Choice of the Vampire: The Fall of Memphis -- player feedback and reviews

Compared to the first CoV, I can’t think of a single nice thing to say about the Fall of Memphis. Firstly, it felt entirely too short when compared to it’s predecessor, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing if the content is good, but it wasn’t. Some of the above comments have already captured what appears to be the very linear nature, at least in appearence, of the fall of Memphis.

For the most part, the fact that the game was about vampires was entirely ignored. We were thrust into a basic political simulator, in which we could have just as easily have played as a human, that seemed to have a predetermined outcome. With the exception of providing refreshments, I can’t see that there were any meaningful skill checks.

My first CoG game was CoBroadsides, which was great. I’ve really enjoyed Life of a Wizard and Sabres of Infinity. I’ve been disappointed with some CoG release, but I’ve never, until now, regretted spending so little money. If the 3rd installment of Affairs at Court, is this bad, I’m probably done with games released by CoG. I’ll still give the hosted games a chance.

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@sesquipedalian I know what you mean…

@LGMAlpha Affairs of the Court will end with the 3 part if im not wrong. So probability of it ending up like Fall of Memphis is low i think. It has to have some kind of conclusion whether its good or bad but if it’s bad like you said, I will be looking to the hosted games from now on as well.

FYI some people’ve said that there’s more content remaining hidden due to stat restrictions. So if this was the case, for the fear of being ignorant and harsh, i went and edited the stats in the code and found nothing groundbreaking aside from lockpicking a door or arranging the party for the elections… If I’m missing something please enlighten me.

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Apparently If you’re a yankee, you’d get invited to a KKK party by a member (thanks to @vampierkid222) so it isnt false advertisement.

I couldnt edit previous post sorry for double post…

What about all the other things than? Does any of the ‘hidden content’ match the description? Because I still feel a bit cheated, waiting so long for something that feels so detached. Yes, it’s very cheap, but it’s the money, it’s the time I wasted waiting for
something that isn’t going to happen.

I guess the games are taking a different turn than what I expected and wished for, so I feel a bit bait-and-switched. Maybe it’s my fault for not understanding the ‘point’ of the games. They’re not badly written (although somewhat badly designed), they’re just not what I wanted.

I find it odd that none of the politicking/Wilson hunting is mentioned, though, seeing how it’s the bulk of the game. Someone who’s interested in that might not buy the game because the description makes the game sounds like something quite different. The marketing needs refinement, CoG.

On the forums we often have different views of games than they do on the app markets. We’re just a very small, if loyal and vocal, group here, it’s what the people at large think. None of us have access to their sales figures. A game that’s routinely criticised here, Heroes Rise, is one of their best selling games.

I’ve not purchased Choice of the Vampire 2 so I can’t comment on the content. It’s only been released for a few days though, and I have faith that the skill checks will at least be lowered to make more of the content accessible. Is that the main complaint people are having, that the game is short and there’s stuff hidden away that’s not easily accessed? Well that and the game description doesn’t mention that it’s a game of politics?

Politics is very much a strong aspect of Vampire the Masquerade, which Choice of the Vampire seems inspired by.

I know Jason’s been working for years on the game. I find it hard to imagine that he’s not put his all into making it as good a game as he possibly can.

If you wanted to improve The Fall of Memphis what would you suggest doing? Are there any quick and simple fixes that would make it more enjoyable? If you had 10 minutes to fix the game what would you do? What one change would make the biggest difference? Is there anything simple that could make it better?

OK, with the bug at the end of part 1 corrected and some runs with different characters made, I have a clearer picture of this Fall of Memphis and its shortcomings.
Yes, because even if there are a couple of nice things here and there, I confirm my first impression of a disappointment. I will try to sketch the main reasons in this post:

  1. the skeleton of the chapter is stiff and repetitive. This is the worst large-scale thing in my opinion. Apart from a couple of minor scenes, the stay in Memphis reduces to this scheme: intro - caucus/Wilson - the bonds interlude - caucus/Wilson - conclusion of Wilson storyline - conclusion of Memphis.
    The majority of the story, thus, is concentrated into two blocks that feel (if not look) the carbon copy of each other. The fact that -no matter what you do- both blocks end with an impasse does not help: one feels like the hamster in the wheel, spinning for nothing.
    Besides, if someone is not really that interested into politics or it is not engaged in Wilson (I really don’t know how one can feel engaged in the Wilson storyline, especially if is not his maker), he finds himself with no alternatives to amuse himself with.

