There's no need to pay the bank more than 4k. And even that much is a stretch. Many people just pay the first 1k. There is a way to avoid the bank debt.
Viewing post in Compare: Strive (Orig) to Strive Conquest (2)
LOTS of factors come into play (even the "easy mode" walk-through recommended restarting if certain things didn't happen!)
4 Example: Many quests pay very little (less than the items are worth if you sell!) or *NO* GOLD ; Sometimes there's just not enough quests (THAT YOU CAN DO) that show up in the time-frame. ("default" mode only has 1 Quest total! [ADVANCED is MUCH easier!} Another: Getting "clear dungeon" quests instead of (sorry can't remember quest names) Simple ones where you're fighting only 1 level (wolves?) Decent weapons cost $$ (& if you have 2 sell everything 2 pay bank you're SOL!) (if you're poor/focused on paying bank can't do a lot of upgrades so if a) item can't be found for SALE [again, had that happen] you can't do that quest.
Sometime you *HAVE* stuff----but *NO nada -0- Quests avail, & comes time for GREEDY BANK so you have to sell to pay bank!
Generally either focus on 1) Paying bank [YES this is possible---IF YOU IGNORE QUESTS & don't do upgrades or anything else!] ---- OR 2) Do as many quest as possible (some w no -0- gold, some where u loose $, etc) -----but if you try to do #2 & get unlucky, *BOTH* can become impossible! (Route #1 is possible *ONLY* if you don't do upgrades or buy weapons, items for quests)
Alas, what you say is *SOMETIMES* true---& *SOMETIMES* not. (but if you restart cause you're having bad luck isn't that the same as cheating?) Sometimes it can be VERY DIFFICULT or IMPOSSIBLE. (I've read other posts---I'm not the only one who's found it too difficult)
OH, if you're on the team, *REALLY* need more quests in general (2 MIN) *AND* need more for the servant Guild (have *NEVER* been able to get the 500 pts (in "default" mode) ----so any attempts have always been wasted $ & resources. (was going to do a suggestion post) [also seem 2 always end up fighting the Lich too]
-Increasing resources @ start
-Increasing Quests *AND* avail frequency (so you're not days w no quests!) Either or both of those should help default mode. (so far I'm liking "advanced" mode best -->> *WAY WAY* TOO MUCH depends on *LUCK* [which makes for a STRESSFUL game & not a fun one]
As someone who plays management games mediocrely,
skill issue. Really, even if you get shafted hard in wk 1 with quests it's not very hard to clamber out; just sign with fighters or mage guild, go adventuring, grove and goblin caves are easy ways to get tons of exp and decent gold [sell loot], use gold early to buy armor and just run around.
If you can't get 500 pts after paying 4k, you're too slow and not spending enough exp on upping charm factor for mc; if you trihard, you should reliably get 500 pts at on or around the 4k payment
Going by what you've said here, I think the issue is you keep doing combat related things. Combat is the absolute LEAST profitable thing you can do in this game even if its (almost) the only way to do fighting guild stuff.
Try out a playthrough where you start your main character, as well as your starting servant out with maxed Charm and maxed Sexual. You can even give him the Curious or Teacher trait to help even more. MC starting class doesn't matter. You can also set the race to one of the Beast races for an easier start. These will do a few things for you:
1. Your main characters Charm Factor (IE the poor -> good -> great etc) will give you higher rewards from quests and also increase the amount of Dates you can do. This is important since Dates can increase your characters Physic / Charm / Wits, can help with obedience / loyalty / authority, and can lead to sex after the date which bypasses the normal limit on the times you can have sex per week.
2. Your main characters Sex Factor will increase the amount of times you can have Sex per week. This is significantly less helpful than the Charm Factor, but will help early on with increasing sex skill which affects how much you make through prostitution (which is our main source of income in this route)
3. The Teacher trait would help their partner gain sex skill faster, this is particularly useful on the Main Character since all dates go through him, and dates can lead to sex. The Curious trait gives you more exp from sex, and going by what I just said about dates....its very useful on the Main Character.
4. The reason I recommend one of the Beast races (Particularly the fox) is their access to the Natural Pet class, which gives better bonuses than the normal pet class and is VERY easy / quick to unlock.
