A general list of questions and request for guidelines

[Gangs20003]

Hi, so obviously i'm new here, and this would be my first post.

Ive had my eye on Academagia for a long while and just bought it...finally.

And honestly, i am simply overwhelmed.

I try to play games after looking up some guides or when it comes to rpg's, some character builds. But all i've found of the prior seem to be severely outdated, and i simply haven't found much of the latter, and what little i did, was again, outdated. The applicable information seems to be...scattered at best.

NOW, coming to my questions. I've found new players posing these questions to you lovely people over the years (on the forums), and i shall keep up the tradition.

1) Since i want to play a success story, and experience as much and many of the events as i can in the first playthrough. (success being things like aceing the tests i guess??) What character building stats would you suggest? As in what do i pick while building my first character? (with the summers blush mod, which i assume is the latest and includes whatever is on first whatever of summer)

2) Who would be the best people to try and "clique" with in my ambitious first playthrough?

3) I saw in some video that someone uses the mod TOOLS, sans any actual modding to make their playthrough easy, how can i do that and if i can, where can i get the resources?

All in all, how can i have an easy playthrough where i can learn the ropes without failing too much at everything and floundering. I love the concept of this game and am easily disenchanted by failure so i'd like for me to be able to push through enough to learn how to hold myself up in subsequent playthroughs.

I know i'm asking a lot of people who probably only now play this game in passing, but obviously there isn't anywhere better where i can do so. So i would really appreciate your attention and help. Thanks in advance, and its good to be here.

[Rhialto]

1. I highly recommend the following build, in general: a Morvidus student, with the following courses (in addition to the defaults): grammar, athletics, dialectic, and history.

Zoology allow the player to easily unlock insects and through that planning, whose second level gives powerful permanent ingame bonuses. Furthermore, when studied to 10, zoology gives a permanent +1 to fitness.

Revision allows the player to access powerful spells for changing skills temporarily and when studied to 10, gives a permanent +1 to finesse.

Grammar allows the player to easily develop relations with other students through Charm in Prose at Grammar level 10, unlocking their quests.

Athletics, when trained to high levels, allows the player to avoid a surprising amount of nastiness in adventures and allows the player to expand strength, fitness, and finesse to various degrees (albeit with much time/effort and save-scumming for greater rewards).

Dialectic has an interesting adventure (Scenes in Dialectic Class) that can teach the player useful in-game skills and abilities. Also, one perk of Dialectic is a relatively straightforward way to teach the player's character Enchantment, glamour, and Enspell skills (albeit with time).

History grants powerful ingame bonuses in many ways, including to all legal magics.

Morvidus college's unique adventures include a fun and remarkably easy adventure "The Shop" introducing a fan-favorite character, as well as a fascinating adventure dealing with the nature of magic and responsibility "Familiar Distress".

2. The best student to befriend is Zoe Melis. Her ingame benefit for the Player, Use Notes, is an easy way to complete studying easily and earlily while gaining steps in skills not related to research (although I always use her ability to complete Research to 11 in order to gain a + 1 to intelligence). Her quest is fun, and although not necessarily easy (depending upon what you want) is a way to gain money and the powerful affection modifier for male characters - or, if one be willing to save-scum while training in the etiquette subskill, love.

I hope that these are good introductory words to help.

What do you define as a success story? top marks? forbidden magic? deep friendships? love? All of those and more are possible within Academagia - to say nothing of being a masterful wrestler-wizard in love with an ophidiophile and prepared to study illegal magic over the summer (one of my finest games!), and I can help you.

[Schwarzbart]

Most important thing to remember for Academagia save each day and keep at last 8 different save files as there is a rare still unfound bug that corrupt an ongoing game and all save past the point when this bug hit. If you play in fast follow without reload you maybe need even more save files as only with a reload you realize the bug. (had 4 or 5 corrupted save files till I got aware of the bug in my last game ... lucky I only lost this 5 ingame days and still could continue the game)

https://academagia.fandom.com/wiki/Academagia_Wiki is your friend 

For a starter I would look that the attributes of my class skills and Insight hit 3 fast and are not below 2 after the 1st week.

