Board Thread:The Last Sovereign Discussion/@comment-130.225.247.34-20191209223735/@comment-39120971-20191213120005

I don't whore out Qum on my main playthrough, but I plan to do it on a secondary playthrough when I'll be trying to take the most ruthless route possible (when I'll also pick up crazy Altina and dominated Varia, and generally take advantage of every opportunity no matter who ends up hurt in the process). I sort of figured this way I can see most interactions between characters without reloading lots of saves to hunt down edge cases.

In terms of the profitability of the decision, I gotta agree with everyone saying the 15k ProN is difficult to spend on something that gains you enough profit down the line. In general I chose to delay Premium Steel until the reunion round, and although I tried Bridge Repair initially learning the benefits that come from not repairing the bridge made me reconsider and switch to just Bank+Mine Processing+Gift to Megail+Stineford Magic Shop (with the 5000 from the Bank before leaving Ari-Yhilina). You could afford early mercenaries to save Carina's men, but that sinks your profits instead of increasing them for the reunion round, and while Premium Steel gives some profit it can't compare with the Stineford Magic Shop + Ardoheim Magic Trade combo. Try as I might, I cannot see a better route for round 1, and from there you fall more or less in line with other routes (depending on whether you go for all 3 banks or only 2, and if 2, which one do you skip?).