Catering the Spire of Eternity

Combat in the Spire is no different than in the Provinces nor in the Tournaments. The primary consideration is that winning an easy fight is CHEAP (unless you lose), but Negotiating or Catering (Convincing) is always EXPENSIVE.

The first few encounters in the Spire are very simple fights, so we’ll start our catering analysis mid-Spire.

It’s all about Fails

Put on your Statistical Hat, and let’s look at the odds. Statisticians customarily look at the likelihood of Failure, rather than Success, because there’s a symmetry and the math is much more obvious if the numbers are getting smaller and smaller.

If you have 5 Resources, and 5 Clients, it’s a simple multiplication. If you were to offer the same Resource to each of the 5 Clients, in turn, one or more of them might accept it, or possibly Nobody would want that Resource, so for our initial 5x5 there are
(5x6) = 30 ways to fail, as compared to only 5 ways to succeed.

But, rather than using just one resource each time, your odds will improve faster if you use a full rotation each time, because that allows you to double-dip if you guess right, and then simply increment your starting position for the next rotation.

Fourth Rotation

A fourth rotation, which will occasionally be needed if your luck is bad, will cost you 25 Diamonds, so tuck a few Diamonds into your pocket. Otherwise you’ll have to write off the Resources that you’ve already invested, and there’s no guarantee that Fighting will be any cheaper.

First Rotation

Coins, Supplies, Orcs, Basic, Refined, Precious, Sentient …, Ascended …, is the sequence for the Resources, which is conveniently Cheap —> Expensive. You can fudge if you’re short on something, but you’ll just be digging yourself deeper into the same hole.

The neat part is that even if we weren’t actually successful, we’ve still reduced the possible failures by (5 Resource:Clients + (5 Resource:Nobodies) = 10 fewer ways to Fail. So we now only have 20 ways to fail, and even fewer than that if we Fulfilled one of the Clients, which would have reduced the Client count and perhaps the Resource count as well.

Second Rotation

Let’s reasonably assume that on the first rotation we Fulfilled one Client, that nobody else needs that particular Resource, and that Nobody was interested in one of the other Resources. Note the added icon, in the Client display, which indicates the Resources that have already failed with that Client. The secret sauce is to avoid repeating those particular tests.

(4 Resources * 4 Clients ) + 4 Nobody Wants = 20 ways to Fail

This time let’s start our rotation with the Second Client (anywhere actually, so long as we don’t repeat a test). So we’ll begin with Coins again (if they’re still available).

Third Rotation

With any luck at all, you’re now down to only a half dozen ways to fail. It’s now time to do some thinking.

  1. Wrong Person is your first consideration, because there’s only a couple of ways to fail. If you have only a pair of “Wrong Persons,” your success is guaranteed.

  2. If you have to double up on one of the Resources, pick a cheap Resource.

  3. Consider using a Spectral Stone if you have more Resources than Clients, or if you’d have to use Diamonds to supplement one of the Resources.