A quick primer to introduce and help new players through Custom Order Maid 3D2. Given its translation isn’t great, several of the ins and outs of this game aren’t exactly obvious. There’s tons of attention to detail in this game and since it’s relatively obscure, I figured I’d go ahead and share some of my findings with other players.
Intro
Custom Order Maid 3D2 is more or less a mashup of a management sim, a visual novel, an idol sim/kisekae, and an eroge (weeb-speak for erotic game). Since this is a primer and not a review, I’m going to assume you’ve already bought this game. I’m also going to explain a good portion of stuff from the R18+ patch, which more or less doubles the amount of content in the game. Broadly speaking, it’s also better translated than the other half, and has a lot of character development in it. The R18+ content is available at S-court’s online store[dl-en.s-court.me]. If you aren’t 18, then don’t read this primer and please don’t play the R18+ patch, either. I was going more for informative than titillating, so there won’t be many jollies to be had here, heh.
Getting Started
The first thing the game asks you is whether you want to turn on the NTR blocker. NTR (Netorare) is cheating. Since you’re managing a club with maids as call girls, it’s not unreasonable for someone that isn’t the MC to be with one of your maids. 
Turning on the NTR blocker removes a large chunk of content from the game, more or less turning it into a great big harem. Soap land and SM club can be built for the master, but won’t be legitimate facilities (can’t be leveled or improved and your maids can’t work there) and only add places for you to do yotogi with your girls. You can’t turn NTR blocker back on if you’ve turned it off, making it a one-way street. I’ll quietly point out that with NTR blocker turned off, having girls work in either Soap land or the SM club doesn’t change their sex experience. Maids with v cards keep them until you take them in yotogi, no matter where they’re working. Oddly enough, this is true of Guest Mode, too.
Secretary Maid will ask you if you want to meet the first three maids. Selecting “Can you send them to other clubs?” will allow you to customize the three female leads instead of using the default designs. This isn’t a big deal, since even starting with the base maid design lets you finalize details in the character editor before confirming them. In fact, you can edit details at pretty much any time via Maid Admin > [Character] > Edit (this is also how you change outfits a maid is wearing). The cutscene for meeting the maids will be different depending on which option you picked, where instead of custom ordering your maids, they’ve already been working at the club. Custom ordering maids does allow you to interview them, but it’s the same generic interview you’ll see if and when you hire more custom-ordered maids later. Pretty much the only thing that is set in stone after initially confirming a maid is her name, although you can choose to instead call her by her nickname or surname later. All physical details (including outfits) can be changed at any time via the character editor.
Management Begins
Although there are… a lot of options once you get to the management menu, you don’t have to feel overwhelmed. The three most important options are Schedule, Maid Admin, and Event. Schedule allows you to select what your maids will be doing with their day. Maid Admin allows for editing characters, changing their class, and hiring new maids. Once you’re all set, click Next at the lower right of the mgmt menu to move on.
The Shop option allows you to purchase a few extra outfits as well as facility materials which you’ll use to upgrade your club’s facilities. There will be other places to buy and unlock stuff, but this is pretty much all we’ve got to start with. Facility setting is where you can add facilities to your club (which will cost CR), check their stats, and change their costume settings. Trophy gives you a few in-game achievements which grant you maid points. 
Use maid points to boost the starting stats of custom-ordered maids that you hire later on (this isn’t hugely important, although it does often unlock extra dialogue options in the initial interview. They’re listed as features in this screenshot). Memories mode allows you to re-watch events you’ve already seen. Office mode allows you to add a few items to your office to decorate a little bit. Select an item from the list and check the Indicate box. You can move items around, but it gets a bit messy so I usually leave them in their default spot. Studio mode and my room custom are options for putting together your own scenes. From what I’ve seen, it’s fairly robust… but I haven’t really bothered with it, so I don’t have anything to say here.
As you might have guessed, most of these options aren’t very relevant to the new player this early into the game. For now, you want to select what to schedule your first maid to do. Since the Theater is only functional with a minimum of two maids on staff, you may as well train your first maid a bit. By default she’ll be set to something like Sommelier and yotogi. Early on, selection doesn’t matter too much, but flower arrangement is going to be a good bet if you plan on working this maid in the Theater soon (four of the five parameters trained overlap with theater-relevant stats).