The adventure chain with Oan is still a great adventure to do early.

Unlike Rhialto I think Zoe isn't all that great because you can easy unlock Judge the Instructor's Taste by the time Study at the Venalicium Library, a Ability you have right at the start, lost its meaning. Especial for builds that are planed to keep if BCS ever release a Y2 I would avoid a clique having rival college in it or is of more then 3 different college. 

Edit: The current still most unbalanced ability Create Formal Invitation is in Calligraphy where you can ask other students to go on adventure for you! But the difficult of the roll is extrem high that you need to know how to buff your self to have a chance with this roll. 

 

 

[Gangs20003]

7 hours ago, Rhialto said:

1. I highly recommend the following build, in general: a Morvidus student, with the following courses (in addition to the defaults): grammar, athletics, dialectic, and history.

Zoology allow the player to easily unlock insects and through that planning, whose second level gives powerful permanent ingame bonuses. Furthermore, when studied to 10, zoology gives a permanent +1 to fitness.

Revision allows the player to access powerful spells for changing skills temporarily and when studied to 10, gives a permanent +1 to finesse.

Grammar allows the player to easily develop relations with other students through Charm in Prose at Grammar level 10, unlocking their quests.

Athletics, when trained to high levels, allows the player to avoid a surprising amount of nastiness in adventures and allows the player to expand strength, fitness, and finesse to various degrees (albeit with much time/effort and save-scumming for greater rewards).

Dialectic has an interesting adventure (Scenes in Dialectic Class) that can teach the player useful in-game skills and abilities. Also, one perk of Dialectic is a relatively straightforward way to teach the player's character Enchantment, glamour, and Enspell skills (albeit with time).

History grants powerful ingame bonuses in many ways, including to all legal magics.

Morvidus college's unique adventures include a fun and remarkably easy adventure "The Shop" introducing a fan-favorite character, as well as a fascinating adventure dealing with the nature of magic and responsibility "Familiar Distress".

2. The best student to befriend is Zoe Melis. Her ingame benefit for the Player, Use Notes, is an easy way to complete studying easily and earlily while gaining steps in skills not related to research (although I always use her ability to complete Research to 11 in order to gain a + 1 to intelligence). Her quest is fun, and although not necessarily easy (depending upon what you want) is a way to gain money and the powerful affection modifier for male characters - or, if one be willing to save-scum while training in the etiquette subskill, love.

I hope that these are good introductory words to help.

I would like to start with this build then and figure things out from there, thank you for the concrete suggestion, however i'd really appreciate it if you could tell me your ideal choices during cc for the same.

7 hours ago, Rhialto said:

What do you define as a success story? top marks? forbidden magic? deep friendships? love? All of those and more are possible within Academagia - to say nothing of being a masterful wrestler-wizard in love with an ophidiophile and prepared to study illegal magic over the summer (one of my finest games!), and I can help you.

Is it possible to get top marks, all the forbidden magics, deep friendships, and love in 1 playthrough?

Because otherwise my priorities would be in that order only ^

Also no, i don't want to be in love with a snake lover XD, though funnily and i guess in a rather cliched manner, i chose to name my first character salazar slytherin

 

 

5 hours ago, Schwarzbart said:

Most important thing to remember for Academagia save each day and keep at last 8 different save files as there is a rare still unfound bug that corrupt an ongoing game and all save past the point when this bug hit. If you play in fast follow without reload you maybe need even more save files as only with a reload you realize the bug. (had 4 or 5 corrupted save files till I got aware of the bug in my last game ... lucky I only lost this 5 ingame days and still could continue the game)

https://academagia.fandom.com/wiki/Academagia_Wiki is your friend 

For a starter I would look that the attributes of my class skills and Insight hit 3 fast and are not below 2 after the 1st week.

