I’ve only managed to raise a housewife so far… but damn could she cook…
this game clearly has an evil rating greater than tetris ever did…
The biggest part of the game is the juggle of money, time, and stress. Maybe late in the game, you’ll have all the money you need, but early-to-mid-game you won’t have nearly enough. Unless you prioritize well, you’ll never have enough time to get your daughter’s skill up as high as you want, and you’ll never max out everything. And if you push your daughter too hard, she’ll break under the stress.
First, let’s talk about stress. Everything she does, with the exception of adventuring and resting, adds to her stress. Heck, even her blood type adds to Stress- +2 a month for A and AB. B subtracts 2 a month, and O doesn’t have any effect.
The more stressed she is, the more delinquent she gets, and the more likely she is to get sick. I think delinquency is based on temperment- the higher the temperment, the more you can stress her without her getting delinquent. Likewise, sickness is based on Constitution- stress her too much more than her Constitution and she gets sick.
But- and here’s an important point- delinquency can work for you for a while. There are two stages- in major delinquency, she can’t be given any work to do (proprietors fear she’ll trash the place), and really can’t do much more than goof off. In minor deliquency, she’ll goof off on the job, and therefore not earn money- but she’ll still get the skill increase. And she will go to school just fine.
But there’s an even better bonus. If you’ve played through the game a couple of times, you’ll probably have had her run away for a month or two or twelve. Delinquency has nothing to do with that- she can be unstressed and completely happy and still run away. What stops that from happening is how high her relationship with you is. And that relationship jumps up five points whenever you scold her. And you can only scold her when she’s delinquent (conversely, just talking to her increases relations a point; going off to vacation with her increases them six points). Add to that that scolding drops her stress a bit, and you can see that letting her get a bit delinquent, then scolding her and spending the month with her being taught or working at low-paying jobs (where you really weren’t expecting the income anyways) and ending the month with rest is a good habit to get in to.
That really only works the first few years- at age 14, any delinquency turns into getting arrested, with a 90% drop in all Status Ratings (which matter majorly in determining what your daughter can do with her life). But even those few years make it less likely she’ll run away later, and mean more work she can do in those first few years.
The only real downside to delinquency is that having her rest “on the town” means running the risk of her buying something on the spur of the moment- which is really annoying when you’re on such a tight budget. You can handle this in one of three ways- accept it (and even plan for it by not buying her a summer or winter dress and waiting for her to ‘splurge’ on one herself), send Cube to follow her (meaning a rest period only reduces stress by 30 instead of 50), or save/reload if you’re a piker (my current strategy, but I’m working on getting beyond that).
So, to recap- in order to save time and foster your daughter’s respect, follow this pattern: Month #1, talk to your daughter, then send her out to work what jobs she can to make money (remember, don’t stress her out too much before her Con is up, or you’ll end up with her being bed-ridden). Month #2, scold her, then send her to work small jobs/go to school and rest at the end of the month. Repeat.
Money: you need it for training, you need it for equipment, you need it for those summer vacations that bring her closer to you and slim her down. 500G a year is not nearly enough. So how do you get any?
#1: Work. Some of those jobs are seriously lucrative, and if you work at them long enough, the raises you get make them moreso. But be forewarned- every job (with the exception of the Church, which pays diddly) not only raises a skill, but reduces one as well. Therefore, put your time into a job where you plan on raising that deficient skill later, and then once you start raising that skill, never touch that job again. For example, work your daughter on the farm early when building Con is important, while having a good Refinement is not; then, once your daughter starts to take Decorum lessons and ups her Refinement, stop working at the Farm, and maybe move on to working at the Salon, which lowers the huge Strength she’s accumulated.
#2: Harvest Festivals: Even the cheapest payout is 3000 Gold (for the Cooking Festival). While some mythical “powergamers” out there talk of winning every festival, I have yet to do better than start winning with the second (and this with a daughter born on 10/1, giving me a full two years to train before that Festival).
