Hmmm, weird. I never touched the window size, but I see when I maximize the game to fit my screen that I can see it more clearly. Good to know.
QSP Jack-o-Nine-Tails [v2.3] [ImperatorAugustusTertius / qwertyu12359]
Also, is the whip meant to be hard locked behind only 2 special techniques? Battle cry and roundhouse kick seem to work with it, but since the whip doesn't appear to count as slashing, piercing, or blunt, it won't work with any of the other special abilities. That feels like a pretty big penalty considering how powerful those abilities are and that a weapon with one of those qualities could effectively use twice as many. Is that an intentional effort to penalize it?
I just gave Vujin the wise the most pathetic lemon! 5 despair suicidal, murderous (literally 3 nights in a row she tried to kill me) girl with a B rank pony skill!
It was a stupid tough race course, and I had my slave ploddle though at 1 mph the whole way, (not quite, we actually went forward at -2 mph for a minute there, which was really impressive) but whadaa know, EVERYONE ELSE CRASHED so we 'won the race'.
rofls.
It was a stupid tough race course, and I had my slave ploddle though at 1 mph the whole way, (not quite, we actually went forward at -2 mph for a minute there, which was really impressive) but whadaa know, EVERYONE ELSE CRASHED so we 'won the race'.
rofls.
I was describing how you could, if you wanted to, avoid selling slaves at all. That particular strategy does depend on the colosseum, because in the Slums you don't have other income in the early game. But, it's a challenge on top of extreme challenge, to do that.
Selling slaves at guild auctions can be a good source of income, but it varies. I've seen a D+ bring in 1000+ sparks at auction. On the other hand, I've seen a C- (even with multiple specializations, a spa makeover and stylish clothing) bring in 855. Living in the Slums is a lot cheaper than that so you can save up enough to transition into an apartment and then quickly populate the barn to help offset costs.
The whip isn't any of those types, so yes, it's limited. But, you can dual wield a whip and another one-handed weapon. Put the other weapon first so you can use the specials with it.
Again I really do appreciate you taking the time to help me figure it all out. I promise I'm not trying to be critical or a pain in the ass. I think the main reason I'm sharing my thoughts and questions and such is because you guys might find it useful to know what less experienced users that don't already know all the mechanics are seeing and how they're working through it. lol.
When it comes to the auctions, I just don't understand how that is meant to work. The description in the wiki portrays it as a great place to sell your A+ and S+ slaves in the end game as it's really the only place that'll buy them once you've finished satisfying the leader's demands for them. It also suggests they need to be well rounded satisfying several specializations in order to bring in a good price, so I'm personally highly reluctant to make any kinds of plans involving it at this point. lol. Especially when the prices listed for auctions in the wiki as compared to alternative selling options is so much lower than the others. I feel like you're essentially playing Russian roulette by choosing that option early game as you'll effectively be screwed if you don't get the kind of price you need from it.
I think that's my biggest complaint with extreme difficulty honestly. I want it to be hard and I chose it for a reason. lol. But there's basically no wriggle room at all. There's no writing a slave off as lost and selling it for meat, or watching it get killed in an arena fight and continuing. At least not with your first slave. That happens and it's essentially game over, time to restart. Those fallback options seem to only be viable in lesser difficulty modes. lol. In my case it's resulting in a lot of blatant save scumming as I experiment to try to learn. lol.
That whole battlecry/dashing strike into roundhouse kick combo is seriously brutal. Currently managing to defeat the shinobe opponent in 3-4 turns after a roundhouse that does 60+ damage. lol. I've seen on the wiki it's possible to get it even higher, but it's already proving very effective for me.
- Apr 12, 2021
- 290
- 146
How many "teaching" attempts does it take to start seeing an increase in that slaver stat? I've tried personally teaching at least a few dozen times between the 3 girls but still F rank in it.
- Aug 1, 2017
- 1,638
- 1,823
50 to D-
50 more to C-
100 more to B+
Takes time to become better than school/tutors.
We appreciate you taking the time to share your experiences.
