I wanted a life mage child in order to keep the king interested in me and have an heir to the throne, so I sought out a life mage who would give me something (in this case a potion) which would raise my chances of having a life mage child. In order to get the potion however, I had to kill one of the other characters.

As I played through a different storyline where I did not have a life mage child, his wandering eyes were always on the new young females come to court. Not only that but in the story he grows a liking to one of the new girls to court and for a while you need to worry about her becoming his new favorite. A bit of a womanizer isn't he?

Don Gabriel de Mendosa comes to you.

have a Life Mage child without killing anybody. You have to threaten Enriquez and later decide to bluff. Of course, this is sure to cause problems later on, but it's better that killing off the whole family and losing de Vega's respect.

It felt like a stopgap between the first game and another sequel. You get to make 2-3 major decisions in this one but you don't get the satisfaction of seeing your plans brought to full fruition. And the ending is dramatic but in a rather cerebral way. I'm thinking that

But it was fun. I have only just played through it once so I don't know how much the paths vary in this instalment.

* I played Choice of Romance with a character whose first strength is book-smarts and second strength is magic, but is weak in charm.
* You should encourage the King/Queen to consider marrying Juanita to Sahra. You can do this by meeting de Vega instead of running after the King/Queen and choosing this option when you talk to him.
* You should pursue the possibility that a Life-Mage can help you to have a Life-Mage child.
* When you have the conversation with Mateo and your uncle, you should direct them to solve the Juanita problem by spreading rumours. (I think you need to do this to set up a later event that doesn't happen otherwise, or maybe happens randomly.)
* Go with the King/Queen on the hunt. After the hunt, you must be suspicious of the King/Queen Consort's disappearance (or you won't get the chance to investigate it later).
* You should take the first opportunity to meet the Life Mage at the tavern - say you're ill or you'll miss the opportunity.
* Coerce the Life Mage into helping you. Threaten to kill him if he doesn't, but make sure to choose the option where you are only bluffing (he must survive or you will not succeed).
* The next day, investigate the King/Queen Consort's disappearance. Enter their room, you will find some evidence.
* If everything worked, Juanita will be arrested at Court. You get a chance to speak in her defence at some point for extra Reputation points ;)
* If the Life Mage side-plot worked you should bear a Life-Mage child.
* Thanks to your plotting earlier, the King/Queen should send Tomas de Reyes to be married to Sahra.
* Sit back and enjoy your optimal, bloodless choices of intrigue. :)

