Author Topic: General Balancing / Mods  (Read 18907 times)

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Offline trex

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Re: General Balancing / Mods
« Reply #30 on: March 17, 2011, 03:01:27 AM »
Well I agree having some extra info on the enemy would be a nice touch, I don't think their activities impact at all (indirectly that is, directly you do know when they attack/steal territory/beat up a streetwalker).


Customer pools that visit a brothel are not influenced by enemy brothels/your other brothels.


I'd like to be able to set what sexual act is available on a per girl basis, so one brothel can have specialists, instead of the workaround now with each brothel being the only way to segment sexual acts. I guess it stems from my current playstyle of less is more, it doesn't really matter much if you have 5 Brothels x50 girls games, I mean, who wants to set 250 girls individually? Micro vs. Macro I guess.


necrodrool, if customer satisfaction and fame worked correctly ( they may already, they seem to kinda work in my games) then adding the "unlock' more brothels (levels?) would be cool too. Those that don't want to, could always shell out 5k for more rooms in the first brothel. Or some other workaround, in this idea.

Offline Zanfib

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Re: General Balancing / Mods
« Reply #31 on: March 17, 2011, 07:03:53 AM »
Customer pools that visit a brothel are not influenced by enemy brothels/your other brothels.

Then they should be.

Offline Begferdeth

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Re: General Balancing / Mods
« Reply #32 on: March 17, 2011, 07:23:21 AM »
Perhaps you could add some sort of 'fame' score onto your gangs. Then when they get successful enough, they grab a random set of your girls and set off to make a rival brothel. This would help with the 'my gangs are all powerful' problem.

Offline trex

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Re: General Balancing / Mods
« Reply #33 on: March 17, 2011, 08:35:14 AM »
Perhaps you could add some sort of 'fame' score onto your gangs. Then when they get successful enough, they grab a random set of your girls and set off to make a rival brothel. This would help with the 'my gangs are all powerful' problem.


That sounds awesome, although rage inducing for some. If you could go further and "quest" with your remaining loyal gangs to search,destroy and recapture, it'd expand on and vary the end game, a revolt from within, giving more gravitas to actually keep crusading to crush all opposing you.


An even further stretch would be to implement gang loyalty, use this as a reason why it'd matter, and then give you the option to assign sons to gangs to raise loyalty. Maybe you could vary the code on the 'guard comes and takes girl to prison'? IDK. I know sons were originally planned to be gang leaders, but I think that's dead jim.






Zanfib, yeah, I'd like to see the max. customers in each brothel raised, and then influenced by more factors (unsure if bar/gambling jobs raise customers, it appeared to in one of my games but IDK) Making it vary with the amount of opponents/brothels/their success could then expand the scope, adding to the 'business' side of this game. Money still won't be a problem though, if this starts to impact, you'd invariably go to war and win.


Many aspects to this idea yeah?


Offline sgb

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Re: General Balancing / Mods
« Reply #34 on: April 16, 2011, 12:51:06 AM »
One game 'mod' I made myself a while back was to try and make the game a pure brothel sim;

-All girls in my file were set to slave so they only appeared in slave market.  Walk find % set to 0.
-Starting gold increased to 10000 but slave purchase costs tripled.  This resulted in girl costs from about 2500-6000 each, allowing the player some choice early on but greatly slowing the rate at which you can get new girls.

This run requires some self-imposed rules since they cannot be configured:
-Only allowed two gangs.  They can only use Guard, Training, and Spy on Girls.  I realize this limits you to one brothel, however having even one business means you have a chance to get a free girl every turn which defeats the point of a slave market only run
-You must free all girls immediately after purchase; no abusing 100% house take and lowered rebelliousness.  Do not re-brand them later on.
-Try to avoid using catacombs for the same reasons as the no business rule; no free girls.  Adjust your catacomb-only items if you can't live without them.
-Girls from pregnancy are okay so long as you use the default pregnancy times.  It is long enough for them to grow up that it does not really break things, and without catacombs this is the only way to obtain random monstergirls.
-Never save and reload to re-roll the slave market roster.
-Optional, but since WM has no end give yourself a time limit; ie see how much gold you have after three years, or having X number of girls within a certain time limit.

I found this type of game remained interesting for longer than a normal playthrough, but it still eventually reaches a point where you have silly amounts of money and can start getting new girls every turn (hence the suggestion to give yourself a time limit).  You can further refine difficulty by adjusting tax rates and/or income.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2011, 12:53:06 AM by sgb »

Offline trex

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Re: General Balancing / Mods
« Reply #35 on: April 16, 2011, 09:16:37 PM »
That sounds good, I can see how it can make the game more interesting and extend it further. I guess after the first year though, once you get a girl to 100 fame, and if she gets 100 constitution/you give her items to get there, you'll quickly raise the capital to rapidly progress?


