Been a fat minute since ive played and ive basically forgot how to navigate the early game money woes and the wiki is a little doomed, do i still just stay in slums and churn out d- slaves till i get enough capital to rent and train a good one
yeah, you basically just spend the first 200 or 300 days in the slums getting your skills and stats up, starting with D- slaves and then moving up to training an assistant once you have enough of a nest egg to make it through the decades and have made your long term investments of slaver clothing and bsdm gear. My strategy has been to sell my first slave through the first D- guild contract, then for my next two slaves i train them up before taking the contract to get the maximum speed bonus (i savescum to get the right specialization). After that i do a D+ slave to sell to someone at one of the minor residences, then i start training up an assistant. by the time i get to the assistant i have enough money to make it until they've started to build up race fame and arena fame, so i usually make 300 sparks from the colosseum each week which is enough to support my expenses long term (especially since the moneylender doesn't start charging you slum rent debt until day 200 and the day 200 debt is at a discount). by that points your stats should be in a spot where you can train up an S+ slave even from the slums, so you're really just staying in the slums to make the most of the cheap cost of living and getting as many permanent boosts as you can before you move out. when my assistant gets to 3 devotion and becomes a proper assistant, that's when i start working on the bull ring, then the snake talisman after. typically, i play custom games on extreme difficulty starting with minimum sparks and minimum stats, but i play with skill decay off, so i tend to focus on combat.
slummaxxing tips:
- the haircut from the salon lasts 30 days, and the cosmetic procedures lasts 10 days. this and the fashionable attire should have you at S+ allure even without a bath/permafilthy (as long as you have positive energy and positive mood and high strength), for only 6 additional sparks per decade
- the beach reward will wash you and your slave for only 2 sparks, much cheaper than the spa normally costs
- since you want to make the most of the time you have, start buying kamra and pollen as soon as you aren't living paycheck to paycheck (sale to sale) anymore. to avoid long term addiction, only take kamra on days divisible by 2 (even numbered days) and pollen on days divisible by 3 (day 15, day 69, etc). addiction decreases at the start of those days, but only if you didn't take the drug the day before, which means you CANNOT take pollen on days 1 less than are divisible by 2 (eg day 5, day 11, day 137, etc). this means you're buying 10 kamra and 6 pollen per week, for an average of 30.5 sparks per week, in exchange for 20 extra energy sparks per week for you and your slave. but kamra is the most expensive part, just 6 pollen per week is 15 entire sparks of energy for only 10.5 sparks per week, with no long term consequences as long as you only take it when your addiction and your slave's addiction is at 0. this is huge early game, especially when you consider that the spa costs 30 sparks per week for 10 sparks of energy for your slave, plus it takes away 5 sparks of energy from you if you dont have the bull ring. once you do get the bull ring, you don't really have to take the drugs yourself anymore as long as you have decent strength, so you can splurge on the spa for your slave on days she isn't drinking kamra or taking pollen.
- the biggest advantage of the slums is the lack of rent early game, so you should be planning on moving out before day 299 at the absolute latest. you could go longer if you really wanted, but by the time you're paying real moneylender rent you might as well just get your own place. no need to get too fancy, you'll be fine in serpentine or the outcasts once you have your stats up.
- the main skills you're trying to grind are:
-- strength (up to B+, the highest the pub can maintain)
-- dominance (as high as possible, but remember gains are limited by the slave's nature, so S+ is more of a long term goal. B+ should be very easy to get, so try to threaten slaves whenever it'll succeed so you can get the boost as soon as possible)
-- teaching (you shouldn't move out before it's at least B+, but you can even get it up to S+ since it doesn't decay even when skill decay is enabled/playing on story mode. but that's more of a long term thing, while B+ comes way faster. remember, you only gain teaching experience when the result of training a skill is ‘praiseworthy’ or ‘a perfect score’)
-- whip skill (
the colosseum increases whip skill for each win with a whip or lash, regardless of rank, which makes it super easy to get to S+ since it doesn't decay so you only need like a few hundred wins against unarmed slaves. S+ whipping allows you to train S+ pony racing)
-- rope skill (gains are limited by punishment severity, but you should be able to get it up to C- handily)
-- stewardship (up to B+, skill decay kicks in above B+ if you're playing on story mode with a character without stewardship aptitude but even without skill decay you don't really need to care about getting it past A+. it’s useful because it lets you efficiently clean your house yourself, but it’s not as useful for skill training since you can’t train cooking in the slums so it only trains 2 skills instead of 3)
-- artistry (up to B+, only really matters on higher difficulties/if your character doesn't start out with other higher skills though, and it decays after B+ if you have that enabled and aren't playing a character with artistry aptitude. it’s good because it allows you to train 5 skills, but it’s not useful for your character outside of that, and it takes a while to train since you only get experience for training those 5 skills with a praiseworthy or perfect result. i’m not counting the cow skill here, so i guess it’s technically 6 skills, but you don’t really want to train cow skill.)
