1. HH
2. Dread Pirate's Harem Heroes Strategy Guide

Warning: This guide was written for version of HH prior to changes on 2017-08-24. I have no idea if any of it is still relevant. Use at your own risk :-)
I started a new guide for HH2 (or whatever it is called) but will keep this as a historical curiosity of times past.
New HH2 guide: http://harem-battle.club/wiki/Harem-Heroes/HHread-Pirates-Harem-Heroes-2-Strategy-Guide
Thanks to everyone who left useful and encouraging comments. You know who you are ;-)
Dread Pirate, 2017-09-06



Welcome to my Strategy guide, feel free to comment.
I know HH is not a "deep" game, but trivial or not I wanted to share some tips.

1. Every day check market twice. If you have the cash to do so, buy Gifts and Books.
   The market seems to work on a 12h countdown, but it does not start until you visit market, so try and visit ~12h apart (thanks to Fujiwara and wthvt for this tip)
   Advancing Affection of girls is expensive, but limited to 3 advances of increasing cost per girl.
   Advancing levels is less expensive initially but can go to 40 (I believe) so ultimately you will need Books as you advance too.
   Just collect those gifts and books every chance, you'll need 'em sooner or later.
   Update: Thanks to Guest aka wthvr for pointing out that later in game, because of low new girl drop rate, you need not obsesively collect every gift to keep up. Books on the other hand seems to keep value (I can't quite keep my fight team girls at max anymore my self (level 27 at time of writing)
   
2. Collect Harem cash regularly and advance Affection for more.
   Cash is only a limit at first. As your harem grows and gets more Affectionate money becomes less of an issue. Once you have bought the best gear for your character, there is not a lot to use $ on except the Quests which require increasing amounts, and buffing your own skills (see below).
   Suggested by wthvr aka guest: Level Affection of girl before collecting if you can for more $$$.
   
3. Boss Battle as often as you can to collect girls
   I suggest focusing on Boss fights to collect Girls, not the other battles or the Tower.
   
   • You need two "fists" for a boss battle, taking 20 min to accumulate
     
   • Your max "fists" depends on your level, and tells you how often you could log in to battle for maximum number of fights and chance for girls.
     
   Girl drop rate is a subject of much interest on the wiki.
   See below for my updated data on drops - I hope to get enough data to draw some conclusions.
   wthvr aka Guest has experienced 1-2 girls dropped per quest, getting a girl every 1-2 weeks. This is similar but a bit better than my experience so far (2017-08-16), I only got one drop during each Quest (not to be confused with the girl you get from the quest).
   
4. Boss Battle the highest level Boss you can beat*
   This maximizes xp and loot (I used to suggest lowest level Boss that still gives you XP, but wthvt aka Guest claims you get more this way (see comments) and I think s/he is correct).
   It is not clear if it gets harder to get 2nd or 3rd girl from a Boss (see below - if it is, switch Boss once you get 1st girl to get girls as fast as possible). Once you advance to next quest or have all Boss' girls, switch to another Boss.
   Note, once you hit a certain level you no longer get XP from fight
   *However, if there is an event girl, focus on getting her while it lasts (duh).
   
5. Use girls that match you style in your Team (Hardcore, Know-How, or Romance) if possible
   Pick your top 3 girls in your Style, keep their levels and affection maximized.
   If two girls have similar scores, and one has higher total scores, prefer her to boost your defences.
   Pick girl with top score in your style as Alpha, to get max attack.
   Pick girl with highest total style points as Beta, to get your defences up.
   Picking Omega is left as exercise for student.
   Note, some posters suggest a team composition based on judge for better drop rate.
   I tried that and did not notice a difference, but I have not tested extensively, so YMMV.
   
6. Maximize team's Affection and Level first
   Even if your "battle" girls are not best money earners, getting their skills up is more important.
   Other girls can still use Affection to give more money, so focus on high earners after that. I have not found a use for leveling non-battle-team girls except as part of some contests. In this case having a low level girl you can jump many levels (and a stash of books) is a benefit.
   When leveling last affection level, match gifts to missing affection - don't waste a big gift if a small will do for last level.
   
7. Pay Attention To Contests
   You can win quite good loot and even kanbans from the contests if you land in 1-4th spot.
   Both wtfvt and I suggest you only play pachinko if it is part of contest, and that you only level your non-fight-team girls when a contest is on. Often you can benefit from holding back and then racing for the finish towards end of timer - or realize you should not bother. For example, I prefer to boss battle for girls, but if I'm close to 1-4 in contest I may do regular arena battles for half the cost and 140 points, to land that #1 spot.
   
