Okay... I think I need a very basic guide to everything about this game because I understood very little of the words you used haha
I've reached the point where the game isn't fun anymore because I can't understand the very basics of using the commander or what exactly the stats do, or basic strategy about combat.
Everything is explained so poorly while at the same time not always being intuitive.
I was having fun for a couple hours, and now I've hit a wall and it's tiresome.
I'll look up this guide you talked about, thanks
EDIT: Also, I think my "GOAL" is bugged because it's asking me to use the Sodomize action, and it never triggers on the character it's asking me to use it on despite reaching the correct amount of stat + surrounding the character.
It's also very annoying that the game doesn't explain what anything does before you click on it. Some have pop ups when you hover, ben when the game asks me to choose between "temptation" and "rampancy", I'm left there think: "Ah yes, two words I indeed understand !"
Or like "How would you like to act ? => Position", uh ?...
To explain some for commanders and stats, this is the explanation for the stats from the guide:
HATE: x2 all damage per level, or x4 for FEAR
PLEA: x4 all traumas per level, or x8 for DISG
INJU: x3 all circumstances per level, also x2 PAIN
EXPO: x2 all ally circumstance damage per level, also x2 own SHAM
FEAR/DISG/PAIN/SHAM are the types of Trauma damage, while HATE/PLEA/INJU/EXPO are the types of Circumstance damage. Trauma damage is caused by your default 4 attacks called Trauma attacks (Threaten, Slime, Attack, and Taunt which are associated with FEAR, DISG, PAIN, and SHAM respectively), while Circumstance damage is caused by the 4 Circumstance attacks used during a surround (Grind, Caress, Pummel, and Humiliate for HATE/PLEA/INJU/EXPO respectively), as a note Circumstance attacks only need to be used once per surround, they also do damage to all Traumas.
As for the meaning of those above modifiers, they multiply the damage done to stats by the listed modifier times the level of the Circumstance (so for HATE, it would by Level x 2 = modifier, for example level 3 hate would by 3 x 2 = x6 modifier), all Circumstances will give a bonus modifier to their associated Trauma (HATE/FEAR, PLEA/DISG, INJU/PAIN, EXPO/SHAM). HATE will add its modifier to every stat, PLEA will only add its modifier to Trauma stats, INJU will only add it to Circumstance stats, and EXPO will only add its modifier to the Chosen's own SHAM stat and every stat for every Chosen
except for herself.
It should noted however that there
are negative modifiers, the two big ones to worry about early on are related to Trauma and Circumstance levels. The Trauma based negative modifier is "0.5 / (Trauma level - lowest Trauma level)" applied to the Trauma's associated Circumstance, so for example say FEAR is level 2 and DISG is level 0 then the modifier would by "0.5/2" which is a 0.25 (1/4) modifier applied to HATE, this also means you can get rid of the modifier by having every Trauma at the same level. The Circumstance based negative modifier is just "0.5 / highest Circumstance level)" applied to every Circumstance, so say your highest is HATE at 3 then that would apply a 1/8 modifier to every Circumstance, regardless of the level of the others.
There are other positive/negative modifiers but those are really the most broadly relevant. The post T3 break Adaptation abilities the Chosen get can add negative modifiers as well (Fantasize decreasing trauma damage by 1/10 per PLEA level and Strip Tease halves damage to surrounded Chosen for a number of turns equal to EXPO level), defiler+ actions and orgies can add temporary positive modifiers, and things like that.
So... what does this mean for strategy? Well early on when you just have the 4-2 or 5-2 Commander you'll want to focus a single Chosen per fight, with how quick early fights are you'll realistically only get 3 captures on the first Chosen and 2 on the second, so you'll probably not be doing much to the second Chosen. So as I went through in previous mentioned guide, you'll want to use the Commander to make these attacks in order, Grind/Pummel (chose based on if they're weaker to HATE or INJU), Caress, Grind/Pummel (based on which they're stronger to), then Humiliate. For the second Chosen you'll be doing the same thing except replacing Caress with Humiliate and then not doing Caress at all, then before the second Chosen escapes recapture the first Chosen.
Now, why do we do this? Grind, Pummel and Caress work together to build up more surround rounds due to their modifiers, we do it in this order because it's (in my experience) the most effective way to do damage in 4 turns, this only falls through if you have a Chosen very strong vs PLEA damage at which point just use Caress last instead. We don't bother with Caress on the second Chosen because really the only thing you want out of the second Chosen is EXPO levels to stack more modifiers onto the first Chosen, 4 turns even without PLEA levels is enough to create enough Openings to surround them a second, as for why we only do 3 attacks instead of 4 on the second Chosen, this is really only relevant for 4-2 Commanders but it's so that you can surround the first Chosen again while the second Chosen is still surrounded so you can take advantage of the FEAR Openings. This strategy is broadly what you carry going forward, focus on raising HATE, PLEA, and INJU for larger surrounds with some EXPO raising for bonus damage to other Chosen, the only change is once you get Networked Consciousness you'll want to use all four attacks on the second Chosen as she'll still be surrounded by then even with a 4-2 Commander.
What are Openings? If you already understand this you can probably skip this. Each level of a Trauma increases Openings which are used for surrounding Chosen, with a Chosen needing "1 + (2 x number of times surrounded)" Openings to be surrounded. Each Trauma stat give openings in different ways:
FEAR: Only provides its Openings while another Chosen is surrounded.
DISG: Can only provide up to half the necessary Openings rounded down to a minimum of 1.
PAIN: Openings provided equal to "current PAIN level - PAIN level going into previous surround"
SHAM: Only provides its Opening when the Chosen already has enough Openings to be surrounded.
As for you questions in the Edit:
Sodomize, like all Defiler actions, require level 3 in the Circumstance, so Sodomize requires level 3/10k damage in INJU. If you did have level 3 INJU and still couldn't use it then either you were already using another defiler action (outside of having one specific item, you can only use a single defiler per surround), or you had a bug.
As for the lack of explanations, like I said in my other reply, read the "guide.txt" document in the main folder, it explains a lot of useful information, such as what each Distortion is.
As for "Or like "How would you like to act ? => Position"" I'll need context on what situation you saw this under as I'm not sure what this is from. I think you might be referring to using approach on a Chosen in between days (though the message there is "How will the Demon Lord act"), in which case there's not much explanation there because approach is entirely pointless, it's entirely just there as fluff 99% of the time, its only use is as part of the Negotiation Distortion, and even then all that matters is you hit the Negotiate button.
