Had the same problem myself, and approaching the chosen causing the bug(info->profile->approach) fixed it for me, so try that out?
Edit: Tried it out on your save. Yeah, approaching the chosen stops this from happening.
Activating the distortion prevents 'event' breaks on said chosen. So just work on Calamity first and get the aversion distortion active and you can do whatever.
Ever since V37 i cant use the commands inseminate or perscution on a forsaken instead of showing the option to continue it frozes on the procced, this may be happen with other commands but not tested all of them.
I always put this game to the side as the dark theme generally didn't appeal to me, but then I bit the bullet and started playing as I always tend to like nice text games. Imagine my surprise it's very much like some of my favorite text battle games.
Unfortunately though, the in-game explanations are woefully inadequate so I had to muddle around for quite a while before I started to realize how the various stats work. Naturally I found the readme soon after and everything started to click with strong strategies soon to follow. I wonder if some of this information couldn't be behind an information button in-game, but now that I am up to speed, it's whatever. Took me about 5+ resets before reaching day 12 or so (each time before reset I had a eureka moment that allowed me to progress harder and faster earlier).
Now I am on day 19 with the follow stats:
I realize now that each break makes it harder to raise damage stats further, and that each break also sets in motion various events and things that the Chosen can do. I'm wondering if I am actually supposed to be targetting specific interactions and not clear out every tier completely. Should I keep clearing each tier before moving on? And is there something I should really be aware of for late-game that I might miss now?
I read somewhere that I have until day 50, so even if I only do 1 vulnerability a try I'd still make that.
I always put this game to the side as the dark theme generally didn't appeal to me, but then I bit the bullet and started playing as I always tend to like nice text games. Imagine my surprise it's very much like some of my favorite text battle games.
Unfortunately though, the in-game explanations are woefully inadequate so I had to muddle around for quite a while before I started to realize how the various stats work. Naturally I found the readme soon after and everything started to click with strong strategies soon to follow. I wonder if some of this information couldn't be behind an information button in-game, but now that I am up to speed, it's whatever. Took me about 5+ resets before reaching day 12 or so (each time before reset I had a eureka moment that allowed me to progress harder and faster earlier).
I realize now that each break makes it harder to raise damage stats further, and that each break also sets in motion various events and things that the Chosen can do. I'm wondering if I am actually supposed to be targeting specific interactions and not clear out every tier completely. Should I keep clearing each tier before moving on? And is there something I should really be aware of for late-game that I might miss now?
I read somewhere that I have until day 50, so even if I only do 1 vulnerability a try I'd still make that.
Good luck on your run so far! A quick correction about the damage stats, each break actually increases damage stats, its just with the t1 breaks the chosen begin using actions that reduces the damage like servicing or hiding. As a quick aside, using a t2 action like inseminate or using specialized demon commanders/forsaken will prevent them from using that action so they will take the full circumstance damage amount.
Besides that, to answer your question; clearing all vulnerability tiers isn't really necessary since this is your first run, trying breaking at least 1 T4 vulnerability on each chosen and that should at least get you properly ready for the final battle.
One other thing to note with the T3 breaks is once you meet the requirements for the first one, subsequent T3 breaks will require more unresolved trauma of that type.
IE. if Miracle gets 100M unresolved PAIN first and unlocks her T3 confidence action, then it will take more than 100M for her to unlock her T3 morality action
Additionally the relationship status of your chosen will significantly impact your difficulty with the final battle. So take note of which vulnerability breaks you are doing and the order of them (specifically core and minor vulnerabilities) Having them end up as enemies is easier option for beginners but there is some merit it ensuring they're allies once you get comfortable with the game.
Some final Late game things to think about:
-To actually defeat the chosen in the final battle outside of distortions you need to buy one of the "+" upgrades like "Slime +"
Since it's very costly (100 EE) its good to try and focus on buying only 1 of them or be conservative with your EE usage, to coincide with that if you can, try to break the same T4 on all of the chosen so you can damage them all. If your EE income is good (30 EE every day is a decent amount) and you have a decent amount of days left then you can pick up another one, but I recommend picking up antipathy or empathy before getting another "+" upgrade
-Antipathy and Empathy are what I consider essential to surviving the final battle. With antipathy + chosen that hate each other the final battle will incredibly more manageable and quicker and with empathy + chosen that love each other, the final battle can you give you far more time to corrupt all chosen at the cost of it being easier to lose the final battle
-Just because your EE income is raking in far more than the beginning the game doesn't mean you can't screw yourself over at the very end. Plan out which upgrades you think you need for the final battle and keep in mind you don't need to max out your commander every battle or get every single upgrade to win.