* In the first scene, always choose "Charmingly". The other options carry a risk of hurting your relationship with the King, and at best will not result in the same relationship boost as the "Charmingly" option.
* In the next scene, you should choose the "hostile" options consistently (what choices you get depends on your chapter 1 setup). There is no advantage in choosing the peace-promoting options.
* If married to Torres, you should choose the option for "The King is by far the most important person in my world, but when I can, I throw Torres a scrap to soothe his pride." -- this gets you a boost to Subtle, and no penalties.
* Gown selection: The blue gown has no effect at all, the gray gown increases reputation but encourages the king's affair, and the red gown reduces reputation, increases relationship with the king, and discourages the king's affair.
* Choose the option to "Humor" your sibling -- this provides a bonus to your subtle score.
* Choose the option to "Ignore..." the scarf incident -- all other options lead to big penalties on various stats.
* Encounter with Juanita -- several options, depending on what you want to improve:
* "Blandly" / "Half-Brother" increases subtlety and reduces trust between the King and Juanita.
* "Friendly" / "Half-Brother" increases charm and reduces trust between the King and Juanita.
* "...poisonous feigned politeness" DECREASES Charm, with no special bonuses -- don't choose this option at all.
* Other options not covered here require a stat check to reduce the trust between the King and Juanita and are otherwise identical to the ones described.
* The response to "What do you think he [the King] should do?" has no effect on game play at all.
* When asked "What do you want to do", you should follow the King -- this path provides the largest boost to stats / hidden variables compared to the other two paths.
* Simply by choosing this path, you reduce the King's interest in an affair and boost your relationship with him.
* "Encourage the King's anger" has no stat check, discredits Juanita, reduces the affair risk, and improves your relationship with the King, and is by far the best option.
* Choose "I agree with Agustin's assertion that he will not agree to the Duquesa's demand. If he did, House de Aguilar would gain enormous power, and it is of paramount importance to me that this does not happen." This has no stat check, further improves your relationship with the King, further reduces the desire for an affair, and further discredits Juanita. Note that the King will come to the "Marry Juanita to the Sarhan prince" idea /on his own/ with this option -- if you directly suggest this, you have to pass a stat check to convince him that this is the way to go, AND the resulting bonuses aren't as high.
* Choose "Well, that settles it. I will be sure to stay at the King's side during the hunt. I cannot have Adelita taking advantage of my absence..." at the start of the hunt scene.
* Simply choosing this option boosts Charm and reduces affair risk.
* The only reason to choose the "I will stay by the King's side, but not because I am jealous of the Delgado girl. I will take advantage of this opportunity..." option is if you choose to spoke to Vega after court (earlier) and promised him to talk to the King to your preferred option.
* There is no advantage of talking to the court.
* Whether or not you can keep up with the King during the end of the hunt is purely random (50% chance). Always choose this option, as it will give you a greater reduction in the affair risk if it succeeds (vs. if the random chance fails).
* If you are the King's mistress (and ONLY if this is true) you will return from the hunt to see the King leaving. If you have high booksmarts (need > 50), then you can choose the option "I'm not sure, but the timing is interesting. Is she leaving the palace because she expects something to happen?", which opens up another path to getting Juanita executed. However, this option is /inferior/ to the main path described in this walkthrough, so don't worry if you don't have the option.
* If you choose to go with Vega after court, then he will approach you upon your return and you will receive bonuses / penalties based on whether you kept his promise to him and what, if anything, you asked for in return for his promise.
* Otherwise (or after dealing with Vega) your family will arrive to plot your next move.
* Choose to get the location of the Life Mage from your sibling. There is no advantage or disadvantage in being subtle here.
* Ignore your uncle's overbearing behavior for a small bonus to Subtle (no penalty on the other path, however).
* Choose "Eliminating the Sahran threat.", followed by "No. We'll have to come up with some other way.", followed by "Attempt to convince the King to accept the Duquesa's offer, but then spread rumors designed to turn the King against his daughter...". This is CRITICAL -- this is the only chance you have to set a flag that results in Juanita being executed AND meet with the life mage. No other option leads to this flag being set. During this same conversation, you can set this same flag by choosing "Eliminating the Aguilar threat." and "Attempt to convince the King to accept the Duquesa's offer, but then spread rumors designed to turn the King against his daughter...", however. You can also choose one of the "Eliminate..." options, followed by "Turn court opinion against Juanita." to set this flag, but you won't get the chance to use the poison / death magic (so there is no point).
* Choose "Go to the Three Bells to meet with Enrique Ramirez". Depending on other factors (whether you are married to Torres) up to two different distractions will be offered -- you must insist on meeting the Life Mage immediately or you will miss him. Note that not attending court will hurt your relationship with the King, and not going to Torres's deathbed will devastate your reputation.
* Upon arrival...
* "Ask him if he is Enrique Ramirez." grants no bonuses / penalties.
* "Ask if I may share his table." boosts subtle
* "I do not approach him at all; if he is who I think he is, I will make him come to me." boosts booksmart (!?)
* IF you have a magic stat > 70, choose " "I do not intend to negotiate with you. I can make you help me." I draw a wand from underneath my cloak."
* This reduces your subtle attribute.
* Next, choose " "As you have seen, I am a powerful Death Mage. I can kill you with a death curse if you do not get the potion for me, and soon." ".
* If you have a subtle score > 50 /after/ the penalty just applied, then choose "Yes, I am bluffing. I will not kill Ramirez, but he does not know that." -- this gives you an offsetting bonus to your subtle attribute.
* Otherwise, choose "This is the only way to get a Life Mage child. I will do whatever it takes, and Ramirez's life means nothing to me." which bypasses the subtle check, although you won't get the subtle bonus.
* Otherwise (magic * If your charm is > 60, you can limit the damage to your sibling's husband, but you have to get the agreement in advance.
* When you return to court, the King will have gone off with the woman he was flirting with. Choose "Go to see the King" followed by "Walk away." to mitigate the damage (but no matter what, the King's inclination to have an affair will be increased).
* If you have followed the recommended path to this point, skip the next section (you'll get "You spend the next two days attempting to manage a whisper campaign in your best interests." with no choices instead).
* If you acquired posion or the ingredients for death magic (from your family, earlier) you have the option of killing either Juanita or Adelita. Note that the posion options have a significant amount of content associated with them, so you may want to play through these options.
* If you accepted the deal with the life mage, you /must/ carry it through at this point (or you won't get the potion). Again, there is a pretty significant amount of content associated with this option (and its ramifications), so it is worth playing through.
* If choose to attend court the previous day, AND choose to leave with the King after court, you'll have various options that have the effects you would expect.
* Next up is the denouncement:
* If you followed the recommended path:
* Juanita will be executed as a traitor.
* Tomas will be married to the Sarhan princess for peace.
* Your secondborn child will be a life mage, and pronounced heir.
* The king will stop perusing Adelita and will not have further affairs in the future.
* You have the opportunity to speak up on Juanita's behalf during the "trial" -- she still gets executed, but you get a big reputation boost (and your relationship with the King takes a hit).
* If you didn't set the Juanita traitor flag (possible by either asking your family to speak against her, searching the Queen's residence (need high booksmart and other stats, must be mistress), forging letters from Juanita (must have spoken to Vega after Court during the beginning, kept your promise to speak to the King effectively, and asked him in return to work to dis-inherit Juanita), but otherwise followed the walkthrough, Juanita will be declared heir and married to the Sarhan prince.
* If you successfully convinced the King that the danger from Sarhan was greater than the danger from the Aguilar family, then Juanita is declare heir and married as you requested. Basically, you've really shot yourself in the foot here. :)
* If you didn't go see the Life Mage when the option was first offered to you, then you (literally) have a 1:100 chance of having a life mage child. Yes, there really IS logic in place to allow this to happen. :)
* In addition to the above, there are a number of losing endings when you get caught killing various people -- some leave you dead due to being convicted of treason, some leave you banished in lieu of death, some leave you banished but then killed by assassins dispatched by your sibling, and a very few leave you being removed from court but otherwise free due to a successful claim of "The evil Life Mage made me do it". :)

