision spells 2) - increase the chance you can successfully cast a spell, no chance of failure. Useful if you need to cast a difficult spell or to help in early game when your skills are low.

6th finger (magical appraisal 2) - the best spell in the game for pheme stacking due to the long duration, low difficulty, and the fact that it boosts the skill it requires to cast successfully. The spell to use if you want to go crazy buffing yourself.

Adanella's Wardrobe (glamour 5) - useless by itself, but the 2nd best spell for pheme stacking. Not as long lasting as 6th finger, but better if you only want to cast a single buff spell and your glamour skill is trained more than your enchant skill.

Revision of skills - use a well trained skill in place of a bad skill for rolls (bad skill is the 1st slot, good skill is the 2nd slot). Doesn't work for exams. Useful if you need to pass a check for a near-useless skill and don't have a good pheme for buffing it.

Useful shops

(the difference between shops and catalogs is that shops also allow you to sell things)

Shop	Good items	Bonuses	How to unlock
Garibaldi's House of Seven Colors (Shop)	Doppelganger Band, Astrologer's Eye, Escape Wand, Wand of Planar Shift	-CoD, Luck, Astrology, +Random Event chance	Oan's tutorial adventure
Elisias Bethea (Shop)	Glamour Chain	Glamour (all)	Glamour methods 11
Briardi's Personal Negation Catalog (Catalog)	Fire ring, Air ring, Circlet of Negation	negation, negation methods, negation phemes	Negation methods 8
Catalog of Shadows (Catalog)	Cap of Illusion, Silent boots, Shadow ring	-CoD, glamour, espionage, escape artist	Espionage 3
Haejar Enthifal Cortath, Pages 5-7 (Shop)	Ranaldo "The Underbelly's" Diary	Insight, The Calamities	History - The Calamities 2
Q'ralt's Arms (Shop)	Wooden Stick	Can be reasearched and then sold for 698 pims, at overall profit of 230~ pims per action	Forge - Weaponsmith 7
Jacques Ulitath (Shop)	Draconian Methodology (book)	Inform all Mastery subskills	History - the Second Captivity 7
Ghnak ve' Ferchi (Shop)	Overstuffable Bag, Opaque Shades	-5 Concealability to all items, -2 CoD, +Sleight of hand	Sleight-Of-Hand - Conceal 10
Vincent "Lucky" Dawson, Merchant (Shop)	Back Brace, Lightened Pack	Strength, -6 size of pack	Economy - Transport 8

Keep in mind that going to a shop takes an action. This means that if you go to a shop and buy an item that increases a skill by 1 point you just wasted your time, since you could have trained that skill up yourself permanently in that timeslot (without having to allocate an item slot as well). In addition, adventures will give you many useful items for lots of your slots for free. This means that the only worthwhile shops are the ones that offer attribute increasing items, items with bonuses that can't be gotten by training (such as CoD reduction) or a wide selection of good skill boosting items you can buy all at the same time.

Miscellaneous advice

• There are a lot of abilities that reduce your stress or heal you, but the "Rest" action is better than all of them because it heals you fully and removes all your stress no matter what.
  
  
• Zoe Melis is better than Milena di Montors early since she raises study level as well as 2 skill steps. After you max your study levels Milena is better because her ability can be used every four days and boosts 3 skill steps.
  
  
• If you get Zoe first week and use her ability right away every time it comes up, you are able to get everything to 10 study level by the finals without ever studying at the venalicium, saving you 30 actions. However, you will only be able to have 4 study level in everything for the midterms, so you have to get either get those skills between 5-10, buff yourself, or savescum to pass without a reprimand
  
  
• A lot of old advice centers on using "Match wits with the emperor Sphinx" for all training. This is no longer useful as this ability has been nerfed so you fail quite often regardless of your wit + insight score (about 1 time out of 3, I've found), and the number of skills it trains has been reduced to 3 (from 4). Presumably this was because the devs didn't like players never using any of the myriad other training methods.
  
  
• Any contraband or illegal equipment you have on you will get confiscated if you get a reprimand. Stow it in your wardrobe if you don’t want this to happen.
  
  
• Skills are often raised if you pass a check for that skill, so it's better to use a skill that hasn't been maxed if there's a good chance of it working.
  
  
• If you have many unidentified items in your inventory you can inform them all at once by selling them to a shop and then buying them back for the same price (merchants don't charge any extra).
  
  
• You can add a bonus to all of your rolls for a timeslot if you take on extra stress. The confirm actions sidebar has a "stress bonus" space where you can type in a number and add that to your rolls, for the price of taking on that much stress at the end of the day. Since your stress maximum is determined by your fitness this makes having high fitness extremely useful!
  
  
• Skill bonuses are received when that skill is trained to that level, NOT when they reach that level with some kind of bonus. So if you have an item that raises your Negation Methods skill by 3 and then train negation methods up 5 levels, you will receive the bonuses for levels 1-5 of Negation Methods, and not levels 6-8.
  
  
• You can use the "research" action to research a skill. If you research something to level 10 that will give you a bonus - usually either an attribute point or an increase to the maximum level for that skill. This is most useful when you're new to the game, since there are faster ways to raise attributes.

[Leon]

i'm dizzy just readining the first paragraph

I want to buy this game, but its feeling more like home work than enterteiment x(

[TheNuszAbides]

haha, fully agreed about restarting if "Actually, Bitter Hatred" picks one of the big bullies. It's happened to me too often with Philippe just putting me in the infirmary every other day during first week.

[Dragon]

many of the options no longer exist

[Monolith]

Omens are now mutually exclusive.

[Alastor]

Great guide, thanks.

About the adventure "The Shop" if you agree to help her steal you get payment worth 3200 pims extra and you can still get the best reward at the end. Only downside is a slight loss of relations with your professor.

[tathen]

does not let me take both black sheep & descended of traitors..

[Urthor]

10/10 superb effort you've put into this. Much appreciated.

[beemarie]

Wow, why so much Hedi hate??? (Kidding, I love the flavor of Hedi but from a min/max perspective agreed, not super useful)

[Val]

Thank you thank you thank you for making this! Super helpful, concise and everything I needed to know about the game.

<3

[Mars]

I see that you don't have any feedback. Just wanted to say thanks for making this, I've put a few hours into the game off of Steam a while ago but still find it very overwhelming and confusing. The depth is quite amazing, but this guide is great to just (begin to) get to grips with the basics. Your work is appreciated!