I would like to speak a bit more about the bonds interlude because this is something puzzling to me. An inordinate amount of time and script is spent for the issue of the municipal bonds, which goes completely wasted because 1) it is absolutely not engaging (it is a minor amount of the wealth of the character, for those who care about money, it’s something useless for those who do not) and 2) once you run the game once you know what is the end of the story and you always make the same “right” choices.
I really don’t get what the author was thinking in putting this part.

  1. it is really too linear. This was a criticism from some people to the first part too, which I did not feel because in CoV there are enough internal variations that I did not care that (for example) at the end you surely end in Vicksburg and from there in Memphis.
    But in this FoM you really do not have any freedom of movement. No matter what you do, the Senatorial stuff will end always in the same way (the best you can do is to oust one of the three candidates, that anyway has no influence whatsoever in the final result) and the Wilson story also, more or less. It is related to the stiffness I was speaking before.
    This is also related to the next point, which is

  2. there is not enough attention to the details.
    This may come to a surprise considering the attention the details get in CoV, but this is really my impression,
    First of all, in CoV you get many changes in descriptions and dialogues, even small as a phrase added or omitted here and there, depending on your background or discoveries. This was nice because the script was really feeling personalized and lively.

In this FoM every run I made (with different characters) felt more or less the same. Yes, there are some sparse changes, but they do not affect the narration as it was in the first part.

In few cases, I am sorry to say, the lack of attention to details verges on sloppiness. The most evident example for me is the part where you write letters.
I was very curious when I approached that part, because I thought I could have exchanged comments and ideas with some of the people I had met at the first caucus, but I ended to be very disappointed. First of all, only a part of the people I had met appeared in the list, and not even those I had spoken with more or I was more interested with. It looked like an almost random list.
Then, most of the letters I could write were just to… ask the address to write to other people! The other choices, if any, were relatively minor. And I that I wanted to speak with the Jew about something that came out, or the the Senators in couple about another piece of information. Nothing!
And at the end, my writing options slowly reduce to zero for no real reason (other than accelerate the arrival of the second caucus), in a way that feels completely unnatural.

Another thing that annoyed me was the lack of options for minor but flavour-rich issues when it could have been possible to put some more.
For example, the issue of provide refreshments. If you accept, either you succeed or you fail, depending on only ONE characteristics of your character (charm, to be specific). Why not giving different choices to provide food for the guests, so one could choose according to its inclinations?
The same goes for the party organization… either you have creativity 3 or forget about it! (the option of paying someone else - someone that by the way you cannot choose, unless there is a indirect dependence of the money of your character - counts as failure)
And these are just two examples that come to my mind.

Speaking about details, there is also the next point, the

  1. lack of shape in the staging and in the characters. This is another point where the comparison between CoV and FoM is unmercifully in favour of the first.
    Simply said, Memphis struggles to become alive. Your interactions with the surroundings feel very limited - and this includes the other citizens, considering you have scenes with Apollo and Dido only around the caucus - and at the end I really couldn’t care less for the fate of Memphis. I never had the feeling I lived there for years, as it happened for New Orleans and Vicksburg of the first part.

Perhaps more seriously, also the characters are not fleshed out. In this part you have the chance to meet many different people but, except for one or two, they remain just a list of names to remember and they struggle to become real characters. It does not help that you manage to speak with them basically just during the caucus (and in a limited way too) and not before or after or in between the years.
Also during the caucus scenes, nobody does anything remarkable, everyone (except a couple of exceptions) behaves more or less the same and they seem like machines, or better names speaking with each other, without the quirks that real people have.

