I'm a pretty pretty Princess! Let's Play Long Live the Queen

Falconry so we can hang out with our bird buddies.

Climbing so we can hang out with our bird buddies.

Random fact: nix is the latin word for snow.

I'm with Solitayre on this one.

(I have no vote on the princess project.)

Double down on Divination since it's interesting from a plot perspective.

By the way, was it mentioned what happened to Fidelia? Was she murdered? Is this something that has not been revealed in the story yet?

Not mentioned in the story yet, but it could be if we go a certain path.

It's 25, the same point you unlock your outfit for that skillset.

I want to be an adventure princess, but I keep needing to send the dumb hostage back during the civil war.

I still want the power of SCIENCE AND MEDICINE. Buuut that may not be immediately practical.

(there isn't a science skill, Kalir)

Maybe I missed something or am misremembering, but I recall the exact opposite. I always wanted it to be interesting, but my skill passes were always just vague warnings, usually of things that I was already uneasy about anyway. I mean, I think I do recall those vague warnings being sufficient to let me choose the "don't do that stupid thing you're about to do Elodie" option at least once, but I still don't consider that particularly interesting.

AND WHY NOT.

Fine. Go with economics and medicine. That way you can make everyone depend on you for the best treatment and nobody will want to assassinate you.

I had that problem, too. Try siding with the girl at the party instead of her mother/both.

It turns out that you need >50 Herbs to get past the first phase of that, though, so I'm going to have to try again.

More midgame spoilers

You may already know this, but there's a non-obvious way to economize on skill points on that route, if you're having difficulty getting sufficiently high skills to complete it. With a modest investment in Intrigue skills, after you encounter your father talking to the countess, he'll ask you what you want your agents to focus on. Picking the correct answers during this conversation will get you to the ball without any problems, saving you at least 2 or 3 weeks' worth of training. And, of course, the Intrigue skills can help you avoid some political problems earlier in the game.

Does going to the Old Forest mean you don't get invaded? Giving a certain answer to that question will help in that scenario, which is how I won it in my winning run.

With enough Divination, you can bypass that part of the scenario anyway, and that skill pays off in enough other parts of the game that it's not a waste.

To be more specific: Asking for more guards during that conversation will get you to the ball; in terms of skill point expenditure, I think that's the cheapest way to make it to the ball unharmed (which I'm reasonably sure you need to do if you want to be Adventure Princess.) High Intrigue skills can also be important in one of the endgame scenarios, so like Divination, they're not really a wasted investment.

There is so much discussion going on in this thread. I love it.

Huh. I did that. Then the war breaks out and my options are randsom her or send her back as a sign of good faith. Ransom has Elodie send her off dismissively and I never see her again.

Haven't figured out if I can avoid the civil war yet. Next run I'll try surrendering that Provence early on, then when the dual breaks out at the ball I'm running that dude through (last time it came up I didn't have the swords).

Well, holding her for ransom and then pushing it got through the war with a huge pile of money, but 30 dogs isn't enough to avoid being poisoned.

BTW, as seen in Trading Time, I have an extra Steam key for this game thanks to this week's Humble Weekly Bundle. Free, first come, first served!

Gone.

The civil war is avoidable (and mutually exclusive with the Old Forest as far as I can tell). I've never seen the duel, which may also be an indication that your Nobles Attitude is low.

Politic harder.

OK. Divination and Reflexes carried that round pretty solidly. Here's to not dying horribly.



Let's see what we learned this week:





How to get poked with a stick and that the gods are capricious bastards. Not exactly what I'd call high level learning, but I suppose everybody has to start somewhere. Moving on from lessons of dubious value, we have another visitor.





It's a Lumen! I don't think I'm spoiling anything if I tell you that Lumens are the magic users of this world. We can find out more about them if we study the lore skill.



Joslyn is not pleased to see her however. Apparently he blames Lumens for the death of Fidelia.

Elodie: What?!?

Julianna: I am a Lumen, as was she, and like every Lumen I am willing to give my life if necessary to protect our domain.

Joslyn: Your line has been traitors for two hundred years. I won't have you corrupting my daughter.

Julianna: That is for the Crown Princess to decide. Elodie, your mother trusted me, and I have much to teach you.



Oh snap, it's our first royal decision! Julianna may have had a hand in the death of our mother, but she could also teach us about honest to goodness magic. Joslyn doesn't trust her at all though. Could she be faking her relationship with Fidelia to gain our trust? What do you want to do with her Talking Time?

I vote for the option that lets us learn magic

I think two of those qualify.

Just because she's arrested doesn't mean you can't visit the jails, after all.

the third one does too

We'll be able to learn magic eventually no matter what. It's just a question of how much we trust Julianna.

Well, King Dad doesn't like her, but I don't know how much I trust his judgment considering he lets Charlotte stay in the castle while she openly plots against us.

I say we give this shady magical stranger a chance. What's the worst that could happen?

She turned me into a newt!
Put her in the dungeon!

Let her stay. Also I just noticed that Elodie has hearts in the center of her irises.

Do we have an anti-magic cell in our dungeon?

Because if so that's where she's headed.

We die horribly?

I vote we Let her stay. Otherwise, how will we discover her agenda and gather the information we need to foil it in our next incarnation?