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

I've been playing this a lot, I love how easy it is to blast through one playthrough, keeps me interested in retrying it with different stats.

Two arcs I haven't been able to trigger but have heard about are going into the forest and being an evil queen. What skills/choices are needed to make these happen?

Going into the forest is triggered by having enough lore to be able to talk about it with Briony at the birthday party and then encouraging the exploration rather than trying to talk her out of it.

I've never seen evil queen, but I think it involves killing everybody you can and generally being as cruel as possible.

Edit: I'm going on a business trip later this week, but I'm shooting to get the next update done before I go.

In addition to what Mr. Bean said, I'll just mention that the forest arc is fairly difficult to trigger, since it requires you to both make it to the birthday party alive and avoid the civil war. As you might expect, actually surviving the arc is more difficult still. I'm not sure exactly what's involved in becoming an evil queen, but the game does keep track of a hidden Cruelty stat, which you can increase by being an entirely terrible person during various plot events. Less obviously, you can also increase your Cruelty by hunting during the weekend, assuming you've unlocked that activity. There's an "evil minion" ending which you can attain if you've been sufficiently vicious throughout the game; it's technically a losing ending (since being a minion isn't as awesome as being a queen) but I believe you do get an achievement for it.

Huh, you guys just mentioned a lot of things I wasn't aware of in the game! Guess I need to play more, aw shucks.

Me too. I only got a really easy ending where you use magic, summon the Kraken, seal the Kraken. I know there are other endings just by looking at the Steam achievements, but I haven't been able to complete a lot of those paths yet.

Despite the bonuses motivating specific training, I find that I do better in the game, or at least have more fun, when I train specific skills I want as long as I don't have a mood penalty.

This is a very violent kawaii princess sim.

Is there anything in this game that doesn't kill you?!

Elodie's mother.

...I think.

Why did that kill me? That has never killed me before!

It took seven hours and a lot of dead Elodies but I finally managed to become a queen.

It literally required me to make a pact with Cthulhu himself, but I did it. Turns out Cthulhu is actually the lesser of two evils.

I just won the game with only Mystical/Intellectual skills. If you're having a tough time of the game, I highly recommend that focus. You can ignore Military and Medicine on that path, too (and possibly History).

In my playthrough just now I seem to have misread an omen and got the entire world mad at me for not attending a birthday party

I just sparked a civil war but fortunately the daughter of the head traitor had ditched school to come stay with me and I held her hostage to force them to give up.

on hiatus

abandoned

Welcome back! It's been a crazy hiatus with me getting married, getting a new job and moving halfway across the country, but we're back online and ready to rule what is ours by divine right.

When last we left our pint sized prefect, a delegation from Ixion was on its way to negotiate regarding their occupation of a county on our shared border. In preparation, we decided to try and become a bit more intimidating.



We spend the morning boosting our confidence a bit,



And the afternoon learning how to project that confidence.



We don't have any time to spare either before we have to put our newfound confidence to use.





Banion's shown up to give his support since he actually wants something out of this deal.



His sister Brin is less enthusiastic.



The negotiations start out simply enough, but with no background in Novan History or Foreign Affairs, we have to take everything that's being said a more or less face value.

Diplomat from Ixion: Let bygones be bygones, no? We will forget about your unprovoked attacks on us, and you will transfer the rights to this little province.
We can be good neighbors again, without any lives being lost. (Foreign Affairs -> failed)

Ok, our first major decision as Queen:



Do we give up the province, try to buy our way out of it, or take what's ours by force? This is an important one Talking Time. This decision impacts events through the whole run of the game, so choose wisely.

Also voting for execute him.

We'll look weak giving up money or land, and we might make ourselves look foolish trying to bluff. Safer to execute him.

Wait a second.

Brin's 33?

I thought this was an anime! People are supposed to be dead by 33!

Isn't there a way to force Brin to marry an Ixionite as part of a treaty? I vaguely remember that one but am guessing we don't have the stats to trigger it. Or is that later in the game?

