V6 BAD!

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*** - No more factor upgrades!  (Gr only)   :-(   [when did this happen?  Don't see in changelog]

- 24h days R gone   (1 of improvements made it better than 1st one)     [Time's critical until civil war start]
- Dates.   (used 2B 1/day;  Now *MAX*  4/WK!  (he's making stuff worse!)

- Praise/Punish have longer cooldowns while obedience gains decreased!

All these make everything more difficult & a lot less fun!  :-(

Anyone else feel the same way?

If there's still a way 2 upgrade factors, anybody know how?

You can use Exp points to buy factor upgrades. People were commenting about it being so easy to keep obedience so the most of the obedience boosters got nerfed. Now having classes like Watchdog and Dancer are more important. Also the Sex Toy class has a valuable skill. The Performance and Shared Toy boost obedience for everybody a a location so it only takes a couple of Dancers and/or Sex Toys to keep everybody happy. And of course there are Mean skills that also boost everybody at a location. I also started using  luxury rooms in a more strategic way. It did take me a while to adjust, but once I did  I could  keep a reasonable Obedience for a modestly large roster.

I do think the number of dates  was nerfed too hard, but again people have been saying that it was trivial to boost stats with dates.

I've read  tons of posts recommending dates  (for loyalty/training/etc)  --They're very much a core part of the game, & central to most strategies. IMHO they're invaluable.   [since they affect mood & loyalty, they also affect OBEDIENCE;  Nerfing obedience + Dates  is way *WAY* too much!  

The obedience nerf is difficult---but doable.    [ALONE]
Less dates = lower stats, less loyalty, [+ fewer time periods (shorter "days") mean everything takes too long,  [something that used to take 4h now takes 6! etc]

Actually how much of a stat boost u get depended a *LOT* upon their factors--buying/luck  [ F5  ---quite rare----much bigger boost than F1!] ----& b4 the change, again, u only got 1 date /day;   If you're really good at something & it's a habit  (every day!)  then yes it can become trivial---but I think that was only for some.

+ Dates only worked @ Mansion,  so if you're too far away...        (lost track of how many [new] games I've played, but very difficult to *NEVER* miss a date  1st 40 days  (B4 ~ Civil War/Mayor))
Games like this don't have a "easy/Med/Hard" mode,  It's all about playing style.    Lots & lots of ways to make it harder---but that should be an individual choice, not something forced on everybody .

Some used lots of combat----boost XP, gold, maybe another slave, etc  people will always try to find a shortcut or easy way of doing things.  (& usually in a game that shouldn't be wrong.)

If anyone that used to use dates a lot,  has (NEW GAME)  hints/strategies they want to share  (that'd be 6.0+)  Would love to hear from you.  (or a mod 2 change back?)

Some R just playing from old saves   [which means they used all the old Time/Date  [lol!] rules]  ----But when there's major changes like this, I think best 2 start new.

Hi, long time no see OP.

It's true that the game is harder now, dates are nerfed hard (a little too much for my taste but meh I'm not the one in charge). Nonetheless my strat still works and others have shared some time ago how they beat the early game.

One of them is using the prostitutes way and the other use combat only with a pair of archer orcs.

Personally I now use a combat team of 2, it's indeed more efficient to level up your characters fast (instead of 4-6 combattants). From those dungeons I usually pick a slave for prostitution and become dancers. I either recruit 1-2 slaves for prostitution or have 2 new combattants, whichever good stats come first. When  I have the new combattants I pair 1 veteran with the newbie and send the 2 teams in dungeons to collect moar loots.

Going on like this is enough for the mayor elections. I didn't go beyond the 1rst arc yet because I lack time to play further

Hey Eiyal  ...  Ya like most have a life outside of here  LOL 

-->>  4 anyone who doesn't like the much fewer Dates   [1 of great things about this game is Moddable!] 

File is:  Game_globals.gd
Note that  7/WK is actually more than 1/day, since they're all avail @ once;
@ MAX charm   (now 6)    weekly_dates_max  = 4; 

Prostitutes have also been nerfed a *LOT;     In fact *SO* much that nearly anything else makes more gold!     [wood/fish/etc]

Archer Orcs?   Never tried that.   (think I did the combat Orcs----Fighter/  [can't rem their special!] )

I too haven't gone beyond 1st Act;   I suppose I could from an old save,  but even the 4 turns/day R a big change to get used to!  [& affect a *LOT*!]  
Even a small mistake----timing, placement, etc R more costly now.     + u have more wasted time.    [time period = 6h,  but maybe u only need 2?  or 4?]

2 /combat team depends on dungeon---& luck!     Newbie = no armor   (assume no classes?)  either basic weapon, or NONE.  
I've seen many get "slaughtered";     Again, part is luck/dungeon;   Worse is:    2  VS  6;       2 VS   (now more BONUS enemies!)  mult enemies w bonus;  [harder to hit/kill]

I suppose add 2 everything unlike some, I'm not really "Hard-Core",     Mostly play 4 fun/stress/tension relief, etc.   When It becomes a bad thing, when I want to toss the (*()*&!!!  out the window...(!).   Time to QUIT.     (or make game EASIER?)  
The more Dev tries to appeal to "Hard-Core" types,  the more he'll loose the casual "play for fun" types.     [hey even the Music is relaxing!]
(Ok,  the guy I read about wanting "INFINITE GOLD"  was too much  LOL!    --->>>  BEST OPTION    (anybody talk to the dev?)     Would be to have    EASY/MED/HARD options @ start.     [changing gold etc @ start,  would *NOT* change back other things---like reduced # of dates]

Well if the game gets too hard I can mod it myself to some extent but for now I still play it vanilla.