8. Gear from Merchant
   I find buying gear that does not help my style or health is not really worth it - but some gear help several styles. A bigger attack is better than defence in other skills, so boosting your style skill is usually better. Boosting crit only helps some of time, where health and attack (based on your style) helps all the time. Note some Rare items may be better for your character than some Epic. Usually value is a good indicator if it boosts your style stat or health.
   Thanks to Guest for telling me Crits seem to max at 25%
   
9. Do those missions, in particular if you can get an Event Girl
   If you finish all before deadline you get a bonus.
   It seems you have to claim reward before it counts so claim before deadline - I lost Mountain Sophie by not claiming reward before dead line :-(.
   
10. If lots of cash bump your own skills
    (the (+) when in Market Merchant)
    However, you want to keep enough cash to not delay Quest costs. For first few quests 1 mill seems edequate, but later Quests burns a lot of $$$, so you probbaly want to up your buffer later in gane. Unless you are loosing fights no need to agressively push your Skill at cost of delaying Quest.
    
11. Always push quest forward before Boss fights and Mission awards
    When you level your "zap" energy regenerates, so you want it as low as possible in case fight or mission makes you level.
    
12. Pachinko game
    Don't forget your free daily Pachinko game.
    I prefer to save my Kobans for Epic Pachinko for a chance to win girls, and save my $ for skills or quests - unless there is a contest on.
    Estimated Epic Panchinko Girl Drop Rate: 1/5 = 20% (lack of data makes this a very rough estimate)
    wthvr aka Guest: some posters suggest Epick x10 pachinko is better for getting girl than x1 pachinko, odds wise, implying Epic rate Is less than 10%.
    Guest suggested rare x10 Pachinko and selling all but books and gifts, sometime making profit, sometimes loosing, figuring he gets ~90% back.
    I tried once. After selling all but books and gifts I was down -24548$, but had made 5080$ in gifts and books (a markup of 483%), but YMMV and if you got nothing else to use money on it is a way to get more books and gifts.
    

Accumulated Girl Drop Rate from Bosses:

1. ~2017-07-??: 3/~360 = ~0.8%
   Sheheramazond (Dark Lord 1st Girl), Solveig (Spy 1st Girl), Arcana (Dark Lord 2nd Girl)
   
2. ~2017-08-01: 6/~2500 = ~0.24%
   Summer Red Battler (Dark Lord Event girl), Rumiko (Spy 2nd Girl 1000+ fights), The Housemaid (Gruntt 1st Girl)
   
3. 2017-08-04: ~7/2650 = ~0.26%
   Kimie (Dark Lord 3rd Girl)
   
4. 2017-08-08: 8/~2863 = ~0.28%
   Travel Kalissa (Dark Lord Event Girl)
   
5. 2017-08-09: 9/~2900 = ~0.31%
   Eugénie (Edwarda 1st Girl)
   
6. 2017-08-17: ~400 tries @ Gruntt 2nd Girl, no luck
   

Number of fights is estimated.
Rate may or may not be constant. At first it seemed like it took longer for Dark Lord and Ninja Spy's 2nd and 3rd Girl, but then I hit 2nd and 3rd within a few hundred fights, so who knows...
It feels like it is easier to get Event Girls and 1st Girl than 2nd and 3rd Girl.


Battling on Tower
You can click on people on tower to try and battle them. It does not seem to give you anything but bragging rights though :-/. I prefer to focus on Boss battles to get girls, not Tower.
Note, for some reason, if you search for your target by by name, you can't battle them (possibly a bug).
But if you then search for a name near your target, you can select your target for battle.
Based on comments by wthvr aka Guest and Szartix there seem to be some unexpected behaviours around how attack, defence, equipment, etc. works on Tower (and rumours devs are changing it).
Personally I do not do much with Tower, but perhaps when you are later in game. I have not found much need for Boosters, but I suspect they may be handy when you fight for Tower rank.

Comment Q&A:

1. Q Szartix: "...does anyone knows the cost of max skill upgrade?"
   ADread Pirate: I don't know, I'll update if I find out. I'm at $4432 on 2017-08-11
   Szartix: "Hehe I'm at 68131$..."
   Dread Pirate: 8-O
   Guest: "I currently need over $150,000 to upgrade any of my skills"
   Dread Pirate: Thanks to Guest for finding a quote by piturda, giving a Skill max cost of $152.110
   
2. wthvr aka Guest: "keep that guide going, it is the best I have seen so far"
   Dread Pirate: Thanks wthr. I plan to keep adding data for girl drops, and if people leave interesting comments, so I'll be updating for a while I think.
   
3. Fujiwara: "Nice guide. Just one thing to add: check the shop every 12 hours for optimal girl experience gain, it helps a lot during contests. This way, you can buy 16 books and gifts/day instead of just 8."
   Dread Pirate: Thanks for the tip.
   

Enjoy collecting all the Gurlz!

Dread Pirate