Just to conclude because this post is already too long, I hint at the final two issues that bothered me, that is
5) it is too short, it’s worth noticing that CoV included two chapters of the story and FoM only one; and
6) the end! And I’m not speaking about the fall of Memphis or the end of Wilson, but the real end where you wind up to move to St. Louis.
In each of my runs I made friendship with many other different vampires of different cities, I really do not find any reasonable explanation why I would like to accept to go to St. Louis!

OK, I completely understand that the main legs of the story must be in the same city because allowing to choose also the city would mean too many permutations, but at least there should be some better motivation than just “the Quaestor of St. Louis is the first to answer to you”! I’m sure it would not have been that difficult to put in the main story some preparation to lead a character to St. Louis, the fact that it hasn’t been done makes me go back to point 3, and that’s unfortunate.

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@Dominic your points about stat checks are valid. I’m revising some of those downwards.

@JackRabbit You are correct. As I just mentioned in another thread, I did not review the marketing materials before they went out, and there was a miscommunication. I apologize. “Rekindle”, in particular, should not have been used in the marketing materials. The person who wrote the press release didn’t realize that the Clotho sequence could only be reached if you *don’t* meet Clotho in CoV. But I should have reviewed the marketing copy anyway.

@FairyGodfeather Your consideration is, as always, much appreciated.

@perles75 Your comments are well received. I would invite you to point out specific moments that you feel could have been better adapted to your character’s background/personality traits.

To sort of combine the comments by both @FairyGodfeather and @perles75, I have been working on this for a very long time. However, I can’t maintain every possible character combination in my head as I’m writing. To that end, I’m counting on all of you to help make the game better.

CoV took some six months of patching to get to the place that most of you remember. Even more so now, with the 2.0.0 version. If you compared it to the original version of the game that was released three years ago, you’d be struck by how far it’s come.

Please, keep the comments coming. But try to make criticisms of specific moments, with data that I can use to better customize the game for your character.

Lastly, it won’t be another three years before the next chapter is released. As you may or may not realize, I quit my day job at the end of June, to do Choice of Games full time. While that doesn’t mean that I’m working on Vampire full time, it does mean that it will no longer be third priority.

Perles, that isn’t completely true about the refreshments. There are actually multiple ways of providing them, which are checked in order. You can be a priest, or you can be charming (woman with charm 3, or man with charm 4), or you can be skilled in combat (calculated combat score 9), or you can be nefariously charming (streetwise 2 and either male charm 3 or female charm 2).

I’m going to see if I can try to estimate what reasonable check difficulties would be, based on the levels of skill that one would expect characters to have. Ultimately, though, my own deepest issue with the game as it presently exists is the absence of much that would be important to my character, or to most characters. That’s a problem which is difficult to patch up, sadly, as it essentially demands more or different content. And even more so if you have a commitment (I don’t know if you do or not) to the election being doomed to deadlock, due to that one lady’s manipulations.

edit: Actually, Jason, in the process of doing so, I’ve found what I believe to be a little bug in the original CoV. Probably a rather low priority for you at the moment, but in the first self-improvement after character creation in new_orleans.txt, every choice sends you on to changes_to_louisiana except “rough-housing with the neighborhood boys,” which sends you skipping all the way down to random_trait.

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The game was definitely a mixed bag for me. There were some aspects that I really liked, like the historical setting (Reconstruction is an interesting time period that’s rarely explored in media), the stuff with Jesse (I’d been wanting to romance him since the first game, so I was glad I finally got the chance), and the scene with not!Silas (despite my normally icy heart, I felt just awful for my poor vampire girl).

In terms of the stuff I didn’t like it mostly boiled down to the locked content and the politics. Looking through the coding, I found a lot of interesting stuff, like the Mason angle and Harding trying to screw up the election, but I have absolutely no idea how to find it in game. The politics angle was something that I initially was really excited about, but I was frustrated by the fact that I didn’t seem able to actually do anything. It seemed like my character could have just stayed home and things would have played out the exact same way. A few things that might help would be allowing the character to talk to everyone at the various receptions and ask all of the questions, so you could develop a better idea of exactly who all these people are without having to do multiple playthroughs. Adding a bit more roleplaying meat to the letter writing segment might help, too. I was excited by the idea of it, but found writing to people just to get addresses pretty boring. Also, on a more nitpicky note, I would have liked to have been able to write to Jesse, since I don’t think I ever actually say him again after the crazy vampire date part. Ultimately though, I think the politics plot just needs some kind of payoff. Even if you can’t actually affect who/whether someone gets elected, I’d like a reason why it mattered that my character actually went, even if it’s just “you and so-and-so are really tight allies now, and they’ll help you in the future.”

