Some comments on that guide:
Everything has costs and benefits. Living in the Slums is hard, but it is also cheap. Having an assistant can help but you also have to pay for her (meals).
Food ingredients are not all the same price. If you go to the Gastronomicon store in White Town, you can see the prices.
This is time-saving advice, if you can afford it. Depends on your starting sparks and slaver stats, and how quickly you'll be able to train your first slave. You might want to wait until you know what you are dealing with before you commit yourself.
Stethoscope is sold by Serpentine district medical center now. It is also 100$. It's a useful tool for detecting problems early, but it is not a must-have item at the beginning of the game. Likewise, Aketon and Wizard's robe are not must-have at the beginning of the game. If you have no magic skill at all, you can level up by failing to cast auspex repeatedly. If you have no fighting skill at all, you can level up by repeatedly losing practice fights at the colosseum.
Buying a weapon at the start is another cost vs. benefit decision. A weapon helps you in battles. Which battles will you be fighting? If your slave rebels, you will need to fight her. For that type of battle, if you want to avoid damaging her, you would be better off with a weapon type that does morale damage, like a lash, a whip, or a cattle prod.
Each weapon has a specific damage type, either slashing, crushing, piercing or morale. The damage type determines which of the opponent's vitality, stamina and morale will be damaged when you hit them. The amount of damage depends on the weapons, the slaver's stats and the opponent's armor. If your slaver has low strength or whip skill, a weapon like a stiletto or rapier will do more damage, because they do not depend on strength.
Bryn is a
You must be registered to see the links
. It's misleading to say that Swift Strike is one of the better ones.
The special techniques Roundhouse Kick and Battle Cry work with any weapon, the others only work if you have a weapon of a certain type. Each lesson also costs more than the previous ones.
"You attacking will lower stamina" is incorrect. "You getting hit will lower health" is also incorrect. It depends what weapon type or special attack the opponent is using. For example, if they hit you with a whip, which only does morale damage, then only your morale will be affected. If they hit you with a mace, that is crushing damage, which will lower your health, stamina and morale.
Just like you gain morale based on the amount of damage you do, the same is true for your opponent.
The advice not to start with a loli is justified later in the guide: lolis have a harder time in the arena. (Because they have less health.) That's true, but it is certainly possible to win with a loli, especially the first few decades.
Before going to the auction, it's a good idea to check with the guild to see if they have a good contract offer for you. They give you a slave for free, and they give you a pre-payment, so you have some extra sparks at the beginning of training. You don't need to worry about the slave's charm when completing a guild contract, so you may also save some sparks at the end. The guild pays less than other buyers would, but if you complete the contract fast, you can get a bonus.
B+ is average. Beauty, endurance, empathy, exoticism and style do not directly affect obedience. The higher the other attributes, the more disobedient they will be at first. Higher attributes also cost more. The cheapest price you can find at the auction is 20$.
Higher endurance gives more energy, so it's helpful. Higher empathy makes a slave easier to frighten into obedience but also more vulnerable to depression. A slave with high empathy also will dislike fighting.
Relative stats of the slaver vs. the slave affect how easily the slave will submit. In auspex you can see the relative strength of the aura. Having a stronger aura makes a slave less likely to think they could win a fight against the slaver.
Lolis have a naturally weaker aura than older slaves, so that's something to consider if your slaver is weak. Also, slavers have an easier time with lolis, especially the teacher, the old man, and the kid. The teacher also does well with young slaves. Conversely, the butler is at his best with mature slaves.
It's a good idea to check for health issues if you do not have a stethoscope or the slaver has low medical skill. The only urgent thing to treat is a parasite. Rotphilis isn't healthy but she might recover naturally given time. Scars lower the slave's beauty and mood, but they aren't harmful. Getting her sterilized immediately is not necessary. Surgery consumes some of her energy and damages her health. It's usually a waste of sparks for your first slave. You can do plenty of sex training without risking her getting pregnant.