The wiki is not a reliable source of information about the game. It is not maintained by the devs and it's a mix of info about multiple versions of the game, mostly not up to date and sometimes wrong even at the time it was written. My experience has been different. Sometimes the auction gives a lower value than you could get elsewhere (e.g. 605 for a C-), but usually if you attend to charm the value is at least competitive. And the upside can be significant.
Worst case, there’s always the option of selling the slave somewhere else if you’re in a hurry. For example, several places buy unlimited slaves without caring about charm: real estate office, medical center, brothel, gentlemen’s club, public animal farm, pub. War camp also doesn’t care about charm, but isn’t always looking to buy (sometimes off-camera another slaver sells to the war camp and then there’s a cooldown before they are ready to buy another).
There are also loans as a fallback. Given 500$ and 3 decades, you just need to find a way to earn 600$ to repay. During that time you can get at least 100$ from two arena wins (subtract 10-20$ for medical if you aren’t using the “disposable slave” tactic I described earlier). Possibly 150$ depending on how the timing aligns with the arena schedule.
Can you train a D+ within 3 decades? If so, that’s at least 750$ to a district resident, so repayment of a 30-day loan is covered with 150$ to spare (plus whatever you didn't spend of the loan). If not, you can try the auction at D-, or sell a D- to the subpurchaser (250 if not mindbroken, 150 if mindbroken). If you didn’t spend much of the loan, this may be enough to repay it.
By using harsh methods (not trying to avoid raising despair) on a slave you are planning to give to the subpurchaser, you can reach D- much faster. Incidentally, this is also a way to get more value from slaves you “rescue” from the Fogs and don’t plan to keep long-term.
You can also start a guild contract just before loan is due, which will give you a prepayment that you can also hand over to the moneylender if needed.
So it is possible to recover from loss of a slave even if you have zero savings; if you lose your slave but have some savings, you don’t need to take a loan immediately, so it’s easier to get to a point where you can repay a loan with some profit.
Extreme difficulty encourages you to find strategies like this.
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A slave I picked up from the guild has A+ Endurance (not even S) and she's recovering 6 energy from 0 at the beginning of each day, with only Philtre active (I've used Tonics on her in the past, but not recently). While this is awesome and I certainly can't complain, I was wondering what might cause this so that I can reproduce it on other slaves? I've also noticed she's able to be Ecstatic while living in basically impoverished settings; none of my other slaves I trained, even Isabella get that high.
Been playing the game for a while over the updates and really do love the work that's been put into it. Keep up the great work devs!
Been playing the game for a while over the updates and really do love the work that's been put into it. Keep up the great work devs!
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Is she your assistant or your slave? Assistants who are addicted to drugs (kamra, pollen) will help themselves to your supply.
A slave can have extra energy from fresh food, sleeping in boudoir, sleeping with the master, or sleeping on a bedroll with a stuffed toy.
She's a slave, unable to be an assistant with only the philtre devotion point on her. Here's a screenshot.
ah, gotcha, boudoirs didn't used to give that extra energy beyond 5, so that's why I was confused. that's the reason indeed, thank you!
Well the gladiatrix approach is working for me ATM. I personally wish there were more viable options and I am hearing what you're saying with the examples you've shared but it feels to me there's really only one right way to play on extreme and ATM its going well for me.
It's 39 days into training her to A+ in both endurance (started C+) and gladiatrix (started F-) and she just won her 4th arena fight. Which coincidentally was the first purse I've made over 50 (56).
I'm still currently losing money on her as those winnings aren't enough to offset the cost to feed/heal/reward her but it's at least paying for enough of it that I'm not going to feel a ton of pressure to sell her immediately. Which is good because she's still not even a D rank yet. Lol. She's still got 2 rebellion with just 1 fear, 3 awareness, 2 taming, 4 habit, and no despair/spoiling so not in a bad place all in all. I simply prioritized training for the arena over obedience as that's the only way I have to mitigate the time pressure to sell in a hurry.
My plan is to transition into training her pony skills next to start using her in the races too, by which point her lack of obedience will likely sort itself out on its own and begin the path to devotion while I begin the process of building her up to a B+ as that again feels like the only viable option if I ever want to get out of the slums (i still wish there was better a better sense of progression but i understand you guys feel differently).
