The game said this after failing the campaign, but I can't see any cheats neither after the 50 days nor after starting Single Play mode?
"Thank you for playing the campaign mode of Corrupted Saviors! If you're having trouble with the game, consider trying out Single Play mode, which allows the use of cheats after the final battle regardless of the result"
How are you all opening this cheats... Also this game is so difficult lol wtf, I have no idea what I'm doing.
There is no difficulty section under options either...
It's saying that after the Final Battle in Single Play mode cheats are enabled for that loop. That being said, cheats can be enabled at any time in the options menu, if the option isn't showing up just hit "C" and it will make the option visible and enable cheats.
As for learning the game, I wrote 3 guides that might help you:
Reading the update post on SubscribeStar is a pretty easy way to get an answer about new content. Like the changelog posted here and the update pots says, getting the mark is tied to the new vignette, which is Lilith's Awakening. The requirements for all vignettes are listed in the vignette checklist text file that comes with the game, the requirements for Lilith's Awakening being that all the Chosen have positive relations with each other, that their Hypnosis effectiveness is 500% over their break requirement, and they have experienced the Endless Mission vignette (which itself requires all Chosen to be on positive relations, have their T4 Innocence Break and be 200% over the break requirement for Hypnosis).
Reading the update post on SubscribeStar is a pretty easy way to get an answer about new content. Like the changelog posted here and the update pots says, getting the mark is tied to the new vignette, which is Lilith's Awakening. The requirements for all vignettes are listed in the vignette checklist text file that comes with the game, the requirements for Lilith's Awakening being that all the Chosen have positive relations with each other, that their Hypnosis effectiveness is 500% over their break requirement, and they have experienced the Endless Mission vignette (which itself requires all Chosen to be on positive relations, have their T4 Innocence Break and be 200% over the break requirement for Hypnosis).
Further continuing my Guide post from here, now with Stage 3.
Okay, so, Stage 3. To be honest, this is probably the part of the game which least deserves to be called its own stage - At the front end, you can find some success using the same tactics as in late Stage 2, and are working towards a similar kind of corruption goal, where the main point is to pile on the Chosen in a single battle. Towards the back end, you're dealing with the challenges that I'll mostly be discussing in Stage 4 - namely, the T3 adaptation actions, which transform gameplay significantly.
With that in mind, I'm going to focus this section on one particular strategy for quickly setting up multiple T3 breaks at once on every Chosen, which blows through this Stage in theoretically as little as 1 turn. You don't have to do it this way; it's perfectly viable to break 1-3 T3 Vulnerabilities at a time instead. But this is an extremely powerful strategy that becomes more complicated to execute if you break certain T3s first, so I think it's worth a dedicated section.
What we're aiming for is very specifically a Commander with 3 Captures and the ability to deal damage to 3 damage types - I tend to exclude PLEA, but it will sometimes be better to drop HATE or even INJU (EXPO is probably mandatory, but admittedly I haven't experimented much). This requires Synthesis and Determination (plus some pre-reqs). Unless you got a large chunk of 1-time EE from a T3 Core Break rivalry event or by achieving a Distortion that grants 100EE, you will probably have to burn some turns gathering EE to make this happen even after you finish all T2 breaks.
You don't even need Intelligence or Vengeful Reconstitution here, much less Networked Consciousness - 4 turns should be plenty. All you really have to do is buy a 4-3 triple damage commander, hit each Chosen once with it before Extermination ends, and then put them all in a 10+ turn Orgy. Long orgies have an extremely effective positive feedback loop for all types of damage, and just running one can potentially push all the Chosen into high enough Trauma to unlock every T3 break.
So let's quickly get into the guide playthrough:
D16: Today, we do... nothing. We need 77 EE to set up the Commander explained above from our current upgrade levels. It's worth wasting two days here.
D17: Nothing again!
D18: At 81 EE, this is the big turn. We buy Determination and Synthesis, along with their prerequisites for 51 EE, then spend 26 EE on our Commander, and ambush Void. She's got the lowest overall resistance to HATE/INJU/EXPO, and she's the one who misses out on EXPO levels from other Chosen raising them. It's plausible she's not the optimal target, but she's good enough.
After this battle, every Chosen's ANGST bonus is up to +55 base damage, all T3 actions will be unlocked over the next few turns, and they should be pinned to their maximum EE actions based on their break level for the rest of the game. We're now extremely well set up for P4, where the gameplay transforms from being about hitting them harder to letting them hit you as hard as possible.
And at last, we're in the endgame. Stage 4 is all about the Chosen's new adaptation actions unlocked with T3 breaks. They're very powerful, and make simple setups like the Orgy above harder to pull off or less effective, especially without supporting upgrades like Vengeful Reconstitution and Networked Consciousness. But every time the Chosen use them, they become more susceptible to Punisher Commanders, eventually unlocking T4 breaks after susceptibility crosses over 1000%. Furthermore, the first T3 Break a Chosen suffers unlocks 15EE downtime options from them, which is fairly huge. The first T4 Break a Chosen suffers unlocks 50EE downtime options, which are incredibly powerful.
Let's start by establishing the general rules for T3 breaks and their adaptations, since we neglected some of the finer details last Stage. Each T3 break occurs when the Chosen first uses a T3 adaptation action. Unlocking a T3 action requires two conditions to be met: The Chosen needs to have breached a certain unresolved Trauma threshold, then an end of turn event needs to happen for that specific action. Only one action can be unlocked per Chosen per turn, and I *think* the game prefers to unlock the action with the highest unresolved trauma first. This can be fairly hard to control if using Orgies in particular.
Each time a Chosen unlocks a new T3 action (even if they haven't used it yet), the trauma threshold required for the next unlock increases by a factor of 10 - as such, the thresholds are 100M, 1G, 10G, 100G.
Once an action is unlocked, the corresponding T3 break, with increased EE generation and its effect on Chosen relationships, is not triggered until the action is actually *used* in combat, which is ultimately under your control. Every action has certain conditions to it, though some are a little more cut and dry than others.
It should also be noted that T3 Breaks, unlike T2 Breaks, have stronger Core Break rivalry events if the lower tier Minor Breaks haven't been performed. In other words, there are 4 possible Core Break events:
Friendship (Minor T3 before Core T3)
Normal Rivalry (Core T3 before Minor T3 but after Minor T2)
Strong Rivalry (Core T3 before Minor T2) - this breaks the Minor T2 if the Minor Chosen doesn't have an active Distortion path protecting it, and generates extra EE.
