Also, is there a way to adjust my assistant's calories?
I totally wasn't paying attention to Isabella and I left her at red stamina too many days in a row. That lowered her stamina, which left her even MORE red, and now she's Feeble and she only has 1 pip of stamina per day. But she's still getting 800 calories a day, which she can't work off, so now she's getting fatter and fatter, which makes it even harder to get her stamina back on track with the Serve Me -> Acrobatics action.
If I could lower her calories to 100 or 200 I could have her exercise every day, putting her in negative calories to trigger weight loss and eventually building her stamina back up. As it is right now her stats are spiraling.
Your Playthrough sounds a bit doomed in general. Not just because of Isabella. The only way i see to get her reliable back to good Health and good weight is to drop her as an assistant and train her as a slave until she has good health again. But seeing that you struggle keeping afloat with selling D+ slaves this does not seem viable right now. I think i would recommend starting a new save game. A few things that helped me with my Johny /Normal start should help you too:
-Start the first slave with the lowest Guild contract as a Gladiatrix
-Buy her a Light Sundress
-Buy her Leather shackles
-Buy her Sneakers and let her wear all 3 of those on Day 1
-Buy her a Leather collar only if you start with a slaver that is strong or intimidating enough that she wears it. As Johny you would just get beat up and loose. Influecnes Mood quite a lot on the first days.
-Buy yourself a Housecoat
-Day 1-3 Explain Position, maybe let her have a few Arena spars
-Keep her Mood as high as possible. Everything but the last 2 should be fine. Take to spar if needed. Don't skimp on those 3 sparks. But don't be unreasonable and take her evry other day or so.
-Don't let her get despaired.
You are looking for a slave that is not overly Prideful or Willfull and at least with blue Health. It does not matter if she is on the brink of Sanity, despite what the Tooltips tell you restoring her Temperament and Nature is quite easy and consistent. Every spar in the Arena gives 1 Point of Temperament or Nature but reduces Empathy by 2 or 3 Points. Good if your slave is too empathetic which can make Trainig and discipling tough at the start.
Have her fight as a Gladiatrix in the Arena, not just as par but i mean in the big Tournament. This is your first big Breakthrough with her. Until then you will not make much progress with her, depending on your Slaver you start with. Just let her be, a few points of awareness and habit will acumulate anyway.
In the Arena let her fight only with Net and Trident and spam the First green Attack. You will win every time, does not matter if your slave has any skills as Gladiatrix or has good health. And BAM 5 Merit, +10 Nature, +10 Temperament and +10 Health for free and a bit of Training as Gladiatrix too. Take her to the Spa and as reward i like to first promise her a Gift and after the next Tournamet in 10 days take her to the Restaurant or gift her the Blanket immediately if you have problems with Mood. Depending on your slave you may even can start training her in simple things. If not repeat after 10 days. Keep spending to a minimum until then.
The first rules after aquiring your slave should be: Deny orgasm and No Masturbation. If you play on Hardcore then add: Deny Toileting. You will need an Anal Plug from the Steel Rose and Enforce the Rules in this case. Deny Toileting reduces Pride and lowers Mood.
After she has 4-5 Red Obedience points you can add her to work as eitheer a Maid or a cook or both. But that will eat a lot of energy if you want to train her. So i would only pick one of those rules. But definitely pick one! Very important actually. Around this time you can also start with training and give her a Leather Collar to wear.. Depending on the slave it could be as a Maid, Cook, Athletics or any other one. That depends often on the perosnality of the slave. If she has any skills already a bit trained those are often a good bet to start with. I does not matter what you train her at first, the point is to just get the training going. She will get to a Gladiatrix rating without a lot of training anyway, because of the Arena Fights.
When she has her first Green Obedience point you can add the Behave: Humilty Rule. This is also the start where you more often than not can start with Kiss training. And i always say to me: The first kiss you give her is Poisoned. After this first Kiss her future as a slave is sealed. It will always snowball from there.
So in short:
-First slave as a Gladiatrix Guild contract
-Buy Sundress, Leather shackles for the Hands
-Sneaker to ease Athletics and Gladiatrix Training.
-Don't do much with her and set the Rules to Deny Orgasm, No Masturbating and if on hardcore Deny: Toileting (in this case enforce the rules and buy an Anal Plug)
-Don't force Training until she has around 4-5 Red Obedience
-Wait the first 10 days until the Gladiatrix Contest in the Arena. Use this time to train your slaver or let your slave spar in the Arena.
-Use Net and Trident and spam the first green Attack. Will always work.
-Repeat until D-
-
Talk to her (very) often: What she thinks about you and how she feels. It will give you a lot of insight without casting Auspex (2 sparks each cast).
With Johny my slave was ready after around 30 days, i got a nice speed bonus for my training and i think the end sum was around 900 sparks. But i am not sure, it was more than enough to build from there.
I repeated that same process a few times until i had a bank of around 2k Sparks, meanwhile my stats grew a bit, the contracts went faster and then i got an Apartement in the Quarter of the Outcast. From this point on if you don't get unreasonable like spending too much cash or attempting to train harder slaves than you realistically can at this point the game should snowball really quick and you will give the Pope your most exquisite slave in no time.
Good luck!
P.S. This is only one way that worked for me i am very certain there are a lot more efficient ways and i am by no means a pro at this game. But this approach worked for me so why shouldn't it work for everyone hehe