Now starting out you immediately side with the Servants Guild, get your first servant, set them up similarly with the master while setting their TAM and TMD at similar levels with TAM slightly higher. Also give them Curious over Teacher, and start them with the Harlot class. The first thing you do is equip the items you got from the servant guild, check the shop for any charm increasing gear (last tab on the right). Try to get the gloves, ears, underwear, and maid outfit if any of them are available, but be aware at the start you only have 500g. Put both characters on Prostitution duty immediately but be sure to do a date before passing a day. The goal of the date is to raise consent, so pick praise first, then pat head, comb, hug, kiss, flirt, intimate talk, then spam hug. Chances are the first one will end without sex, which is fine. You can use the Praise skill from the hotbar afterwards to further increase consent and the next date will almost certainly lead to sex.
Now pass a day and then date again, this time do not use any affection options, immediately swap to training and click Practice charm. If you maxed both characters Charm Factor out, they will gain 15 charm this is super important since charm increases the money you get from prostitution. After the date the character will likely want sex basically always do since it will usually max the characters Lust bar afterwards which will give you fuel for abilities later. If its boring to go through the same menu a lot then during sex click on any character thats not your main character (or all of them other than your main character if you have more than 2 participating) and click "Let X lead" Then you can spam click observe in the bottom until the 20 turns are up. If at any point you get enough exp to add a class, make sure you put Harlot on the MC asap.
You'll want to repeat that till you are out of dates, though make sure you check the store for charm increasing gear at least until you have both characters kitted out. At no later than the 3rd day make sure you check all the quests to see if there are any you can complete easily. Any quest that asks for food, literally just buy it from the store. Because of your maxed out Charm Factor you will almost always get more money back from finishing a quest than you spent on buying the quest item. If theres a worker quest that asks for something like "an axe with a bone blade" You can check the shop each day for one, but if there isn't one in the shop just don't accept the quest ever. If theres a Servant quest make sure you read the quest carefully to see if they are asking for a worker or asking for a slave. Be very careful with these cause if you mess up and give away one of your better workers on a slave quest then they will be gone FOREVER. These quests will usually ask for something with "Charm 33" or "sex skills 25" or TAM / TMD at average, you can just look through tows market or the guilds and buy the person who meets the requirements and instantly hand them over. If its a charm one then you recruit someone who has a decently high charm factor then raise their charm skills through datings "training" and hand them over when they meet the requirement. Same goes for the ones that need sex skills. Then theres the mages that generally have the easiest quests as most of the consumables they ask for are in the store on one day or another.
Eventually (usually after the first week, or after the first bank payment) You'll want to recruit more characters. The important thing to note when adding more characters is to aim for high charm factor, sex factor, and TAM / TMD not too low. The reason for this is the classes you'll be aiming for will require it. Speaking of the classes you want basically anything that adds charm or value from prostitution. Harlot, Pet / Natural Pet, Bard, Dancer, Incubus and the Servant Guild classes are all things to aim for. Also be sure to buy food occasionally for your people, and in between bank payments make sure you buy the materials required for the Mansion Rooms / Luxury Rooms upgrades. The former so you can recruit more people, the later so you can max out their loyalty then put them in a luxury room and set them to "Coerced Labor" which becomes a free 15% production boost. If you are willing to buy more food, you can also set extra rations for another 15% boost. Oh and after you buy the upgrades remember to set someone to the "upgrade" job till its done or you won't get it.
Honestly if you even just loosely follow this mini-guide you'll easily pay the bank off in full. And likely won't even need to since you'll finish out Servants very quickly, Mages very quickly, Workers somewhat quickly, but never Fighters (you only need 3 anyway).
Jeez that was way more typing than I intended to do, but here you go. Just gotta understand the games systems and its really not that hard. The moment I noticed how god awful the rewards for combat were, and ignored it completely, I stopped having any problem getting money in this game.
I've tried a combat build, and you never really have enough money to do anything with it. Unless ofc you use the skip combat cheat. If you use that then yeah your way will be faster. Otherwise I can't see ANY way combat would ever be faster with the paltry rewards you get from it combined with the reduced quest rewards. And bare in mind, the above was said assuming you intend to pay off the debt, not if you intend to bum rush the quests to get rid of the debt.
"I've tried a combat build, and you never really have enough money to do anything with it.
I started refining combat builds to be able to be able to shop from the Exotic trader on w1 d7. A good combat build can clear 4k+ gold in the first six days, easily--and no "skip combat cheat" is required.
"reduced quest rewards. "
My combat builds always have 6 CHA on the MC (4 dates on week 1 is great for stat building), so I also get maximum quest rewards.
"the above was said assuming you intend to pay off the debt, not if you intend to bum rush the quests to get rid of the debt."
