Yes, Your Grace: How to Manage Petitioners and Weekly Resources

To survive weekly court sessions in Yes, Your Grace, hear every petitioner's request before committing coin or agents, keep weekly net resource flows positive, and deny unverified claims. King Eryk's court cannot fund every grievance in Davern. Approving aid without vetting leads to empty granaries, treasury deficits, and rebellion.

Balancing the Weekly Ledger

Every turn concludes with an account of three linked metrics: Gold, Supplies, and Kingdom Contentment.

• Gold: Pays for castle upkeep, agent retainers, and structural improvements.
• Supplies: Feeds the civilian population and your garrison. A failure in food distribution causes immediate troop desertion.
• Contentment: Tracks subject loyalty. If Contentment collapses completely, civil unrest and open revolt end your reign.

Monitor your weekly net deltas rather than total treasury size. A treasury of 50 Gold quickly drains if weekly expenses cause a steady deficit.

• Protect reserve buffers: Avoid dropping Gold or Supplies into single digits to resolve a single petitioner's problem, as mid-week emergencies require liquid reserves.
• Absorb temporary Contentment drops: If paying a petitioner creates an unsustainable deficit or risks bankruptcy, deny the request and take the short-term happiness penalty.
• Guard garrison food supplies: Never donate food stocks to starving hamlets if doing so leaves the garrison without food for the turn transition.

Evaluating Throne Room Petitioners

Listen to all visitors on a given day before making decisions. Granting aid to the first peasant in line risks exhausting resources needed for an acute crisis arriving later that afternoon. Always interrogate petitioners with multiple dialogue prompts before opening the royal coffers.

Examine stories for vague timelines, inconsistent details, or requests for non-essential luxuries. If a farmer requests gold to rebuild a barn, check whether local community labor can handle it without royal aid. Rejecting fraudulent or minor claims preserves capital without causing widespread discontent.

Deploying the Royal Council

The General, Hunter, and Witch resolve specialized problems without draining your raw gold or supplies. However, each agent can undertake only one assignment per week.

• The General: Deploys against armed incursions, border threats, bandit camps, and hostile lords. Do not send him to resolve minor civil squabbles or tavern fights.
• The Hunter: Tracks dangerous wildlife, investigates rural disturbances, and harvests supplementary food for the castle larders.
• The Witch: Cures strange blights, investigates potential curses, and prepares medical remedies. Villagers will frequently demand her arrest or execution out of superstition; refuse these demands so her specialized diagnostic abilities remain available.

Do not assign an agent until you have heard every request for the week. Once an agent departs the castle, you cannot reassign them until the following turn.

Reinvesting in Castle Upgrades

Accumulating gold through strict denial is insufficient to sustain the kingdom long-term. Reinvest surplus funds into castle improvements via your steward to reduce operating costs and secure alliances.

1. Pigeon Coop: Establishes communication channels with neighboring lords, accelerating diplomacy, alliances, and external financial aid.
2. Defensive Masonry: Fortifies walls and gates, mitigating damage and avoiding costly emergency repairs during border tensions.
3. Internal Sanitation: Resolves drafty halls and dirty living quarters, lowering castle sickness and freeing the Witch to attend outside crises.

Postpone non-essential room refurbishments and cosmetic improvements until weekly gold and supply incomes remain steadily positive.

Reviewing the End-of-Week Summary

When court ends and agents are deployed, advance the turn to view the summary screen. If an unexpected deficit appears on the ledger, check three potential causes:

• An unaddressed bandit group reduced tax flow from an outlying village.
• An active agent incurred additional field or operational expenses.
• Seasonal weather diminished the week's agricultural harvest.

Identify the source of the deficit immediately and adjust your court posture on the next turn by reducing petitioner payouts, delaying infrastructure spending, or deploying the relevant agent to restore rural order.