-To win the final battle doesn't neccesarily mean corrupting all 3 chosen. As long as you survive the final battle that's considered a win. So worst-case scenario getting the chosen to kill each other in the final battle is something to consider (something that happens when they have a T4 break or are bitter enemies)
A good goal for your first time would be to try and corrupt 1 chosen in the final battle and try to get better from there
Hope some of this helps and good luck with the rest of your run!
I always put this game to the side as the dark theme generally didn't appeal to me, but then I bit the bullet and started playing as I always tend to like nice text games. Imagine my surprise it's very much like some of my favorite text battle games.
Unfortunately though, the in-game explanations are woefully inadequate so I had to muddle around for quite a while before I started to realize how the various stats work. Naturally I found the readme soon after and everything started to click with strong strategies soon to follow. I wonder if some of this information couldn't be behind an information button in-game, but now that I am up to speed, it's whatever. Took me about 5+ resets before reaching day 12 or so (each time before reset I had a eureka moment that allowed me to progress harder and faster earlier).
I realize now that each break makes it harder to raise damage stats further, and that each break also sets in motion various events and things that the Chosen can do. I'm wondering if I am actually supposed to be targetting specific interactions and not clear out every tier completely. Should I keep clearing each tier before moving on? And is there something I should really be aware of for late-game that I might miss now?
I read somewhere that I have until day 50, so even if I only do 1 vulnerability a try I'd still make that.
Gameplay wise, it might actually be better to do what you were already doing as breaking more also opens up more damaging possibilities in the final battle or drops their starting resolve. The final battle is one where beating the Chosen down quickly is vital to winning, especially if going for a triple Forsaken sweep in any capacity.
As for seeing the between battle stuff, that's where taking your time with breaks helps more.
Heya Everybody! I hope you've been enjoying the new update so far, I planned on releasing the newest version of my portrait pack next week, but because of my work schedule pulling my drawing work behind its schedule, expect it sometime after that week. Instead, I'll give you all here on the forum some previews of the completed kemonomimi I've done as of now as well a link to download a preview build you can use to add to my old pack that will hold you over until I finish the release properly. There's also something else I want to announce for everyone. A sort of challenge so to speak
Here's the link to the Preview Update, like before, delete the portraits in your current portrait folder before putting these in!
Okay! Now that stuff is out of the way, I would like to announce a Challenge for anyone interested. To preface the challenge with some exposition, with CSDev's permission I will tell you all one of the planned features either for March's Update of Corrupted Saviors or sometime soon, there will be support for demon lord portraits in the game! So any portrait pack makers out there, this might be a good time to make some for your packs . I have about 3 planned for people to use once I release the next update (Although I can see releasing them separately if strapped for time haha)
I plan on adding more but I also thought this might be a good opportunity to make a neat competition here over on the forum!
Before the addition of boss chosen, the campaign mode is effectively endless mode until the difficulty modifiers make it impossible to feasibly beat a loop. And with some of the earlier roots of the game catering to a "high score" mentality, I think it would be fun to recall those roots once more before Bosses are properly in the game
So the Challenge is simple. . . how long can you survive against the chosen, fellow Demon Lord? From now until the release of R40 I want everyone here to start a campaign mode run and get as far as you possibly can. Upload your save here and the top 3 who has made it the farthest wins! The rules are as follows
-No cheats (Obviously) Its just a fun celebration/competition so lets just play nice okay?
-Only one custom chosen allowed (Must be given a unique name) This might be hardest to police but same with the no cheating rule lets just have keep things fair and have fun! You can give the one custom chosen any personality you desire, whether its to have guaranteed access to certain punisher abilities, create an advantage in the first loop, or just an assistant to take along the ride, do what you want!
-Keep a save of each loop you complete, doesn't matter where in the loop it is, just make sure to have one. This is for authentication purposes, and its always cool to see the progression each loop.
Other than that, do what you want! No matter how you play all the matters is how long you continue your conquest as a demon lord. And remember, even if you upload a save making to loop 10 tomorrow and no one uploads anything better, that won't stop someone sniping the win on March 30th with a loop 11 save so never rest on your laurels! Alternatively, if someone uploads a save where they went as far as loop 3 and no one uploads anything else they'll get the win. It would be a bit sad if that were the case but I'm not putting a gun to your head and forcing you to compete. . . yet
Now for the prizes! This 20 page letter mentioned demon lord portraits at some point so here is where that comes into play!
