You don't want to convince players to support you. Think of those situations where you try to tell your friend to check out a new band, but they don't. So, you insist. They push back harder. It's the same thing with VNs/games. You don't want to force it down players throats. Promote on reddit with art/renders/etc, put your links in your signature, be friendly. But ultimately, your audience will come to you, and often times will be the ones who spread the word. Create a community.
As few as possible. I know it's tough to sit there and work on your game for months on end with little to no feedback. It's probably the hardest part of making a game when you first start. You want people to see it. You have two real options here, really. Put what you have out now, but be explicit that it's a demo/proof of concept. As much as you possibly can. People in game threads tend to not read very in-depth (not all obviously, but a lot from my experience), so try to make it obvious.
First impressions are everything. Your 0.1 will be the line in the sand for a lot of players. You either catch them or you don't. The more content you have, the higher chance you'll likely have to grab them. An easy to do this would be to go over to the Recruitment section and see if you can find some blind beta/play testers that will only know the plot going in. Ask them where they felt it was lacking, where they enjoyed it, and go from there.
Many Patreons never ask for the tier rewards. Largely because a lot of them are their to support the artist, and some of the tiers are just benefits (e.g. early access.). What you offer is going to largely depend on your style of game and gameplay, what you're able to do, and whether or not you can deliver on the said promises.
Don't go in expecting to be DPC or Freshwomen numbers, or anything like that overnight. Some get lucky, but most never see over a $100 in monthly income. You've gotta bring something to the table and be consistent about it. Thicken your skin while you're at it, the porn game space can be toxic. More than most other spaces. Especially in game threads here (Go figure pirates who never had any intention of supporting you are often the most vocal about something they don't like.). But at the end of the day, it's those supporting whose opinions matter.