Evening adds two options in the form of Dance and Casino. Also note that scheduling is only available in the morning, meaning you’re locked into your choice at evening (Maid Admin is still there should you max a maid’s class and want to switch her to another job where she can gain exp). Dance allows you to play a rhythm game with one of the songs you’ve unlocked as the main story progresses. Unfortunately, you only start with one song, “Entrance To You.” As your maids work across your facilities, the “club gauge” will rise, and once it’s at 5 stars, you’ll be prompted to host a special dance event (you can turn off the prompt in events, if you get tired of the rhythm game or are drowning in cash). You’ll be rewarded CR based on how well you do, and early on this is one of your best methods of getting money. It also doesn’t use up any of your maids’ schedule, so there’s no real downside to it. The Casino option is available once you’ve built a casino facility in your club. Ultimately it unlocks a few extra outfits and some facility materials that you buy with coins instead of CR (including a few materials you can’t buy in the normal store, such as stone). Buy one or two thousand coins and go nuts at the slots. It’s easy enough to win that eventually you’ll be able to buy just about anything you want.
After being introduced to your second maid, you are taken back to the management menu. Click on scheduling and select one of the blank white boxes and you’ll be able to add her to the schedule. 
Right-clicking on one of the maids here allows you to delete them from the schedule (the same technique is used to delete save files or character presets you don’t want anymore). You can also click and drag a maid to move her up and down in the list in order to better organize your schedule. Click on one of the maid boxes afterward or the game won’t scroll properly. I try to keep maids grouped together based on which facility they’re working in, since the list feels a lot less overwhelming that way. Feel free to train your maids, have them work in the Theater to make CR (you must click and confirm the specific facility you want them to work in, since it’s possible to have duplicates of the same facility), 
or yotogi to your heart’s content (there’s no limit to how many girls you can yotogi with at one time, and it can be done at either daytime or nighttime). Note that training and work can both be supervised by the MC, which yields a bonus to stats added and increases your favor with that character. Simply click the “Commu” tab so that it is highlighted. You can do this once during daytime and once during nighttime, for a total of twice per day. Yotogi, upgrading facilities, and a few other options can’t be supervised like this.
Once the fifth day has passed, the main story arc will start up for real. You’ll also unlock the first extra maid. All extra maids can do is work (and their class level will never increase), so just set Kyuko to work in the Theater and forget about her for now. I won’t get too much into the main story, but many of the events in question are bottlenecked by either the cooking parameter of your 3 main girls or their voice and dancing skills. Progressing the main plot will net you more unique and extra maids to staff your facilities, so I generally suggest training your main three when possible, rather than having them work. Having extra and unique maids will make management easier later on, and it gives you an easy way to raise favor via the commu function.
From here on out, it’s a sim so generally play however you want. I have read that the NTR routes do have bad ends in the JP version, but other than that, I don’t believe there’s a specific end to the game. KISS has been releasing the NTR events in their shop as DLC[com3d2-shop-en.s-court.me], but I haven’t given it a whirl. There are either three or four of these, but I can’t guarantee that this specific one has a bad end. Anyhow, keep playing until you feel like starting a new file or until you’re just generally bored with it. You can’t go wrong, really.
Maids: Contracts
For the purpose of this primer, there are four different types of maids: the three main girls, extra maids, unique maids, and custom-ordered maids (girls hired through Maid Admin > Hire).
The three main girls are really the same as custom-ordered maids, except that they are involved in the main plot (and a few side plots) and they each have a unique NTR route if you have the NTR blocker turned off. The NTR routes open up after you’ve raised one of the main girls’ relationship up to lovers, and there should be an option to block it from happening if you don’t want to share (tell Secretary Maid to keep the guy in question away from the girl). If you change your mind, you can re-watch the scene from Events and choose not to block the route, but this is irreversible.
The main three (as well as custom-ordered maids) can be given either a Free contract or an Exclusive contract once their “Learnt” stat reaches 50% or below. Thematically speaking, exclusive maids are intended to service the MC and solely the MC, while free maids can do whatever they want. Exclusive contracts allow for “exclusive loving sex maid” yotogi class and its skills, while free contract allows for “confession play maid” and its skills. Otherwise, there is very little difference. Yotogi options such as harem, orgy, and swapping will still be available with an exclusive contract, and maids will be able to work at Soap land and SM clubs regardless. It’s also worth pointing out that contract type makes zero difference in Guest Mode. If you have NTR blocker turned on, then there will honestly be no difference between the two, full stop. Ultimately pick exclusive contracts if it fits thematically (ie the girl in question is waifu material and you don’t want to share her).
