Early Game
- Hiring your staff: the first one should be an expert sales manager (she will keep your head above the water for quite a while as well as do a decent production job), followed by the other two producers. I played a game with all three as experts: not much more expensive but much better results. Don't forget to place the break room - I did that once, with predictable results.
- Right before you start your first audition the sales manager (and later the choreographer) will pose you a series of questions. The ones that are really important are about your expected audience: basically, you can center on adults or on teens - you can't have both. Later, you can change your policy but, as far as I know, adults (male or female), combined with harcore fans, are the easiest to please. - Also, choose funny or smart as the group image, since these are the only attributes guaranteed to grow all the time.
- Save before the audition and repeat as long as it takes to get a decent result. Don't feel bad about it: the game cheats a lot anyway. Also, it is best to start with five girls: great group chemistry guaranteed after a song or two and much less exhaustion at concerts.
- If you have experts start manual or autotraining immediately. The danger are exaggerated; you can determine how much stamina they may use but, of course, you do have to control it all the time.
Finances
- If you have enough money left after your first five singles launch the first concert immediately. Exploit the ticket price mercilessly - start with 10.000 Yen and then scale down to get the best result. Make a new song (not necessary but it makes me feel better), rinse and repeat until you feel safe.
- If you don't have enough money to launch a concert you must choose: you can either get The Daughter (I left her in the group for quite a while in my first game: she had a lot of fans but she was also a constant source of trouble and spent more time with the shrink than with the group; she never wanted to graduate, for obvious reasons) or - better - a Fujimoto's loan; 4 million should be enough. Then follow the steps above.
Middle Game
Not much to tell. For at least a while follow the route that you chose at the beginning. Hire additional staff when needed: the first one should be an expert production manager (more cards at concerts) and then doctor(s) and a beautician or two. Raise your idols' salaries to maximum if you haven't already.
- By now singles should be your main source of money and fans, but organize at least one concert a year to get the reward (your idols will probably request concerts anyway).
- Important: NEVER organize an election. I hate flesh peddling and if you don't your idols will never request to take part in one.
- Cafe is only good for achievements; theatre is a real source of money only after you have researched streaming. Not worth it at this time but no real damage either.
- Scandals: try your best and always pay the blackmailers. That feels wrong (it is wrong) but it's a great source of influence.
This part concludes with the "Song of the Month" task. You'll probably have to go viral to get it: one of the two moments I hate in this game because it totally depends on luck. You have to save before you start the song because the launch result is always the same. Make sure to order enough copies to win.
Late Game
This part probably contains some small spoilers if you haven't got that far in your game, but no real ones. Anyway:
- Even less to tell. Choose one of the routes and follow it to the bitter end. You'll have to get another No.1 and then go before a comission. Save immediately before the session starts and then abuse the save until you get the positive result. (This is the second moment I hate. It took me an hour in one of my games - a real waste of time). An interview follows (AFAIK you can't go wrong there - I certainly tried and failed to fail). After suffering through the final scenes and song you will get to Chapter VII, with a surprise or two but no tasks left. I never continued past that point.
P.S: This "guide" turned to be much longer than I expected. Let me know if anybody managed to survive it.
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2764595782
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