Also, on an extremely nitpicky note, I was a little bummed that my fancy, rich, charming French vampire who’s been feeding off socialites for decades apparently can’t through a decent party.

Overall though, I really am looking forward to the next part. I absolutely cannot wait to head to St. Louis and find out why my vampire’s ex/maker is running around as a giant wolf, aside from making her life into even more of a supernatural soap opera than it already is :slight_smile:

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Okay. Character stats are the product of their background, their maker choice (one stat or skill, 1/3rd and 2/3rds chance respectively), your interaction with your maker at the start (avg .75 stat, .5 skill), one each of a chosen skill and stat improvement, one random skill or stat improvement (approx. 50/50), and two chosen skill or stat improvements. The backgrounds provide, on average, 2.2 points in stats, 1.3 points in skills, and 1 deficit (lack of English or literacy) which can be remedied with one of your chosen improvements.

Some characters will not bother to remedy these deficits - for the sake of simplicity, let us assume that half will, and so take off half a chosen improvement. Of the 1.5 that remain, split evenly between stats and skills, for a boost of .75 to each.

Overall, then, characters can be assumed on average to have .33~ + .75 + 1 + .5 + .75 + 2.2 = 5.53 stat points above the baseline 1 in everything, or very slightly more than required to have a 2 in each stat. A 3, therefore, is a ‘strong’ level, virtually ensuring that it’s matched with a corresponding 1 in some other attribute. A 4 is an extremely strong level, representing more than half of the character’s stat points invested in one quality. A 5 is not something which will realistically occur.

There is some variance in what’s likely based on the bonuses at the beginning. All stats are available in the character backgrounds, but maker choice can only give intelligence or charm, and your interaction with your maker at the start can only give charm, agility, or willpower. This means that charm is the stat most likely to be high, being represented in both sets (A 4 in charm is, in fact, reasonably achievable without taking extreme measures), and that strength is least likely to be high, as it is offered a bonus in neither.

For skills, we have a total investment of .66~ + .5 + 1 + .5 + .75 + 1.3 = 4.72, split among creation, fighting, lore, perception, stealth, streetwise, and technology. (Shapeshifting is a fairly unique case which I am not addressing here). This makes the ‘average’ level approximately .67 in each of these skills. Of course, skills trend naturally towards specialization more than stats. But I would say, given the above, that having 2 in a skill is a result of a meaningful character focus on that ability, and that a 3 is likely to the product of serious specialization, as it would require more than half of the skill points available.

Exception: Lore. New Orleans’ first chapter offers a free +1 bonus to lore, with an additional +1 if you speak English and don’t pointlessly lie to Cecil. As such, a 3 in lore is about equivalent to a 1 in anything else (as least as far as what it says about the character’s focus).

Overall, then: A check for “Good at X” should probably be set at 3 for stats and 2 for skills. “Amazing at X” would be 4 for stats and 3 for skills. Combat is a bit trickier, as a function of 3 different stats; if the ‘average’ level is about 2+2+1*1.5 = 5.5, then I’d say perhaps 7 for “Good” and 9 for “Amazing.” Your opinion may vary, of course.

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@JasonStevanHill You quit your day job? Wow! That’s great for us, and for Choice of Games. I hope it works out for you and ensures the success of Choice of Games.

@Dominic That’s really interesting. Do you think people posting their stats would help provide an idea of how stat points are actually being spent?

Okay. Haven’t been on the forum in a looong time, but I’ve been waiting for CotV aka FoM for forever. I was one of the original Beta testers, so I’ll break down my review and what I noticed changed. This will be a bit lengthy, but please bare with me.