Strongest Rivalry (Core T3 before Minor T1) - this breaks the Minor T1 and T2 if the Minor Chosen doesn't have an active Distortion path protecting it, and generates extra EE.
To be honest, I don't remember for certain if also protecting the Minor T1 has additonal EE above and beyond what the Strong variation does. It probably does.
Every adaptation action increases the corresponding Circumstance to the bottom of the next level, then has an additional effect which is generally going to be bad for you based on the (increased) level of that circumstance, and raises that Chosen's susceptibility to the corresponding Punisher by a percentage based on the (increased) Circumstance level. Most adaptations cannot be activated on back-to-back turns, but different Adaptations can be used consecutively. Here are the adaptation actions and their mechanics:
MOR: Slaughter. Can only activate while the Chosen is free to act and at least one ally is Surrounded (*not* Captured) with at least 2 turns remaining. Reduces the duration of *all* surrounds by HATE level turns, to a minimum of 1 (i.e., Slaughter cannot end a Surround, only cause it to end the next turn). Adds 10%*HATE level to Impregnation effectiveness.
INN: Fantasize. Can only activate while the Chosen is free to act.
Reduces one type of Trauma damage by a factor of 10 for each PLEA level. Adds 6%*PLEA level to Hypnosis effectiveness. This is one of the harder to control adaptations - afaik, the only way to totally avoid it is to never give the Chosen a free turn. It can be used several times in a fight, but there's also some condition preventing it from being spammed indefinitely - eventually, a Chosen will just stop using it.
CON: Detonate. Can only activate while the Chosen is Captured (not surrounded), and the Detonate is capable of removing enough turns to end the current Capture. Reduces the duration of the current Capture by INJU level turns, ending it immediately and removing an extra Commander use from you for the battle. Adds 30%* INJU level to Drain effectiveness. By far the most controllable.
DIG: Striptease. Can only activate while the Chosen is free to act and an ally is Surrounded (not captured) with at least some EXPO damage on them (the Chosen who uses the ability does not need any EXPO). Reduces all damage taken by *all* Surrounded allies by a factor of 2 for every EXPO level. Adds 20%*level to Parasitism effectiveness. Can only be used once per Chosen per Surround - and if 2 allies are surrounded at the same time, using it once counts for both.
So, these are really powerful actions, and our main goal once they're unlocked is to make the Chosen use them as quickly and at as high a level as possible. If we've got a Friendship/Rivalry plan, it can take some doing to make sure the Chosen don't use them in ways that break it early. So let's lay out a plan of attack:
1: Get a T3 break on every Chosen to start generating 15EE/day from each of them.
2: Get the T3 Core Breaks on every Chosen to get the powerful one-time EE bonuses to slingshot ourselves ahead.
3: Get all T3 breaks on every Chosen so that we're maximizing our Susceptibility rates.
4: Get a T4 break on every Chosen to start generating 50EE/day from each.
5: Get full T4 breaks and all needed upgrades.
6: Win the final battle.
Several of these steps are technically optional - the Final Battle can be fought and won with as little as 1 T4 break on two Chosen, and skipping many upgrades. But for the purposes of the guide, we're going to finish all Breaks, at least.
Let's talk upgrades:
Finishing off the 5 EE upgrades if you don't have them already is very helpful. Vengeful Reconstitution in particular gives extremely valuable flexibility and is more or less required to keep a day going after an Orgy, which you will want to do.
Networked Consciousness becomes extraordinarily valuable here, if you don't have it already. Battles become considerably harder to script like we could do in previous stages here, and the extra turns are a godsend for minimizing the number of free actions we give the Chosen.
Reality Sealing comes into its own here - we finally have the EE to afford it, and there will be times we have all the active Chosen locked down pre-extermination so we can stack up the damage modifier from it.
The increased duration and capture upgrades (up to Mastery, Enormity is too expensive and not required at all) are all good, because Detonate means we get fewer and shorter captures than we would before.
Relentlessness is very important if you're specifically trying to rush a T4 CON break, otherwise not very good.
Soul Resonance and Passion Release are nice to have and at 20EE, not too expensive.
Once you get a Chosen up into T4 break range, the corresponding Punisher upgrade becomes essential.
Once you've gotten all the previous stuff, Completion unlocks the strongest Commanders available, which are handy for the last battle. They're technically also usable for speeding up T4 Break susceptibility, but they're very expensive for that purpose.
Unmentioned upgrades are either prereqs or just for the Final Battle prep.
On to battle strategy. There are basically four kinds of fights in P4, not counting the Final Battle. The first, and most complex, are early battles, where Chosen have yet to unlock the full complement of T3 adaptations, we still need to be careful with break order to avoid bad Core Break events messing with our Friendships/rivalrys, and we don't have all the baseline upgrades yet. These fights tend to be pretty trial and error, but generally, you want to get every Significant action available to trigger at least once, and only the Core/Minors that are compatible with your plan. If you need to not trigger a Detonate, just don't Capture that Chosen. If you need to not trigger a Slaughter or Striptease, make sure they don't get a free turn while another Chosen is surrounded. If you need to not trigger Fantasize, you'll probably want to *never* give them a free turn. It can help a lot to tune your capture durations based on whether it will lead multiple Chosen to becoming free to act at the same time.
The second kind of battle is one where you have a decently strong Commander, most T3 actions unlocked, and are trying to generally raise Susceptibility levels. The general idea here is to spread out your Commander uses, get as long an Orgy as you can manage before Extermination ends, then Surround the Chosen 1 at a time to let the other 2 use their actions. Slaughter never ends a Surround outright, so you always have a free turn to Surround the next Chosen without losing Threaten turns. This is basically an evolved version of the Stage 3 strat.
The third kind of battle is one where you're trying to pump up a particular Chosen's Drain susceptibility, which can be the fastest to raise if you're aggressively targeting it. Basically, you want to capture the same Chosen 2-3 times, and the others 0-1 times, with the last Capture on the first Chosen coming as late as possible with as high an INJU level as possible. Networked Consciousness and Relentlessness help here, the former because it helps with starting Surround chains without using up Captures, and the latter because it lets you delay the last capture as late as possible.