The adventure chain with Oan is still a great adventure to do early.

Unlike Rhialto I think Zoe isn't all that great because you can easy unlock Judge the Instructor's Taste by the time Study at the Venalicium Library, a Ability you have right at the start, lost its meaning. Especial for builds that are planed to keep if BCS ever release a Y2 I would avoid a clique having rival college in it or is of more then 3 different college. 

Edit: The current still most unbalanced ability Create Formal Invitation is in Calligraphy where you can ask other students to go on adventure for you! But the difficult of the roll is extrem high that you need to know how to buff your self to have a chance with this roll. 

Thanks a lot, i tend to go save crazy with games with many choices anyway, i'll keep an obscene number of saves.

Also, what are class skills? Skills needed for the classes one chooses?

I'm not at a point where i can understand the intricasies, or rather even the use of abilities, but is it possible to get the Create Formal Invitation ability with the build suggested by Rhialto above? For that matter, does the selection of the classes one takes, lock one out of learning certain abilities?

[Schwarzbart]

In the build suggestion of Rhialto your class skills are Revision, Zoology, Grammar, Athletics, Dialectic, and History.

You get this skills automatic trained during the 2 time slot you spend in class Mo.-Fr., so don't spend to much time to train them.

[Rhialto]

8 hours ago, Gangs20003 said:

I would like to start with this build then and figure things out from there, thank you for the concrete suggestion, however i'd really appreciate it if you could tell me your ideal choices during cc for the same.

Is it possible to get top marks, all the forbidden magics, deep friendships, and love in 1 playthrough?

Because otherwise my priorities would be in that order only ^

Also no, i don't want to be in love with a snake lover XD, though funnily and i guess in a rather cliched manner, i chose to name my first character salazar slytherin

 

 

Thanks a lot, i tend to go save crazy with games with many choices anyway, i'll keep an obscene number of saves.

Also, what are class skills? Skills needed for the classes one chooses?

I'm not at a point where i can understand the intricasies, or rather even the use of abilities, but is it possible to get the Create Formal Invitation ability with the build suggested by Rhialto above? For that matter, does the selection of the classes one takes, lock one out of learning certain abilities?

1. A very good choice for learning some Forbidden magics is the Secret Heritage Background, which synthesizes well with Morvidus college. The other choice for learning other forbidden magics is the choice "Academy: Purple Academy of Thei" in education (unlocking the adventure "The Unseen Arrival"), although that choice better synergizes with Avila college. A very useful character creation choice in general is Discovery: Libraries, and Education: Page for those seeking high marks is very useful. As for character creation choices to avoid, Prodigy: Incantation would only be useful if it were not bugged, alas.

2. I have never achieved all of the things that you mention, although in 1 game I got affection and mastery of both forms of forbidden magic. In another game, I got love, deep friendship, top marks, and the ability to study a semi-forbidden form of magic over the summer. In a third game, I got affection (with a character whose quest does not grant such a possibility), deep friendship, top marks, and mastery of a forbidden form of magic, and in another game I got love, top marks, and mastery of a forbidden form of magic. This is not to say that it is impossible to achieve everything that you mention (my current game could be used for trying for that!), but it would require much in-game time that can otherwise be spent on adventures and other things. Female characters have an advantage in getting love, because the only NPC who can get a 13 relationship (prerequisite for love) without using save-scumming and the benefit provided by level 8 of the etiquette subskill is a male (Shearry Warrington, who is not bad, although maybe a bit of a Nice Guy).

3. Class skills are skills that one needs to master in order to get grades that are not terrible in a class. They are automatically selected and highlighted depending upon the classes that one chooses, and are fairly straightforward - Grammar skill for Grammar class, etc. That having been said, ways to achieve permanent increases to the class-skills may not be obvious - for example, achieving level 5 in the sewing subskill grants a permanent + 1 to the glamour skill, and achieving level 4 in the natural philosophy skill gives permanent bonuses to zoology and botany.