                                        \*WARNING SPOILERS BELOW\*

First off, with the good. @jasonstevanhill Your writing is as always practically impeccable. The historical input for me at least really builds up on the current era/decade we find ourselves in. It really makes me feel like a vampire in the 1870’s watching things go to hell in Memphis.

My problems:

  1. There is no way, that I have found, to solve the election matter which for me makes the entire event seem, I hate to say it, POINTLESS (not trying to scream lol just making emphasis). We could cheat, kinda through the Beta and the regular game on the site to increase our skills higher which allowed for options in-game. Jason I believe I may have got the closest to a resolution. Which is:

                                                 \*MEGA SPOILER\* 
    

Apollo’s sister Quaestor Harding seems to either be blackmailing or manipulating Senator Partridge into not voting therefore causing the election to always end with an impasse. I discovered this playing, NOT on the Beta, as a female creole with I believe 4 charm, 3 intelligence, and 3 willpower. Willpower seems to be a big part of this as Partridge tries to avoid you and you have to have the willpower to press him.

Harding comes up like a, excuse my language, utter BITCH and tried to talk down to me as I am calling Partridge out. Partridge btw is also I believe the progeny of none other than Consul Stone! Apollo comes up and has a verbal battle with his “sister” even though both try to disguise it as regular talk. Everyone in the room is watching, and Apollo is very happy after this scene. But still, this ends in an impasse and then the city still dies.

  1. The stats. Jason, lol. I like them, but there are 14 skills. 14! And we barely get the chance to raise them over the game which is really not progressive or character development-oriented. A solution to this, and I don’t know much about coding so if I’m out there, someone can enlighten me, could be you making the highest level of a skill 5. Then after we work our way through the beginning of the game, either part 1 or 2, give us like at least 20 points to spend in whatever skills we want so we can make a custom vampire. Also I know the bars at the bottom track what kind of vampire we are, but need they be in stone? I have no idea why characters of color for example NEVER have the option to demand Sam teach teach us something for turning Wilson against our wishes. Race doesn’t seem to matter to vamps as it does to humans, so I don’t get that.

  2. What happened to our IT? In the Beta we meet I think one of Clotho’s sister’s grandchildren. Another beautiful creole woman and have the chance to fall in love before she dies of the yellow fever which kind of didn’t make sense because I thought people of African descent were more resilient to the disease. All I got was a scene for some characters where they THINK they see Clotho, run over and grab a woman, and realize this isn’t Clotho.

I’m going to stop here, because this is getting long, but basically I love CoG, but when I spend my money to support the games it makes, I expect the games to be great. Nothing’s perfect, and I don’t expect anything to be, but maybe we could build this part 2 up a bit through updates?

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Of course, there is actually substantial variation between what I might term the ‘point value’ of the various backgrounds. Not necessarily a bad thing, but if valued at stat boosts + skill boosts - deficits, the totals range from 1 (French landowners) to 4 (Scotch workers and English-speaking slaves).

This one-dimensional approach does miss some nuance, however. The French landowners start with income and wealth, which may be of use, and there are other little unique touches, such as the numerous differences for priests, or Choctaw interpreters being able to keep up their pagan faith, which comes up occasionally.

@FairyGodfeather - It might, potentially, though I wouldn’t say that this thread in particular should be cluttered up with that. I estimated typical stat distributions based on the code, but the direct approach of just looking at what people’s characters actually look like would certainly be another method of determining what checks are reasonable.

@Jammy - Demanding recompense from Samantha doesn’t have anything to do with your character’s race. You just have to have hubris greater than 30% to insist that she owes you, and then less than 60% to demand she teach you how to read, or less than 70% to demand she teach you English. Or charm 3 to demand she teach you charm 4. That bit there is another reason we can expect charm to be higher than most other stats.

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@jasonstevanhill btw, I think it’s awesome that you quit your job to work on something you truly love doing. You are one of the best writers, and I’d love to see CotV get better through updates and suggestions from everyone online. I’m up to work on another Beta if you need help.

@Dominic the goal is/was to have every character start with the same amount of points. Feel free to go back and check my work on this.

