EDIT: the new version was not posted when I started typing this. I may have to revise this post when I am done looking at it.
edit edit: So yea the new version halves rents for everything not hard, which should make the game a lot more reasonable, and certainly makes rent payable for all not-hard.... which has been renamed to extreme, which again I think solves a ton of problems. Ill leave my post up, because I think my analysis might still be interesting, but certainly less valuable now with the patch.
So... again. just trying to keep up with the discussions.
According the the dev, and with my own experience: Training B+ slaves and selling them to the very specific guild auction is about enough to pay the bills, with maybe a bit of extra profit left over.
And, my own experience, and seems to be the experience of pretty much everyone else here: Training anything short of B+ slaves is probably not enough to pay the rent.
I haven't really looked at higher grade slaves yet.
Now the guild auction has always been sort of... outside of my view. for whatever reason. I knew it exists, but it never seemed obvious to me that it is the 'earn most money here' button. I have no idea why this is... maybe I auctioned a slave without increasing her charm, and thought 'this place makes no money, never again'. maybe the guild people need to mention it more often. Maybe you could pay someone a tip to ask them 'whats the best way to sell slaves' and they say 'B+ slaves with multiple specializations and high charm at the guild auction duh!'
So. The problem becomes: The game constantly wants you to NOT train b+ slaves.... when you start, the little goals say
"train a D+ slave to increase your brand rep" and "sell a D+ slave to each of these 4 people",
THEN
"train a C+ slave to increase your brand rep" and "sell a C+ slave to each of these 4 people."
THEN start messing with B+ slaves.
Kinda sorta same thing with guild contracts: Do a D slave, to unlock C slaves to unlock B slaves... But right now as it is, guild contracts look incredibly inviting to new players... money up front, leveling up your guild rating... It looks like the way to go. But guild contracts are simply not viable at all, at least on hard. (Again, in the old version, doing a guild contract on time was enough to pay the rent. Now it is not even close.)
So. If the cash flow balance is centered around B+ slaves at auction... which really seems to be the best way to get money... But the in game and out of game prompts (
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is probably the most visible thing that says train D slaves for quick money) to new players is to not do that at all.
Does that make sense?
If. maybe. Id like to think at least... You should be able to train and sell D ranked slaves and make rent in the outcasts district, C ranked in the anthill, B ranked in Bull, A ranked in necropolis, and S ranked in white town. And that should be (rent(no extensions)+ forced living expenses + 40 dollar food bill ) * the time the game tells you how long it should take to train a slave.
which is:
contract_time[0] = 0 &! F-
contract_time[1] = 40 &! D-
contract_time[2] = 45 &! D+ $500
contract_time[3] = 50 &! C-
contract_time[4] = 55 &! C+ $1000
contract_time[5] = 60 &! B-
contract_time[6] = 65 &! B+ $3500
contract_time[7] = 70 &! A-
contract_time[8] = 80 &! A+ $5500
contract_time[9] = 100 &! S-
contract_time[10] = 120 &! S+ $8000
So if we were to calculate, rent+living expenses(no assistant)+F ranked food bill(no assistant) in the outcasts should be ~125
Anthill should be ~200
Bull should be ~600!! (actually close to what it is on hard I think)
Necro should be ~700 (how are the undead so rich and prestigious anyway? i never quite got that part, until I looked at the code, i always thought of the bull quarter as the cool kids club .)
White town should be ~650???
ah! And I think here we might see the problem. B+ slaves are far above the curve when it comes to payment vs time required to train. Now, that might make sense lore-wise, because there are probably a much higher number of B+ buyers compared to the high nobles who want the higher ranked slaves. But when it comes to game balance, If you are balancing around the high point, every other point is going to fall short, as it does.
Maybe you could do something else to smooth the curve until players are able to start training B+ slaves like... just spitballing some stupid ideas here: You dont get the free assistant (free assistant op plz nerf) until you move into the bull or better. The free barn in the outcasts Is such a herring because you need to have been able to get a whole bunch of slaves all trained up in order to use it... Id take it away and lower the rent by how much the barn is 'worth'.
TLDR: B+ ranked slaves are by far the most profitable slaves to train, but the game steers players away from both them AND the best way to sell them, hence everyone thinking the game is very hard.