A maid who has been given either an exclusive or free contract can be made into your Maidlord. At the beginning of the game, this will instead default to the first girl you’ve hired (despite her also being a trainee). 
Trainees you have can be given a special “Maid Training” option by the Maidlord. This occupies both the trainee in question and your maidlord for both daytime and nighttime, and yields a percentage of the maidlord’s parameters and skills to the trainee (everything but services and H parameters). It’s worth noting that you can highlight commu for either the maidlord or the trainee while maid training is being done. Also, only one trainee can be trained like this at a time, since it represents one-on-one tutoring by your maidlord.
Extra maids are characters who show up after events that are unlocked while progressing in the game. 
Their stats and class level never change and they can only work (no yotogi, and they’re never used in guest mode, for that matter), but they help you fill out and staff or upgrade your facilities. Some of these characters become available while progressing through the main quest, but the majority of them come from building facilities in your club. Note that not all facilities have an associated extra maid (Soap land and SM club come to mind—generally meaning you’re intended to hire a custom-ordered maid to work these facilities), and facilities that do have an associated extra maid will yield an extra maid at both levels (for example, skipping Open Cafe and immediately building a Luxury Open Cafe will mean you miss out on one of the extra maids). As a quick aside, don’t be afraid of building facilities that you haven’t got the maids to staff—it’s often worth it in order to get the extra maid, and you’ll likely be able to staff the facility later. Once you start upgrading facilities to their luxury level, you’ll have plenty of extra maids. Also, there’s no penalty for using an extra maid in a facility other than the one that you unlocked her by building. For example, you can use Dolce in the Theater or the Open Cafe instead of the Restaurant with no penalty. The entire point in extra maids is to help fill the holes in your schedule so that you can get your facilities running.
Unique maids come from progressing the main plot or one of the side plots, and have an associated H scene. They’re otherwise like extra maids in that their class and stats don’t change and they can only work in your club’s facilities. To unlock a unique character’s H scenes, just make sure to highlight commu on them for two or three days. This unlocks more of their events (which in turn bumps up their favor), and after you’ve watched enough of their events the scene becomes available. Select it from the schedule while they’re not working. Not much to say other than that.
As a quick aside, you are somewhat able to get around the restriction on extra maids not being able to yotogi. Going to Maid Admin > Character > Edit > PRE.SAVE > DRESS/BODY (at the bottom of the screen) will allow you to save the likeness of a character to the presets in the character editor. From there, you can hire a new maid from Maid Admin and load up the extra maid’s preset (assuming you’ve already unlocked the character options and clothes her design uses). The main downside to this is that you must pick between the three main girls’ personalities, which means you lose out on the extra maid’s unique voice acting. The JP version of COM3D2 has a few extra personalities, including some that are transferable from CM3D2. Since CM3D2 currently can’t connect to the English version of COM3D2, I would hazard a guess that most of these personalities will be added to the game as DLC somewhere down the line (once they’re translated or what have you).
Maids: Classes
Turns out class… doesn’t really matter much in this game. The primary thing it does is raising the Energy and Mental stats of the maid in question, making them better at yotogi. 
More classes become available as you build facilities. Each facility has one class intended to match up with it. The class’s description mentions “able to learn as building the theater,” which is weird Engrish for “working in the theater will level up this class faster.” Aside from novice maid, each class will show a cutscene when raised up to certain levels (2, 6, and 10, I think?). If you’re in a rush to level up a class, then training is the quickest way to do it as it provides a lot of job exp.
While working in a facility also yields job experience, it’s significantly slower (and yields less stats). Matching a maid’s job with its corresponding facility seems to yield +1 to job exp, but you can still level up a class without properly matching it. Also note that you can get more job exp by upgrading facilities with “Facilities EXP up” materials. 
Although you can choose to train a maid’s job-relevant parameters before working her in a facility, you don’t need to. Working in a facility will raise the maid’s relevant parameters, in turn meaning she’ll earn more money. I’ll get into it a bit later, but money stops being a problem before long, so it’s usually best to work for CR as a short-term payout instead of training first.