[Schwarzbart]

because Rhialto mentioned the bug in Prodigy: Incantation, I made a fan fix for this and you can find the download of my mods here:

 

[Good Coyote]

Agreed with Schwarzbart that the wiki is very useful in general. And it's handy for comparing the effects of CC options side by side.

Options that up stats (such as Astrology: The Comet adding 1 Luck, and Family: Sports adding 1 Fitness) are particularly useful. Most rolls involve a skill (parent or subskill) and a stat, for example something might roll Charm/Befriend, or Insight/Character Study. So upping a stat is more useful than upping a skill, since you will roll for example Charm with Befriend, Beguile, etc. But you will only roll Befriend when you roll Befriend.

You will want to start with at least 2 Fitness, but I highly recommend 3 if you don't like feeling limited.

Insight and Intelligence are important but they're very easy to raise after creation. You get +1 to each as soon as you can get Planning to 2 (that's the benefit Rhialto mentioned). Also, Insight seems to be the easiest to raise through Adventure rewards. (Well... as well as Luck, but it's generally a reward for "failing" the final step of an adventure.) And for Morvidus students, The Shop also gives you a +1 to Intelligence almost immediately. (And then there's another Morvidus adventure, Studies In Hunger, which is only mildly difficult and also gives Int.) If you take War related backgrounds (such as Tutoring: Combat) you can get +1 to Insight from the War 2 reward.

Strength seems to be the most difficult to raise after CC but most people don't find it very useful anyway. You're a mage after all.

Moving on from stats, there are a few CC options that give you another point to spend in exchange for some negative effects. Don't take Bad Luck Magnet. Negated is gonna depend on your playstyle, it only affects actual spellcasting actions afaik, and doesn't affect you if you "cast a spell" in an adventure or random event. So avoid it until you've played and know how often you like to use spells. Black Sheep is fine, you don't really need money to succeed. The Rock is fine, plenty of people ignore familiars in Y1 for the most part. But maybe off-theme to take it as a Morvidus student (very likely to cause problems if you were to take the save to later years as well).

Descended from Traitors and Friendship: Actually Bitter Hatred can be fine or troublesome depending on RNG. Having mildly bad relationships with most characters does nothing but make it take an extra action to become BFFs. But there are a handful that you want to avoid, top of the list being Philippe and Joana. They're both Morvidus students, so they're possibilities for Bitter Hatred, but being a Morvidus student will dull the edge of rolling them slightly. It's still a risk though, especially if you happened to roll them for both Bitter Hatred and Descended of Traitors.... Also, this is a slightly more dangerous gamble for female students than male students because there are a handful of characters (cough Vettor Conta) who like to bully girls but not boys. There are no characters I'm aware of that target boys but not girls.

[Metis]

20 minutes ago, Good Coyote said:

There are no characters I'm aware of that target boys but not girls.

Does that targeting actually work, come to think of it? Like Cyrus doesn't correctly target girls exclusively with his flirting, do the students that are meant to bully girls exclusively actually do so?

[Good Coyote]

1 hour ago, Metis said:

Does that targeting actually work, come to think of it? Like Cyrus doesn't correctly target girls exclusively with his flirting, do the students that are meant to bully girls exclusively actually do so?

I've never gotten squirted by Vettor as a boy, even rolling Bitter Hatred, but have been squirted by Vettor as a girl on Day 3 without rolling him for anything. RNG can be funny though, and I play girls very rarely, so I guess that's just anecdotal evidence.

I think the issue with Cyrus may be that he does also have an interest in increasing relationship with boys, just a weaker one, and the game can't mechanically distinguish between improving a relationship via a Flirt-flavored action or via a platonic-flavored action. Vetter may actually only want to stress girls exclusively. Maybe? Going to look in the mod tools more. Nope, his Goal to stress seems to be neutral. Guess my girls are just unlucky.