1st Place - A Custom Designed Demon Lord Portrait and One Custom Designed Chosen portrait
2nd Place - One Custom Designed Chosen portrait or A Custom Designed Demon Lord Portrait
3rd Place - A Custom Designed Demon Lord Portrait
Yep! I will design a Demon lord portrait to your exact designs, with any revisions and request you would like within my power. I have 3 body templates available so whether you're interested in a normal look, a buffer more adult look, or a more petite one I should be able to do it I will make 3 variants as well, a normal civilian styled look, a slightly transformed look, and one fully demonic look! And there will be an obscured face version of each of those! Here is preview of one of the default demon lord portraits and an obscured version (WIP)
In terms of the custom chosen portrait, besides designing her look, you will also be able to request whatever expressions you want for her. To explain things properly I'll lay everything out below
Which may sounds like a lot, but this is typical for chosen I design for so its only natural that I would do the same for the winners
As other chosen races are added to the game I will contact with the winners of the custom chosen if they're still available and discuss what they want made for their custom chosen's race variant.
That being said, a disclaimer I will add is that your designs will be added to the portrait pack. They won't replace any of the designs that are planned, but they will have their own place in the database, both demon lords and chosen portraits will be like this. Along with export of the chosen so people can import the chosen into their games.
The winners will also be recorded in the credits and contributions file along with the placement and the loop you stopped at.
Since I understand that some people may not use or like my portrait pack, if you place, you can defer any of your prizes either to the other winners or whoever you want. You'll still be recorded and whoever you deferred your prize to will also be added to the credits and contribution section as creator of the demon lord portrait or custom chosen.
The time frame for me working on the chosen and demon lord will be alongside the work I already plan on each release with extra priority made for these custom chosen. The demon lord portraits will be done first since they don't have as much as a chosen portrait needs so that would be released in one update, the custom chosen would have a staggered release but will have something guaranteed each release. Their initial release will have their chosen, civilian, superior, forsaken, and superior forsaken completed though.
To kick things off, I'll upload my save here so people can take a look one of my longest campaign runs (Started this on R37). Obviously I'm not a contender lol, and even if for some bizarre reason I wanted to I would be disqualified because I made 3 custom chosen to start off this run so consider it as a frame of reference of how far you can make it in the game if you play your cards right, you can also take a look at some of the forsaken I've trained and use them as a frame of reference if you want some guidance for forsaken training. I deleted most of the fat since I plan on using this as a guide save later. I also plan on continuing things once I have some more time to play haha.
Alright! With everything written I hope you all have a fun time and good luck on your conquest!
Good luck on your run so far! A quick correction about the damage stats, each break actually increases damage stats, its just with the t1 breaks the chosen begin using actions that reduces the damage like servicing or hiding. As a quick aside, using a t2 action like inseminate or using specialized demon commanders/forsaken will prevent them from using that action so they will take the full circumstance damage amount.
Besides that, to answer your question; clearing all vulnerability tiers isn't really necessary since this is your first run, trying breaking at least 1 T4 vulnerability on each chosen and that should at least get you properly ready for the final battle.
One other thing to note with the T3 breaks is once you meet the requirements for the first one, subsequent T3 breaks will require more unresolved trauma of that type.
IE. if Miracle gets 100M unresolved PAIN first and unlocks her T3 confidence action, then it will take more than 100M for her to unlock her T3 morality action
Additionally the relationship status of your chosen will significantly impact your difficulty with the final battle. So take note of which vulnerability breaks you are doing and the order of them (specifically core and minor vulnerabilities) Having them end up as enemies is easier option for beginners but there is some merit it ensuring they're allies once you get comfortable with the game.
Some final Late game things to think about:
-To actually defeat the chosen in the final battle outside of distortions you need to buy one of the "+" upgrades like "Slime +"
Since it's very costly (100 EE) its good to try and focus on buying only 1 of them or be conservative with your EE usage, to coincide with that if you can, try to break the same T4 on all of the chosen so you can damage them all. If your EE income is good (30 EE every day is a decent amount) and you have a decent amount of days left then you can pick up another one, but I recommend picking up antipathy or empathy before getting another "+" upgrade
-Antipathy and Empathy are what I consider essential to surviving the final battle. With antipathy + chosen that hate each other the final battle will incredibly more manageable and quicker and with empathy + chosen that love each other, the final battle can you give you far more time to corrupt all chosen at the cost of it being easier to lose the final battle
-Just because your EE income is raking in far more than the beginning the game doesn't mean you can't screw yourself over at the very end. Plan out which upgrades you think you need for the final battle and keep in mind you don't need to max out your commander every battle or get every single upgrade to win.