-1 pt for how you deal with your maker.
-1 pt from the maker himself.
-1 pt from reason for turn
-6 pts from profession/ethnicity
-1 bonus skill
-1 bonus trait
-1 random bump.
-1 shapeshifting (with West) or 1 Status (not with West)
-1 refinement bump if you go to New Orleans (without going to the swamps with West), or 1 Shapeshifting if you go to St. Charles parish, or 1 trait bump if you first go with West and then go to New Orleans.
-1 Lore

I don’t consider “priest”, “pagan”, or speaking Choctaw to be a point. Each (non-Choctaw) language and literate are individually considered points.

Also speaks_latin was more useful when you went directly to Chicago after New Orleans. I’m going to go ahead and add another trait to people to priests and lawyers to reflect this deficit. By Chicago, things should have balanced out sufficiently.

@Dominic Thanks for the information, I never noticed that before. I just noticed how with some characters of different origins that Sam would teach some and not others. Even when I played the same/similar type of vampire, but with just different origins. What changes hubris levels?

Your post on the first page towards the end on character points was fascinating/in-depth btw. I felt like I was in a college math class again lol :smiley:

@jasonstevanhill Not that I have a problem with it, but Yankee, Creole, Spanish, Male Southern lawyer, and Slave paired with Van Der Ahe seem to be the best/ get the most points imo which I love because I wouldn’t see nearly as many scenes as I have without these origins and the Van Der Ahe combination. So keep those origins at the top lol.

Jason: To a certain extent, it’s a subjective matter how you assign value, of course. I’ve been neglecting perks that you might be considering. Speaking French or German, for example, might come up once or twice, but it seems unambiguously true that it’s not going to be as useful as another point of intelligence or agility. I also neglected the income boost in my analysis, since it’s subject to ebb and flow in the course of play, and status, as it has a relatively restricted impact thusfar.

If we count every language, literacy, and 5 points of income as a ‘point,’ then there’s greater consistency of value, around 5 or 6 per background. But in terms of the impact on the stats you’ve been checking, the previous analysis holds; even if we consider it a ‘point’ when a background gives you French, that doesn’t actually increase anyone’s strength or stealth or anything.

There is one thing, though - the refinement bump you mention isn’t occurring at all, at present. Not as far as I can see; I had assumed that you deliberately short-circuited around it, since you have

*if random_bump
*goto 1823_c
*else
*goto refinement

and ‘random_bump’ is set true back at the first random skill increase, the one you get for your mortal existence. If that were functional…let’s see, I suppose it would add roughly another half a point to each of the totals of attributes and skills, allowing us to expect a baseline of one three and four twos in attributes.

I do notice you have a check that sets random_bump back to false, but right now it’s positioned before the first bump actually occurs, so it doesn’t do anything. Maybe you meant to have that afterward?

@Jammy - Hubris/Discretion is basically a measure of how unobtrusive or obvious you are. Keeping quiet and avoiding attention generally increases your discretion, trumpeting how great and important you are and otherwise being obvious generally increases your hubris.

==Hubris is meant in both the accurate translation and the mis-translation of the Ancient Greek word/concept: self-deluding overconfidence (mistranslation) and propensity to violence (accurate translation).

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A comment for those who are interested:

You /can/ examine the source code (via “View Script” plus editing the URL to view individual scenes) for versions purchased from the Chrome store. Thus, these comments are based off of reviewing the free version of Vampire 1 and the Chrome version of Vampire 2.

Depending on what platform you are playing on and WHEN you played it, part 1 had (?) a VERY serious bug – the scene “vicksburg_denouement” wasn’t accessible. Without this scene, none of the Wilson scenes in part 2 make any sense, as well as the transition to Memphis is very abrupt. However, it looks like this has been fixed (for the web page version), as when I checked the source to verify that the bug was still present the last line of “vicksburg_depot” reads “*finish Next” instead of “*goto_scene memphis_arrival” as it did yesterday. If the Wilson scenes in Part 2 are confusing you, you may want to play through the web version to figure out what’s going on as I’m sure it will take awhile to update the other versions.

