Seeds of Chaos [v0.4.10] [Vénus Noire]

Things to do while exploring

Spoiler
[Villages] To secure a stream of revenue, you’ll want to capture as many villages as you can as early as possible. Unfortunately, since you won’t have that many orcs early on, you won’t be able to make many gains in the first few weeks. You’ll want to savescum for the corrupt nobleman (the one that starts with a nobleman trying to whore out village girls to you for favors) event early on, as this allows you to capture a village without wasting soldiers. After you’ve captured three or four, switch to making trade agreements—these increase your weekly revenue more than captures, though you’ll want some captures under your belt to help trigger events.
* * * IMPORTANT * * * As of the last version I tried (0.2.43), a bug prevented most unique village capture events from registering successful captures/trade agreements. Only the corrupt nobleman event and the old ways event (the one that starts with Rowan stumbling on some villagers about to make a human sacrifice) seem to register as successful. The generic village capture/trade events (those that start with a choice on whether to capture the village, trade with it, etc.) will all register successfully. I recommend savescumming for these successful events each time you enter a village.
[Abbeys] To increase your research rate, you’ll want to capture as many abbeys as you can as early as possible. Thankfully, unlike villages, abbeys don’t deplete your military force, so the only thing preventing you from taking them all right away is distance. At this point in time, there’s little benefit to increasing your total weekly research over 20, as any research points over the total needed for a topic are wasted, so keep that in mind when deciding whether to make the trip to farflung abbeys.
* * * IMPORTANT * * * There are a couple of abbey events that don’t result in research bonuses. (Unlike villages, the narrative of those events leads me to believe this is intentional and not a bug.) I unfortunately can’t remember how these events begin, so make a save before entering an abbey, make another save after finishing it, and then end exploration early to check in the castle whether your research bonus has increased. (You can find this figure at the very bottom of the list of statistics you get when you click the scroll icon in the upper right corner of the castle screen.) If your research rate has increased, reload from your save after the abbey; if it hasn’t, reload from the save before the abbey and try for a different event.
[Mines] To increase your military strength, you’ll want to capture a couple of mines early on. You only really need about 10 iron/week max, and you can’t even benefit from more than 5 until you get the Forge Lvl2 (a fairly low priority), so don’t worry about getting too much too early. Mines are also less vital early on than villages, so focus on those first three village captures before sending your soldiers to become miners, nor is it worth the gold you need to hire workers. (The first mine you take is a freebie, though, and Jezera has that one staffed out of her own pocket, so grab the first one you see ASAP.) There’s only one unique mine capture event that doesn’t result in a successful increase in iron production rate, and this is definitely intentional based on the narrative (it starts with Rowan finding a message written in the goblin language). You can savescum around this if you like. Later on, after you’ve made your 3-4 village captures and have captured Raeve keep, feel free to capture as many mines as you like, as you’ll be getting new orcs faster than you can use them up at that point.
[Drider Eggs] You only really need to successfully capture one of these locations, and you can only do so after you build the breeding pit, so this is super low priority.
Things to do in the castle

Spoiler
[Week 4] Week 4 is the first time you’ll have access to the castle, and starts you on an administrative choice right off the bat: whether to start construction on a building project (forge, tavern, or dark sanctum), or buy something from Cla-Min. You’ll want to start construction. My recommendation is the dark sanctum—this lets you start recruiting cubi sorcerers, which add to your overall military might directly (though I don’t recommend using them in village captures, they’re too valuable to waste), as well as indirectly (they give your orcs a multiplier to their military strength in the same way iron equipment does). They also increase your research rate by 0.5 per recruited cubi, which is critical for increasing research early, and you’ll need the dark sanctum to unlock the futa events, if you’re into that.
[Construction] You’ll want to start other building projects as your funds allow—keep in mind that you need 500 gold in the castle coffers by Week 22, though, so don’t overextend your finances. After the Dark Sanctum, I recommend the following projects in the following order:

Spoiler
* * [Forge] Assuming you have access to a steady stream of iron, the forge increases your military might (in the form of a multiplier for your orcs) by equipping your soldiers with better equipment. Several Forge related events are also locked behind low corruption, so it’s best to get them out of the way early if you’re interested.
* * [Tavern] Aside from being required for several events (including one of those low-corruption gated forge-related events), the tavern also increases your weekly revenue.
* * [Brothel] * * NOTE * * Only build the brothel at this point if you plan to infiltrate Raeve Keep. The brothel is necessary for recruiting spies; you’ll want this early if you plan to infiltrate the keep because the infiltration requires a few weeks to complete. Try to have it complete by week 16 if you have the funds, and don’t forget to visit the brothel after its completion so that you can manually recruit at least one spy.
* * [Library Lvl2] This doesn’t do much for us by itself, but it’s necessary to unlock the option to build the Dark Sanctum Lvl2, which we absolutely do want as early as possible.
* * [Dark Sanctum Lvl2] This lets you upgrade the number of cubi you can have at once from 5 to 10, which will ultimately double their contributions to your orcs’ military strength and your research rate. If you can afford it before Week 22, that’s great, but you’ll most likely have to wait till after that point.
* * [Breeding Pits] Lets you recruit driders to increase your military strength, but that should be pretty superfluous by the time you get around to building this. You’re mostly building this for the events.
* * [Arena] This theoretically helps keep soldier morale up, but honestly there’s not much danger of morale falling off significantly. You’re mostly building this for the associated events.
* * [Brothel] If you didn’t build this earlier, I recommend building it now. If you’ve followed the rest of the guide, you should have enough money to get this built before Week 50, and you’ll need it if you want to support Batri’s bid for leadership when you recruit the orc army (Week 60 is the deadline), and even if you don’t, it unlocks a few events. Remember to actually visit the brothel after it opens, you have to manually recruit spies.
* * [Anything Else] As of the last version I got very far in the game (0.2.42), assuming my memory isn’t failing me, nothing else is particularly useful—though there were a few I never built, like the Warg Kennel and Living Quarters Lvl2. As of the current version of the game (0.2.44), Orc Barracks Lvl2 and above are a trap—you won’t need more military might than a single barracks of fully equipped orcs and 10 cubi sorcerers will give you, and aside from the cost of building the barracks, more orcs also increase the weekly maintenance expenditures.
[Research] There’s no especially fixed order to do these in, though some are definitely much higher priority than others. It’s worth noting that while the time to research is measured in “moves,” the number of turns you have to explore each week don’t really matter—research rate (called “Tech Rate” in the menu of statistics that pops up when you click the scroll icon in the upper right corner of the castle screen) is the stat that matters, and you should keep an eye on it to help decide which projects to prioritize. Major landmarks are 10/week (where you start), 13.5/week (enough to finish 40 move projects in 3 weeks), 15/week (enough to finish 60 move projects in 4 weeks), 17/week (enough to finish 50 move projects in 3 weeks), and 20/week (enough to finish 40 move projects in 2 weeks and 60 move projects in 3). Any higher than that is gravy, but unnecessary in the long run. Here’s a list of significant projects by rough priority, though you can switch most of the first several up as makes sense to you:

