Third Arclent War aftermath investments

Azeerin

I was hoping some more experienced people would weigh in on what investments in this phase of the game are "must haves". I don't have a particularly optimized run going or anything but I'm having a difficult time choosing what to pick here. I have about 1.8M pron and my initial instinct is to grab New Givini and Chalice Trade routes (discounted), along with Min's route. That leaves me with about 600k left over. I was planning to just grab stuff that seems profitable with the rest, so Succubi Trade, Gasm Falls Trade, and Mushrooms, but I'm worried passing over Eustrin guild and possibly Archives (gets much more expensive) might be bad ideas. Tak'kan Trade route I passed on since they like me a lot anyways and it doesn't seem to have a unique upside attached unlike the other 2 routes I picked.

Thanks for any insight, I couldn't really find an answer to this in the general investing thread (although it was very handy for some previous choices). Bonus points if anyone wants to point out some super critical investments in chapter 4 and 5 so I get an idea of what to aim for there.

ColinHunt

Azeerin Thosha's walkthrough has a good analysis of what investments to get and when. His walkthrough manages to get everything when you need it.

Azeerin

I'll take a look at it, thanks for the suggestion.
edit: he has 800k more pron than me at that point which renders the question meaningless since you can get everything.

everafter

It's not meaningless. Optimized routes do not have enough ProN to buy everything; they skip the merc offices, gasm falls equipment shop, and the rentals (although rentals aren't actually offered since those routes don't side with Lynine the 2nd time).

You're not going to have enough money to buy the social investments needed to reach 40 social for the ardan succession crisis so you can ignore the merc office and Denmiel archives.

Min's route is a must. All 3 of the trades will give +1 to the country score each iteration of returns but are expensive and may need to be sacrificed. Definitely buy the New Givini trade if you intend to get the Givini orc merchant at the start of chapter 4. The other 2 will probably have to be dropped in your case to make room for the Eustrin guild and Yhilini succubi trade.

You'll have to make a lot of sacrifices, so in your case, the best choice is probably either:

500k NG trade
500k Eustrin
300k Min trade
300k Yhilin succubi trade
75k Mushroom

1.675 mil total if you intend to buy the Givini orc merchant immedately
775k ProN per return +100k bonus in first ch 4 return

500k Eustrin
400k Chalice trade
300k Min trade
300k Yhilin succubi trade
225k Gasm Falls equipment shop
75k Mushroom

1.8 mil total if you can afford it.
885k ProN per return +100k bonus in first ch 4 return

There's no Tak'kan trade so don't expect to do >80% in the vote during the Erosian crisis.

Azeerin

Ah so I can see that you do consider Eustrin guild a must have which is what I was worried about. That certainly makes life more complicated for me. I've gotten rather ideal results from events so far but it looks like I won't be able to manage that with some future ones based on the state of my investments. Probably nothing too brutal though.

EternalObserver

Chapter 4 is definitely where the rubber meets the road with regards to Investment complexity, it's far harder to get everything you need from then onwards if you're on a PRoN-light run.

Some General Analysis: Of the three Country Trade Route investments, Tak'kan's is the worst, as it offers no particular special bonuses or discounts. An optimized playthrough will probably want all three of these, but if you have to cut one Tak'kan's the one to do. Doing this means you'll likely need a heavy investment into Tak'kan in Chapter 4 Phase 1 to get good results in the following event, but it is possible in some cases, I wouldn't count on it though. It's also worth noting that these are the only investments in this cycle that cannot be gotten in a later cycle for a higher price.

Min's Trade route is fantastic for the price, from a money, stat and extra bonus perspective. Probably the least skippable.

Eustrin Guild is huge money (pays for itself in two cycles), and provides a nice bonus on a somewhat tough check much later in the game. If you don't get this you'll be even more under the gun on cash later on. It's 100k more to buy after this opportunity and you'll miss out on some if it's big payouts.

Yhillin Succubi Trade is also very good value for the price, but it's primarily a Big Money investment without any major side benefits. Still very worth squeezing in. Has I believe the highest total ROI of any investment in this set if bought with the Discount.

Gasm Falls Trade is a weird one. It would be nice to get, but most of my optimized runs that I've concepted out just can't fit it in at this point. It's worth noting that this one has a relatively low "discount" for buying now, only 50k, rather than the 100k for a lot of the more expensive ones, so there's less of an opportunity cost for skipping this at this point.

If you sided with Orilise, Denmiel Archives has poor returns, but great stat boosts and is a gift that keeps on giving over and over in terms of helping out with various events. You're definitely going to want it at some point if not right now.

Mushroom Farm is mostly a "Filler" investment that you grab with any cash you have left over. Definitely worth it if you can squeeze it in though, actually totals up to a shocking amount of cash over time.

Azeerin

EternalObserver Thanks for your input, I appreciate how much detail you put into your reply. I'll have to make some tough choices here I guess. I'm almost tempted to just restart but that is a huge time investment so probably a last resort if I really don't like my position. I think things went wrong for me getting the Yhilin manufacturer over the bank in round 1 (their returns seemed similar and I didn't anticipate just how tight funds would be later) so that I could grab the cache immediately. In retrospect I should have waited and gotten cache in round 3 instead probably. I know a lot of people skip it entirely but I don't like the idea. Anyways, back to the drawing board for me it seems.

Fulminato

Azeerin the optimized run grab both bank and mine the first cycle. you basically skip everything else.
the cache it's only a bit of rp for characters you don't need (yarra and qum) a nearly worthless pieces of eqipment and a little bonus for simon (increase a bit his tp generation) nice but orgasmic training is a lot better.

EternalObserver

Yeah the Cache is unfortunately an extravagance that a truly optimized run can't afford. It sucks to pass up a permanent stat boost like that, but it's a very minor one at a time when you really need to wring the most profit out of your investments you possibly can.

Anyway, that's all top-end optimization stuff, the game's beatable (or will be beatable when it's finished I suppose) with far from optimal decisions. So I wouldn't stress it too much unless you're a spreadsheet-fanatic like a lot of us are.