The guys I told you about detailed their strategies in one of your own thread : https://itch.io/t/1542823/compare-strive-orig-to-strive-conquest-2 (16 days ago not far from the top)

It's "Beran" and "Give Robots Names", both of them are able to clear the debt problem using different strats. I don't play Orc but usually I use Elf/Tribal Elf or if I want it easier  Seraph or Dragonkin. At the beginning I do goblin dens only then bandit dens. The Bandits dens are lucrative since you can capture the leader which nets around 180-200 golds (pays for the map).

The loot from the dungeons are abundant and sometimes I buy something in the shop (at the beginning I don't spend more than 500 golds in armor/weapon, usually dungeons drops very good equipments). In very rare case I buy a weapon/armor worth 1500-200 gold only if it's really good.

It seems Archer give enough of a boost in speed which make early game way smoother and less risky

Eiyal--
This thread isn't about the bank /gold/debt problem, but if u read the title,  it's about the recent new changes.  
For example:

No more 24/day;  Now there's   6h time slots.  

Suppose you need to make a tool  (or cook or craft or ...)   ALL tools take less than 6h. (even weapons/armor)   [6h NOW = 1 time period!]  

So rest of time is wasted  [FORCED]
Same thing if someone is traveling---anything over or under is wasted/lost

New time sys is definitely a step *BACKWARD!*

BTW all old strategies used the old rule---including 1 DATE/day, & 24h time slots.   (etc)

*TIME* affects EVERYTHING  (at least until CW----disclaimer--haven't tried Act II) ----so just b/c something worked b4 doesn't mean it'll work now.  
Actually I'm finding a lot doesn't work good.   Example :  You can "Que"  upgrades---but not much else.    (can't do   "travel to XXX  & start doing YYY" -->>  All in 1 6h block!)

When they posted, it was with the new changes in effect, not the old format.

The change in the date format is older than you think.

Edit : The new format was introduced around January, their posts was mid-march so I don't have reading problem thank you.

And again I played with the changes in effect and the usual strats still works.

Edit2: on my last save I only have 2 fighters (mc included), mc is slime and a lamia. Got Daisy for fishing and 4 prostitutes for a long time, got some more later to attain 10/10 and I cleared the requirements for the elections without problems. Learn to adapt your playstyle.

There seems to be an interesting divide in the  playerbsse.

We have some people saying things like "All these make everything more difficult & a lot less fun!  :-("

Then  you have people who are  crushing the game.   

I  made  a    speedrun challenge as a lark--how long does it take to clear a Fire  Depths dungeon?  I've gotten a Fire Depths clear as early as      Day 4.  Omega on the game's Discord posted a savefile from a Day 2 FD clear.

if you minmax this game is hilariously ez

if you RP then of course it'll be a lot harder.

Dungeon clearing is still basically OP, especially compared to sitting at home; you only need minimal caution, even with off-meta stuff [like nerfed elves/centaur]. it's harder now, but not by much.

I completely agree! 

V6 is still too easy, they should make it harder.

The game has like no challenge at all.

I suspect that in order to keep a large proportion of interested players, at some point difficulty levels will need to be implemented.

About a month ago I played through a couple saves to day 100 clearing the debt, only did notice board quests (no main quest or story slave quests), default start with both me and starting slave as beastkin cats, (made the second save to see if I could make the debt goal faster) hadn't played any version before that though I did play Strive1 a bunch.

In the first save I didn't get a second slave till day 40 or so, and that was when I cleared my first bandit cave, I managed to clear every debt goal getting my third and fourth slaves around days 70-80, made the 86k for day 100 with about a week to spare.

In the second save I bought additional slaves as I finished making things for them to do and had over 40k by day 50 and well over 100k by day 70, no obedience issues even as I fill my mansion immediately after upgrading capacity once I reached the 100k gold milestone, and I easily spent tens of thousands of gold on random junk and exotic slaves during those first 100 days if not over 100k.

I'm not sure how specific RP styles would change being able to make the debt goals, but for obedience unless you are specifically ignoring classes with social abilities it shouldn't be too difficult to keep a full mansion happy (or at least obedient). Given that neither of my runs were done with a combat focus that might be a point of difficulty, though some people say combat is better money than gathering.

By the way with the crafting things taking less than one 6h turn to complete you can queue multiple crafts and finish two or 3 if them in one turn if you have multiple things you want to make.
I missed playing the hour by hour versions so maybe my perception on the 6h turns being reasonable is skewed from that.

The json viewer did help, but only by using the auto-formatter; the json files show no line breaks without the auto formatting. Still, a useful way to edit json files manually, so thank you for the tip.