Dynasty Warriors 7 Conquest mode guide Version 1.01 Version history Version 1.0-Majority of the guide put together from beginning to end Version 1.01-Minor updates to the bond section about getting sworn allies and more details on the rescue missions that I never noticed Table of contents 1. Overview and legal stuff 2. What is conquest mode? 3. Mechanics 4. The cities 5. The battles 6. Sworn allies and bonds 7. Reinforcements 8. Guardian animals 9. Strategy and tips 10. Conclusion 1. Overview Just getting this out of the way now. Copyright 2012 Bradley Griffiths This guide was made for personal use only. It is not to be reproduced or distributed publicly without advance writen concent. Only gamefaqs.com is authorized to use this guide on their site. Any other use is a copyright violation. I have been a big fan of the Dynasty Warriors franchise since Dynasty Warriors 4 but always found the story mode to be fun but after completing it the game lost alot of its fun. Sure you could replay the story or free mode but now we have conquest mode to play in the place of free mode. Conquest mode can be a little overwhelming at first when you see the map and all the battles and mechanics that you have to work with and since there is not a dedicated guide covering all of conquest mode I figured I would put everything together to help people get everything that the mode has to offer. 2. What is conquest mode? Conquest mode is new to the Dynasty Warriors franchise and replaces free mode. In past games you could play any stage over with whatever warrior you wanted from any of the kingdoms whenever you wanted. Now the stages are all set to be for the officer that the story focuses on and if you want to be free to use the any warrior including the officers classified as other you have to play them in conquest mode. Conquest mode is made of a giant map of China with a hex representing each city or battle. These range in difficulty from 1 to 10 stars and generally the more you move away from the starting city the battles will get harder. Each battle is classified into 1 of 13 different types of battles each giving you gold to buy weapons and fame. In addition to the standard rewards every hex is marked with a symbol representing a speacial reward for beating that battle including everything from increases to stats or fame to new officers or legendary animals that you can bring with you to battle. All of this will be covered in detail to make it easier for you to decide which path to take. 3. Mechanics There are a few unique mechanics that are in conquest mode that are not in the story mode. These are what make the mode different from anything else we have seen before and are directly tied to the trophies and achievements so you need to learn them if you plan to complete them all. First is fame. As you complete each battle you will get an amount of fame added to your total and is displayed right at the top of your stats screen and next to your gold aquired after the battle. The harder the battle the more fame you get but that is not the only way to get it. Most missions will have objectives inside them that can be completed to earn extra fame and gold as a reward. Killing ambush parties, capturing bases and saving allies are just a few of the ways to get more fame. There are trophes/achievements for getting 100k, 500k and 1 million fame and will come in time from completing the battles. The next is bonds. Remember that congeniality seal that is on a bunch of weapons in story mode and you didn't see any use for? Well here it is. Every warrior in the game will have a bond that can be viewed in the officer info section of the menu. Bond is how much the other officer has come to like you pretty much. A higher bond with an officer will make them give you health items when you are hurt and unlock things in the gallery when you get them to max. There is alot of ways to earn bond with an officer and it will be detailed in section 6 of the guide. 4. The Cities There are 14 cities spread out over the map that you can go to in order to buy weapons, change your guardian animals, meet officers and much more. There are 3 different people that will always be in a city and 2 additional people that will visit every 3 battles and the chance of officers visiting you in the city. This section will cover all of the important people that you will see. The blacksmith is one of the 3 that you will find in every city. When you talk to him he will have 5 slots that you can select and each can hold 1 weapon. You leave the weapon with him and he will forge the seal on the weapon for a fee so that you don't have to use the weapon in battle yourself to get it. This is much slower than just fighting the battles with the weapon equiped and can be rather expensive. I do not recommend using the blacksmith when you can get it yourself pretty easy. See the tips section for more info on completing seals. The next one is the weapons dealer. This guy well sells you weapons lol. As you Progress from city to city they will have different weapons for you to buy. Just like in story mode you have to buy each weapon in a class to make the next available for purchase. Once you have all the cities unlocked you will start to see all the weapons available at every weapons dealer. The final of the 3 initial city dwellers is the teahouse. The teahouse allows you to select a guardian animal to take into battle and a sworn ally to join you if the battle allows it. If you change officers make sure to return here to set your sworn ally and guardian animal for the new officer. The officer will retain them if you go back to them but they are officer specific. Every 3 battles you will have a merchant that will visit your town to give you the chance to get some things that are only available from him or at a lower price. He will have 3 weapons that you can purchase at a 20% discount over the weapon dealers prices. The same rules apply about having to have the lower level weapons of that type to purchase the new