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Im not exactly sure what to think about asking for games on another games forum - but since the market isn't too big I guess we all know how hard it is to actually find this stuff.

So, if no feelings are hurt, I might also name a few I personally came across and that are somewhat comparable to S4P - while leaving out those I don't consider good enough to waste my time on.

* Brothel King
* PyTFall
* Jack-o-nine-tails

In regards to the Strive for Power 2 demo... well... I finally found some time to look into it while still trying to work out some balancing changes for S4P 1 (I'm still on it - just haven't had the time to report back here - and there wasn't that much interest from the community to begin with. ^^)
I personally like the idea of shifting the focus of the second game more towards the management side and even put some crafting/farming components - but unfortunately I was able to spot multiple essential flaws within seconds of testing the demo - flaws that basically are migrated from S4P 1. 

I'm fully aware that this is more or less a hobby project - and I'm aware that it's always dangerous to involve other people in such projects (been there - done that - has at least a 50% failure rate, I admit) but I HIGHLY suggest getting someone on board who has some understanding about proper UI/UX design. Doesn't have to be a professional of course - but there HAS to be someone willing to help from the modding community or similar. 

I stick to my original assessment; Strive for Power (1 as 2) has quite the potential to become a really good GAME - not only something people fap to (pardon my French) - but it is most likely deemed to fail if it's done like the first one. It is doing some things quite well - but you REALLY have to get your gamemechanics (and their balance) and your UX in order!

I have to be honest here; if S4P 2 develops like I predict from what I've seen in the first game, I wouldn't recommend it to people - I would rather tell them to stick to the first one, because there currently ARE people modding the game to fix some of its major flaws. So please don't waste the potential and your time repeating the errors of the 'past' - it would be a shame!

The answer lies within the message itself; '...due to RECENT events...'

I haven't the game files on me right now, but from screening the game code over the last few days I remember that the 'captured' flag is initially set to 5(?) and the 'end press' event (a.k.a. end day) has an option to decrease the counter by 1. I can't remember if it's a randomized function or happens every day, but basically it takes time to get rid of this 'flag' - might be that some other values or interactions can influence this process, but in the end it's a matter of time.

Wouldn't it be safer the other way around? To first let Aric's apply its changes (what are quite a lot) and afterwards adding your lines in the already modified gamefiles?

Regarding stat values I would be careful - from my own experience of testing over the last days character stats are one of the more delicate things to tweak. They range over a relatively short span in general, and the calculation in which they are used are typically relatively simple and make use of multipliers without using much decimals. So even raising stats by 1-2 points can make a huge difference - especially if applied to base stats.

Another problem I see with special stats I see is the way the code is structured - unfortunately the game makes only little use of databases when it comes to variables - instead it often applies calculation-modifying values directly in the functions - so tweaking and changing perc & Co. often includes changing a value in multiple files and lines in the code. This might be not so much a problem for sole mod-content, but modifying the core files with mod-code that is highly different in its logic and data structure could create a huge mess in the long run. But maybe that's just my layman look at this part that makes it more complicated as it actually is. ^^

Yeah, I've played around a bit now with my 10-base-energy/step setting - and it's a bit too harsh in the beginning - considering all other regular actions/tasks your slaves are involved on a daily basis the most you can realistically get out of a level 1-2 team is clearing a zone ONCE, and then a second time after resting in the field - after that you're exploration for the day is basically over.

That's quite a bit closer to what I consider 'challenging', but also quite a bit too far on the hard side - I would say trying for 7nrg/step base with a lower cap of 2 or 3 could work quite well. Without capping it on the lower side the early game is just way to limited while mid-lategame is as easy as it was before. But from the bit of testing I've done, I would consider the experience a bit clearer designed - before I went with 2 people around level 3 into Fairy Grove and just fished some high-priced slaves. Since I normally start with a Wolfkin 'companion' I can manage to 'scout' up to this zone-level, what negates nearly every danger since you can just pick the fights you want. And doing so, I regularly was able to circle 2-3 times to the zone - that's something you're unable to do, if you have to deal with higher energy cost though... so... I feel I'm on a good track in this department.