She's already doing well with gladiatrix skills. She also has the graceful and painting traits, and while she has a weak metabolism that hasn't been tough to manage considering all the physical exertion. Got her to model physique already and I've been adjusting diet to keep her there which has forced me to spend more on generous portions on several occasions.
That level of exertion should become easier to manage now though as I transition her training to other areas. If I'm going to sell her at auction then I want her to qualify for a few different specializations.
Getting her to qualify as an actual gladiatrix seems like it should be easy as all I need to do for that now (other that obedience in the first place) is get her temperament from C to B and its already moving in that direction. Both it and nature started as D so I've made good progress there.
Next with her special traits it feels like it makes sense to specialize her as an artist as well and I'm already halfway there. Getting her to green (already B) as a painter should be relatively easy to do as well minimizing the expense of training her.
And lastly since she's already highly intelligent I'll probably go ahead and specialize her as an assistant as well as she'll likely pick up on it quickly and cheaply and give me an opportunity to personally train her more.
It's my hope that all these qualities will make her valuable at auction and the only thing standing in my way from doing it is time but the arena options are buying me that.
What would we need to do to create another "right way" in your view? What makes a certain way "right"? Money management has two sides, income and expenses. I gave examples of various ways you can minimize expenses or get income. That seems like multiple ways to me.
Some of the non-district-resident NPCs who buy slaves allow you to negotiate the price, which adds another layer of possibilities on the income side.
You may have to skip some battles to avoid losing her when she becomes a champion. She will stay if she has devotion than fear.
By better sense of progression, do you specifically think C- or C+ rating should have a higher value?
Were you mostly keeping her on moderate portion or on restricted?
I think what he's been getting at, and mentioned earlier are way for other skills to earn you money, beside some of them helping you slightly mitigate expenses, Painter could over time finish paintings you sell for monetary gains, small to medium based on skill, dancer could be sent to perform, concubines could be sent to the brothel, small ways like these where most all skills could gain you some time.
We’ve been thinking about introducing a new guild-sponsored event once per decade where you test your slave against rival guild members’ slaves in a choice of contests: cooking, alchemy, witchcraft, dance, music or painting.
To make it more immersive, we could simulate the rivals’ slaves developing over time and you would see some of the same ones appear in multiple contests.
It would have a rule that only slaves of the same rating can compete against each other, and there would be a lifetime limit of five competitions per slave, so that the participants wouldn’t be able to always put their best slave but instead need to keep bringing new ones.
This would also give us a framework for adding more interaction with other guild NPCs, with event chains, special missions and the like.
Yeah I've seen that though I'm working to build my brand up a bit more first as the wiki states bartering with a weak brand is usually more harmful than good which makes sense. My brand is currently C which isn't bad, and I'll likely be taking advantage of the negotiations whenever I have to sell to them that way, but I've basically committed to selling this slave at auction so I can see for myself what kind of worth I can get from the effort. I don't yet have a plan for the slaves that will follow but that is potentially something I'll look to take advantage of as it would appear to be highly worthwhile on the whole.
Yeah this is something I've been meaning to ask about. Is it a set number of battles before they become a champion and can become free, or is it tied to the slave's fame from winning those battles? Because I saw in the changelog that the number of fights to reach S+ rank was increased, so wasn't 100% sure if that changed how quickly you'd face the prospect of losing your champion. Ultimately I thiiiiink I'll be ok on this front. I don't think she's very far off from obedience and the devotion shouldn't be very far off behind that and her fear is minimal and can probably be eliminated entirely pretty easily.
I had her on moderate most of the time. I did restrict her for a little bit early on when her endurance was low and didn't have the energy (or willingness) to do enough to work it all off and she was getting precariously close to jumping beyond slender. But once she started fighting and letting me personally train her in fighting more myself (I'm A in both, working my way to S) I had her on moderate and she started burning through those calories way too fast for my comfort. I put her on generous for awhile even while she was still slender, because I liked having the extra cushion before she became bony, but eventually I let her drop to model and have just been more carefully managing from there. She's currently restricted because she's halfway towards jumping back up to slender so I'm going to burn some of that back off once her energy returns from the last arena fight and then return her to moderate for simpler training.