-To win the final battle doesn't neccesarily mean corrupting all 3 chosen. As long as you survive the final battle that's considered a win. So worst-case scenario getting the chosen to kill each other in the final battle is something to consider (something that happens when they have a T4 break or are bitter enemies)
A good goal for your first time would be to try and corrupt 1 chosen in the final battle and try to get better from there
Hope some of this helps and good luck with the rest of your run!
Ah, regarding damage that is indeed what I am encountering: that it is harder to break multiple T2 vulnerabilities in 1 run because hitting the 10k required is harder once I broke some of the adjacent vulnerabilities. But that is quite alright.
Right now, I am definitely on a pathway to make them as friendly with eachother as possible. Frankly speaking, making them help eachother earlier lines up with a tactic to try and get exposure up for higher modifiers. Conversely, if they wouldn't show up, stuff like rally is less of an issue. The problem here is that without a commander, them showing up earlier is a pain, while with a commander I can start the chain of surrounds quite nicely before they start flying off.
(i.e at the moment I can chain a 5-turn capture into a 5-turn capture, a 7 turn surround on the main target, slightly damage the third so I can surround for the fear bonus, then do a 11/12 turn surround on the main target with a 7-turn on the secondary chosen (to try and double up). I can flip the secondary chosen to go first, which will deal a devastating amount of damage to the main target instead, but that spreads the damage very poorly I would think. )
I'll keep the late-game stuff in mind as I go and get a full picture of all capabilities.
As an aside, should I focus on the goals at all? Right now it wants me to a double defiler action, which I swore I did with a broadcast action on 2 characters. I'll see if I can do it again, but I hope I don't need one of the specific commanders for it, as those are hugely expensive (and it is far stronger for me at the moment to use normal commander, but we'll see how that goes).
Ah, regarding damage that is indeed what I am encountering: that it is harder to break multiple T2 vulnerabilities in 1 run because hitting the 10k required is harder once I broke some of the adjacent vulnerabilities. But that is quite alright.
Right now, I am definitely on a pathway to make them as friendly with eachother as possible. Frankly speaking, making them help eachother earlier lines up with a tactic to try and get exposure up for higher modifiers. Conversely, if they wouldn't show up, stuff like rally is less of an issue. The problem here is that without a commander, them showing up earlier is a pain, while with a commander I can start the chain of surrounds quite nicely before they start flying off.
(i.e at the moment I can chain a 5-turn capture into a 5-turn capture, a 7 turn surround on the main target, slightly damage the third so I can surround for the fear bonus, then do a 11/12 turn surround on the main target with a 7-turn on the secondary chosen (to try and double up). I can flip the secondary chosen to go first, which will deal a devastating amount of damage to the main target instead, but that spreads the damage very poorly I would think. )
I'll keep the late-game stuff in mind as I go and get a full picture of all capabilities.
As an aside, should I focus on the goals at all? Right now it wants me to a double defiler action, which I swore I did with a broadcast action on 2 characters. I'll see if I can do it again, but I hope I don't need one of the specific commanders for it, as those are hugely expensive (and it is far stronger for me at the moment to use normal commander, but we'll see how that goes).
No, double actions are the ones that come up in purple with + after the name and add the second Chosen to the existing run of the first to get that action in progress. You don't need a specific commander, but there are upgrades needed if I remember correctly.
No, double actions are the ones that come up in purple with + after the name and add the second Chosen to the existing run of the first to get that action in progress. You don't need a specific commander, but there are upgrades needed if I remember correctly.
Sorted it, the issue was that I did that goal at the last turn the previous time. So the game never recognized it - the objective completed once I pulled it off again and opened the menu for one of the affected Chosen.
The resulting damage far exceeded my expectations so I'll try and pull it off again - the EE I got this run was incredible so I can proceed with some more upgrading. Sadly Tyrant and Reaper did not see eye to eye on using thralls to get off, so now they are rivals, but I'll try and rectify that.
Ah, regarding damage that is indeed what I am encountering: that it is harder to break multiple T2 vulnerabilities in 1 run because hitting the 10k required is harder once I broke some of the adjacent vulnerabilities. But that is quite alright.
