I´m now in my 60 day of a 8.3c run, and I want to talk about something new and really important in this version. Something that are game changers.
We need to change the mindset that we get from 8.22 and early versions. In this versions we manage a household with 8 slaves and some mercenaries, all in all a 20 people household. You can go, one by one, and check his happiness, check his affection, see his corruption and manage with smooth words and some dicking keep things fine. You can NOT do this with a 40+ household. Simply, the day it´s not long enough and it´s a lot of clicking. You need actions that affect more than one servant/slave. And there are actions that do this.
You need to build your gazebo, and have a shrine in your Yard. The actions are conducted in this locations. There are actions that affect only a close group, your followers, and there are actions that affect all your household. Let´s talk with the follower´s group action first.
As far as you have build the gazebo, you can give lectures about science and academics to your followers. It´s a 2 hour action, you make a check against your skill in the subject and, if successful, your followers gain a +1 on the subject. It´s faster that home schooling, you have better chances of success and you give bonus to 4 servants, not to one. It´s caped, not sure if to 70 or to 75, but you can raise effectively your servant skills enough to send her (or him) to work as professors.
With the basic temple, you can give lectures to your followers. It´s an hour action and a check against manipulation, and with Man 50 and religious rank 30 (not sure if relevant) I get a 75 chance. You can affect, as an ateist, Corruption or Willpower. And there are a third slot that it´s grey. May be it´s reserved for other religions, may be reserved for higher devotion, I don´t know at this moment.
All this things are nice, and convenient. But I have promised "game changers", and this hardly are game changers. Let´s go with them now.
WORK HARD, PARTY HARD! IT´S POOL PARTY TIME!!!
Once you have build the gazebo, you can build a pool on it. Not sure if the basic pool it´s enough or you need to build an improvement, but then you can hold pool parties for
ALL your household.
It´s a 2 hours action, and costs you 10$ per participant (dirty cheap, barely qualify as peanuts).
With the Party Animal Trait (by far the most potent trait in the game, and the only that I consider mandatory, or almost mandatory) and fancy lights and a cooled bar, you get +2 affection and +2-6 happiness. For all the 40+ members of your household. All of them.
In my household now I get 84 points of affection and 84-252 points of happiness each time you hove a party pool. Simply you can not beat it.
And it will keep happy your attention whores, as an extra. And you will have at least two of them (Bud and Sophie).
THE HOUSEHOL THAT PRAY TOGETHER, HOLDS TOGETHER
In order to perform a lecture/mass for all your household, you need to improve your shrine. It´s the same that the lecture for only your followers, but for all your household.
Depending in what subject you choose, if you are are successful you House get a +/-5 on corruption/despair and some (not all) of the participants are affected by your preach. There are some variability, and the effect will change with your degree of success, but with a 50 manipulation and 30 devotion you get a 75% chance of success, and with a 45 roll, 25 of my 42 members household get a +/-1 corruption/willpower.
And it´s hard to beat an action that uses one hour, cost you no money at all and not sure now if no fatigue or just a couple of points and put a 25 points shift in the point of view of your servants.
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And just a point, both for the shrine masses or the party pools. Make them after 5pm. If you try to make them early in the morning or during the day, the attendance it´s a lot lower. Not every one will go to them.