weapon. Reinforcements can be purchased as well. Each city has a list of officers that you can hire for 1000 gold. Only one officer can be hired at a time and only applies to the officer that hires them. The list does not change and is listed below in its own section of the guide. Merchants also sell many of the guardian animals. I have seen no pattern to the city you buy them in so I am guessing it is random. Leaving the city or changing officers will cause the merchant to go away so pick the city wisely. Last is the scholar. He will ask you 5 questions and answering them right will get you a gold reward. It starts out at 100 and goes up to 5000 in time. He appears every 3 battles as well but once all cities are unlocked he will always be in the city and you can talk to him as many times as you want for 5000 gold without even going to the map screen. I will not have a section on all the questions that are asked and the answers because there is already an amazing guide for them that I actually used in my play throughs of conquest. 5. The Battles There are 14 types of battles in the game that you can fight at any given time. This section will NOT be covering each of the individual battles but the type of battle it is. For the most part the map changes and the officers you face will change but you will have the same primary objective and same ambuse and side objectives in all the battles of that type. Note when I say no sworn allies that includes hired reinforcements. Alliance-Tells a variation of the story for the kingdom that it is for. Each kingdom has 5 battles for a total of 20 alliance battles. No sworn allies. Arena-These battles take place in a closed round arena that normal only has you and the enemy officers coming at you in waves of 1-3. Can be very difficult at times because you will not have the chance to build up special attacks or get temporary stat boosts. There are 3 pots against a wall that have health items. No sworn allies. Assault-This is a basic battle with the enemies blocking your escape route. You have an officer you have to escort to the end and defeat the enemy blocking you. Expect ambushes and reinforcements for the enemy. City battle-This battle is only available at the 13 cities you need to unlock. You will face a small group of enemies and officers in a very small area. Reinforcements from the enemy are possible. No Sworn allies. Conflict-This is a normal battle between the 2 forces involved. Conquest-In these battles the enemy has several bases that the have to capture. The enemy will have reinforcements and come out of there base to stop you. Defensive-The enemy attacks your base in waves and normally from more than 1 side. Watch out for reinforcements and not to go out too far or the commander dies quick in these. Extermination-Peasents are being attacked and you only need to stop them from being killed and take out the enemy officer. Guardian animals-These battles are larger battles that reward you with the 3 best horses in the game when you beat each of them. No sworn allies or guardian animals. Legendary-Every officers has a hex with their legendary battles. There are 2 or 3 battles on each and you can only use that officer. After the first battle they will start visiting cities and after all of them they become playable if they are not unlocked already. Pursuit-Like the name suggests catch the enemy officer through his ambuses and defeat them before they get to an extraction point. Rescue-One of your friendly officers is being attacked and needs help. Kill the enemy officer attacking them and move on to the leader. Reinforcements are common. These are good battles to get your bond increased in quickly. Solo-You against a small group of officers. The enemy can send ambushes but goes rather quick. Treasure-These battles are for a weapon of the type listed in there description and that a seal for anyone to be master of the weapon. Just beat the weapons master and it is yours. Other than the legendary, treasure, city battles and guardian animal hexs will have either a normal weapon or a random stat boost when you beat them. 6. Sworn allies and bonds There are 62 officers in the game and each of them can be made to become a sworn ally. In order to do this you have to complete the first battle of the officers legendary battle hex and it will cause them to start visiting cities. The first time the officer comes to a city they will just talk to you and the bond will increase. The second time they will become your sworn ally and can join you in battle. Once they are an ally it is possible for them to appear again and ask you a question. The answer will either be involving there own personality or a funny reply. There are only 2 answers to each question and you can save before you go into the city and try the question. Get it wrong and you can just exit game and come back in to answer it again with the write answer. They will come back a final time when they are almost maxed out and talk to you and max out the bond. If at any time an officer is not a sworn ally and will not appear it means that their bond is not high enough to be a sworn ally yet. It appears they need 20% (or 2 boxes) to be appear. You can either go to a battle and hope to get them to appear in a way that increases bond or the easy way and buy them from the merchant as reinforcements. See the list in section 7 for where to find them. There are several ways to increase bond. The most obvious way is to select them as a sworn ally or hire them as reinforcements. This lets you control who is getting the increases in bond. In battles like the rescue missions the officer you save will also have their bond "greatly increased" but I have never noticed a difference in the gain. This is random however and you will get officers at max bond more often as you complete them. The final way is in town as discussed above. One of the most important things when building bond is to use the congeniality seal on both weapons. From the experience I have it increases your gains by 