Maids: Favor
The international and English versions of COM3D2 have added both the “cautious” and “lover+” relationship levels. This doesn’t ultimately make much of a difference except via adding more events. The cautious events are about a maid getting to know the MC and lead up to them being friends, while the lover+ events are simply cute scenes about the girl being lovey-dovey with the MC. For the main girls and custom-ordered maids, favor can be increased either via the commu function or via talking before yotogi. For unique maids, commu is the only way to manually raise favor (although progressing through their events seems to increase favor, too). While you can raise the favor of extra maids, there isn’t really any point since there are no scenes unlocked with these characters.
Pre-yotogi talks are actually a pretty neat detail in this game, and they change depending on the relationship level you have with the girl in question (cautious, friend, trust, lover, and lover+). These also vary dependent on location (bar lounge, cafe, or restaurant) and usually have a few dialogue options to choose from. 
They’ll also sometimes result in a date event you can watch later, which can be pretty neat. Do note that you can visit an area pre-yotogi regardless of whether it’s fully staffed or not. If you’re trying to train one of your maids without raising her favor level, then you of course have the option to skip the talk and go straight to yotogi. From what I’ve seen, there’s no penalty for raising multiple girls’ relationship to lover, but if you were trying to be faithful to a particular waifu then skipping the pre-yotogi talk with other maids can be useful. Also note that extra maids are good for sinking meaningless commu into, and they each have a unique dialogue for most different facilities that they work at. Since most of these dialogues are only one text box, they’re also a lot quicker to click through.
Maids: Yotogi
The honest truth is there’s so much to the yotogi in this game that I can’t fit it all into this primer, so I’m mainly going to be touching on highlights here. Each girl has H parameters which can be trained via yotogi. 
Once you get one of your maids’ H parameters above 1000, you can then have maids train independently in that stat. Higher training levels unlock as your maids’ H parameters increase: at 5000 lust, intermediate lust training (+520 instead of +250) becomes available, and advanced training becomes available at 9999 (+850). Once one of your maids has hit this level, the training options are available for the rest of your maids regardless of their personal H parameters, meaning you more or less have to blaze a trail with one maid to make training easier with the rest.
The game tracks a girl’s yotogi experience in “Yotogi info” available under “Maid Admin.” Yotogi skills (positions, basically) generally have “yotogi class” requirements as well as H parameter requirements. Hovering over a greyed out skill or class will tell you what you have to do to unlock it. If you’ve used the independent training to raise H stats, then there’s a good chance the maid in question will need practical experience in yotogi with the MC before more skills become available for her. TL;DR if you’re trying to unlock new stuff then try some of the new options with the girl in question.
Location doesn’t change a whole lot. Options initially available are the Theater and the Protagonist’s room. Building certain facilities will unlock more locations, and some locations will only appear after progressing the main story and increasing the club’s rating (sometimes referred to in-game as salon grade). “Exposed” yotogi skills (including “doggy play” and “hard exposed” skills) can only occur at the shopping mall (unlocked at 2 stars), restraint skills are only available at the SM club, and so on. Harem skills seem to require you have at least two maids who have access to the skill in question, and orgy/swapping skills only happen in one of the hotel rooms.
You determine the lineup of yotogi skills before you start. 
Each skill will spend different amounts of energy (with more specific, higher-level skills costing much more energy) and often have different options and dialogues from the rest. Spending a girl’s full energy results in her fainting after yotogi is done, which causes her to fail her next non-yotogi action (only ~50% stats gained from training or CR made from work). The highest H parameter a girl has determines her “type” (masochistic excitement, extreme pervert, love service, sensitive, etc). As H parameters go up, it will unlock pre- and post-yotogi dialogues with the girl.
Interactions during yotogi skills drain a girl’s mental stat, and as she gains experience in a skill (capping at 3 stars), its interactions cost less mental which means the skill ultimately lasts for longer. Different skill level seems to change the maid’s dialogues, too. The lines in the earlier screenshot came from having Hentai Pose Play maxed at 3 stars. When chaining multiple yotogi skills together, try not to drain her mental stat down to 0. Doing so will have her start with half her initial mental value in the next skill (meaning the final skill doesn’t matter). TL;DR get as close to 0 without actually running out if you want to make the most of yotogi.