Right now, I am definitely on a pathway to make them as friendly with eachother as possible. Frankly speaking, making them help eachother earlier lines up with a tactic to try and get exposure up for higher modifiers. Conversely, if they wouldn't show up, stuff like rally is less of an issue. The problem here is that without a commander, them showing up earlier is a pain, while with a commander I can start the chain of surrounds quite nicely before they start flying off.
(i.e at the moment I can chain a 5-turn capture into a 5-turn capture, a 7 turn surround on the main target, slightly damage the third so I can surround for the fear bonus, then do a 11/12 turn surround on the main target with a 7-turn on the secondary chosen (to try and double up). I can flip the secondary chosen to go first, which will deal a devastating amount of damage to the main target instead, but that spreads the damage very poorly I would think. )
I'll keep the late-game stuff in mind as I go and get a full picture of all capabilities.
As an aside, should I focus on the goals at all? Right now it wants me to a double defiler action, which I swore I did with a broadcast action on 2 characters. I'll see if I can do it again, but I hope I don't need one of the specific commanders for it, as those are hugely expensive (and it is far stronger for me at the moment to use normal commander, but we'll see how that goes).
Going the friendly route is a good idea, if you manage to get a "Unbreakable Friendship" relationship early, you can make the rest of the relationship events between those two negative without a problem since they're
now locked in to a friendly relationship. And making use of EXPO is a good tactic so keep that up
The only time I wouldn't recommend using a commander is when you are trying to conserve EE for a particular upgrade or deploying a forsaken at later stages of the game. So I would keep using them when you're trying to accomplish something. A good thing to note is after breaking T2's you're at the portion of the loop where its more important to build up angst and unresolved trauma to unlock T3 actions, if your current strategies aren't producing those kinds of results it might be good to try something new even your current strategies can do good damage.
I would say continue following the goals as completing them gives some extra knowledge that will help subsequent playthroughs. It goes as far as training getting your first forsaken ready for proper use so I highly recommend with the only caveat being if the conditions directly interfere with your plans of winning this loop. double defilers actions are the best way to unlock T3 actions with their additional multiplier, the ones that involve EXPO are especially effective. And if possible I would try to get all three chosen involved to make an orgy happen, even three turns of that will grant enough trauma to guarantee a T3 break.
Sorted it, the issue was that I did that goal at the last turn the previous time. So the game never recognized it - the objective completed once I pulled it off again and opened the menu for one of the affected Chosen.
The resulting damage far exceeded my expectations so I'll try and pull it off again - the EE I got this run was incredible so I can proceed with some more upgrading. Sadly Tyrant and Reaper did not see eye to eye on using thralls to get off, so now they are rivals, but I'll try and rectify that.
Glad it worked out! Some of my advice is not really helpful now but glad you see the benefits of the group defilers! If you haven't already gotten it, I highly recommend picking up Networked Consciousness with that influx of EE, it will certainly help in making group defiler actions
Going the friendly route is a good idea, if you manage to get a "Unbreakable Friendship" relationship early, you can make the rest of the relationship events between those two negative without a problem since they're
now locked in to a friendly relationship. And making use of EXPO is a good tactic so keep that up
The only time I wouldn't recommend using a commander is when you are trying to conserve EE for a particular upgrade or deploying a forsaken at later stages of the game. So I would keep using them when you're trying to accomplish something. A good thing to note is after breaking T2's you're at the portion of the loop where its more important to build up angst and unresolved trauma to unlock T3 actions, if your current strategies aren't producing those kinds of results it might be good to try something new even your current strategies can do good damage.
I would say continue following the goals as completing them gives some extra knowledge that will help subsequent playthroughs. It goes as far as training getting your first forsaken ready for proper use so I highly recommend with the only caveat being if the conditions directly interfere with your plans of winning this loop. double defilers actions are the best way to unlock T3 actions with their additional multiplier, the ones that involve EXPO are especially effective. And if possible I would try to get all three chosen involved to make an orgy happen, even three turns of that will grant enough trauma to guarantee a T3 break.
Glad it worked out! Some of my advice is not really helpful now but glad you see the benefits of the group defilers! If you haven't already gotten it, I highly recommend picking up Networked Consciousness with that influx of EE, it will certainly help in making group defiler actions
Ah, well, in just 2 days I went from completing the double goal, and then subsequently using the extended capture 1 turn time to immediately hit 100m+ disg angst when I was simply trying to force an orgasm.
If it's not clear, I reset quite a lot when I make a move that clearly did not pan out. I think I have a shot at getting all 3, but that will depend on how much EE you can get later.
