Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-44835548-20200110171953/@comment-44835548-20200111031253

The Fulminato wrote: can ask your route plans? Huh, wiki ate my post and didn't post anything. Strange. I wrote a lot there so sorry if it seems a bit scuffed, I'll be more careful next time.

First of all, of course! And thank you for the whole game simulator and the reference min-max playthrough (https://pastebin.com/aDsiSp5g), they help a lot. Here's a pastebin link for the Whole Game Simulator json of a version that's kind of everything and nothing, I'll explain next what is it about. https://pastebin.com/vaaz8NXN

The idea was to build a good chapter 1-3 run start after a gimmick of getting Bridge Repairs first chapter to actually start orcs in BoY in clustered formation, which is much better than mixed. I kept most of the same limitations, as they align with my goals - unwhored Qum, reshaped unraped Varia, saner Altina, amplification spell, etc. Really wanted to make the whole 3 banks thing work, though.

Investments are:

Chapter 1 (80+5k) - 25k mine, 25k bank, 10k bridge repairs, 10k stineford magic shop; 15k left.

Megail's Route (200k + 20k + 15k left), all but aramite supplier: Yhilin Supplier (5k), magic trade (15k), Eustrin: embassy (100k), processor (50k), manufacturer (25k), supplier (40k). 0 ProN left.

Reunion Yhilin (1560k profit): Yhilin Bank (450k), all mercs (25k), 1085k ProN left.

Ardford (1085k+90k guild deals=1175k): Merchant Guild (100k), Restaurant (25k), Order of Silence medium (50k), Supplier (50k), both banks (850k), deed (100k), 0 ProN left.

The run was at this state when I asked the question, and this seems like a cool run that is 45k short of profits of your minmax run at war aftermath and has no sanitation mage guild or premium steel, but has 2 iterations of Yhilin bank bringing money to make up for the difference, BoY that to me felt slightly better (12 army quality) and better army size. At first glance, at least. The unfortunate part is that this run opens up a few possibilites that are just a little short of success.

The main frustration is that Megail is 96 RP before the BoY check to reduce chaos, but Aka is 74 before the airship check, so you need to talk to Aka first at reunion to not crash the airship. This only allows us to make use of 3 out of 4 chaos that BoY allows you to get before arriving at Economic Chaos at 5. I saw 2 ways out of this predicament:

1) allowing Varia gangbang. This is an acceptable option if I wanted 200 army at 3AW with max Orcent score and was fine with making a choice I don't really like doing. With this run, you get 31 army size at the end of BoY. This, with the same investments and stuff that doesn't require resources as in minmax playthrough, nets you 191 in Orcent's gauge before the war. Investing in countryside mercs gives you 8 more (199). From reading the 3AW page, I'm pretty sure you want 201 and fancy walk funded to maximise the usefulness of your army size score. This is easy if you can max Megail before BoY and send Orcent to intercept instead of guard in BoY, knocking enemy forces from 39 to 29. To do that, you need to get 1 Aka RP somehow without changing your summit decisions, and Varia gangbang is probably the least impactful of what the game has in store. Unfortunately, it leaves Qum at 90 at BoY check, so you have to send Carina and miss on the pins.

2) also invest in Premium Steel on reunion. This seems like what I'll do. Calculator json for that: https://pastebin.com/kFqzTnwk (might miss some checkmarks in 3AW, verify if needed). Basically, invest in Premium Steel (-100k), drop Ari-Garda (+10k), Ardford Supplier (+50k), switch Order of Silence from medium to low (+40k) and take the penalty of not being able to arrive in Ardford with 1000k to get a bonus clue. Our army size from BoY can pretty easily eat the 3AW penalty of not having a supplier and -2 from Ari-Garda, and not having Ari-Garda is the 4th allowance of chaos we have in BoY (the orc troop needed by House Rose was unused anyway), so that seems pretty OK. This actually nets us 30k more than min-max playthrough has at War Aftermath, and saves 450k needed to invest into Yhilin Bank in chapter 4. The downside is it hurts auxiliary army in Erosian War, I didn't check anything beyond 3AW yet, so it might be worse than I think. So far seems good, though.

EDIT: Yeah its not bad at all, I get exactly 70 auxiliary army size, and 9 diversity, which is nice.

You can also whore Qum and make the whole difficult decisions point moot, but who would do that, right?.. That's probably where the whore run shines, though. Investing in Premium Steel and bridge in chapter 1 (skipping Yhilin Supplier in Megail's route, get it on reunion) allows you to get the same things but nets bonus 100k at reunion (100k from steel + 25k from steel discount - 10k supplier income - 15k supplier cost at reunion), so you get your bonus clue and some allowance to spend on supplier and order of silence, or sanitation mages if you're into that. I wouldn't want to do whore Qum in my main playthrough, so that's a topic for some other time, but it seems good from the resource perspective.