I thought having Juanita married off to Sahra was a clever political move, though I seem to have screwed myself over by refusing to find a solution to my "can't give the Queen a Life Mage child" woes.

I think the "best" outcome for this one is to have a Life Mage child with the King/Queen. It seems the only way to accomplish this results in the King/Queen having an affair at least once, but I believe if you manage to have the Life Mage child he/she will remain faithful to you after the birth of your child. In Choice of Romance, I played a character who was strongest in Magic and Manipulation, and weakest in learning. I felt this was the best because your strength in manipulation will still allow you to sway the opinion of the court in the very pivotal chapter where the borderlords are in dispute with Sahra. Being strong in magic also allows you to compete in the Joust (and win), which impresses the King/Queen. The most important is being strong in manipulation, however, since that is pivotal in Choice of Intrigues as well, and you can just as easily win the affections of the King/Queen at the joust tournament by not competing and comforting him/her when they accidentally kill their opponent.

Anyway, in Choice of Intrigues I tried to balance my time between spending time with the King and pursuing the Life Mage potion. I skipped the bit with De Vega altogether, rather than risk alienating him, and stayed with the King during the hunt. I'm not sure if this affected whether or not he remained faithful to me after we had a Life Mage child, since I haven't tried it another way. But that is my suggestion, and the best ending I've come up with so far.

(He would get with young, new girls after I married him in the same way he cheated on Ines with me)

Gabriel shows up near the end. I was always fond of him and almost always chose him in the first part

But I had to kill my sister's husband. Not that good.

Booksmarts: 48

Charm: 91

Subtlety: 77

Magic: 36

Wealth: 95

Reputation: 35