I have to agree with the consesus on this thread: Vampires 2 was no where NEAR as good as Vampires 1, largely because none of the obvious objectives (capturing Wilson, or winning / influencing the election) are achievable. This results in loads of frustration for the player. :frowning:

For the record:

* Neither you nor anyone else can win the either election – period. There simply is no code anywhere in the game to handle a winner. You can, in the second election, determine WHY this is true, but that’s as good as it gets. I understand why this was done (to avoid an enormous fork in Vampires 3), but… @jasonstevanhill: A much better solution is simply to have the player’s Senatorship revoked when Memphis ceases to be a city at the end.
…* Massive SPOILERS on how to identify why nobody can win in a follow up message.
…* You get an achievement (if your platform supports them – iOS does not, yet) for doing this.
…* You also get an achievement for meeting all 10 senators face-to-face, which is hard to do.

* It is not possible to capture or kill Wilson (or Hugh, if you are playing a version of Part 1 that allows you to play through the “vicksburg_denouncement” scene AND your race is african AND you elected to turn Wilson yourself) prior to the failure of the second caucus, at which point you can’t avoid succeeding.

* It is possible to have a romance in Part 2, with another woman who just HAPPENS to be named Clotho – but only IF you never met Herbert in Part 1 (you must ignore the invitation from Estafandia altogether or never have gone to New Orleans).
…* @jasonstevanhill: I don’t understand why this is the case – the whole /point/ of the Clotho romance was that she was going to come back, so… Why not here?

* It isn’t possible to save Memphis or even influence its development. All of the text that makes you think “Oh, if I had the right stat then I’d get a choice / different text here” – nope. :frowning:

* If you join the KKK during Part 1 (instructions on how to do this in the followup message), you’ll get a bonus scene in Part 2. It doesn’t go anywhere. :frowning:

* If you join the Freemason’s in Part 1 (instructions on how to do so in the followup message), you’ll get a bonus scene in Part 2. It ALSO doesn’t go anywhere. :frowning:
…* Note that you’ll get a long sequence that is related to being able to IDENTIFY someone else is a Freemason – but being a Freemason yourself isn’t a requirement to unlock this content, and it doesn’t lead to your advancement within the order, so…

* If you convince Estfanda to start teaching you the “Secrets of the Blood”, you’ll get a bonus scene in Part 2 (one of the Senator’s recognizes the secret signal during the 2nd caucus) . It ALSO doesn’t go anywhere. :frowning:

* There is no opportunity to create a great work of art in part 2.

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MASSIVE SPOILERS: To determine WHY all of the elections fail to reach a conclusion, you must (during the SECOND caucus – you can’t discover any of this at the first one) you MUST…

  1. No longer be in the running (e.g. you must give up your seat if you were standing for election). It is best if you don’t even try to run, as it gives you more time to politic during the caucus.

  2. Have eliminated one of the candidates (it must be two way race) during the /second/ caucus, which must be done BEFORE the caucus (via letter writing). Note that if you burn one of the candidates during the FIRST caucus, they come back for the second and you can’t burn them again, so be careful! Mallory is by far the easiest to eliminate with Pickering being much, much more difficult).

==To burn Mallory, you must do ONE of the following:
…* Talk to her (during the chance encounter OR during the first reception) and ask about her creator (sets “heard_of_ogier”). OR
…* Establish contact with Senator Timmers during the letter writing sequence and ask him about Mallory’s creator (also sets “heard_of_ogier”)
…* Then you must establish contact with Senator Bailey during or before the letter writing sequence and you’ll have the option to mention Mallory’s creator, which will prevent her from appearing as a candidate.