I like the title "Duchess of Hellas", makes her sound like the ruler of the Republic of California

"Him" is the delegate from Ixion, right? I doubt we have the skills to bluff or intimidate. We might have the economics prowess to haggle, but I wouldn't put money on it. I'd just surrender the province, personally, but I've never tried executing him, so that sounds exciting, too.

OK, so we've decided on Game of Thrones style diplomacy.



Perfectly viable, if a little messy.

Elodie: And here you have our answer. (+1 Angry)



Elodie: Ship that back to Ixion. If they know what's good for them, they'll get out of my way.

That rather forcefully states our position to Ixion. Of course, beheading the ambassador you called for is probably poor form, so I'd expect reprisals next week. That's next week though, for now, let's just clear our head a bit.





Our mood hasn't changed, but we're going to top out on Presence pretty quickly if we just keep training it, so I've taken the liberty of queuing up Composure and Elegance this week. As mentioned before, you need to get all 3 skills to at least 25 before you can train any one skill past 50, and we need 60 presence to break into the vault with our eldritch power source.



Composure teaches us how to take a deep breath,



and elegance has us practicing our balance.



Afterwards, we find out how that pesky little war is going.

You receive a report on the outcome of the battle against the Ixionites.
You succeeded in driving them out of Maree, but it cost you almost a full battalion of soldiers and a great deal of materiel.
You lost 1032 soldiers



You also receive a letter informing you that Talarist, Duke of Sedna, will be arriving for an official visit next week.

Wow, busy week. We kicked out an occupying force and got notice of another noble coming to visit. Before that though, let's visit with King Dad for some perspective on this whole mess:







Elodie: Oh.
Should I have done that?

Joslyn: The situation is different now. Everyone on all sides wishes to see what sort of Queen is coming to the throne.



Well that's unsettling. The nobles just provoked us into a small scale act of war just to see how we'd react. No pressure or anything.

You can learn the background of the Ixion conflict if you train History and other such skills, but for anyone who wants the basics, here they are: A few years ago, Brin decided that she wanted to increase Maree's holdings. The Ixions were historic enemies, but had been maintaining a peace under Fidelia. Bree rounded up the local militias, pushed across the border and occupied a chunk of northern Ixion thinking that there wouldn't be a big response. Ixion got pissed off, mobilized the army and pushed her out of Ixion territory while taking a chunk of Maree and occupying it for their trouble. With enough training in history and politics, you can offer Brie up to the Ixionites as compensation for getting the territory back.

Here's where we stand so far with our training:



Again, I'm going to train Composure and Elegance so that we can blitz our last bit of required Presence next training session.



Composure training is kind of weird,



but Elegance training let's us take a quick break for tea. Always important in a royal household.



We've also unlocked our first outfit! You can't change except during the weekend in your room, so I'll show it off next time, but you unlock outfits for each particular skill group when you get all 3 of its skills past 25.

For now though, we've got company to entertain.



Talarist is from the country to the southeast of us, so he's not part of Novan society. Hopefully we can get through this visit without starting another war.



Elodie: (I don't know how to deal with handsome older men paying me compliments!)

Talarist: I was so pleased to hear that you had accepted my humble offering. A jewel for a jewel - but you are the more precious.
I hope that this is only the beginning of a mutually beneficial relationship. A union between us would bring stability to both our peoples.



Welp. So Talarist wants to marry into the Novan line, sealing our alliance with blood.

So whadda say Talking Time? Wanna get hitched to a man 12 years our senior who we've known for less than an hour?





Quiet you.

I say no. Can we execute him, too?

It is in poor form to arrange for a wedding with the soon-to-be queen minutes after finishing the funeral procession. On the other hand, he would be invested in our survival to coronation should we agree, since the wedding itself would necessarily be put off until after the coronation.

Does Talasse have anything we want other than simply covering that border should when we find ourselves in war?

I say accept.

Go for it. He's the best option so far!

Wait, what do you mean he's the only one?! That still makes him best!

i for one can't wait to settle down and pop out some puce-haired children

well

it's a step up from pink, at least