The fourth kind of battle is one where you're getting a T4 break, but doing so restricts you - either you need to work on other vulnerabilities, too, or you have multiple Chosen susceptible to the T4 break, and don't want to break one of them for relationship reasons. Sometimes, if you're a little tight on EE, it's worth just sending a naked 1EE Punisher in for the break. Other times, you can get good value by pumping up some upgrades on them and dragging the battle out a little. This is very situational.
I'll demonstrate turn-by-turns once for each of these four battle types below in the guide run.
D19: We open the turn by remembering to save. I definitely did not forget to do this after the previous section and end up having to replay the battle from my turn by turn. With that done, it's time to start getting T3 breaks. We're going to continue holding to the planned Friendship/Rivalry route here, even if that means a little bit of finessing. After a long Orgy that apparently softcaps Trauma like the one we did last turn, the order in which actions unlock feels pretty random, so we'll deal with what we've got.
This turn, Axiom and Freedom unlocked Striptease and Void unlocked Slaughter. Since we want Void to be friendly with the other two, and she's Minor MOR, it's fine to break her here. Since Axiom has Core DIG and Freedom has Minor DIG and we want them as rivals, we need to just let Axiom use Striptease and not Freedom - triggering both breaks on the same turn is the same as triggering Minor first. This will cost us a little EE income for this one turn, but we actually profit from the rivalry event's greater bonus.
Since we're a little short on EE this turn (only 19), and are only triggering a maximum of 2 adaptation actions, which is both easy and not very profitable on susceptibility, we're refraining from using a powerful Commander. We pick up Human Collaborators and Vengeful Reconstitution because they might be convenient to have here, and we need them for later, then attack without a Commander, because there's no need to waste EE on a weak one if we can trigger the actions we want without one.
We target Freedom because we want to control her, take a 3 turn surround into a 4 turn surround manually, get our 2 actions used, and let the fight end quickly. This triggers the DIG Core Break event for 45 EE, and theoretically pushes Axiom and Void into 15EE actions. Annoyingly, and to my surprise, Void chooses to do 5EE group activities with Freedom instead. You'd think she'd be more worried about the 10^16 unresolved trauma she has. I reload to see if taking the battle a little differently avoids this. This time I try a 4-2 Commander and try to get a bit more susceptibility out of her, in case that's relevant. Unfortunately it doesn't help, so I reload back to the start of the day and repeat the original no-Commander strat. Technically, preventing Freedom from triggering a T3 break is actually net-negative on EE now, but I choose to eat the minimal cost and keep the full rivalry running. I technically could still hit a strong (max-strength?) rivalry if I do the T4 break in the correct order even if I let it slip here, but I don't want to. It's going well enough I can afford a bit of stubbornness.
D20: We save. Then we start spending the 94 EE we have after that turn - (9 leftover, 45 from the core break event, 25 from end of day activities, and 15 from Void's morality break). First is Dominance and Networked Consciousness, because the latter is just really good. Then we evaluate the new actions unlocked. Axiom and Void unlocked Detonate, and Freedom unlocked Slaughter. This is convenient - we can safely trigger all of these this turn.
This is a good time to consider Detonate math a bit. There are two ways we can handle trying to get one Detonate each from 2 Chosen - we can go 3 captures, and ignore the third (if a Chosen Detonates your last Capture, you don't lose anything), or go 4 captures, hit all 3, and make sure to get the Chosen without Detonate unlocked yet before the second of the Detonating Chosen. That would be considerably more expensive, but it would let us hit Freedom much harder and overall increase the susceptibility of the Chosen more.
We could just barely afford to put out a 3-type Commander and give them 4 captures (it would cost 25 EE to unlock the option), or we could save the EE/put it towards another upgrade. I choose to get aggressive with it. This may seem a little strange after we saved a smaller amount of EE by not using a Commander last turn, but since we're forced into sending out reasonably expensive Commander just to get our breaks this time (I think the bare minimum would be 8, for a Suppressor with 3 captures), and there are 3 times as many adaptations to gain EE from, it feels more worthwhile this time. I could be wrong, this is all feelcraft.
So total shopping list for the day is Dominance, Networked Consciousness, Intelligence, Transcendence, and a 38EE 5-4 INJU/EXPO/HATE commander. This leaves me with 1 EE. Neat! Since I'm not 100% sure of the best target, I make an extra save in a separate slot to avoid re-shopping if I need to change. I go Void first, realise that I need Freedom second and she comes in later than is ideal if I do that, not to mention the early detonate being a little awkward, then reload to go after Freedom first.
I try a few variations, and in the end accept a run that gets the following susceptibility changes:
I basically ended up setting up a very short orgy with 2 of them being pre-extermination, in a weaker version of battle type 2 described above.
This got me two more Core Break events (this time both Friendship) and brought all 3 Chosen to 15EE/day.
D21: New save. I have 136 EE to play with, but this time I'm checking unlocks before I buy anything. I see that I got MOR on Axiom, INN on Void, and CON on Freedom. This is... a little awkward, actually. I can't afford to let Void use Fantasize, because that would trigger a Rivalry Core Break with Axiom, when I want the two as friends. So this is a good time for a turn-by-turn demonstrating deliberately not breaking a T3.
In light of that being the plan, trying to get broad Commander value would be a mistake, since I likely will have to end early. I could just skip the day, but that would be a waste of valuable Susceptibility. Instead, I'll take a cheap-ish Commander in, pick up some Detonate value, and save up for next turn. Since I know I'll want it soon anyway, I go ahead and buy Reality Sealing, and take in a 20 EE Commander: Dominance, 3 captures (4 is pointless with all 3 Chosen detonating, it's 1, 3 or 5), and 6 turns. Dominance is picked because it's going to set up for slightly longer Surrounds on Void while still pushing for INJU for better Detonates.
I do seriously consider going for Mastery and a 5-capture Commander for better Detonate value, but I decide it's not worth the cost on a probably truncated day.
Overall, went way better than expected - sneaking in a 3-turn Orgy before the end of Extermination is really strong even without all actions unlocked/having to end early.
D22: Save. Up to 176 EE after that. The last actions are unlocked now, and since we've gotten past the Rival Core Breaks, that means we can freely break them all now. We're also getting really up there on Axiom's Parasitism susceptibility, which is super convenient, because she's Core DIG and rivaled with Minor DIG. So today's goal will be first and foremost to get her past 1000% on that, second to get Void and Axiom to use Fantasize, and thirdly to get Freedom to use Fantasize for some extra EE.