==To burn Pickering, you must set the “pickering_and_pike” flag, and to do THAT you must set the “met_albert_pike” flag. Setting the “met_albert_pike” flag is very, very hard, but there are a couple of paths to get there:
…* Part 1: There is some prep work you can do in Part 1 to make your life easier in part 2:
…* You can set “hersey_of_masons” by joining the Freemason’s in part 1.
…* Set learn_of_masons (by asking your sire about them): Meet all of the following:
…* You must choose to improve your rapport with your Quaestor.
…* Your sire must be alive (and, therefore also your Quaestor).
…* Your sire must be Sainte-Chapelle.
…* Your perception must be 1 or greater.
…* EITHER your lore must be 2 or greater OR your intelligence must be 3 or greater.
…* Your sire must not think of himself as a god, nor can he be highly faithful.
…* To actually set “hersey_of_masons”, you must ALSO
…* Wait until after the governor’s visit
…* Be male
…* Have a reasonably good relationship with your sire (> 65, which isn’t hard to achieve at all)
…* Agree to join when offered the opportunity (there are several paths, depending on race and religious background)
…* You can set “met_albert_pike” in part 1 by starting down the path to join the KKK, but veering off (this is forced if you are female, but can be done if you are male as well)
…* You must be offered the opportunity to attend a soiree (party) immediately after purchasing a new outfit / investing in Memphis city bonds. To achieve this, you must meet all of the following criteria:
…* Your race must not be African or Indian (duh!)
…* You must be Reformed (not Catholic or pagan)
…* You must speak English
…* If you are a Yankee and male, your charm must be 3 or greater
…* If you are a Yankee and female, your charm must be 2 or greater
…* Note that attending the party is automatic if you meet the criteria – otherwise, you’ll get the “Watch a KKK lynching” scene instead.
…* At the party, if male you must NOT select the option “I too follow the menfolk into the library, to hear what General Forrest has to say”. Note that this is the option that leads to actually joining the KKK – thus, “veering off” earlier. If you are female, you won’t even be offered the chance to make a mistake here.
…* During the discussion that follows with Mary Ann, you must:
…* DON’T offer to take her outside (“Why don’t we step outside? It seems like a lovely evening, and we can better speak away from prying eyes.” Clearly, she is in need of comforting, and I feel called to assist her.") – at least, not until after you’ve selected the key choice (below)
…* Have a perception of 2 or greater
…* Select the option “Who is that man with the magnificent beard?”
…* Part 2:
…* You can ALSO set “met_albert_pike” in part 2 if:
…* Your preferred prey is soldiers (the key scene occurs AFTER you get the opportunity to change your prey, so this is easy to achieve), plus ONE of the following is true:
…* The flag “hersey_of_masons” is set (this set if if you join the Freemason’s – see above) OR
…* Your religious tradition is “Reformed” (e.g. “Not Catholic”) AND your charm is 4 or greater (yes, this is achievable – you can start out with a Charm of 4, and if you have a Charm of 3 AND you are playing a version of Part 1 that allows you to go through the vicksburg_denouement scene, you may have an opportunity to get Samantha to train you to Charm of 4 during this scene) OR
…* You are an Indian
…* FINALLY, having gotten the “met_albert_pike” flag set, you can get the critical “pickering_and_pike” flag. You must meet one of two criteria to get the key scene (in addition to having “met_albert_pike” set):
…* Your preferred prey must be soldiers OR
…* Your must have the “hersey_of_masons” flag set (joined the Freemasons)
…* The key scene will occur immediately after you finish preparations for the first reception (either by organizing the party or recruiting refreshments) automatically.
…* What choices you make during the following conversation doesn’t matter – the key fact is that you need to learn that Pickering is a Freemason, which happens automatically between the first and second questions.
…* FINALLY (again!) you are in a position to burn Pickering. To do this, you must establish contact with Senator Lockridge (either during the letter writing segment or before) and you’ll be offered a choice to mention Pickering’s association with the Freemason’s. This will block his candidacy.

==Edited by @jasonstevanhilll

  1. Most have convinced enough Senators to vote for Stone’s candidate (Mallory or Lesczynski, depending on who remains) that Partridge must vote for the anti-Stone (either Lesczynski or Pickering) candidate to preserve the impasse. This sets the “partridge_betrayal” flag.

  2. Now you must set the “notice_partridge_betrayal” flag. There an explicit question to set this flag (“I ask Carothers how it is that we are at such an impasse again.”) or you can pass a perception test (need perception 3 or greater). Be very careful here – if you ask the question /before/ setting the “partridge_betrayal” flag, you won’t get the “notice_partridge_betrayal” flag set AND you won’t be able to ask the question again. You can still pass the perception test, though.

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