Casting Adverto Servili requires high mage skill. It costs 25$. It also gives her extra energy based on her endurance, so it's often a waste to cast it on day one. (An exception can be if she is sick, because it will also cure her.) If you have a dungeon, you can save 10$ (cost of a tattoo brand) by branding her yourself. Just be prepared for a possible fight when you come at her with the branding iron.
Giving her a collar is good advice. A standard collar is cheapest, but not best. If she is at least B+ gladiatrix or pet skill, she will be happier wearing a spiked collar. If she's prideful or needs taming, you might want to put a steel collar on her, but keep an eye on her mood.
This is outdated information. If the slave is fearful, she will not spoil for lack of rules.
Enforcing rules can quickly drive a slave into depression. Watch out for high empathy.
No masturbation and deny orgasm rules are safest at the start because a disobedient slave has no desire to break them. On normal difficulty, 2 rules is enough to avoid spoiling even if the slave is not fearful.
Humility or bath slave rules on a disobedient slave will fail; you can't enforce them.
Your success with this depends on your slaver's stats and aura vs. the slave's. Effectively, you are threatening her to increase her fear and her awareness. If she's stupid, this is less effective. If she's very disobedient, this is less effective. If you wait until she is obedient, it's too late.
Sleeping on the floor is better while she's disobedient, but keep an eye on her mood and her health.
Dried food unless you have a fiend, in which case it may be cheaper to feed her that. She won't like it, but you can solve that for 30$ with a tattoo.
Using nutritionist is expensive (5$ per day). Not a good idea at the beginning. Click the calculator icon on her rules screen and read the help text.
This is good general advice, but there are exceptions. Energy spent today is debt that must be paid tomorrow. If the slave has red energy stars and you make her take another action, her health will be affected. Sometimes that's an acceptable price.
Or not.
Tremendio also makes her depressed, and although it increases her fear, it might not be enough to raise it to the next level. Use with care.
Magna Magnifika is great for achieving aura supremacy, but it's also expensive. If you have aura supremacy without it, you can save a lot of sparks. Which again raises the question of "is it better to start with a loli?"
Yes and no. It's definitely helpful to have more endurance, but she can develop endurance much faster when she's obedient. An Ecstatic slave wearing a leotard and sneakers can go from A+ to S+ endurance in less than a decade. The more endurance she has, the easier it is to gain more. Conversely, if she's weak, she will be more reluctant to train. Also, her pride is a factor. For all these reasons, Athletics is not the "first" thing to train. If she's willing to do it, great. If not, try something else.
Depends on the slave. A slave who is prideful or intellectual will see housekeeping as beneath them. A slave who is very athletic may be willing to do sports or dance or martial arts before they are willing to sweep the floor. An intellectual slave may prefer low-physical-effort tasks like sitting doing paperwork or practicing elocution, especially if they have low endurance. A temperamental slave may be more willing to paint. Etc.
Rewarding her for merit is a good idea, but it doesn't have to be a sundress. In fact, giving her a sundress will spoil her if she has less than 2 merit. The sundress (and soft slippers) are comfortable. This can improve her mood, but only to a point. If she's already happy enough for other reasons, having her wear something appropriate to the training you are doing can yield better results. You can also buy a sundress for her from the boutique in White Town.
Selecting a reward or punishment depends on several things. Does she need more calories today to avoid starvation? Does she have a trait that makes a particular type more or less effective? Have you used the same type of reward or punishment recently? Variety of rewards improves a slave's mood. The higher the tier of the reward, the longer it will affect the slave. Asking her how she is feeling - when she is obedient enough to answer - is a good way of keeping track of which types of rewards you have given recently.
Variety of punishments can harm her mood, but may be necessary if the method you are using is not effective. The slaver's stats and skills can make certain punishments more effective than others. Verbal punishments also lose effectiveness quickly with repetition.
If you reward her too often, you will spoil her. But, a spoiled slave feels more merit, which means you can reward her more.