This is a good turn to go all in - we're about to get a *ton* of EE refunded soon, and next turn could be productive with very little budget. So I pick up Mastery, Ambition, Spite, Soul Resonance, and Passion Release for some extra turns, then create a max cost Commander with what I have. It's a 6-5. I *think* I'll have best results skipping HATE here, so I try first with a Spite + Lust Commander.
I hit Void first, mostly because it worked well last time.
D23: Save the game. We have 146 EE to work with. First, we buy Parasitism, since we're going to need it for a Total Break this turn. We definitely can't afford Completion and a 4-type Commander this turn, so we're stuck with 1 damage type. Still, it should be enough to get some more Susceptibility elsewhere if we pump it up a bit. I go ahead and buy Relentlessness on the theory that it might be worth trying to pump up Detonate susceptibility this turn, though I'm not entirely convinced by the idea. Still, we need it before Completion and it isn't gonna cause us problems to have it now. I end up trying with a 44 EE 6-4 Commander without Flight.
Experimentation quickly determines that this is way more effective than I expected (thanks Punisher damage mods!), and it's totally worth running Flight, so I reload. It actually turns out to be a good example of how you can use Flight to pump up Detonate Susceptibility, so I'll give the turn-by-turn and let it stand as an example of both how you can use a baseline Punisher and how you can use Flight. This isn't optimal play - I probably missed out on a couple Orgy turns. But it's good enough, especially for a turn I wasn't expecting to get nearly this much value.
Target Void. Why? Habit, mostly, and it worked on the test.
The one unfortunate thing about this fight is that Axiom is still doing 15 EE group actions instead of 50 EE solo actions. Still, we should be able to fix that soon.
NOTE: Starting from Day 24, this was played on R50, while previous parts of the guide were performed on R49.
D24: Save. We have Void and Freedom vulnerable to T4 MOR break, so we're gonna do that. Buy Impregnation, buy a 54 EE commander because it worked so well last time. Entirely plausible HATE is less effective than EXPO was, though.
Ambush Void, set up an early Orgy like before. Actually was more effective than last time, gonna attribute that to having higher overall Impregnation effectiveness.
(I should note that even though I'm not including susceptibility% after the T4 break is achieved, because the game doesn't show it at the end of the fight, it does still go up)
Axiom starts performing 50EE solo actions and Freedom/Void start 100EE 2-person actions. We're finally generating endgame levels of EE.
NOTE: When played on R49, a very similar attack today resulted in 45EE full group actions instead.
D25: All we really need to focus on now is triggering T4 breaks and maxing out CON susceptibility on the Axiom and Freedom. No real need for elaborate early orgy setups, we just need to hit double-digit Pain each day on one target. We'll start with another 54EE Impregnation commander to finish that break on Axiom. It's worth keeping in mind here that we need at least one day for every Punisher type, so getting what we can out of the way early is ideal.
We're also going to give one last turn by turn here to demonstrate a battle where we use the Commander on the same Chosen 3 times. I will add that this was extraordinarily trial-and-error based, and for a while I thought I might not be able to do better than a 4-turn Orgy pre-extermination here. My best advice based on this experience is "when in doubt, try Surrounding every single time you can"
Quite happy with this result. 780% Drain susceptibility in one day is nothing to scoff at - this kind of thing is why an early T3 CON break can sometimes be leveraged into a T4 CON break in just a couple of turns.
D26: Save. We now have a kind of narrow path to tread if we don't wanna miss days to Punishers. We need to break all 3 INNs, 2 DIGS, unlock 1 more CON, and break all 3 CONs, and we'd like to do that in 3 days, if possible. That means we have at most 2 days to get 660% Drain Susceptibility on Freedom, and we can't smack her with all 3 Commanders either of those times. On the INN day, she gets at most 1, and on the DIG day, she gets at most 2... is what I would say, if it weren't for an edge case I hadn't remembered till it came up just now. If a Chosen instantly Detonates, they avoid a Total Break, even if they'd otherwise get it. So on the DIG day, Freedom needs an early one, Void needs an early one, and then I just have one Capture left for Susceptibility%.
That means I should be going for a slightly different setup than last time, double Orgying the group and Capturing on the last turn of the battle. The early part of this is basically what we did on Day 23. In the end, I swing a 420% level 14 Detonate, bringing Freedom to 790% total.
D27: Save. We finally buy Hypnosis. We also buy Drain. Unfortunately, we're going to lose a turn here, because of the instant Detonation rule. 210% in one Capture just won't work for us. Technically, we can afford to buy Enormity and spend an extra 30 EE for a slightly longer-lasting Commander, but we don't need that upgrade, ever, for anything else, so we're skipping it outright. Possibly we could go back several turns and replay to avoid this, but I think we need the turn for EE anyway, so it's not a big deal. Today we run a 44EE Hypnosis Commander, since we won't need Flight. We get 120% Drain Susceptibility on Freedom, Total INN Breaks on everyone, and retreat for 3EE.
D28: Might as well be economical with EE here; a pair of 3-capture Drainers over the next two turns is cheaper than a 5-capture and a 1-capture, so today we'll Break Void and get the last 90% on Freedom, and tomorrow we'll finish Axiom and Freedom.
I send out a 14EE 6-2 Drainer, and get what I wanted.
D29: One more 14EE 6-2 Drainer. It's a quick battle, and I finally have full T4 Breaks on all the Chosen.
D30: It's time to end the game. We've got 661 EE saved up, thanks to avoiding 100EE upgrades so far, and we're gonna splurge almost all of that on a very basic endgame package: Threaten+, Completion, Imago Quickening, and a 110EE 6/5 4-type Commander. This is pretty minimal; having Empathy or Antipathy would greatly simplify things, but we don't strictly need them. Threaten+ is pretty crucial here; with all 3 T4 MOR breaks, it's far and away the strongest Final Battle basic action, dealing more Resolve damage than any of the others without the condition on Taunt+ (I spent a while trying to make breaking the Resolve of all 3 work with Taunt+ instead, and kept coming up 1 turn short).
