Decide How You Want to Play
Unlike Birthright, Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest does not offer you the opportunity to grind for levels in between story missions. This means that you won’t be able to see all of the different character interactions in your army due to the lack of time. As soon as your army size increases to a sizeable number, you should take the time to decide which characters you want to take into battle, and which ones you want to pair up.
Once you’ve decided on your pairings, try to level up their bonds as much as possible to get the best field results. Don’t forget that the offspring characters’ stats will be based off of their parents’ stats too.
Don’t worry too much about getting the optimal pairings for all of your characters. It’s more important to decide on your pairings early on so that you can get started on them, and this will prevent you from ending up with a bunch of incomplete B interactions near the end of the game.
Keep Your Outlaws and Ninjas Close
Early on in Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest, you’ll only have one Outlaw and one Ninja in your party. I advise bring Kaze and Niles with you as much as possible so that you’ll be able to snatch up all the treasure chests scattered about the field. These are the only classes with the ability to open locked doors and treasure chests, so you’ll want to keep them close by.
It can be hard to scrounge up enough gold to buy the weapons and spells you need early in the game, so it can be really helpful to have these two guys on the field to seek out treasure for you.
Explore Your Castle and Cook
Conquest is hard enough with its mobs of tough enemies, but you can make it a little bit easier by simply exploring your castle in between missions. Your characters will be scattered all over the area, and you can talk to those with an exclamation point above their heads to receive items from them. Sometimes they’ll give you random weapons, and other times they’ll give you food.
Now you might be tempted to feed all your food items to Lilith. However, I recommend bringing a few scraps of food to the mess hall. You’ll be able to cook food, consume them, and this will give your army temporary stat boosts that will last until the end of your next battle. If you don’t intend on focusing too much on beefing up your castle for online play, sending your food to the mess hall will be very worth your while.
Do the Paralogues
I can’t stress this enough. Whenever you exit your castle to progress with the game, be sure to check the menu for any optional missions that may be available. Some of them may be generic invasion battles, but sometimes you’ll come across optional Paralogues that may allow you to recruit new characters for your army.
As mentioned before, Conquest doesn’t give you a lot of time to grind for levels and max out bond interactions, so you’ll need all the field time you can get. Be sure to complete all the Paralogues as they come your way so that you can increase your army size for more character options, and gain some bonus experience points for existing characters.
Even Out Your Experience Points
Speaking of experience points, you may feel tempted to constantly rely on your strongest characters to carry your army. However, I strongly advise against doing that, as this will put your weaker characters at even more of a disadvantage. Instead of having your strong characters do all the heavy lifting, let your weaker characters take pot shots whenever it’s safe. The sooner they level up, the sooner you’ll be able to use a Master Seal on them and upgrade their class and stats.
This will give you a more even party where most, if not all, of your characters will be able to hold their own against tougher enemies as you progress further into the game. You definitely don’t want to be caught in a situation where you lose a character simply because they weren’t strong enough to withstand a simple attack, especially if you’re playing with Permadeath on.
Get Familiar With Weapon Types
Every class is proficient in a certain weapon type, so be sure to equip your characters with the right weapons before heading into battle. It’s also very helpful to know which weapons are most effective against which classes – the most important of which is the flyer’s weakness to bows.
If you have Pegasus-riding characters, keep them away from archers, as one arrow could easily kill that character with just one shot. Similarly, always use your archers to shoot down flying enemies to save you a ton of grief. There are other weaknesses to take note of, but this is by far the most important one.
You Can Lower the Difficulty
If you’re having too much trouble with a particular stage, you can always lower the difficulty as a last resort. It’s not ideal, I know, but if you’re dying repeatedly and losing too many characters and you just want to forge on ahead with the story, remember that this option’s always there. You can turn off Permadeath mode to prevent the loss of characters, or you can turn the difficulty level down to ‘Normal’ for a slightly easier challenge. However, Conquest is no pushover even on easier difficulties. The game still requires you to think and strategize, so don’t let your guard down.
Do note that while you can lower the difficulty, you won’t be able to increase it.
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