At first, a slave does not feel much guilt. Over time, as she becomes more fearful or learns to anticipate punishment, she will feel more guilty. Guilt is measuring
how harshly she expects to be punished. If you punish her in a way that she sees as being less harsh, you will spoil her. If you punish her ineffectively
but at the level of her guilt, you'll simply make her feel some relief. Letting her guilt go unpunished will make her feel some relief also, but will undermine her obedience. So it's better to ineffectively punish her than not to punish her. But, that's only true if you haven't punished her already. Regardless of how deserved it is, if you punish her too often, she will become depressed. So, it's in your best interest to minimize how often she needs to be punished, by directing her towards activities where she can succeed.
As covered above, this is not necessarily the best plan.
She's capable of training without a sundress too. The guide is assuming that you've only given her a sundress after she has earned some merit, which implies that you found something she was willing to do. One thing to keep in mind is that a naked slave is usually unhappy about that fact (highly trained exhibitionists excepted). So, giving her
anything to wear on her body can help her mood.
As for spells, Auspex and Magna Magnifika are useful forever, but MM is most valuable if the slave's aura is stronger than the slaver's without it.
Variety is better than focusing on just one subject when you're building obedience. She'll feel more merit doing new things, so you'll be able to reward her more. You can also provide variety of instructors. Hire tutors, take her to school, have your assistant teach her. Tutors are relatively cheap for low-level skills, and slaves can't refuse tutoring or going to school like they can refuse personal or assistant lessons, but their motivation still determines the result. You can help their motivation by dressing them appropriately.
Sweet treat rewards like chocolate give her calories. So these are best used to manage her weight or prevent her from starving (ending day with calories lower than -500).
Rest rewards like the hot springs "use" her energy, but energy spent on "rest for an hour" or "rest until evening" is refunded at the end of the day and can carry over the following day. If you leave her with unspent energy at the end of the day, she automatically rests (without it being treated as a reward), and it can help her mood. So don't feel obliged to spend all of her energy every day, especially if she has lower than S+ endurance.
Garden of Gethsemane helps slaves who are depressed or spoiled. The Golden Cage is a great reward when she has enough merit and energy, but watch out that you don't spoil her with it. Delikacia is a good alternative to the Cage, but it drains intellect, so be careful not to overdo it.
The plaid blanket reward helps with depression, and the plush toy helps her sleep better, which gives a bit of extra energy, so those are good gifts to give early. I have no idea why the guide says to only get them if she has a 5-point reward. They are tier-2 and tier-3 rewards.
Promising a reward or gift is good for variety if you have not given her any praise recently, but it's not necessary to use it every time before actually giving a reward or gift the next time. Be aware that when you promise or reward or gift, if the next reward you give does not live up to expectations, the slave may be less happy as a result, until you "make good" on the promise. And, after repeated promises, a slave may expect higher-tier rewards.
D- comes first. At D-, a slave is obedient enough to follow some rules without forcing, for example bath slave, humility, pet rule, perhaps deny toileting. Silence rule maybe not, depends on her temperament. At this point you can also start using erotic rewards and "spend time with" rewards (slaver's allure is important here). Intimacy helps build devotion. "Spend time with" can be used earlier too, but a disobedient slave does not like it as much.
You can start sex training before D+, especially if she is aroused and not prideful. Don't overlook the demonstration category. Keep in mind that condoms do not exist in the Eternal Rome. If the slave is fertile, you can try the rhythm method if you don't want to pay for treatment.
Sex training will produce a lot of merit. Don't reward too often.
With 2 stars of devotion, you can let her sleep in your bed (but ask how she feels in the morning after) and also give her your leftovers.
Letting her sleep in a boudoir and giving her fresh food can start from 1 star of devotion.
If she does get spoiled, you can take away some privileges for a few days, or just let things play out.
The arena can be a good source of income, paying at least 50 sparks for every win and more than double that for a veteran champion. You can also send more than one slave to fight every decade, depending on your reputation (brand reputation or guild reputation, whichever is higher). But, your slaves will often be injured, which is a cost of its own, especially if you do not have high medical skill or a supply of healing balm, and a Gladiatrix slave is more likely to fight you when you try to punish her.
The Bull Ring does not give you unlimited energy, but it cuts all energy costs in half, rounded down. That makes some actions cost no energy for the slaver, such as bathing, traveling between districts, escorting a slave to school, casting spells, and the first two "spend time with" rewards.