The important things to remember for getting a total victory on the Final Battle without Empathy/Distortions/Antipathy are: You cannot let *any* Chosen *ever* take a turn after Extermination ends, but you do get to hit each one of them once to finish them off, if you follow the next requirement. 2 Chosen have to be Captured/Surrounded/Broken before Extermination ends. You cannot deal Resolve damage to a Captured or Surrounded Chosen, so they have to be within 1 hit of defeat before Extermination ends. It's difficult, though possible, to 2-shot a 100% Resolve Chosen, but fairly manageable to 3-shot them.
And with that, the Classic guide is finally finished. Pretty happy the playthrough finished within 30 Days without missing any Breaks or going full Rival spam, though it did require the 105 EE I netted by updating to the latest game version with the Greater sins changes. I welcome feedback on anything I left unclear or that you think seems inconsistent.
I'm really looking forward to the Angel Chosen and expanded sparing mechanics next patch, since the main gripe I've had with the game is how cluttered my Forsaken roster gets due to me stubbornly refusing to sacrifice anyone even though I'm fully aware it's gimping both my power and progression speed.
And at last, we're in the endgame. Stage 4 is all about the Chosen's new adaptation actions unlocked with T3 breaks. They're very powerful, and make simple setups like the Orgy above harder to pull off or less effective, especially without supporting upgrades like Vengeful Reconstitution and Networked Consciousness. But every time the Chosen use them, they become more susceptible to Punisher Commanders, eventually unlocking T4 breaks after susceptibility crosses over 1000%. Furthermore, the first T3 Break a Chosen suffers unlocks 15EE downtime options from them, which is fairly huge. The first T4 Break a Chosen suffers unlocks 50EE downtime options, which are incredibly powerful.
Let's start by establishing the general rules for T3 breaks and their adaptations, since we neglected some of the finer details last Stage. Each T3 break occurs when the Chosen first uses a T3 adaptation action. Unlocking a T3 action requires two conditions to be met: The Chosen needs to have breached a certain unresolved Trauma threshold, then an end of turn event needs to happen for that specific action. Only one action can be unlocked per Chosen per turn, and I *think* the game prefers to unlock the action with the highest unresolved trauma first. This can be fairly hard to control if using Orgies in particular.
Each time a Chosen unlocks a new T3 action (even if they haven't used it yet), the trauma threshold required for the next unlock increases by a factor of 10 - as such, the thresholds are 100M, 1G, 10G, 100G.
Once an action is unlocked, the corresponding T3 break, with increased EE generation and its effect on Chosen relationships, is not triggered until the action is actually *used* in combat, which is ultimately under your control. Every action has certain conditions to it, though some are a little more cut and dry than others.
It should also be noted that T3 Breaks, unlike T2 Breaks, have stronger Core Break rivalry events if the lower tier Minor Breaks haven't been performed. In other words, there are 4 possible Core Break events:
Friendship (Minor T3 before Core T3)
Normal Rivalry (Core T3 before Minor T3 but after Minor T2)
Strong Rivalry (Core T3 before Minor T2) - this breaks the Minor T2 if the Minor Chosen doesn't have an active Distortion path protecting it, and generates extra EE.
Strongest Rivalry (Core T3 before Minor T1) - this breaks the Minor T1 and T2 if the Minor Chosen doesn't have an active Distortion path protecting it, and generates extra EE.
To be honest, I don't remember for certain if also protecting the Minor T1 has additonal EE above and beyond what the Strong variation does. It probably does.
Every adaptation action increases the corresponding Circumstance to the bottom of the next level, then has an additional effect which is generally going to be bad for you based on the (increased) level of that circumstance, and raises that Chosen's susceptibility to the corresponding Punisher by a percentage based on the (increased) Circumstance level. Most adaptations cannot be activated on back-to-back turns, but different Adaptations can be used consecutively. Here are the adaptation actions and their mechanics:
MOR: Slaughter. Can only activate while the Chosen is free to act and at least one ally is Surrounded (*not* Captured) with at least 2 turns remaining. Reduces the duration of *all* surrounds by HATE level turns, to a minimum of 1 (i.e., Slaughter cannot end a Surround, only cause it to end the next turn). Adds 10%*HATE level to Impregnation effectiveness.
INN: Fantasize. Can only activate while the Chosen is free to act.
Reduces one type of Trauma damage by a factor of 10 for each PLEA level. Adds 6%*PLEA level to Hypnosis effectiveness. This is one of the harder to control adaptations - afaik, the only way to totally avoid it is to never give the Chosen a free turn. It can be used several times in a fight, but there's also some condition preventing it from being spammed indefinitely - eventually, a Chosen will just stop using it.
CON: Detonate. Can only activate while the Chosen is Captured (not surrounded), and the Detonate is capable of removing enough turns to end the current Capture. Reduces the duration of the current Capture by INJU level turns, ending it immediately and removing an extra Commander use from you for the battle. Adds 30%* INJU level to Drain effectiveness. By far the most controllable.
DIG: Striptease. Can only activate while the Chosen is free to act and an ally is Surrounded (not captured) with at least some EXPO damage on them (the Chosen who uses the ability does not need any EXPO). Reduces all damage taken by *all* Surrounded allies by a factor of 2 for every EXPO level. Adds 20%*level to Parasitism effectiveness. Can only be used once per Chosen per Surround - and if 2 allies are surrounded at the same time, using it once counts for both.
So, these are really powerful actions, and our main goal once they're unlocked is to make the Chosen use them as quickly and at as high a level as possible. If we've got a Friendship/Rivalry plan, it can take some doing to make sure the Chosen don't use them in ways that break it early. So let's lay out a plan of attack:
1: Get a T3 break on every Chosen to start generating 15EE/day from each of them.
2: Get the T3 Core Breaks on every Chosen to get the powerful one-time EE bonuses to slingshot ourselves ahead.
3: Get all T3 breaks on every Chosen so that we're maximizing our Susceptibility rates.
4: Get a T4 break on every Chosen to start generating 50EE/day from each.
5: Get full T4 breaks and all needed upgrades.
6: Win the final battle.
Several of these steps are technically optional - the Final Battle can be fought and won with as little as 1 T4 break on two Chosen, and skipping many upgrades. But for the purposes of the guide, we're going to finish all Breaks, at least.
Let's talk upgrades:
Finishing off the 5 EE upgrades if you don't have them already is very helpful. Vengeful Reconstitution in particular gives extremely valuable flexibility and is more or less required to keep a day going after an Orgy, which you will want to do.