The easiest one to win is the Art Contest- all you need is skill in Art. For Cooking, you need Cooking and Sensitivity; Dance, you need Constitution, Art, and Charisma; and Combat, you need, well, Combat skills. To win at Art, you need to take about six to eight Painting class- don’t remember exactly. The second class after you’ve hit “Adept” level, you’ll get an offer to create a painting (for 100G, so make sure you’ve got that to spare)- by then, your skill should be mid-80’s, which gives you a great chance for winning the next few Art Contests. 4000 Gold (plus another 1050 if you sell off the bonus “Master’s Brush”) means a lot of training and equipment next year.
#3- Adventure. The Southern Lake area is filled with Black Mermaids, Fishmen, and Kidnappers- nearly all of whom drop a good chunk of gold when they die. You get Sin for killing them, but the amount that the Mermaids and Kidnappers drop means you can make a donation to the Church to wipe away that Sin and still make a profit. And if you plan to do some Church work anyways- to raise Morals, for example- you get to wipe that Sin away while making 1G a day.
Abuses through adventuring:
#1: When you kill a Fishman in the South Lake area, there’s a chance you’ll get a Mermaid’s Tear. That’s worth 450G; or, should you go on a summer vacation to the sea, a Mermaid will take it back from you and give you 50 Charisma and 20 Sensitivity in exchange. Quite frankly, I go Adventuring in the Lake area before every trip to the beach (and since I take one in June, July, and August- the easy way to drop my daughter’s weight without hurting her Constitution through diet- that can end up being a yearly bump of 150 Charisma and 60 Sensitivity).
#2: There are three sets of Fairies- one in the Eastern Forest (near the white pillar) and two in the Southern Lake (on two of the islands). If you have a Sensitivity of 150 or more, and you rest in the area near the fairies, you get to meet the Fairies. They’ll increase your daughter’s skill by a bit (either Cooking or Art, depending upon which ones you meet), but more importantly, they’ll drop her Stress to 0. Which means spend two months stressing your daughter out in the worst things you can think of (say, five straight assignments of farmwork) then send her to adventure and meet the fairies, eliminating all of that stress. But you can only meet each group of fairies once, so plan wisely.
Well, second try out. Catherine became a mighty warrior, winning Festival after Festival with her sword. Combat became a chore of just clicking “Attack” while my mind wandered elsewhere. Had several suitors, was rich and then some, had all the nice clothes, decorum, refinement… was Master at however many classes. Was declared the avatar of the Valkyrie, killed the God of War and took his blade, met her mom…
And became Princess of Hell.
Well, it’s more than I’ve ever done.
Can anyone help me out and explain why I can’t get any sound to play? The game runs fine otherwise, I’d just like to know what I’m missing out on here. Thanks.
You’re missing out on annoying MIDI music that slows down the speed of your game. You’re probably better off without it. If you’re running Windows ME or Windows 2000 there’s no way to get the sound to work anyway; if you aren’t and still feel the need to hear the muisc, run the inst files and check your settings.
So we won the lottery (some may call it using the 100000g cheat but we like to call it winning the lottery) within days of her arrival, Young Bloody Hell had the best of everything, she became a master in all the courses, she worked at a wide variety of jobs (after the King suggested work would be good), if she gained weight she dropped 2 pounds by drinking ancient milk and slipped easily into her silk dress or siron robes for the dance contest at the harvest festival when she wasn’t winning the art, cooking or combat contests. She spoke with everyone (other than that rude jester) at the palace, she was never delinquent, she never ran away, we were incredibly close. We turned down offers of marriage from some fool who kept giving us money everytime we said no (so why would we say yes?). She went on numerous adventures.
So she goes on to write great and moving literature, to have many offers of marriage (sorry, the Prince just didn’t do it for me, I wanted her to have a life outside the court, the queen seemed so terribly bored), to eventually settle down and have a good marriage and raise wonderful children… and I am praised mightily for my efforts… by everyone but Bloody!
“I spent my childhood dancing too much and would have liked more time to play” What? This from the ungrateful little bitch who went to the mountains and the seaside each year, who had a third of each month off with pocket money just to play and was showered with gifts regularly. I should have worked her into the ground and sold her off to the highest bidder at the first opportunity.