It's fine breaking a T2 or T3 won't break a T1 since a chosen is supposed to break that herself during surround, it won't update it in the info screen until the T1 is broken
Doing my first rampancy distortion and uh, a question:
How do you do high tier breaks on rampancy chosen?
She just keeps on going on a rampage then resolving all her trauma because she seems to take much more hate damage compared to injury even if I try to avoid it the best I can.
Doing my first rampancy distortion and uh, a question:
How do you do high tier breaks on rampancy chosen?
She just keeps on going on a rampage then resolving all her trauma because she seems to take much more hate damage compared to injury even if I try to avoid it the best I can.
Yeah rampancy's probably the hardest distortion to manage. Either go back a save (if you have one) and grab the needed traumas before the distortion happens or you may need to "waste" a round or two specifically focusing on getting dignity up. For specifics, I'd have to see the save of course, though others may have better advice. It's been a while since I've gone rampancy.
Generally, yes.
Specifically, normal and superior distorted forsaken get bonus damage, unique abilities and low brokeness in 2 areas. Undead and animalistic undistorted forsaken get a flat damage bonus so the difference isn't so stark.
A basic idea for the uses for the distortions:
Temptation-Get disgrace to 80 (->4EE cost) and train their damage as Inj/Exp and you've got a super cheap soldier who can switch damage types.
Aversion and Negotiated- The best part is their low disgrace, which, while inflating their cost, makes them the strongest choice as punishers.
Rampancy- The wildcards. I'm waiting for a broken psychometer (limits deployment cost to 100EE) then using one of these as a midgame bruiser.
NB animal and undead forsaken are different but I haven't really played around with them yet.
Depending on vuln distribution, I tend to do one temptation and one aversion or negotiation in the first round. 3 distortions is very possible, just trickier to pull off.
Fully broken forsaken can still be useful- as trainer or simply as fodder for the grand concert (restores stamina and motivation to others). There's always the breeding pits too- don't sacrifice unless you're actually going to hit the achievement however.
Yeah rampancy's probably the hardest distortion to manage. Either go back a save (if you have one) and grab the needed traumas before the distortion happens or you may need to "waste" a round or two specifically focusing on getting dignity up. For specifics, I'd have to see the save of course, though others may have better advice. It's been a while since I've gone rampancy.
After several attempts and many a save revert, finally managed to get something that works.
Basically I just need to setup an orgy with expo without raising hate at all and you more or less get enough of a 'buffer' in inj to stop rampage, while the orgy gives all the trauma you need for breaks.
Side note, it looks like an orgy actually gives enough trauma that rampancy can't actually remove all trauma(seems like rampancy trauma reduction is -10g on the highest, then -1g on the rest), so as long as you can regularly hit the rampancy chosen with long enough orgies before they go on a rampage it looks like you can counteract the trauma loss?
That said, not sure if it helps since triggering an orgy without touching hate at all already takes a good amount of effort, and trying to trigger rampancy after that is even harder(especially with t3 break chosen throwing out special abilities left and right.)
Doing my first rampancy distortion and uh, a question:
How do you do high tier breaks on rampancy chosen?
She just keeps on going on a rampage then resolving all her trauma because she seems to take much more hate damage compared to injury even if I try to avoid it the best I can.
You need to make sure that their INJU remains high. A big help is to add them last to an Orgy that begins with a Force Orgasm+. While this does raise all 4 circumstances, it will have the lowest natural increase on HATE. If this is not available to you because of other things you are doing, try a Sodomize+.
If you've noticed, the numbers from both Circumstances and Traumas get lower as you go down from the selected action (and then loop back around from SHAM/EXPO to FEAR/HATE). For instance, a Pummel deals the most natural damage out of its circumstances to PAIN, followed by SHAM, then FEAR, and will deal the least damage to DISG. Actions that raise multiple Circumstances at once follow the same pattern.
Probably, but it's not guaranteed. Think of each Forsaken as something you build with a goal in mind. If you've got an end goal of, say, a cheap Forsaken that focuses on HATE damage, a Rampancy distortion starts with a bonus there that a chosen with all 4 t4 breaks wouldn't have. If you break T4 EXPO, her natural cost will be somewhat in the reasonable range so that you can send her out fairly cheaply and still expect damage. Her high Hostility will be a challenge that you need to mitigate somehow or learn to deal with later in each loop when she's not being sent out as much, but there are ways to do that--send her out anyways, or have other Forsaken you don't care about that you either use Grand Concert on or Sacrifice once in a while. The primary thing is to keep their future, if they have one, in mind.
