A fair point, I haven’t played on hell or doom difficulty, and I don’t usually let my world level pass 50. Correct me if I’m wrong, but world level and difficulty does not increase experience or money awarded? In that case, you’re choosing between a challenge or efficiency, and I favor efficiency. I can always change the difficulty after I hit the level cap. Regarding the higher difficulty, does all food expire, or just soups? I also didn’t know that mysterious smoked meat could reduce disease, is that explained anywhere?
I eventually aim for 15 SUR because hitchhiker feels OP, but if you aren’t at a decent level SUR doesn’t help with most builds, so Good Soup is way better until you can afford the points (eg. level 50+), and by then the profit from smoked meat is far outclassed by saving women or baby farming.
As for saving the women, they move super slow, and even if you use acolyte healing them doesn’t remove their chains, so you can’t tell me using stones to distract the babies is slower. I guess if you are playing above world level 50 maybe it gets more challenging, but before then I’ve barely ever had a problem. You can always kill the 2-3 strays, save the women first, then pop the bodies for an extra 2-3 babies to collect.
The RNG factor applies to saving the women too though, since the moot only award exp not coin, and while there will always be at least 6 possible babies, there can be anywhere from 0 to 5 women in the northern tower. I guess you could prioritize just saving the women without having to make a trip back due to weight or breastfeeding due to day changes, and if you really wanted to collect meat at the same time you could rent a horse, but I firmly believe baby farming is anywhere from 2x to 4x faster for making money.
The exchange rate for the non-standard smoked meat is way lower, you’d need something like 400 humaned smoked meat, or around 230 mystery smoked meat for a single gold coin.
I haven’t played much with the prostitution mechanic, is it possible to actually make a decent income that way? Is that only possible in the nobles district, or is there a trick to it?