So, I've been playing this game, and well, color me surprised, it is actually pretty good.
However, despite more ways to make money coming in at some point, I find it extremely difficult money wise.
I've got the girls on steal mode, and they are reasonably trained.
It seems like the mercenaries meant as a protection, are borderline useless. I've purposely held back on doing any quests, thinking it would avoid the attacks in the brothel, and upgraded the dojo once. Despite that, they're still virtually useless, gets killed a lot, and don't seem to defend fuck all (ie: they're constantly loosing). Considering their daily cost of the mercenaries, keeping a sizeable amount of them around, is both extremely expansive, difficult since the amount you can grab varies and seem to be random every day.
It seems that neither having them, or not, is a valid tactic at the moment, and will eventually lead to what seems to be an ever increasing debt building up.
I've tried to have several ( 6 or so ), but eventually, they died, I was unable to get more quickly enough (none available to be bought), the daily costs of them stopped me from building a decent money reserve, and once the building got damaged twice in a row, it was no longer possible to repair it due to the cost, which punishes the player even more, as it also decrease the money you'll be making.
What I do not understand, is the need for mercenaries "around the beginning"; we have mad dog & his daughter, the fighting boobs, and the MC, all extremely proficient with weapons. Can't they provide security until "X point in the story"? It would certainly help a bit in the beginning, and would make a lot more sense storywise also.
At the moment, what is really making it difficult, is the daily costs, which are seemingly impossible to meet rather quickly. I'm probably missing something somewhere on the gameplay to generate more cash or something, but as it stands, I am falling into debts very quickly, despite having girls servicing clients (all 3 of them) often enough.
This leads to being incapable of buying gears for the fights, which on my first playthrough, have been extremely difficult for most of them, due to the lack of gear and upgrades.
The other issue I've got, is with the repairs. You've got to pay all of it in one go. It would be a lot better, if we could pay chunks of it as well, which would allow the player to avoid the overly excessive penalty when it reaches 0 after only two attacks.
My suggestions would be as follow:
1- Until a certain story event, either attacks on the brother do not happen at all, or the "brothel's present fighters can deter the attackers."
2- Once Mercenaries gets 'needed', to make their daily costs lower, and their life expectancy higher. I mean, loosing three mercenaries to unarmed naked men, simply makes no sense at all. All attacks are deadly apparently, while the attackers can be a bit rough, an injured for X days option, would make a lot more sense for some attacks.
3- The girls, should not cost as much every day. Considering the situation, and everyone's dedication, since they're all living there and eating there, having a salary while we're struggling to remain open, and considering the story, does not make much sense either. The girls should only start thinking about salaries, once the situation is a bit better, especially since their "need" for money, would only go toward luxury items (as they live and eat there at no cost.) As it stand storywise, we're on the border of closing down, and every girls is about to be homeless and starving in the streets. I certainly don't think they'd be too worried or preoccupied about getting anything other than the bare necessities they're already provided with.
4- Upgrades should be locked in to story/progression/events. As it stands, one could easily upgrade something they're not going to need, or would cost too much vs the benefits (at their growth point.) Ex: in my first play though, I got the onsen very early on, which seemed to serve virtually no purpose and bring no benefit for a pretty long time. At the very least, some upgrades, and their orders, should be "suggested", especially for new players. Right now, there seems to be no way to know which upgrade will actually benefit you depending on which state the brothel is.
5- "hard customers" should bring in a sizeable bonus, especially if the girls gets too tired/fail. Try "damaging" a girl in a brothel (being too rough etc.), see what happens then. If anything, the customer would be "encouraged" to provide compensation. At the moment, if we know someone's into the rough stuff, or is sick, serving them, should bring in some bonus, otherwise there's simply no reason to serve them, knowing full well your girl will only be available once more, if you're lucky, in the night. This is especially true for "sick people". Since your girl will be unavailable to anything for a certain amount of days after to recover, why would you even try to serve them, since they're not worth the amount of time the girl will be off for?