Spoiler
* * [Survivalism and Cartography] (40 moves) This is the exception to switching things up—it’s the first one you should take, hands down. It gets you an extra two turns when exploring the map, which doesn’t sound like much, but it’s an extra 20%. That’ll let you get to and capture villages, abbeys, and mines that much faster.
* * [Opulence] (40 moves) We don’t care about this in and of itself, but it opens up the Dark Subterfuge project, which we need for recruiting spies.
* * [Dark Subterfuge] (60 moves) This unlocks the Brothel for building in the workshop. Important if you plan on infiltrating Raeve Keep or supporting Batri when recruiting the orc army; get this done ASAP if you plan on infiltrating Raeve Keep, as it’s a significant time investment getting both research projects done, and you don’t have much time to work with.
* * [Contact Network] (40 moves) This unlocks the Library Lvl2 upgrade for building in the workshop, which in turn unlocks the Dark Sanctum Lvl2 upgrade for building. This is great for increasing research and military strength early, but also time- and funds-intensive, so if you plan on infiltrating Raeve Keep, definitely focus on getting Opulence and Dark Subterfuge done first.
* * [Monster Taming] (60 moves) This unlocks the Breeding Pits for building in the workshop. Mostly important to unlock events related to the space and its NPCs.
* * [World and the War] (40 moves) I think this unlocks some slight variations on events when you first get to Rastedel, so it may be of interest, though I don’t think it’s anything of great importance in the current version of the game.
* * [Rosarian History] (50 moves) Unlocked by researching World and the War. I think this might also unlock more variations on events when you first get to Rastedel, with the same caveats of importance.
* * [Surveying and Telescopics] (40 moves) Mostly of interest if you don’t have access to a map (you can find one from the title menu in dev mode, but there doesn’t seem to be one easily available on google) and/or don’t have a pretty good sense of where things are. It extends your visual radius by one tile while exploring, letting you find villages, abbeys, mines, etc. more easily.
* * [Anything Else] (varies) By the point in the game that you’ve finished researching most of the projects above, nothing else will have any great level of impact, and there are some options that don’t seem to have any effect at all. Worth mentioning here is Advanced Survival Techniques, which unlocks after you finish researching Survivalism and Cartography. The name and parentage would seem to indicate it does something similar to S&C, but the last time I researched it (in version 0.2.39), it didn’t have any noticeable effect, and didn’t increase my turns per week.
[Events] Most “ruler events” (events that randomly take place after the end of each week exploring) that you might want to savescum for depend on what sex scenes you’re looking to view, and that can more or less be pieced together from the google drive guide linked in the opening post of the thread. There are a few you might consider savescumming for early on to give yourself a headstart on funding building projects, though, as well as a couple you might want to avoid. Your best bet for savescumming these events with minimal frustration is to save on the black screen that appears when you’ve finished exploring that says “End of Week X.” The event that plays for that week is rolled immediately after that screen. Unfortunately, this holds true even when a scripted event (for instance, when you finish a building project and are introduced to the relevant NPCs) plays after that screen but before the randomly rolled ruler event, so weeks with scripted events are a bit more annoying to savescum.

Spoiler
[Events To Look For] All of these become available by 15 weeks in (probably much earlier, but I can confirm the 15 figure), and I don’t think they rely on any other events being completed (not even each other).
* Cla-Min will come to you in the throne room to apologize about counterfeit coins, and however you handle it, you’ll wind up 100 gold richer.
* An orc will report to you in the throne room that an unexpected large sum of loot was captured. Choose to put it in the castle coffers, and you’ll get another 100 gold.
* You’ll find Cliohna and Skordred fighting in the library. Side with Skordred, and you’ll get a third pile of 100 gold.
[Events To Avoid] These events are also available early on, and don’t seem to rely on any other events.
* Jezera will approach you telling you she’s taking funds from the castle for a project of her own. There doesn’t seem to be any upside to this, and it removes 50 gold from the coffers.
* Skordred will approach you in the throne room and talk with Rowan about castle damages. This also doesn’t seem to include any upsides, and also removes 50 gold from your funds.