I don't like progressing quickly too much, so what I did in my latest custom 'rules imposed' play was:


-Not buy constitution raising items, or pretty much any items really. Just the clothes that have minor bonuses, to sort of set a 'uniform' of sorts. Also so you still use some of the items, and burn up some cash.
-Not go into the catacombs, for the same reasons you outlined, and that money also comes easily in there. It's annoying because I haven't set the items to be obtainable in the shop, though that's an easy fix. Although, it does make serious afflictions a real consequence from neglecting/abusing girls, so if you like that sort of option, leave mind fuck/fragile/retarded stats uncureable. It'll make you think twice about how you value them and your income stream.
-Start out with one slave girl, and only use her daughters to expand girl-wise. A slow process, but you could also make use of her daughters for the same reason. Just use customers to do that process, or yourself if you have no qualms lol.


So as you can see, it's slow going early on, and progresses slowly. I also like doing these last two to make it more difficult.
-Have no gangs whatsoever. There's risk in whoring, and coupled with the uncurable damage that may happen, (also slows down the birth rate, rather brutally) it makes the next point more advantageous. Alternatively, config file to raise the rape possibly.
-Once you get enough girls, change your brothel to a bar/gambling den. Lower income further slows down, but keeps more girls 'intact'. You could also just have them be massusses in the beginning to minimize risks and income. I like how the sex rules of the brothel also apply for these jobs.


Some of these you can do by config file alteration, but I do like to have more regular play style games able to load without swapping config/item files.


I also played like this:
-Only employ 'damaged' girls. Girls that have addictions/negative traits.
-Cure them with the income they generate, and then make them 'Free girls'. If you have too many girls, release them.
-Usually I also make these girls work in bar/gaming, to lower incomes and also if they're damaged, is it right to make them work (solely) as whores?
-No gangs other than for guarding. You don't want to be receiving daughters from businessmen.


This is more of a 'good' play style, and also works on burning up that capital, while keeping income lower.
-I usually keep the girls that are 'uncureable' because their cure items are in the catacombs, which I avoid. Again, the alternative way is to make a shop item/change the existing item to be shop obtainable.

Offline sgb

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Re: General Balancing / Mods
« Reply #36 on: April 16, 2011, 10:48:54 PM »
Yeah, a super whore hitting 100 fame and 8 customers a day @ 100 gold is usually the 'end' of any playthrough.  At that point you really can't fail, unless you set a sky-high tax rate.  That could make the early game too hard though, I'll have to try 25% and see from there.  I totally agree with the constitution thing; once you hit around 90, you basically never have to manage that girl again.  I've considered removing them from my item list entirely simply beacuse they break the game too badly.  I think I did notice from an all slave market run is that the price of slaves is calculated very oddly.  Relatively average girls going for near 6000, while some above average ones going for 2500.  Needs to be reworked, or better yet set completely manually from the girl config file.

I'm not sure you can do a pure no-gang run though.  Without any guards, you start losing huge chunks of cash around month 5-6.  It doesn't seem possible to have enough income at that point to keep absorbing the losses.  I usually just have two high-stat guards and ignore the gang part of the game entirely.  In r593 my game crashes after buying a second brothel, so having no businesses works out anyway.



Offline Mak

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Re: General Balancing / Mods
« Reply #37 on: April 16, 2011, 10:54:47 PM »
The second brothel crash seems to be caused by using a brothel name that exists in another save file. It may be related to the autosave, I'm not sure, but it hasn't happened to me since I started making sure to give each brothel a unique name.
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Offline trex

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Re: General Balancing / Mods
« Reply #38 on: April 17, 2011, 08:59:57 AM »
Well I get around the no guard thing by depositing any positive cash into the bank each round. If you got no cash=no attacks. Using the keyboard shortcuts helps with that added micromanagement. I guess I could cut that out altogether by making the guards cost much higher, having one uber gang on guard, making sure they're stocked with healing potions every now and again, and bumping up the rape chance so whoring still is a risky business. But I like not having guards at all, eliminating the management altogether and not having that temptation of sending them to the catacombs to search for a cure for rarer negative traits lol.


I'm doing a play through now where I'll have 1 girl on security (to exploit the extra confrontations it generates) and still having no guards. In another I was going to have catacomb raiding girls, but I decided to start another game instead.


Interesting about the second brothel naming thing, I try to keep my number of girls down, as I find I start to lose interest when multiple brothels are involved. Although now with all these new girl packs I've got in the last couple of months I might need to do a 'gotta catch them all!' game to see all the new ones I still haven't encountered yet.

Offline Mak

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Re: General Balancing / Mods
« Reply #39 on: April 17, 2011, 06:51:46 PM »
I limit myself to adding 10 rooms max per brothel. After the 3rd or 4th you really don't even need to add unless you get bored. In between you can sell randoms to replace with uniques you get, but that can generate a lot of money so usually once a brothel is full I swap catacomb girls to beast capture and stop town walk arounds.
 
I like the gang warfare as it is right now, I get constant conflicts. After the first brothel even aquiring territory often results in a gang war and often a gang wiped out. I can't deny that if I get bored or run out of my own limitation ideas I'll be looking for this post again though. On turn summary I only check highlighted girls, and in management I check happiness to choose which girls to check on.
 