After raising H stats enough, bracketed yotogi skills with pink backgrounds start becoming available (for example, [Pamper] Arousal) which unlock fetishes for the maid in question. Once at 200 arousal, you can unlock the fetish from the skill (clicking the bottom option) but it won’t activate until the next yotogi session with her. Awakening the kink does result in a unique dialogue, so if you’re interested then don’t blitz through the voice lines. Having a fetish opens up more interactions in certain yotogi skills (pampered behavior unlocks “beg to kiss” and “beg to hold” during missionary), but most of these require 5000 lust & hentai, as well as a minimum of 200 arousal before you can select them.
There are five different situations (or contexts, if you will) for yotogi, and all yotogi skills picked must be from the same main category during one yotogi session (general, drunk, blindfold, aphrodisiac, or confession). 
Aside from general, these all seem to include a cutscene before yotogi begins. Drunk skills have the MC getting the girl tipsy before they start, and each skill has different dialogue than its vanilla counterpart. The other situations (blindfold, aphrodisiac, and confession) won’t unlock until the maid in question is at much higher H parameter levels, which you can check from the yotogi info screen. As long as the main category is consistent, it’s fine for the subcategory (lust, hentai, service, etc) to change throughout your lineup.
During general yotogi, there is an option to enter arousal mode. This requires at least 200 arousal and 300 sensual. Starting arousal mode does cost some mental, so keep that in mind if you’re trying to avoid hitting 0 (unless it’s the final yotogi skill in your lineup, in which case mental won’t matter). It primarily does two things. First, it changes the voice lines of pretty much every interaction, with the maid getting… a lot more into it. Second, it switches actions from spending mental to where they’ll spend sensual. The skill will end when sensual has been fully spent. There’s also no penalty for completely running out of sensual after starting arousal mode (toggle it on when she’s at about 10 mental; as long as she has more than 0 mental, running out of sensual is nbd so do whatever you want). Also note that not all skills have access to arousal mode, and none of the non-general skills have access to it. This means that outside of general yotogi skills, sensual pretty much doesn’t matter (I actually haven’t tested this with confession skills yet).
Maids: Dialogue and H Scenes
By default, the main three maids will all have their v cards intact. If and when you do take it during yotogi, there is a short scene before yotogi starts. 
It’s worth noting that this scene will be different depending on whether or not the MC and the maid are lovers at the time. It’s pretty sweet, so I generally recommend you try doing so for at least one of the main girls (doubly so if she’s waifu material).
An intact v card allows a maid access to several virgin-specific yotogi skills. Since the game tracks anal and regular virginity separately, this means a girl can have access to both “caress” (if she’s had anal sex) and “virgin aphrodisiac,” or “sixty-nine” and “virgin sixty-nine.” The main difference between these is the voice lines from the girl. Virgin yotogi skills generally have her acting a lot more shyly or nervously. Of special note are the intercrural cowgirl and doggy style skills. Intercrural sex is non-penetrative sex using the thighs, so these yotogi skills allow you to train a girl without taking her v card.
H scenes will be available under the schedule in the mgmt menu. There is a pure love route as well as an NTR route, and hovering over it will show what its requirements to watch are. 
Note that three of the H scenes in the pure love route unlock at trust relationship (JP: 信頼である which the game also translates to “faithful” here). This means that if you waited til the MC and one of the maids became lovers to take her v card that you’ll be missing out on three of the H scenes. However, the pure love scenes between the three main girls are basically the same, and after watching it with one you can view it with the other two in memories mode, regardless of what your relationship with that girl currently is.
Upgrading Facilities
“Salon grade” refers to your club’s grade/star rating, which increases as you progress in the main story. “Elegance” is sometimes mentioned in upgrade prerequisites, but it’s simply another word for the “grace” stat. There’s not a whole lot to say about this, but I actually don’t really recommend buying up all the facility upgrade materials since having every option makes the actual upgrade process a bit more convoluted. Instead, consider buying the top one or two materials of each type from the CR shop, plus the materials from the casino. Later in the game, the most important stat in your facilities is going to be “Facilities EXP up.” Guest ratings (referred to as ranking in the mgmt menu) cap at 999, which will happen pretty easily once your club gets rolling. Moreover, once you start upgrading facilities to their luxury levels, income stops being an issue entirely (you might have noticed in one of my earlier screenshots an inane amount of CR, heh). I assume some people can and do eventually max each job class on each of their maids, but doing so would take a lot of time. Either way, job exp will usually be much more useful than reviews and income.