NB animal and undead forsaken are different but I haven't really played around with them yet.
Depending on vuln distribution, I tend to do one temptation and one aversion or negotiation in the first round. 3 distortions is very possible, just trickier to pull off.
I like to do two of the same type of Distortion for the first two loops. This makes the related achievement unlock immediately in that loop,, and since the achievement generally makes those Distortions happen faster, it means I get through those loops quicker. It's also a bit easier. In Loop 3, breaking the Superior Chosen counts twice, so you can get that Achievement as well--I think I would prefer Rampancy for my first Superior Chosen. Also, this leaves one Forsaken whose resistances all get quite low--so she's easy to start fights with as you Distort the other two.
I've not done much with Animalistic Chosen, since R38 had a game-breaking bug with them. Undead, though, are great. In my furthest save so far (abandoned in Loop 11), I had an Undead Demon Knight (Rampant) that was useful essentially the whole loop until it was time for the Punisher Forsaken to come out, and even then she still had one of the good Punishers (which would get better as you had more EE to feed her). Undead can also have their cost reduced to 2EE and be every bit as strong as an 8EE Forsaken, so you can be well set up to start using them Day 1 or 2 with a few Sacrifice bonuses.
Fully broken forsaken can still be useful- as trainer or simply as fodder for the grand concert (restores stamina and motivation to others). There's always the breeding pits too- don't sacrifice unless you're actually going to hit the achievement however.
There's lots of good reasons to Sacrifice. Grand Concert uses up a day and Sacrifice keeps your list small enough that you don't need notes to know what every Forsaken does or go hunting to find the one you want. I don't think anyone wants to be scrolling through 30 Forsaken on Loop 10.
So the Challenge is simple. . . how long can you survive against the chosen, fellow Demon Lord? From now until the release of R40 I want everyone here to start a campaign mode run and get as far as you possibly can. Upload your save here and the top 3 who has made it the farthest wins! The rules are as follows
-No cheats (Obviously) Its just a fun celebration/competition so lets just play nice okay?
-Only one custom chosen allowed (Must be given a unique name) This might be hardest to police but same with the no cheating rule lets just have keep things fair and have fun! You can give the one custom chosen any personality you desire, whether its to have guaranteed access to certain punisher abilities, create an advantage in the first loop, or just an assistant to take along the ride, do what you want!
-Keep a save of each loop you complete, doesn't matter where in the loop it is, just make sure to have one. This is for authentication purposes, and its always cool to see the progression each loop.
Other than that, do what you want! No matter how you play all the matters is how long you continue your conquest as a demon lord. And remember, even if you upload a save making to loop 10 tomorrow and no one uploads anything better, that won't stop someone sniping the win on March 30th with a loop 11 save so never rest on your laurels! Alternatively, if someone uploads a save where they went as far as loop 3 and no one uploads anything else they'll get the win. It would be a bit sad if that were the case but I'm not putting a gun to your head and forcing you to compete. . . yet
Kalloi
So, I was already trying to do basically this with the release of R39, and my run meets these requirements except for the following 2. I really don't want to start over, so let me know if I can have an exception for these:
1) I *think* I started a few hours before you announced this, when I saw that 39g had been released. I wanted a fresh set of saves because these save files just keep growing, and they slow down the performance of the game (it's Java, so this is quite noticeable). I know I've got multiple saves each loop, but they aren't well-sorted--I'll try to keep some of them labelled as "beforeloopn" (on the new city page) and "loopntraining" for after the final battle because these are two points I always keep a save file for.
2) I actually used only one custom Forsaken, but I didn't give her a unique name until I converted her. I used: Prayer, renamed to Ritual after conversion. I like to rename all my Forsaken, or at least those that aren't destined for the pits. They come to me as one thing--I make them something else.
Let me know if that's OK. If not, I'll still post my save with this disclaimer at the top, whenever I get around to a high enough number.
Suggestions/Questions for CSdev, long-term:
1) Have you considered making a folder of save files instead of of making it all one file, for easier management and performance reasons? I think the saves.sav saves a lot more information than is actually needed, and the game parses this entire file constantly in a way that's very noticeable if you are somewhat of a saveaholic and your saves.sav gets very large, which is the way you suggest as the intended way of playing the game. I suspect it may be storing a lot more information than is needed for a complete game state as well. Adding a new save (on loop 3) added about 80KB to the file, which seems kind of like a lot of information to me (that's roughly 20 pages of text, information-wise). In R38, my saves.sav was 18MB and when an action required parsing the save file (not just saving and loading, it seems to be pulling some gameplay information from this as well) it would take several seconds (3-5) for the virtual machine to respond to certain inputs, and these actions were not just saving/loading. That's the JVM for you.
