I just picked Bud because he's so cheap. You can get the rifle company dudes as well. My early game party was those two plus Rebecca, all equipped with rifles.
And yeah shotguns, pistols and melee weapons are usless/fall off hard once you can afford rifles.
Bringing "noncombat" slaves can still be worth it, as even if they don't deal damage themselves they can tank a rifle shot, and can get a lucky hit or two with the rifle (reducing healing costs)
The amount of hunting you can do isn't hardcapped per se, it depends on the time of the day and how much game is left. Also read the hints, if you clear one of the bandit groups (Marston Ave) the price for rations goes down by half.
For money, cleaning up bandits should keep you afloat. Again, if you do the main quest you get 4k or something thrown your way. Also you can send your slaves to work during the day, giving you a stable income of 25-50c /day/slave. With that alone you should be close to breaking even. Then you can invest in the businesses.
Also, I hope you are healing your mercs and not just hiring new ones?^^
Yeah, i'm sticking with the same couple of mercs.
I don't know what you mean by 'Rifle Company'
I've using the Savant from Sloppy Moes. He's retarded, but a
damn good shot.
I gave my non-combatants pistols because of the low recoil. (I forget how the recoil mechanic works, but it's like a skill-check for ranged damage skill, I think?)
I also drag them along just for the respect bonus.
As for Hunting, you are hard-capped on attempts per day. If you show up first thing in the morning, you get four attempts before it gets dark.
I'm not sure where to invest, to be honest. There's the place near the hunting ground, but a lot of the others look like shady ventures that will likely either not pay off or give me big negatives.
Once I get the annex up, I guess I can hire more slaves and have them work menial jobs for free income, while I work on training my main two.
What level is your garden at? You have garden tools? When famine hits prices for food goes way up. i just sold 1400 food at 10c each. What for the messages about food spikes.
Huh, havn't had a food shortage yet.
I'm on 8dII. Tried soldiering and you are correct; There is a bottleneck as eventually you run out of mid level targets. The mercs needed to take down the high level targets and gear are cost prohibited for a weak slave/mid tier merc team.
it's counter-intuitive, but I've found going intellect first makes more sense ultimately for a combat build. You gain training in combat as you train your slaves, and you can pull income in the academy while training slaves in the evening.
True.
How close are you to getting arena open? You may have to cut your losses on merc armor, drop the mercs, and stretch your funds while you work on influence to unlock arena. Once that occurs, your financial woes as a soldier become much more manageable.
Not sure, but the mercs aren't a loss. If you keep the same two mercs around long term, and one of them is Rifle Savant (who is basically free) then maintaining the two mercs barely costs anything once you've bought them armour.
It's 60c for Aiko and 3c for RS. With the two of them (and my now one capable rifle-slave) I can hunt bandits for cash.
Bandits with guns are still threatening, but if i'm lucky I can win.
Melee enemies are kind of a joke. Getting a full round of attacks off for free before they can reach me is a huge advantage.
