The talk is a progress report on three distinct, ongoing projects unified by a common theme - red giant stars in the outskirts of the Andromeda galaxy. The first is a study of the metallicity (mean value, spread, and radial gradient) in the outer halo of M31 as a fossil record of halo formation. By-products of this study include halo kinematics and evidence of an extreme disk warp. The second project targets dwarf spheroidal satellites of M31, including three that were discovered in the last couple of years. The interest in the dSph satellites is three-fold - as building blocks of galaxy formation (intrinsic properties such as metallicity and spread, star formation history, dark matter content, etc), as dynamical tracers of the parent galaxy, and to study the effects of environment as a function of distance from the parent galaxy (R<200 kpc) The final project concerns the tidal interaction between M31 and its nearby dwarf elliptical satellites, M32 and NGC205.