Did another "zero start" with 2.2.1. Hard game difficulty, minimum everything (200$, D- strength, F- all else). Bought a 50$ slave from the market on day 1. Young, Beautiful, Feeble, Caring, Reactive, Bright, Cowardly, Open, Slender. Started with D- cow skill, D- in oral/penetration/group/demonstration, all else F-.
Snapshot on day 47:
Never took any loans, never took a guild contract.
6$ remaining, 2 days until next battle (will become an arena champion and earn at least 50$).
Slave is ranked C- (only needs more common skills training to rank up to C+), Healthy, Uncertain, Model. All other attributes same as start, although pride did go up to Timid for a while, and physique went up to Voluptuous. Common skills learned so far: Maid B+, Secretary B+, Gladiatrix B+, Figurant C-, Trained Ear C-, Housebroken C-. Slave has Musical Prodigy and Weakened Metabolism traits (discovered so far). Clothing purchased for slave: light sundress, soft slippers, hijab, leather collar, spiked collar, crown of thorns.
Master attributes are Weak, Loser, Repulsive, Impotent, Compliant, Recognised, unharmed, all else F-. Skills are Houseboy C-, Brawler D-, all else F-. No clothing purchased for master.
Observations:
The slave spent some time spoiled because I fed her 2 un-earned doses of ambrosia in exchange for spoiling to boost her endurance faster; the arena reward paid for the ambrosia but not the healing cost afterward.
The slave gained some despair thanks to A+ empathy and low mood early on.
The slave was ill for a long time; she started with Rotphilis, and instead of paying 25$ to cure it, I waited for it to heal on its own, which it eventually did after she reached B+ endurance.
The musical prodigy trait helped with mood management after I knew about it, but that was only after she was already obedient enough to tell me what she wanted to do. Because of the spoiling, it took a while before she was even willing to do housework.
Arena income was just barely enough to pay the bills (with the slave mostly on a restricted diet) and occasional $ for mood management. Spent a few days between battles with 0$.
Since loans were always an option in reserve, I was a bit less careful with sparks than I could have been. For example, at one point I paid 13$ for master spa treatments, but the benefits only lasted for one day, so that was a waste. Some hot springs / beach outings probably were unnecessary also.
However, I failed ironman. I had two bad ends that I rolled back (a mistake early on caused the slave to succeed in an overnight murder attempt, which was a game-over, and an arena opponent murdered her once, which I opted to revert instead of trying to play it out; if I were playing ironman in the latter case I probably would've taken a guild contract at that point).