1) Getting rid of the debt before the second collection saves a bunch of money.
2) I think combat is a lot more profitable than you think it is.
I'm doing a run with 2 starter orcs and as of the morning of W:2, D:7, I'm sitting on a pile of 1,204 cotton (which can be sold for just over 12k) that I looted out of bandit forts. (I looted a lot more than that, mind, but the 12k worth of cotton should be enough to illustrate that I'm hardly hurting for gold.)
Hmm, its been a while since the last time I tried a combat build so I'll give it another shot. Truth be told the absolute fastest method (for early money) I've hit so far is fishing then immediately going into woodcutting asap, then getting iron and smelting them into steel. I'm interested to see if going combat can be faster. Why Orcs in particular? The unique class? I'm guessing for the earth damage boost on the aoe. As for why I do not get rid of the debt, I like the increased challenge that it provides.
You have the idea.
Orcs get Berserker, which is 20% extra earth and fire damage, +10 physics and +5 speed and unlocks advanced combat skills. Pair that with Earth Shatter and Fire Cleave and a pair of orcs can kill most foes in Bandit Forts (including non-buffed Assassins) before they ever get a chance to counterattack.
(Dragonkin and Valkyries are also OP and can be substituted in with only minor changes to overall gameplay.)
I'm wondering if a hybrid strategy would be best. Start off with two orcs to farm Bandit Forts starting around day 6 and have them powerlevel your other characters, including the prostitutes.
Tried your method, without a healer it simply doesn't work. With a healer its too slow. By W2 D7 on both of my other builds I have about 3x the amount of $ I had in my 2 attempts with all combat classes, including the one with 2 orcs. Not to mention if you count actual real time (not the weeks or days but minutes you spend doing it) combat is just far too slow. That being said if it works for you just have at it. I recommend you try my method too though.
"I recommend you try my method too though."
My first priority with this game is researching a hybrid method--better prostitutes via orc power-leveling.
Anywho, here's how I got 2 orcs and Daisy to clear a Bandit Fort on W:1, D: 5
MC: Orc, Fighter, Curious, 6 PHY 6 CHA
Starting Peon: Fighter, Curious, 6 PHY, 6 SEX, 6 WIT (WIT is mostly for +xp, but also lets the peon double as the party thief)
Dungeon order: Farmed Goblin Dens on days 1 and 2, started farming Bandit Dens on day 3, cleared one Bandit Fort on day 5. Relied heavily on shards and bandages from the shop + one turn spent resting.
And, yes, days 1 and 2 are RNG reliant--but not as much as you might think. Getting life shards from shrines goes a LONG way towards mitigating other RNG effects.
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MC leveling order: Attendant, Archer, Berserker, Rogue, SEX 6 for speed boost
Peon leveling : Thief, Archer, Berserker, Rogue, Watchdog, Sadist, Worker
Daisy leveling: PHY 3, Rogue, Harlot, Succubus, Archer, True Pet
Additional skills: Berserker unlocks Earth Shatter--get that ASAP on the orcs for a huge spike in power. Don't go into Bandit Forts without Fire Cleave ; you'll want that for burning down Ballistae.
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Both orcs have a base speed of 60; I found a Belled Collar that boosted the peon orc to speed 65.
MC and Peon start bandit fights with Earth Shatter. Two earth shatters kill most Bandit Fort foes outright (and sometimes one Earth Shatter clears the entire board). Healing becomes MUCH less of a problem when most of your enemies die before they can react.
Daisy is mostly there to leech xp and to stun the most dangerous remaining foe (if any) with Attract. Archer gives Daisy extra speed and lets her equip Basic Combat weapons; put the highest +hit chance weapon you can find on her.
Test run of hybrid strategy (two orc fighters, remaining NPCs mostly prostitutes) is complete.
In game time is Night of W: 2 D:6.
Gold counter reads "14k". I have 10k worth of just cotton and assorted armors/weapons/etc. worth a few thousand more.
Mansion has 20 rooms, first Master's Bedroom Upgrade, and Forge I completed. Upgrade schedule has Tailor I, Forge II and Farming: Silk in progress.
Guild Points earned so far: Fighters 580, Workers 496, Servants 688, Mages 420.
#1 prostitute is Daisy with a job rating of 272.7. Two other workers have a prostitution rating of just over 100. Total combined prostitute rating is 930.5. I kind of lost track of how much they earn per turn because the gold counter is now reporting my gold to the nearest thousand.
I think I did okay.