Daiteikoku:Clear Bonus Love

How to unlock Love
The Clear Bonus "Love" is obtained by completing [|Ending 7] - World Peace Was Brought (平和になった世界で), aka Maki's ending.

In a new game, you must select the event "Love" during the event phase, and you can give 1 admiral of your choice the Love bonus.

Love's effects
The bonus usually gives the admiral selected:
 * 1) Command Point +90
 * 2) Unlocks slots 2-4
 * 3) +2% growth rate

Yubari's unique bonus
There is 1 exception to the above, which is the admiral Yubari. She uniquely receives a flat +60% bonus to her first slot instead of any of the normal bonuses.

Unlocking fixed ships
Love will unlock slots 2-4. This means it will not affect Fixed ships in the first slot, such as those of Tougou, Shibagami, Mikado, Doenitz, Coyote, Katherine, Sarah, etc...

If an admiral has multiple fixed ships, however, such as Parupuna or Nozomi, then it can unlock fixed ships in those subsequent slots. However, what this means can differ:
 * Parupuna will have her 2nd-4th slots unlocked, but the unique space monster ships that were in those slots will be deleted.
 * Nozomi, by contrast, will have her 2nd slot unlocked and you will be able to keep her Haniwa Great Barrier ship and assign it to other admirals.

Growth rate applies retroactively
Don't worry about levels gained before applying the bonus. The +2% growth rate applies retroactively.

For example, if you have an an admiral with a base +2% growth, and a +0% laser bonus in their first slot, at level 4, they should have +8% laser, but when you apply the Love bonus on them, they will instantly get the 4 levels * 2%, for a +16% laser bonus.

As they level up after that, they will continue to receive +2% per level.

Growth vs unlock trade off
There's an inherent trade off between the 2nd and 3rd effect, since admirals that benefit from unlocking slots, generally don't benefit as much from the improved growth rate.

There's not really a rule of thumb here though. As an example, let's compare Lolikov and Charlotte:
 * Lolikov only has a single slot, usually, with a low value HP slot bonus. The +2% is entirely wasted on him, but with his high base CP, unlocking 3 slots makes him a first rate admiral
 * Charlotte already has all 3 slots, so will not get any benefit from the unlocking bonus. However, she has All Attack bonuses in each slot, gaining an extremely high bonus with the growth rate effect. Add onto this her skill, which further multiplies her damage, and Loove makes her a first rate admiral

Slightly subpar admirals
It's often advisable not to choose your best admirals for Love.

An admiral like Tougou, at first glance, would seem to be a perfect candidate. He has 4 All Stats bonuses and a superb skill. However, giving Tougou Love, although not a bad choice, only makes him marginally better, since he was strong to begin with. In Tougou's case, the fixed ship also doesn't get unlocked, thereby not removing his main weakness.

By contrast, it's usually better to give Love to an admiral who's very close to being a first rate admiral, but needs a bit of an extra push to really shine.

Lolikov is a great example of this, since with a single slot, he's pretty poor, but as soon as you unlock all his slots, with the extra CP, he becomes one of your best options available.

Pick them early
Love gives you an immediate boost in strength, so the earlier you apply it, the more usefulness you'll get out of it. By mid to late game, you'll likely already have a roster filled with strong admirals, between your high level starting admirals and recruits.

Tanaka or Koga are both great picks for the love clear bonus for this reason. Perhaps they aren't the admirals who would benefit the most in the game from Love, but they are available from the start and still strong picks.

Recommendations
Here are a few of the recommended picks for Love. Note that this list is not exhaustive and is the author's opinion, so don't feel constrained, and go experiment!

SS tier

 * Mel to Laden - high CP + best bonuses + COPY skill make her the admiral with the highest potential in the game
 * Hapsburg Lady - early start + 3 slot unlock + all stat bonus + damage multiplier
 * Nozomi Takeda - 0CP AL3 ship on any admiral + 3 slot unlock + all stat slot bonus
 * Katherin - best damage multiplier skill in the game + mandatory Ending 1/2 boss fight character

S tier

 * Tanaka Raizou - early start + CP hungry + even higher growth
 * Eagle Douglas - slot unlock + 3 all stats + decent CP
 * Reltih Adolf - super high CP + slot bonuses
 * Charlotte Parthenay - all damage on 4 slots + damage multiplying skill

A tier

 * Blackhorse - damage multiplier + 2 unlocks + all damage
 * Lolikov Banra - high CP + 3 unlocks
 * Scarlet Tougou - high CP + great slot bonuses
 * Mau Mau - all stats + CP hungry
 * Koga Hitomi - early start + can be effective even with anemone (A tier, since Itou Kakka can fulfil a similar role without Love)

??? tier

 * Mikado (non-Japanification route) - best admiral with Love, so SS tier while you have her... but limited to 3 fights, and you'll lose equipped ships on her 3rd fight
 * Yubari - unique

True Route
It's highly recommended to give Love to Katherin if you are planning to complete either Ending 1 or 2. Without Love, Katherin is virtually useless in the final battles, while with the bonus, she is at least usable. Until the ending, she will be able to pair with Mirja making her an SS tier admiral with her damage multiplier.

If you are going for UHOS late, however, or don't feel comfortable using Katherin, you can also choose Scarlet (for Ending 2) or Reltih. Both of them have the same drawback - they are already very strong without Love, so Love only has marginal effect on them. However, Love on high CP admirals is really fun, and they also have solid slot bonuses.

Ultimate Idol
Ultimate Idol (+ Japanification) is your only chance to recruit Charlotte Parthenay. It's recommended to try giving her the Love bonus, even though you'll have to hustle her levels a bit.

Still, between the 4 all damage slots, her damage multiplier, and her CP hungry template, which is hard to use without Love, it makes for one of the best picks possible.

Hidden bosses
If you're going for Gawatsgar Vu, Ghost Hanny and/or Nigayomogi, then Mel to Laden is your best pick. She has the most potential of any admiral with her 4 all stat slots, high CP and COPY skill. Just remember that you'll have to a) recruit admirals with high value skills and b) manage her so she copies and retains the skills you want her to use.

Utility
Nozomi is the highest utility option available. The AL3 ship you unlock from her is the only AL3 ship in the game (the only other -900 ship you get is the Panty Temple bonus ship with AA3).

You can further break the game by using Shibagami and Alps duplication tricks to get 4 copies of the 0CP AL3 ship, making this exceedingly useful.

Nozomi is perhaps not as great to use as other admirals on this list, but keep in mind that even with just 90CP, she'll still have her AL3 from her fixed ship, a boosted All Stat slot, and 3 equippable slots. She's great to use with low cost ships, like the clione fish, Mau Mau's dark battleships.

Early game boost
Hapsburg Lady is without a doubt one of the best options, if only because you can get her immediately, and turn her from a single slot so-so admiral, into an admiral that will shine throughout the game. She'll fall off slightly late game, but can still be a very strong submarine admiral with a damage multiplier that affects allies.

Just for fun
It's worth doing Love on Mikado+Fugaku, if only to experience it. The gigantic 990CP for 3 slots and her Fugaku ship fixed ship make her a miracle... if only you could use her more than 3 times and keep the ships...

Yubari is unique, which also makes her worth trying out. If you haven't tried out her Aerial Defence upgrade, then perhaps consider a game where you focus on getting her to full strength, with Love.