50% which makes a big difference. There are trophies for getting 5 men, 5 women and all officers to max bond as well just getting them all to be sworn allies. One thing that will help you that I wished I would have noticed alot sooner is that the rescue missions pick a random officer from a certain kingdom. You will never see anyone as the officer to be saved other than that kingdom no matter how many times you played it. The following is a list of the battles that feature each kingdom. Most but not all of these are in the NE quarter of the map and very close together. Shu Nanzhong Tong Gate Wu Mt. Xingshi Xiliang Wei Yan Province Mt. Niutou Jin Luoyang Jiao Province Other Sishui Gate Qing Province 7. Reinforcements Every city has a set group of officers that you can hire as reinforcements to join you for 1 battle. This will make the bond maxing a little easier. Below is a list of all the cities and who you can hire there. Bing Province Zhang Liao Lu Bu Guo Huai Ji Province Zhao Yun Guan Yu Zhang He Zhang Jiao Zhen Ji Jiao Province Meng Hou Zhu Rongen Jing Province Huang Gai Huang Zhong Wei Yan Guan Ping Pang Tong Deng Ai Liang Province Ma Chao Jiang Wei Jia Xu Si Province Sima Yi Sima Shi Sima Zhao Wang Yunaji Guan Suo Bao Sanniang Qing Province Taishi Ci Yuan Shao Lian Shi Xu Province Zhuge Liang Xu Zhu Ling Tong Zhuge Dan Yan Province Dian Wei Xiahou Yuan Xu Huang Yang Province Zhou Yu Lu Xun Sun Jian Zhou Tai Sun Ce Sun Quan Ding Feng Yi Province Gan Ning Yue Ying Xiahou Ba Liu Shan Xing Cai Yong Province Cao Ren Dong Zhou Ma Dai You Province Sun Shang Xiang Zhang Fei Liu Bei Cai Wenji Yu Province Xiahou Dun Cao Cao Cao Pi Lu Meng Xiao Qiao Da Qiao Zhong Hui 8. Guardian animals There are 13 guardian animals in the game, 9 riding and 4 companions. Below is a list of the animals and the stats they have. For riding companions speed is obviously how fast you run and power is the ability to run through the enemies without the horse bucking and stopping. All animals except Shadow Runner, Hex Mark and Red Hare are bought from the merchant. Bear Speed 180 Power 100 Birch Speed 190 Power 10 Chestnut Speed 180 Power 10 Elephant Speed 180 Power 200 Hex Mark Speed 220 Power 20 Mahogany Speed 210 Power 10 Maple Speed 200 Power 10 Red Hare Speed 260 Power 100 Shadow Runner Speed 220 Power 20 Falcon Attack 180 Panda Attack 160 Tiger Attack 240 Wolf Attack 220 9. Strategy and tips Now with all the stats and mechanics out of the way its time to get into the actual playing of conquest mode. The difficulty of completing it is greatly determined by whether you completed all the story modes or not. Completing it will give you all the skill points that the officers earned and all the weapons and seals as well. Also normally you start with only a handful of officers but if story mode is finished then you have all officers that were controlled at your disposal. This is not as big of an issue if you plan to use 1 officer the entire time but half the fun of conquest is using everyone and leveling them up and completing story cuts the time down a considerable amount. This guide will assume that you did complete the story mode first and are playing on normal difficulty. Once you pick an officer that you like you want to try to get all the cities unlocked as soon as possible. This will allow you to use the scholar as much as you want to get money for better weapons and guardian animals when the merchant is in town. I recommend sticking with the first officer until you get the cities unlocked and some weapons to make it easier to level the other officers up. Once you start to do the legendary battles keep an eye on the cities for the yellow flags that tell you officers are there. Remember that your officer can not appear in cities while you are using them so you have to switch to get them as a sworn ally. If you are focusing on getting the officers to max skill points or stats then the battle of supremacy is a great battle. There are 37 officers split into 4 groups and once you get close to one of the leaders all of his men will rush you. You can then spam your musou attack and take them all out. Even an officer that has not been worked on at all can kill several officers in 3-4 attacks and get 15000 gold too. Remember no sworn allies in the battle but you can use red hare and its a big help. Stick to the rescue battles for raising bond. You can play them as many times as you want and they are quick and have an officer in them that will increase your bond too. Not bad on skill points either. While working on bonds if you are not worrying about money or fame you can pick an easy one and equip high seal slot weapons and put skill up, congeniality, synergy, officer assassin and a seal of your choice on the weapons and blow through it in minutes. That is also my priority list when I pick my seals for grinding skill and bond. If trying to get seals then equip the weapon on someone you like as there 2nd weapon and fight the battle of supremacy. Switch to it at the start and use the officers musou to kill them and still get credit for the weapon. Replace congeniality with seal master and most seals will be done in 1 battle. If you are trying to raise money and get all the weapons then pick Zhuge Liang, Lu Meng or Guo Huai. All 3 of them have smithing which is needed to get the last weapons in each type. You could switch to them to buy the weapons but then you would miss out on the merchant if he has them. You can also switch to them after 2 battles and then back after the you see the merchant but I'm too lazy for that. 10. Conclusion These strategies have worked for me on several play throughs of conquest mode and have been fine tunned by trying different things. There are many ways to play and you just need to find what is most fun for you. I doubt that there is anything that would be added in the dlc that would really impact the strategy but if it does when I get the dlc I will update with new tips. Hope you have a better understanding and enjoy this new mode a little better.