Networked Consciousness becomes extraordinarily valuable here, if you don't have it already. Battles become considerably harder to script like we could do in previous stages here, and the extra turns are a godsend for minimizing the number of free actions we give the Chosen.
Reality Sealing comes into its own here - we finally have the EE to afford it, and there will be times we have all the active Chosen locked down pre-extermination so we can stack up the damage modifier from it.
The increased duration and capture upgrades (up to Mastery, Enormity is too expensive and not required at all) are all good, because Detonate means we get fewer and shorter captures than we would before.
Relentlessness is very important if you're specifically trying to rush a T4 CON break, otherwise not very good.
Soul Resonance and Passion Release are nice to have and at 20EE, not too expensive.
Once you get a Chosen up into T4 break range, the corresponding Punisher upgrade becomes essential.
Once you've gotten all the previous stuff, Completion unlocks the strongest Commanders available, which are handy for the last battle. They're technically also usable for speeding up T4 Break susceptibility, but they're very expensive for that purpose.
Unmentioned upgrades are either prereqs or just for the Final Battle prep.
On to battle strategy. There are basically four kinds of fights in P4, not counting the Final Battle. The first, and most complex, are early battles, where Chosen have yet to unlock the full complement of T3 adaptations, we still need to be careful with break order to avoid bad Core Break events messing with our Friendships/rivalrys, and we don't have all the baseline upgrades yet. These fights tend to be pretty trial and error, but generally, you want to get every Significant action available to trigger at least once, and only the Core/Minors that are compatible with your plan. If you need to not trigger a Detonate, just don't Capture that Chosen. If you need to not trigger a Slaughter or Striptease, make sure they don't get a free turn while another Chosen is surrounded. If you need to not trigger Fantasize, you'll probably want to *never* give them a free turn. It can help a lot to tune your capture durations based on whether it will lead multiple Chosen to becoming free to act at the same time.
The second kind of battle is one where you have a decently strong Commander, most T3 actions unlocked, and are trying to generally raise Susceptibility levels. The general idea here is to spread out your Commander uses, get as long an Orgy as you can manage before Extermination ends, then Surround the Chosen 1 at a time to let the other 2 use their actions. Slaughter never ends a Surround outright, so you always have a free turn to Surround the next Chosen without losing Threaten turns. This is basically an evolved version of the Stage 3 strat.
The third kind of battle is one where you're trying to pump up a particular Chosen's Drain susceptibility, which can be the fastest to raise if you're aggressively targeting it. Basically, you want to capture the same Chosen 2-3 times, and the others 0-1 times, with the last Capture on the first Chosen coming as late as possible with as high an INJU level as possible. Networked Consciousness and Relentlessness help here, the former because it helps with starting Surround chains without using up Captures, and the latter because it lets you delay the last capture as late as possible.
The fourth kind of battle is one where you're getting a T4 break, but doing so restricts you - either you need to work on other vulnerabilities, too, or you have multiple Chosen susceptible to the T4 break, and don't want to break one of them for relationship reasons. Sometimes, if you're a little tight on EE, it's worth just sending a naked 1EE Punisher in for the break. Other times, you can get good value by pumping up some upgrades on them and dragging the battle out a little. This is very situational.
I'll demonstrate turn-by-turns once for each of these four battle types below in the guide run.
D19: We open the turn by remembering to save. I definitely did not forget to do this after the previous section and end up having to replay the battle from my turn by turn. With that done, it's time to start getting T3 breaks. We're going to continue holding to the planned Friendship/Rivalry route here, even if that means a little bit of finessing. After a long Orgy that apparently softcaps Trauma like the one we did last turn, the order in which actions unlock feels pretty random, so we'll deal with what we've got.
This turn, Axiom and Freedom unlocked Striptease and Void unlocked Slaughter. Since we want Void to be friendly with the other two, and she's Minor MOR, it's fine to break her here. Since Axiom has Core DIG and Freedom has Minor DIG and we want them as rivals, we need to just let Axiom use Striptease and not Freedom - triggering both breaks on the same turn is the same as triggering Minor first. This will cost us a little EE income for this one turn, but we actually profit from the rivalry event's greater bonus.
Since we're a little short on EE this turn (only 19), and are only triggering a maximum of 2 adaptation actions, which is both easy and not very profitable on susceptibility, we're refraining from using a powerful Commander. We pick up Human Collaborators and Vengeful Reconstitution because they might be convenient to have here, and we need them for later, then attack without a Commander, because there's no need to waste EE on a weak one if we can trigger the actions we want without one.
We target Freedom because we want to control her, take a 3 turn surround into a 4 turn surround manually, get our 2 actions used, and let the fight end quickly. This triggers the DIG Core Break event for 45 EE, and theoretically pushes Axiom and Void into 15EE actions. Annoyingly, and to my surprise, Void chooses to do 5EE group activities with Freedom instead. You'd think she'd be more worried about the 10^16 unresolved trauma she has. I reload to see if taking the battle a little differently avoids this. This time I try a 4-2 Commander and try to get a bit more susceptibility out of her, in case that's relevant. Unfortunately it doesn't help, so I reload back to the start of the day and repeat the original no-Commander strat. Technically, preventing Freedom from triggering a T3 break is actually net-negative on EE now, but I choose to eat the minimal cost and keep the full rivalry running. I technically could still hit a strong (max-strength?) rivalry if I do the T4 break in the correct order even if I let it slip here, but I don't want to. It's going well enough I can afford a bit of stubbornness.
D20: We save. Then we start spending the 94 EE we have after that turn - (9 leftover, 45 from the core break event, 25 from end of day activities, and 15 from Void's morality break). First is Dominance and Networked Consciousness, because the latter is just really good. Then we evaluate the new actions unlocked. Axiom and Void unlocked Detonate, and Freedom unlocked Slaughter. This is convenient - we can safely trigger all of these this turn.
This is a good time to consider Detonate math a bit. There are two ways we can handle trying to get one Detonate each from 2 Chosen - we can go 3 captures, and ignore the third (if a Chosen Detonates your last Capture, you don't lose anything), or go 4 captures, hit all 3, and make sure to get the Chosen without Detonate unlocked yet before the second of the Detonating Chosen. That would be considerably more expensive, but it would let us hit Freedom much harder and overall increase the susceptibility of the Chosen more.