Ultimately, the upgrades don’t make a huge difference (especially later on in a playthrough), so don’t stress too much about the details here. As long as you’re having fun you’re more or less doing it right.
Camera Control
Unlike most visual novels, COM3D2 does allow the player robust control over the camera. By and large, there are three different types of scenes. Locked scenes (usually simulating first person view) do not allow the player to maneuver the camera at all, but they don’t happen very often. 
Third person scenes usually do allow the player to move the camera, and include the MC. Pseudo first person scenes are a combination of the previous two types. They simulate first person view, but also allow for maneuvering the camera. Amusingly enough, when girls talk to you in pseudo first person scenes, their eyes often track the camera. Yes, it’s pretty obvious you’re crawling around on the ground like a pervert but she won’t judge you, I swear.
If you’re anything like me, camera controls were the first things you figured out while playing this game. But since they aren’t exactly obvious, I figured I’d include a little information about them anyway. If you’ve figured this stuff out on your own, that’s fine too.
During normal cutscenes, right clicking on the dialogue box will hide it. Left clicking anywhere should bring it back up. This can be useful if you’re framing a screenshot or the like. Your scroll wheel allows you to zoom in and out, as you’d expect. Clicking and dragging on your scroll wheel allows you to pan the camera up, down, left, or right. Clicking and dragging your right button lets you pivot the camera in pretty much any way you want. In some cutscenes, this will instead swivel you around the main girl rather than pivoting the camera. Given COM3D2 is an eroge, it’s not particularly shy about low angles and you can get as many eyefuls as you want. Chirarists rejoice! \o/
In the character editor, 
you can click the “View” button in the bottom left to hide the GUI. Clicking “Cancel” in the lower right will bring it back up. Getting clean views of yotogi can be a little trickier. In the top right menu, there are options to take screenshots both with and without the overlay.
But say you wanted to be more immersed in yotogi while you’re playing, what then? Note the white circles on each side of the screen, 
labeled “Status,” “Command,” “Parameter,” and “Undressing,” respectively. By default they’ll be turned on, with a small red circle in the center of the white one. Clicking the white circle once will hide that menu, and you can return it using the same method. There’s also an option in the top right menu’s configuration to turn off subtitles during yotogi, in case you wanted to clear those off your screen, too. The same mouse controls are available during yotogi that you have during normal cutscenes, so go nuts.
Guest Mode
In case COM3D2 wasn’t enough of a Sim for you… there’s Guest Mode, which uses one of your main save files to create… another Sim. You can visit as either the MC pretending to be a guest or as a middle-aged man. MC can visit the massage parlor, the SM club, or the hotel with one of your girls. Middle-aged man can visit the SM club, hotel, or soap land. In order for a girl to be selectable they must meet the requirements for at least one of the scenes, but these requirements aren’t always obvious. 
From Guest Mode’s main menu, clicking on Free > [Character] > OK, you can see all of the scenes available for one of your maids. If you’ve already unlocked a scene, you can rewatch it from here, otherwise mousing over the scene will tell you what the requirements to unlock it are. Common requirements will be meeting specific H parameter levels and the maid having lost her v card.
With NTR blocker turned on, middle-aged man won’t be an option, meaning Guest Mode is limited to the MC pretending to be a guest. Oddly enough, middle-aged man can select any of your maids, regardless of whether their contract is exclusive or free. 
I’ll also add that it’s impossible for either the MC or middle-aged man to take your maid’s v card in this mode. Some scenes have no prerequisites, meaning virgin call girls can proc them. The maid generally just tells the guy “But I can’t,” and they finish the scene in a different way.
One of the things I don’t particularly like about this mode is that its save is separate from your main save. This means that if you update your maids’ stats and want to give GM another spin, you have to start up from square one again. Honestly, I haven’t really sunk much time into it. Compared to the main game’s normal yotogi, it’s more narrative-focused and has a lot less customization. Your mileage may vary, so feel free to play around with it as much as you like.
The end
That’s all. Have fun ❤