To burn money I first equip any girls that combat in any way. I try to keep magic higher than combat and keep those stats up, but exp eventually kills that idea. I do that because the current script basically counts magic only when it's higher than combat level. Magic has a higher chance of winning though, if you want to make it harder, lower magic and focus on combat. I choose magic because it's harder to boost and costs more.
 
Another money burner is to sift through the girls and if their "looks" are below 95% try to bring them up. In the long run though, this generates more money, but for a while it burns a lot if you don't weed through the girls you use. To be honest though, while my profits are in the red I don't use girls with addictions or disease.
 
It sounds like people are going to pick the game back up later, so I'm also curious as to what they'll do; but, until then, I appreciate some ideas on how to challenge myself. I've been a gamer for over 20 years and hate when people tell me a game is easy/finished but they used cheats/bugs/breaks etc. I don't use the quit/reload to get items/slaves/walk arounds, would be too easy. I always quit when I'm ready to hit next week, then hit it right after I load.
 
Sorry for the WoT, but I think this is an interesting topic and would like to see the ideas and responses. I currently like the gang warfare, but I can guarantee that at some point I will try these ideas. I'm a casual gamer, but every game reaches the point where you want something new eventually.
« Last Edit: April 18, 2011, 05:01:17 AM by Mak »
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Offline THE FUTURE

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Re: General Balancing / Mods
« Reply #40 on: April 17, 2011, 08:31:49 PM »
Didn't see it mentioned as I skimmed through, but you can hurt your cashflow especially in the beginning a lot by prohibiting all but one kind of sex. I usually do Lesbian. Since there are six kinds of brothels, you can have one for each type if you want. Then the game becomes a micromanagement one of checking every so often to switch each girl to the type of sex brothel you want her to get better at. I've got some girls who are level 30 and still not maxed at some kinds of sex because I restricted everything but one kind.

I'm considering what would be a good way of improving the mid to end game, but what appeals the most to me is the idea of gradually (as opposed to an instant poof she's a slut item) corrupting your girls into sluts or turning your nervous/meek girls into sadists, or that kind of thing. The system where the girl gains skills as she grows to love a job type seems to work well for this (like how a Matron gets Charismatic and Psychic, etc). It seems like we just need some of the less supported jobs like Stripper to have their own aspects.

Ahh, I have a lot of ideas, but I suppose I should stop being lazy and go learn some c++ if I want to see them implemented.
« Last Edit: April 17, 2011, 08:36:57 PM by THE FUTURE »
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Offline sgb

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Re: General Balancing / Mods
« Reply #41 on: April 18, 2011, 12:58:42 AM »
Quote
The second brothel crash seems to be caused by using a brothel name that exists in another save file. It may be related to the autosave, I'm not sure, but it hasn't happened to me since I started making sure to give each brothel a unique name.
Hmm, good to know.  I usually just name my brothels One, Two, Three, etc. so that would conflict with other saves.

Quote
I like the gang warfare as it is right now, I get constant conflicts. After the first brothel even aquiring territory often results in a gang war and often a gang wiped out. I can't deny that if I get bored or run out of my own limitation ideas I'll be looking for this post again though. On turn summary I only check highlighted girls, and in management I check happiness to choose which girls to check on.
The two gamebreakers with gangs are Sabotage and the free girls once your have one business.  Once your have a couple gangs high enough to sabotage, your gold will quickly go from thousands to hundreds of thousands.  For some reason they accumulate insane amounts of money early on; insane amounts of money that will all go to you.  The free girls don't make any sense considering each business only pays 10 gold a turn, while selling a branded slave is at least 1000-2000 gold.

Offline Mak

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Re: General Balancing / Mods
« Reply #42 on: April 20, 2011, 09:49:12 PM »
The two gamebreakers with gangs are Sabotage and the free girls once your have one business.  Once your have a couple gangs high enough to sabotage, your gold will quickly go from thousands to hundreds of thousands.  For some reason they accumulate insane amounts of money early on; insane amounts of money that will all go to you.  The free girls don't make any sense considering each business only pays 10 gold a turn, while selling a branded slave is at least 1000-2000 gold.

Yeah, avoiding sabotage seems to make a big difference. By not using it it seems to keep the rest of the gang warfare aspect more active as well, and keeps the amount you need to bribe higher. Depending on how I'm playing at the time, sometimes I leave the free girls in the dungeon until I get the next brothel, but that can leave you with a lot of girls or girls with a lot of extra traits at times...if they survive long enough.
 
Another way I've played, is to limit yourself to starting each turn with say 5-10k gold unless you need more to buy a brothel. At the beginning of each turn just deposit the rest of your gold and never withdrawl any. It slows the game down a lot in terms of progress without having to take away from the rest of the game play. Doing this with a limit of adding 10 rooms to the first brothel and a limit of 5-10 to the rest is my most common way to play. Forgot to add the gold limitting idea in my previous posts.
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