We could just barely afford to put out a 3-type Commander and give them 4 captures (it would cost 25 EE to unlock the option), or we could save the EE/put it towards another upgrade. I choose to get aggressive with it. This may seem a little strange after we saved a smaller amount of EE by not using a Commander last turn, but since we're forced into sending out reasonably expensive Commander just to get our breaks this time (I think the bare minimum would be 8, for a Suppressor with 3 captures), and there are 3 times as many adaptations to gain EE from, it feels more worthwhile this time. I could be wrong, this is all feelcraft.
So total shopping list for the day is Dominance, Networked Consciousness, Intelligence, Transcendence, and a 38EE 5-4 INJU/EXPO/HATE commander. This leaves me with 1 EE. Neat! Since I'm not 100% sure of the best target, I make an extra save in a separate slot to avoid re-shopping if I need to change. I go Void first, realise that I need Freedom second and she comes in later than is ideal if I do that, not to mention the early detonate being a little awkward, then reload to go after Freedom first.
I try a few variations, and in the end accept a run that gets the following susceptibility changes:
I basically ended up setting up a very short orgy with 2 of them being pre-extermination, in a weaker version of battle type 2 described above.
This got me two more Core Break events (this time both Friendship) and brought all 3 Chosen to 15EE/day.
D21: New save. I have 136 EE to play with, but this time I'm checking unlocks before I buy anything. I see that I got MOR on Axiom, INN on Void, and CON on Freedom. This is... a little awkward, actually. I can't afford to let Void use Fantasize, because that would trigger a Rivalry Core Break with Axiom, when I want the two as friends. So this is a good time for a turn-by-turn demonstrating deliberately not breaking a T3.
In light of that being the plan, trying to get broad Commander value would be a mistake, since I likely will have to end early. I could just skip the day, but that would be a waste of valuable Susceptibility. Instead, I'll take a cheap-ish Commander in, pick up some Detonate value, and save up for next turn. Since I know I'll want it soon anyway, I go ahead and buy Reality Sealing, and take in a 20 EE Commander: Dominance, 3 captures (4 is pointless with all 3 Chosen detonating, it's 1, 3 or 5), and 6 turns. Dominance is picked because it's going to set up for slightly longer Surrounds on Void while still pushing for INJU for better Detonates.
I do seriously consider going for Mastery and a 5-capture Commander for better Detonate value, but I decide it's not worth the cost on a probably truncated day.
Overall, went way better than expected - sneaking in a 3-turn Orgy before the end of Extermination is really strong even without all actions unlocked/having to end early.
D22: Save. Up to 176 EE after that. The last actions are unlocked now, and since we've gotten past the Rival Core Breaks, that means we can freely break them all now. We're also getting really up there on Axiom's Parasitism susceptibility, which is super convenient, because she's Core DIG and rivaled with Minor DIG. So today's goal will be first and foremost to get her past 1000% on that, second to get Void and Axiom to use Fantasize, and thirdly to get Freedom to use Fantasize for some extra EE.
This is a good turn to go all in - we're about to get a *ton* of EE refunded soon, and next turn could be productive with very little budget. So I pick up Mastery, Ambition, Spite, Soul Resonance, and Passion Release for some extra turns, then create a max cost Commander with what I have. It's a 6-5. I *think* I'll have best results skipping HATE here, so I try first with a Spite + Lust Commander.
I hit Void first, mostly because it worked well last time.
D23: Save the game. We have 146 EE to work with. First, we buy Parasitism, since we're going to need it for a Total Break this turn. We definitely can't afford Completion and a 4-type Commander this turn, so we're stuck with 1 damage type. Still, it should be enough to get some more Susceptibility elsewhere if we pump it up a bit. I go ahead and buy Relentlessness on the theory that it might be worth trying to pump up Detonate susceptibility this turn, though I'm not entirely convinced by the idea. Still, we need it before Completion and it isn't gonna cause us problems to have it now. I end up trying with a 44 EE 6-4 Commander without Flight.
Experimentation quickly determines that this is way more effective than I expected (thanks Punisher damage mods!), and it's totally worth running Flight, so I reload. It actually turns out to be a good example of how you can use Flight to pump up Detonate Susceptibility, so I'll give the turn-by-turn and let it stand as an example of both how you can use a baseline Punisher and how you can use Flight. This isn't optimal play - I probably missed out on a couple Orgy turns. But it's good enough, especially for a turn I wasn't expecting to get nearly this much value.
Target Void. Why? Habit, mostly, and it worked on the test.
The one unfortunate thing about this fight is that Axiom is still doing 15 EE group actions instead of 50 EE solo actions. Still, we should be able to fix that soon.
NOTE: Starting from Day 24, this was played on R50, while previous parts of the guide were performed on R49.
D24: Save. We have Void and Freedom vulnerable to T4 MOR break, so we're gonna do that. Buy Impregnation, buy a 54 EE commander because it worked so well last time. Entirely plausible HATE is less effective than EXPO was, though.
Ambush Void, set up an early Orgy like before. Actually was more effective than last time, gonna attribute that to having higher overall Impregnation effectiveness.
(I should note that even though I'm not including susceptibility% after the T4 break is achieved, because the game doesn't show it at the end of the fight, it does still go up)
Axiom starts performing 50EE solo actions and Freedom/Void start 100EE 2-person actions. We're finally generating endgame levels of EE.
NOTE: When played on R49, a very similar attack today resulted in 45EE full group actions instead.
D25: All we really need to focus on now is triggering T4 breaks and maxing out CON susceptibility on the Axiom and Freedom. No real need for elaborate early orgy setups, we just need to hit double-digit Pain each day on one target. We'll start with another 54EE Impregnation commander to finish that break on Axiom. It's worth keeping in mind here that we need at least one day for every Punisher type, so getting what we can out of the way early is ideal.
We're also going to give one last turn by turn here to demonstrate a battle where we use the Commander on the same Chosen 3 times. I will add that this was extraordinarily trial-and-error based, and for a while I thought I might not be able to do better than a 4-turn Orgy pre-extermination here. My best advice based on this experience is "when in doubt, try Surrounding every single time you can"
Quite happy with this result. 780% Drain susceptibility in one day is nothing to scoff at - this kind of thing is why an early T3 CON break can sometimes be leveraged into a T4 CON break in just a couple of turns.