Again I really don't mean to be critical in any way. I get that people simply have different visions for things sometimes and you guys have tailored the extreme difficulty based on your vision for that, and I have absolutely no doubt that you've put a lot of time and thought into all of it, so I'm not trying to shit on that in any way shape or form.
But yeah, my personal vision and perspective on things differs from yours on these points.
I personally don't feel there are many good options on extreme and that I basically need to prioritize girls that can be used as gladiators in order to allow myself to feel like I'm making any kind of real progress. With the time pressures you're facing from weak stats and low cash reserves (loans exist but you better have a plan that would result in making gains that justify that lost money) means you really don't have much luxury to aim for C or B rated slaves on the merit of simply recouping the value from their sale anyway. You can focus on guild contracts or trying to sell some cheap D slaves, but again you're going to need to be using them in the arena on the side to mitigate their expense along the way.
In those early stages there are simply no other viable paths to mitigate those expenses in any other way, and NOT doing so is simply making it harder on yourself in the long run. You start way too weak and untrained to have any hope of fighting in the fogs to make money, and all of the cow/pig/egg options are all gated behind rent which basically increases your expenses by a HUGE margin. Like... Feeding my slave is probably averaging me around 40 per decade, and feeding myself at the HIP to maintain the gains I've made to my strength cost another 30. Add in occasional spa visits, gifts, dates, ect but then balanced out by the area winnings means ultimately I'm losing between 40-60 a decade. Usually closer to 40, but I've been gifting ambrosia to satisfy my promises for a gift so that jumps it closer to 60.
But when you compare that to the costs of renting in outcast district which gives free access to the barn so you can take advantage of those other opportunities, you're faced with much more overhead on top. First there's the direct expense of rent, combined with the forced increase to your standard of living which appeared to be a direct cost of 40 as best I could tell. It lets you cut back on spa visits to be sure, having access to an assistant is incredibly helpful, and the happiness that having such easy access to cleanliness has, not regarding your slave, but her willingness to accept things with you now that you yourself aren't walking around filthy is also a huge plus.
But the price.... The price of it all.... It appears to me that I'd be paying being 320-340 per decade to gain access to said barn, not counting costs for surgeries, or the time it would take to train your slave to fulfill any of the sorts of roles that would result in those kinds of incomes, and it just becomes clear to me that it's not something you can feasibly do very early in the game.
Which brings me back to the arena. It feels like it's all gated behind the arena, and you basically have to use it because you're just making it harder on yourself if you don't. Which also requires you to either get lucky with a slave that's already gifted enough to fight in the arena for a good while like you did in your playthrough example I linked to before, or else you'll have to put time and effort into training her up so she can like I'm doing in my current playthrough. But that's also why I'm still 40 days in with a disobedient slave that was actually more amenable to training than my first slave which only took 27 days. I feel like I've been forced to take this route to more easily absorb the costs of holding onto her longer so I can go for a better rating and get myself out of this negative loop.
I do personally feel the prices for C- and C+ slaves are too low in relation to D's and B's, and while I understand why you do it that way, I personally think it makes that a far less viable path forward. Your best bet is to do like you've suggested before. Train guild contracts, have them fight in the arena a few times as those first few fights are easy, build your guild rank up in the process, and use it to allow you to eventually bring 2 fighters to the events. I'd like to have other options that make sense, and personally I feel C- should pay at least 50 more, and C+ should probably pay 200 more to make those more attractive stepping stones, but that's just me.
But the thing is, even if you adjust those prices, it doesn't change the fact that the game is weighted towards the gladiatrix arena route. You either use it, or you struggle unnecessarily. I think the game's biggest weakness is not having other viable sources of income (proficiency wise) keeping things gated behind energy and training so it's not so easy to just do all the things at once. To let your artists perform on the street or at the bar. Your assistants to take on secretarial roles. Jobs that sap their energy so you have to sacrifice on being able to train them as much, and could even reflect badly on you if they're too rebellious or too unskilled to do a good job.
I mean, sure, I understand the argument that these businesses would prefer to just buy the slaves themselves, but finding well trained slaves can be difficult and sometimes you have to supplement your shifts with less skilled labor for a paltry wage. But ultimately it would allow the player to pursue different playstyles that don't require you to follow the same logic path to success. That's my perspective on it. lol