Been having fun with this game but some things are just not fair (yeah I know, it says so on the store page).
In some regards, it reminds me of old RPGs but at the same time, I remember how those old RPGs made owning a strategy guide a must. If there is one big pet peeve, its money generation. I'm only on floor 3 and I know there may be other things later but the only viable strategy seems to be letting order drop, live off of subsidies until you get Karryn's stat edicts unlocked, then taking down the boss.
If there is some better way (and no, beating up the guards at times only nets me 40g) to get cash, let me know.
I have played this game for much longer than I would like to admit, but the broad strokes I have learned on my own are the following.
When it comes to the three difficulties.
Prisoner quickly shows what choices and edicts are plain disadvantageous, but as a result is also nearly impossible to clear blindly (Don't expect to clear a prisoner run).
Warden mode is challenging and can be cleared, but it will take hours to clear on average because of how many days are allocated per level (The more days you use, the more funds you can accumulate before the next level, and there is no significant advantage to skipping days of free income).
Secretary Mode is not challenging, but is the best way to look at all the mechanics, sidejobs, silly npc and map changes from edict choices (e.g. Prisoner complaining about having to work if Workshop edict is selected).
Secretary Mode is also THE way to unlock the powerful passive effects of titles. Such as passive control you get from clearing the Empress Ending. (Not an issue if you just mod the game, which is also an option). Also, it is nearly impossible to reach Empress ending in Prisoner mode without accumulating many titles in previous runs.
I personally recommend Secretary mode as your first clear. It is much less frustrating to lose in Warden/Prisoner when you already know about all the game content.
As for the income, the solution to the puzzle is.
Start acquiring +income edicts while defeating prisoners until you acquire -10% or -20% stats from fatigue. Don't bother defeating prisoners in Secretary/Warden mode early on, because you don't have a tight time budget to raise your stats, Prisoner mode forces you to raise order just to keep up with the maximum Warden level cap.
You think you want to avoid Riots (they are a pain), and therefore you avoid getting edicts like the workshop on Level 1 while subsidies can give you gold. This is a mistake. While relying on subsidies for income on level 1 is correct, riots are a tool used by the developer to tell the player that they must rely on income instead starting on level 2.
Just to illustrate why income is better than subsidies. Level 3+ can always potentially end with RNG if both Levels 1 and 2 riot on the same day on a low order count, subsidies provide very little income unless you are vulnerable to a game over, and income stays fixed even with really high order. In summary, Empress and Happy runs both require aggressive use of income edicts starting with level 2. Empress runs only avoid edicts that add "Corruption", since those ultimately reduce income with the 'Nerd Problem' edict added when you start level 3.
Lastly, I recall the Workshop edicts providing +1300 gold per day when level 1 rioted in secretary mode. It supposedly only gives 200 gold at the beginning, and I might be mistaken about the numbers, but it is the best scaling source of income. Other Riot edicts also provide a big boost in income, they are very good choices since riots are also very important for raising your level in prisoner mode in particular. Thanks to Level/Riot edicts you can have both a high income and order at the same time, so aim for stacking income and order at the cost of constant riots instead of hugging subsidies and praying for levels to not riot (They always inevitably riot and don't riot as often as you might think with +Riot edicts)
Lastly, at the start of Levels 2 and 3, you want to have a large sum of gold AND order for a number of reasons.
With enough funds, you will be able to afford all the income AND order/control edicts of the new level at the very beginning. It is very advantageous to buy all the income and control ASAP, because you don't want to be stuck with near zero income or negative control that plummets too quickly.
With high order you get two benefits. Yes, very high order is advantageous, let me explain when you should stack order. You stack order towards the end of a level. Once you have accumulated a big stash of gold to spend on the next level and stabilized your control, you can start stacking a high amount of order from defeating prisoners. Prisoner fights become WEAKER the higher your order is, so a fight that might be invincible on low order, becomes trivially weak on high order. I am sure you already met a couple of these walls on levels 2 and 3, their weakness is stacking order so you can break through them. The second benefit from high order is that you can squeeze in more days of experience grinding after you run out of your day allowance, and then proceed to defeat the boss when your order falls down where you want it to be. The second benefit is only relevant for prisoner mode though, since reaching the level cap in Warden mode is trivial. If you stay on low order all the time in prisoner mode, you WILL find yourself either too low level to defeat the boss or unable to reach the boss because of a fight filled with many very strong enemies.
How do you accumulate lots of gold and order? (That's impossible isn't it?) Tighten your budget. You are either spending too much on training or accessories. Spend edicts on income. Riots are especially useful because re-allocating edicts lost to riots spend little gold and really boost your income (Fixing riot edicts is very cheap)
If unsure about which edicts to choose, try only getting edicts that are prerequisites for strong skills such as 'Healing Thoughts', 'Defensive Stance', or 'Slam', etc. 1 EP and 300g is very doable, 2 EP and 1500g too early is likely a trap.
Regarding beating the guards for gold, you are pretty smart for noticing. Guards give a respectable 200-400g the first time you beat them, but stop paying out gold the second time onwards. They are not a recurring income, but a great one-time gold injection. Each time you fight guards, you increase the odds of guards invading the office later on ('Guard Aggression' a permanent value that you can only decrease a limited number of times). While you can later climax in prisoner areas (To fight weak prisoners instead of strong guards), or in the Bathroom inside level 2 (No invasions at the cost of Bathroom passives) to avoid guard invasions, it is still not an effective trade.
Also note. The amount of gold you need at level 3 is obscene, since you have to LOSE income before you can increase your income. You need a large buffer of gold to reach the fat +income edicts locked behind the Bureaucracy and Research edicts. DO NOT purchase corruption edicts unless you can get the 'Submit to the Nerds' edict (You lose more income than you gain). The Nerd edict is very difficult to get on an Empress run.
As you probably noticed in level 3, Karryn's Prison is ultimately an income management game, omitting training edicts won't result in a game over, but a not high enough income will.
Oh god I wrote a wall text, this is embarrassing... Might as well write a TL;DR
-Don't bother with prisoner mode (until much later), it takes a long time to grind with limited opportunity to learn mechanics.
-Warden mode also takes a long time to clear (I'm not joking, its too long), but very manageable to clear.
-Secretary mode is really great for learning the game mechanics and content in a short time window.
-In Warden/Prisoner, use up all of your days, they are a limited resource for income and experience that do not carry over as far as I am aware.
-Purchase all the income edicts that don't add corruption (The Riot+ is a cheap cost for the vital income increase).
