"Initial limit on all stats and skills, including Health, Confidence, Obedience, Spirit etc is 60."
I agree with you overall points about making the girls more unique on a micro level, but I think this suggestion is at cross purposes with that. With this method, every girl you meet will be the same; their potential will be different, but certainly some girls can be beautiful, obedient, healthy, charismatic, etc., without ever having worked for you. I see how this adds more "game" to the game, but with the way I have my girl packs set up, there is already "game" there. Some girls are beautiful (90+), but willful (spirit 70+), or disobedient (Obed = 0). I think thoughtfully made girls is the best way to add uniqueness (and challenge) in this regard.
The "Fame" stat is one of my biggest problems with the game. After a while, every single girl in my brothel is 100% famous, and that just makes the stat pointless. I don't think fame should be a independent stat, but rather based on a amalgamation of several stats, like the "looks" stat. Fame could perhaps involve some kind of representative equation, like: (Looks + Normal Sex + Oral Sex)/3 = Fame Maximum.
Fame would add value to the stats and skills included in the equation, as a girl having high Fame has the direct benefit of adding more customers to the brothel, which equals more money.
Fame currently is more indicative of a girls overall worth than the "level" stat, which really has no purpose and should probably be removed from the game, or at least turned into a description or a title such as:
Level 0 = "This is girl is brand new." "Street girl"
Level 1 = "She has had only a little experience working in a brothel "Stripper"
etc.
Or have the title based on her top skill:
Normal Sex = "Whore"
BDSM = "Sex Slave"
Strip = "Stripper"
Service = "Waitress"
etc.
Probably better would just have "level" replaced with a "Years in Service" stat, which would currently fulfill the same function as the the level stat. The stat could also be used in scripting, for whatever purpose.
"More Trait conflicts?"
Absolutely. If girl a has "Nervous" it should cap her charisma. If Nervous gives -10 charisma (or whatever) her max charisma should be (100) - (10) = 90. But the option should be present to have girls lose neg traits over time, as the game currently functions. You should also not be able to be "Charasmatic" and "Nervous", or "Aggressive" and "Meek". Negative traits should also be able to be acquired through gameplay, outside of the dungeon and torture. There are times when your girl is abused by customers. Maybe a chance to lose more than happiness, or a small chance to gain a neg trait (small scars, dependant, etc.).
"Even low-obedience girls will more rarely refuse orders"
I think the current way obedience works is fine. In my understanding Obedience is checked when a girl is assigned an action she doesn't want to do (based on her preferences). If she is "happy enough with stripping", she should be more likely to to strip in the club (maybe a bonus to her obedience check?). If she isn't okay with it, she should refuse. I believe PCLove, PCFear, and PCHate, also factor into her decision somehow.
"Spirit" is the one that confuses me. All I've seen it affect so far is the nature of her dialogue after you scold her (which is nice). Have any idea what it affects besides this? Runaway potential?
I have to disagree with you on your ++Macro points with the map, gangs, and grid. At its heart this game is a management sim, not a strategy game. The whole thing with gangs and territory should be kept amorphous and shouldn't take time away from dealing with your girls. I really don't have the desire to select which grid square my gang will defend/attack or worry about whether I have enough squares to support a certain building, etc. You aren't a drug kingpin, or a gangster, you're a whore master. To me this means your talents lie in creating whore houses of willing or unwilling women to service your customers. This involves managing the intricacies of your girls and their personalities and roles you want them to perform. You are essentially the matron for every whorehouse you operate, and perform matron duties when you don't have one. Helping the girls with their problems, taking them off of work when they are sick or tired, scolding them when they don't obey, and choosing in what capacity they work for you, all in the name of creating a pleasurable experience for your customers. The more gameplay that focuses on this goal, I think the more satisfying the experience will be. Right now it is so easy to get a profitable brothel with high fame and customer satisfaction (still don't know how this is calculated or how to affect it), that people are looking to other parts of the game for more gameplay, which is an indication that there isn't enough challenge or substance with the main part of the game. In Call of Duty (which has excellent gameplay, for what it is: an FPS), doesn't distract the player with the mundane details of war. You don't have to buy bullets after each round, or clean your weapons, or go to basic training. You don't have to lobby congress for more military funding, or clean the latrines on PT. Every customization decision made in the game relates back to core gameplay of your ability to 360 no-scope your opponent. It's good game design whether or not you enjoy it personally.
As a side note, I'd love to be able to decide not only how much to pay my girls (I start at 90%, which adds more difficulty), but how much they charge for their services. This game is in dire need of this as well as a proper ledger screen which include gang fees and other expenses. Right now I have no idea where my money is being spent. The start turn dialogue misrepresents your financial situation as it only reports brothel expenses. Many times it says I've made a profit when really I'm still in the red.
I think a cool idea would be to have to pick a specialty for each "brothel" building you purchase. Right now there is no difference between jobs "Brothel Whore", "Strip Club Whore", or any other sex job. You should have to choose if your building is a brothel, a strip club, a bar, or a gambling hall, and be limited to the jobs available within each of those categories. "Whore on the street" should be available for all buildings with it's inherent risks. You should also be able to renovate each building, for a considerable fee and maybe a few turns of no profit from the building, in order to change it's specialty. Because you only start with one brothel, this initial choice adds progression tiers and uniqueness to the gameplay experience. Buying a new brothel in the current game is almost pointless, because you can add rooms to your original brothel (which is fine), and because the only difference between brothels is the screen background.
Anyway, it's of course easy to just sit back and write a post about how the game should play, while others do the actual work of coding of the game, which is time consuming and often frustrating. I've just started writing scripts for this game (which I will begin posting as soon as I have a semi-presentable work), and I can tell you it sometimes takes hours to complete with the dialogue, testing, and debugging, for something as simple as a causal conversation between you and a girl. So as always, massive props to crazy and aveojoey(sp?) for modding/re-writing whoremaster into the pretty good Management/Dating Sim game it is today. The last thing we want as fans of the game is to have these guys feel like their work is going unnoticed or worse, not appreciated. (I'm sure nobody feels like that, but it's always nice to let them know.)