I just started playing LiL this week, and after a few hours went straight to Subscribestar and signed up at the $10 level because wow.
Also I think I already need therapy, and I'm not even through the first chapter.
I did seem to screw the install up by applying both the subscriber bonus and cckerberos's progress mod. Reverting just to the progress mod for now.
I've searched through the discussion here and on the discord and see a lot of awesome stuff that's very hard to decipher after the fact while avoiding spoilers. (In fact, I walked straight into an enormous spoiler withing minutes. *sigh*) So...is there a (relatively) spoiler free guide to strategy? The progress mod helps with the step-by-step tactics. I'm just eager to maximize the combination of lewds and weirds, not to mention maximizing the size of the harem. I'm happy to keep searching - not looking for hand-holding, just a pointer in the right direction. TIA.
Now back to the dorms!
There are a couple of traps you can easily fall into, and I don't use the guide mod so I don't know if it steers you away from them.
1) Don't progress too far with Chika too early. If you're already past the first beach trip, you're golden and you can ignore this, but if you're not there yet, listen to Rin and back off for now.
2) In Chapter 2, you'll be advised to spend some time with a certain character before going on a trip with a different one. Spend a LOT of time with that character, not just 1-2 scenes. If you don't spend enough time with her before the trip, it will lock you out of content in chapter 3.
3) As a general rule, pay attention to what the game tells you. If it tells you to do X before Y, make sure you do X before Y. if it tells you a piece of info is important, write it down. Treat this like a 1990s adventure game, the developer definitely took cues from that style of game design when working on certain elements of the game.
4) When a new repeatable sex scene unlocks, do it a few times. "Lust scenes" are a type of scene in the game where you get one shot to unlock it -- the game checks the girl's Lust score, and if it's not high enough, you lose the scene permanently. Unlike affection, which works in multiples of 5, Lust can sometimes work in multiples of 10, so it's not a bad idea to grind out 10 lust as soon as the stat unlocks for a character (or use a save editor to set it to 30, which I THINK is the highest needed for any content currently in the game for any of the girls).