D26: Save. We now have a kind of narrow path to tread if we don't wanna miss days to Punishers. We need to break all 3 INNs, 2 DIGS, unlock 1 more CON, and break all 3 CONs, and we'd like to do that in 3 days, if possible. That means we have at most 2 days to get 660% Drain Susceptibility on Freedom, and we can't smack her with all 3 Commanders either of those times. On the INN day, she gets at most 1, and on the DIG day, she gets at most 2... is what I would say, if it weren't for an edge case I hadn't remembered till it came up just now. If a Chosen instantly Detonates, they avoid a Total Break, even if they'd otherwise get it. So on the DIG day, Freedom needs an early one, Void needs an early one, and then I just have one Capture left for Susceptibility%.
That means I should be going for a slightly different setup than last time, double Orgying the group and Capturing on the last turn of the battle. The early part of this is basically what we did on Day 23. In the end, I swing a 420% level 14 Detonate, bringing Freedom to 790% total.
D27: Save. We finally buy Hypnosis. We also buy Drain. Unfortunately, we're going to lose a turn here, because of the instant Detonation rule. 210% in one Capture just won't work for us. Technically, we can afford to buy Enormity and spend an extra 30 EE for a slightly longer-lasting Commander, but we don't need that upgrade, ever, for anything else, so we're skipping it outright. Possibly we could go back several turns and replay to avoid this, but I think we need the turn for EE anyway, so it's not a big deal. Today we run a 44EE Hypnosis Commander, since we won't need Flight. We get 120% Drain Susceptibility on Freedom, Total INN Breaks on everyone, and retreat for 3EE.
D28: Might as well be economical with EE here; a pair of 3-capture Drainers over the next two turns is cheaper than a 5-capture and a 1-capture, so today we'll Break Void and get the last 90% on Freedom, and tomorrow we'll finish Axiom and Freedom.
I send out a 14EE 6-2 Drainer, and get what I wanted.
D29: One more 14EE 6-2 Drainer. It's a quick battle, and I finally have full T4 Breaks on all the Chosen.
D30: It's time to end the game. We've got 661 EE saved up, thanks to avoiding 100EE upgrades so far, and we're gonna splurge almost all of that on a very basic endgame package: Threaten+, Completion, Imago Quickening, and a 110EE 6/5 4-type Commander. This is pretty minimal; having Empathy or Antipathy would greatly simplify things, but we don't strictly need them. Threaten+ is pretty crucial here; with all 3 T4 MOR breaks, it's far and away the strongest Final Battle basic action, dealing more Resolve damage than any of the others without the condition on Taunt+ (I spent a while trying to make breaking the Resolve of all 3 work with Taunt+ instead, and kept coming up 1 turn short).
The important things to remember for getting a total victory on the Final Battle without Empathy/Distortions/Antipathy are: You cannot let *any* Chosen *ever* take a turn after Extermination ends, but you do get to hit each one of them once to finish them off, if you follow the next requirement. 2 Chosen have to be Captured/Surrounded/Broken before Extermination ends. You cannot deal Resolve damage to a Captured or Surrounded Chosen, so they have to be within 1 hit of defeat before Extermination ends. It's difficult, though possible, to 2-shot a 100% Resolve Chosen, but fairly manageable to 3-shot them.
And with that, the Classic guide is finally finished. Pretty happy the playthrough finished within 30 Days without missing any Breaks or going full Rival spam, though it did require the 105 EE I netted by updating to the latest game version with the Greater sins changes. I welcome feedback on anything I left unclear or that you think seems inconsistent.
i love this game but i am awful at it. Is there a chance that a "moron" or "game journalist" difficulty could be added? Cheating takes much of the fun out of it but playing normally is super hard
i love this game but i am awful at it. Is there a chance that a "moron" or "game journalist" difficulty could be added? Cheating takes much of the fun out of it but playing normally is super hard
The odds of getting an easy mode added independent of using cheats is unlikely. Though I can refer you to three guides I wrote that might help you learn the game.
Just got myself Release 50 after not having played for a while (last played release was 44) and the game started only once for me, now it's just an empty box with nothing happening.
Coincidentally, CPU usage is also 0% once the empty box is there.
I've tried running just the .exe, and .jar, running the .exe in admin mode, restarting my PC as well as re-downloading but to no avail.
Anyone know what's suddenly up with that/how to fix?
When adding new custom Chosen, is there a way to add them to an existing save file? I'm a few loops in and would rather not restart, but I'd also like to see some of the custom Chosen in my campaign.
I think one thing that would be interesting is if when Chosen are getting filled with eggs that it would show in their description when done by Forsaken.
Anyone else having issues with the game freezing up whenever someone cums in a sex scene with an active mark? I almost exclusively play with male chosen if that affects anything, but I'm running into problems with all of them with the mark regardless of personality.
Anyone else having issues with the game freezing up whenever someone cums in a sex scene with an active mark? I almost exclusively play with male chosen if that affects anything, but I'm running into problems with all of them with the mark regardless of personality.
I haven't been having issues but the chosen I've used the mark on are all female so it might because your chosen are male, in any case uploading your save will allow CSDev to take a better a look at it and upload a bugfix if possible!
Got a bug report!
Was experimenting with the new Lilith's Awakening vignette, and the related Mark of the Succubus. If you visit a chosen with the mark (I don't know if this triggers with the tool, I've just seen it with the vignette mark.), and get them to LV.3 HATE and PLEA at the same time, the game freezes.
Chosen: Truth
Body: Foxy
Save: Slot 1, test
Replicate: Just Activate the mark, then wait twice.
Looking at the above issue, this might be related to them cumming, not reaching LV.3 HATE and PLEA at the same time.
Got a bug report!
Was experimenting with the new Lilith's Awakening vignette, and the related Mark of the Succubus. If you visit a chosen with the mark (I don't know if this triggers with the tool, I've just seen it with the vignette mark.), and get them to LV.3 HATE and PLEA at the same time, the game freezes.
Chosen: Truth
Body: Foxy
Save: Slot 1, test
Replicate: Just Activate the mark, then wait twice.
Looking at the above issue, this might be related to them cumming, not reaching LV.3 HATE and PLEA at the same time.
I'm pretty sure Contemplative Yearning's pack includes both male and female versions for some of the Chosen, but I think it's only a handful. Beyond that I don't think any of the packs posted here have male Chosen, at least none of the ones I'm familiar with.