I know optimization of already-working systems is every programmer's nightmare, but now that there is a working gameplay loop that rewards lots of saves to try doing different things you may want to make this process a bit easier.
2) I find the bait/relationship system kind of hard to use. The benefits of using it seem to be rather small with a large downside. It's a system that primarily affects the flavor of interactions, but it's tied to gameplay mechanics that give it significant penalties. Making a Chosen easier to train is something you can do on your own within the system, and 1-3 extra turns of Capture varies in usefulness between "OK" and "actively bad" at times. But the penalties are much more severe than the rewards.
Let me explain: If I set up a chosen as Bait, I have no way to tell if the Chosen that she starts related to will be in any way "useful" as Forsaken. I don't want to keep a bunch of pages of Forsaken I never use for anything. But if the Bait Forsaken starts with a relationship with one of the Chosen that I don't see a future for, I've now got permanent penalties to training the Bait Forsaken, or a Forsaken in my list that I can't use for anything. A penalty to accepting training seems really difficult to overcome, since the primary way you fix it is... with training... that she won't accept.
For this reason, I find myself not using the Bait position at all. For similar reasons, I rarely try to make a group of Chosen become friends, because usually I'm going to get a replacement for one of them down the line, and I don't want to have to check and remember who is friendly with whom. I'm also generally going to get one Chosen that isn't worth making a Forsaken out of every loop, and while I can let them die in the final battle, I'd rather Sacrifice and get some benefit that way, which has consequences if they're all best friends.
From reading the help files, the penalty for Sacrificing a loved one is up to -50 to training consent, and the bonus for having a loved one Forsaken is up to +20. I think it would make sense for this bonus/penalty to fade, and I'd find it a lot more usable if it did. The bonus to training is mainly useful the first loop or two after you get a Forsaken, and if I wasn't afraid of long-term penalties on my more useful Forsaken, I'd engage more with this system of the game knowing that I wouldn't permanently mess up my Forsaken that I want to keep. Maybe--could the penalty/bonus fade by half every loop? I may be misunderstanding how this system actually works in-game, but it would make sense mechanically and, I think, put the penalties/bonuses more in line with each other. Just a thought as I examine how I play the game for this challenge.
No worries! I believe both of these are acceptable so you can use your current save in the competition
It does bring a good point for the custom chosen part, I might edit the rule slightly so renaming the custom chosen
afterwards will make the save still eligible.
Good luck with the competition and thanks for participating fellow Demon Lord!
2) I find the bait/relationship system kind of hard to use. The benefits of using it seem to be rather small with a large downside. It's a system that primarily affects the flavor of interactions, but it's tied to gameplay mechanics that give it significant penalties. Making a Chosen easier to train is something you can do on your own within the system, and 1-3 extra turns of Capture varies in usefulness between "OK" and "actively bad" at times. But the penalties are much more severe than the rewards.
Even though I feel like our playstyles seem to differ a bit (I seldom sacrifice my forsaken and find myself relying on the bait position and friendships often) I do also feel like with the bait system does suffer from some of the issues you mentioned in its current state, using the bait position is a mixed bag with some of the cons being mostly on your current roster of forsaken. I definitely agree with some of your points, especially when the chosen that's paired with your bait forsaken isn't particularly useful. As of now, there isn't any way to manipulate relationships between forsaken once they're apart of your roster. If there was one (even a simple, temporary one would be fine) I know my issues with the system would be resolved since I now have a way of dealing with related chosen that aren't useful or their potential role is already filled.
CSDev and I have talked about the relationship system and I suggested some possible ways of expanding it. While I don't know how viable my ideas were in actual practice or what CSDev will actually implement in the game but on the relationship part, I can at least say that CSDev is definitely working on expanding the forsaken relationship system which may hopefully make the bait position more appealing to you. Until then, I think the decaying penalty/bonus is a good idea. Even if it's just a temporary one until CSDev can implement the forsaken relationship functions they want to. And if its a permanent, maybe there could also be way to finalize the relationship bonuses/penalties between the two forsaken through some sort of action that spends a day or have some sort of cost. Since I do enjoy the training bonuses for Tempted forsaken and Aversion forsaken that I want to maintain low deviancy