-- combat (D- if you have no aptitude, B+
only if your character has combat aptitude or you're playing with skill decay off; A+ would be better but is very hard to do while you still have low overall stats and don't have any of the artifacts and proper weapons and armor yet. getting D- early is important for training your first gladiatrix though, since the aketon allows you to train to C- skill with that and it’s easy to get them to B+ through the tournaments and sparring after that)
--- if you have good combat and are willing to savescum, you can get 50 sparks from selling a slave you get from defeating a young fiend, which you can do in the mid early game for a pretty huge boost when your income is low. if you're not willing to savescum the slave generation, you can still get 30 sparks from defeating a young fiend unless you get unlucky, but you're gonna be gambling your energy in hopes of actually encountering one instead of something you can't beat, so you should only do that when you have energy to spare (ie after you get the bull ring).
- remember, slummaxxing means you're completely sacrificing your personality stat until you get the snake amulet. it's fine, you can live without it. you shouldn't be worrying about personality until you move into a more expensive place (once you do get the amulet you’ll get to C- fairly quickly by using ‘explain her position’ and ‘encourage’)
general early game tips for when you have low stats/low aura:
- use heavy ring piercings for your slave, they give +3 taming outside of the normal clothing taming limit, which is huge when you have low aura (since low aura limits clothing from taming to +2
and makes taming decrease every night when your aura is less than the slave's)
- aim for slaves with C- nature and temperament at the start, they're much more likely to not rebel even when obedience is low and your aura is low. nature should be at least C- to prevent mindbreaks, but temperament can go as low as F- to start if you really want, because high temperament makes spoilage increase more quickly (at F- temperament, spoilage will often not increase at all for actions that would otherwise increase them, most notably spa massages). low temperament does decrease skill training diligence though, so you want to recover it once she's obedient to you, but temperament is much easier to raise than nature.
- in the early early game, when all you can really do is get a gladiatrix specialization, remember to have your slave spar at the colosseum for extra nature stat gain if it’s all that’s holding her back from the specialization and you can’t train her yourself anymore and don’t want to wait another 10 days for the next tournament. also works for temperament, but temperament is much easier to increase by training other skills or having the slave perform for you. but be careful, since sparring costs 600 calories (where gladiatrix training just costs 300)
- if you’re averse to savescumming and find yourself struggling to get a slave to B+ for the specializations you need, use the slave school rather than hiring a coach. you shouldn’t be paying for training before she’s obedient to you anyway, and the coach provides only a marginal increase to skill gain compared to the school which really isn’t worth double the cost.
- you don’t even need to think about training sex skills until you start training slaves past D+, but once you get to that point that’s another long term thing you can grind while in the slums, since sex skills also don’t decay. getting B+ hand skill is particularly good, because it allows you to use the sensual massage reward in place of the spa to give your slave extra energy.
- your mood doesn’t matter until you start training your sex skills. it decreases the skill gain slaves get from your training, but that’s actually kind of good, because it means you have more chances to gain skill experience from high diligence training sessions before your slave reaches the training cap. it doesn’t have a serious impact on diligence for training regular skills, only sex skills.
- the slave’s mood is much more important for diligence than your own, so don’t be afraid to use encourage once she starts following your orders and accepting skill training. once your slave is a little devoted it’s way easier to keep their mood positive (or at least neutral), so you don’t really need to worry about the diminishing returns from using encourage too much since you’ll only be using it while she’s disobedient and unhappy. slaves with no devotion will have maximum mood capped at calm, hopeful, optimistic, or pleased, depending on their level of despair (optimistic at 1 despair, hopeful at 2 or 3, calm at despair > temperament), so don’t waste money trying to raise it further if it seems stuck. if it’s pessimistic or below though, it’s worth spending money to raise it - positive mood doesn’t only increase diligence, it also decreases despair at the end of the day (while negative mood actually increases despair, and inhibits healing from bruises). that means you shouldn’t be afraid to spend money on the spa (already worth it for the +energy anyway) and on datura (the consequences of addiction are pretty much irrelevant so you don’t have to think about timing when you use it) when you want to train slaves of D+ rank or higher.
- give your slave the warm plaid and plush toy as soon as possible - the warm plaid decreases despair rate by 1 every night (helps counteract negative mood in the early game) and the plush toy gives them an extra half spark of energy at the start of the day (useful for punishments and rewards that consume only half a spark). don’t give it to them for no reason though, spoilage is hard to counteract early game because ‘put in place’ doesn’t work unless their max guilt is high enough and they’re scared enough. these should be their first merit 2 and merit 3 rewards.
- get the gag and anal pear early on. the silence rule and no toileting rule are very efficient for the stat increases they give (increases habit and decreases pride very quickly) compared to the mood debuff the slave gets from following them, especially if you can force them from the start. force silence does decrease temperament over time, but that’s pretty easy to fix. the humility rule is also very efficient (increases awareness and taming), but forcing it requires buying a shock collar (which has to be done for each slave, unlike the core bdsm gear that stays with you permanently), which is far too expensive early game, so you should just enable it once the slave has enough obedience to follow it without a shock collar.