Thx - good to know; until now I've left your mod out of my testing setup because I've feared for incompatibility with Aric's mod - and balancing just gets harder if you have variables and values mixed and matched from different sources. I hope you don't mind looking into your files so I maybe can rip out some functions that could come in handy and aren't included in the base game. Unfortunately; right now I'm still just learning how to do this without generating error messages. :)

> Someone requested a money sink with an increasing target each week, so I put that in. I changed guidance as it allowed unlimited travel in the original form. I removed invigorate to put a limit on what could be done in a day. Etc.

Yeah, the first point is something that is always on my mind when starting balancing those kind of games. It's interesting how few games (and I include AAA titles here) make use of diminishing returns, taxes/expenses or similar - because the main problem I see in most tycoon games these days is the lack of 'time pressure' - what makes them mostly sandbox environments where every limitation basically can be circumvented by pressing 'next day'. I play with the idea of some 'simple' weekly taxation right now - something that basically factures in your number of slaves & maybe even your mansion's upgrades - but coding-wise I'm far away from achieving such thing yet. :)

Guidance & Invigoration are a good call as well - currently untouched in my test environment, but disabling them isn't that big of a deal and testing with/without them can be easily done by just ignoring them, so no adjustment to mod files necessary. If possible I would like a setup without deactivated vanilla features though - I don't like black or white approaches as long as slight tweaking can lead to success as well.


> In the long term, the financials are always going to explode in Strive as you have low overheads, low capitalcosts, and high income (jobs or adventuring).  You can buy a slave for 100 and she starts earning 100 per day. You can go into the swamp and everything you get from treasure chests is profit. That's not going to be easily balanced.

Fair point - but to be clear about my intentions and ideas; I've not even planned to go 'perfectly balanced' with this 'project' - I'm just looking for slight improvements that create a less progressive game experience - mostly just because I'm curious if it can easily be done for the game. Balancing never is easy - that much I know - I have done it for different games and concepts in the past - but there is always a way to improve. I personally aim mostly try to find a state where every decision has way more weight applied to it than most gamedesigner aim for - I'm all for 'abstraction' over 'simulation' - so basically a quality over quantity approach - if something can be achieved with 2-3 decisions with impactful consequences, why wasting your time playing by repeating a certain task dozens of times instead?

But right now I've only just flattened out some gamestyles - 50% bonus on slavetrades/gold rewards instead of 100% bonus for Slaver & Hunter profession - Alchemist only gets +50% instead of +100% on potion sales - traversing the zones raised from base 5 energy per action to 10 energy. Also; halve the drop chance on gear in combat. This should bring the other - less effective - options more in the same range of those I would consider OP in vanilla, from there on it's easier to adjust options. If some of these playstyles are still too effective, I start with some simple money-sink behind the scenes - everything else should be just finetuning then.

And then I have to playtest this environment long enough to see if it works - what might take the most time and effort... :D

Yeah, still haven't looked at it - I initially thought I give it some time so there is a bit of content to judge upon, but I guess it couldn't hurt looking into the technical base as it is right now. 'More economy based' sounds good to me though - I mostly play these games for its gameplay content, the adult content is just a plus.

Since something similar happened to me a moment ago and I confirmed the case in their discord;
Are you running basegame v.525 or have you any of the .525 bugfixes applies - it was confirmed that Aric's mod runs on base .525. and is incompatible with any of the bugfixes on its own.

Also; for updating mods you have to either reset the game to its original files first (reset function via mod menu - but be aware that that doesn't work with files formerly replaced by hand - or just a simple fresh installation/extraction of the game folder) - and it can't hurt to delete 'FileOrder.ini' in the mods folder as well as 'progressdata' & 'settings.ini' in ..user/appdata/roaming/strive.

Not sure what exactly is necessary, but as long as you start a new game, getting fresh versions of those files can't really hurt.

Well... If it would in my reach, I clearly would attempt game balance through different means - my solutions so far are just focussing on limitation of resources because that's the easiest way to tweak the game progression without actually 'coding' - so tweaking values is what's left as an option. And since the game presents only so few varibles as clear numeric values, I have to work with what's at hand. :)

Tweaking the code on base of its 'logic' would be possible I guess (what I've seen it's basically all simple scripting - you just have to 'understand' the creators logic once to find hooks into the source) but I guess that's more than I can bring to the table time-wise right now. And since the game's overall state is... well... barebones and the possibility for (a better) Strive 2 on the horizon (let's just hope it doesn't take years ^^) I just don't consider more enthusiastic modding attempts reasonable with the existing base-infrastructure in mind.

Also; there IS someone working on bigger expansions - and since the way the game handles modding will always prevent the compatibility of bigger projects, I won't interfere in this regard. It's simpler to create just a more 'balanced' game environment, so everyone can easily adapt it for their own game and even apply the balancing to modded instances with just minor adjustments.

Right now I'm more at the theorycrafting stage - how to increase the 'challenge' and get rid of factors that encourage 'exploitative' playstyles - this automatically involves that the solution can't be more 'grindy' than the original state. That's why I'm looking for the energy calculations - since right now, you can circumvent most resource-shortening measures by just using your daily energy to the max. That I have to prevent - and if I manage to shorten the possible daily actions exploration-wise, it's way easier to balance the values of items, slaves & jobs around it. And a side-effect is, that there is practically no POSSIBILITY to 'grind' around this balance without energy - so that would be out of the calculation...

Thx for the hint - guess I was thinking about another game - seems the (base)energy consumption is handled rather poorly in Strive. If the calculation for it is done for every possible 'encounter' in an individual instance, I guess I have to look a bit deeper so I don't miss single instances. I somehow thought I saw the calculation somewhere done on a more basic layer - but now that I think of it, that could have been another games script... ^^

And yeah... Notepad++ is replacing the base M$ solution for quite some years on my machines - and I don't even consider myself as IT specialist. :D

So, lately I've played around again with Strive because I really like to play some 'tycoon games' - but the game industry seems to be lacking the capabilities of making such games any longer. And no; I don't consider games like 'Gamedev Tycoon' (and similar) - what are better idle-games - as tycoon games with accurate economical simulation and (what bothers me the most)  something like a CHALLENGE. Strive is one of three titles in the 'adult themed' section I see as something with potential - but lacking game balance and/or content. 

Unfortunately, the other two titles are either (technically) dead or are heading in the wrong direction balance-wise - so I once again came back to Strive to look how it could be balanced to a more challenging experience. In another case I would consider modding it myself - especially the pure value based balancing is open enough to make this a rather simple task when it comes to 'coding' - but for different reasons I rather not put in the effort right now. So I was thinking about possible changes that can be done without digging too deep in the existing routines and formulas. This way it would be even a solution that can be 'compatible' with other content based mods - especially since Aric's Expansion seems to got fresh wind...

So - long story short - I thought of just asking you guys what your experiences are surrounding the game's balance - and if some of you modder (especially) have looked into this topic a bit deeper. First I thought about simply making capturing slaves less profitable - with simple adjustments like raising the cost of 'ropes' (one could just make them into magical shackles - slaver guild aproved of course - if you value lore-friendly explanations ^^) what would make captured slaves less profitable throughout the whole game. But this alone would shift the balance too much into playing as hunter, and making an early fortune from enemy drops. So in the end it wouldn't solve the difficulty issues - it would just give you another alternative that is just more tedious... And since time isn't a real gameplay relevant factor in Strive, it would solve nothing. (to be honest; that's basically the CORE problem nearly every tycoon game has nowadays)

My main approach would be the raise of difficulty (or resource cost) for combat encounters - the less you can fight, the less chances for slaves (combined with more expensive 'ropes' for finetuning) and also less loot. This way sending your girls to jobs would automatically become more reasonable - especially in the early game - without the need of tweaking those aspects as well.

I'm open for any input regarding the issue - since I personally haven't really settled on a specific approach yet - to be honest; I'm thinking about it just for a few days, so I can't argue that I even gave it that much thought. At the moment I just have some spare time to tweak some values and try to find sweetspots to make the game less 'sandboxy' - and even if I won't make it into a 'mod' I would share my experience and even some instructions to change values with the community. But I guess I ask you guys before starting myself - maybe someone already gave it a thought - so it would be wasted to start from scratch...


EDIT:
And while I'm here - anyone  a clue where the calculations for energy consumption are stored? I thought I've alread found them when I looked into the gamefiles a few months ago - but I can't spot them right now... o.O