[FAQ] Pokémon Conquest Any%

Pokémon Conquest Any% Speedrun FAQ - made by Ridelith

Q: What is the WR for this game?
A: http://www.pokemonspeedruns.com/showleaderboard.php?game=conquest


Q: Are you playing on emulator or console?
A: I'm playing on console - a DS Phat recorded with a capture board (found on 3dscapture.com/ds).


Q: Are there notes for this game?
A: Not that I have done. There is very little that I could write in text format to make notes for this game, as most of the things you need to memorize revolve around wich square you should move each Pokémon to manipulate the AI and to kill the enemy team in the least amount of turns.


Q: What Pokémons do you use in this run?
A: The final team is Jolteon, Gallade, Excadrill, Darmanitan and 2 Lapras.
- Jolteon is the best eeveevolution you can get because of it's type advantages, great offensive stats and reliable (almost always 100% hit) attack. He is the primary damage soaker during the entire run.
- Gallade is more of a jack-of-all-trades; he is sometimes useful for his Warrior Ability, but most of the time he is there to finish kills and do little skirmishes on tanky opponents.
- Excadrill is there exclusively because of type advantages, before and after the evolution. He is mainly used during Cragspur, Yaksha, Spectra and Dragnor, although sometimes he snipes ground-weak opponents on all the castles he is present.
- Darmanitan is usefull since we get him in the very early game, as Darumaka, to hit fire-weak pokémons. He is how we get through Greenleaf and serves as a good damage soaker through the entire game.
- Both Lapras come from a Password-forced swarm encounter right after Pugilis. They are there because of their amazing bulk, reliable and extremelly good attack and type advantages. They shine the most on Avia, Dragnor and Infinite Tower, although soak almost as much damage as Jolteon on the whole run. They also make Chrysalia reliably fast.
- Other Pokémon we use are Pansage and Sewaddle; Pansage is useful to get through Fontaine, and Sewaddle is our main tank for Pugilis (and also helps a little on Fontaine and Violight). Oichi and Nobuchika have Jigglypuff and Panpour before we give them both a Lapras; they don't do much before receiving Lapras, though.


Q: How much RNG is involved in this game?
A: The amount of RNG present in Conquest is comparable to the Mystery Dungeon series; it is a very RNG heavy game. When you get bad RNG, contrary to what happens on other games, the run usually don't die - you end up wasting a couple seconds/minutes. These are the main factors in wich RNG plays a role in Conquest:
- Crit/Miss mechanic.
- Pokémon Energy - there are 5 levels of pokémon energy, represented by the arrows next to their names. The stronger the Energy, the stronger the stats and the power level. Not only the initial Power of every pokémon (including yours) is random, the fluctuation of energy between months is also RNG.
- AI movement pattern - probably the worst aspect of RNG to deal with in Conquest.
- Amount of Lapras found after the password.
- Minor overworld RNG (getting or not the secret merchant, invasions and whatnot).


Q: What are the run killers in Conquest?
A: - Getting burned in Ignis.
- Pansage going in the top lane in Greenleaf.
- Lapras capture (major run killer): the passworded swarm of Lapras can vary from 1 (auto-reset) to 4 (really bad) Lapras, the ideal being 2 Lapras. Beside the amount, the Lapras can be really uncooperative and waste a lot of turns. An ideal fight has 2 Lapras and is over in 2 turns.
- Not getting Drilbur on Terraria (him running away from the part of the team on the right side of the map AND digging on the left Lapras).


Q: How are you automatically moving from one square to another without going through the squares between them?
A: I use the stylus to select wich square I want to make an action in - it's faster than going through the squares using the D-Pad.


Q: Why did you save after _____ castle?
A: Probably because I am a noob and missclicked the save button.


Q: Why did/didn't you move _____ Pokémon to ______ square?
A: Usually if I do weird movement it is to manipulate the AI.


Q: Why are you doing Pugilis before Violight and Chrysalia?
A: Pugilis does not require me to kill any opponent, wich means I do not need to be strong when I fight Pugilis. Also, if I fought Violight first, Keiji would not come to teach me how to link with other pokémon - I'd have to beat another castle to have him come talk to me. Doing Pugilis first, I got to have more Link% and both Lapras to facewreck Violight and Chrysalia.


Q: Why are you leaving Shingen on Pugilis?
A: Shingen has a really high Charisma, so he gets really low prices on shops. He is left on Pugilis for the sake of buying Power Wristbands, wich are crucial for mid and late game fast fights. We use Kenshin over Shingen on our team because Shingen has a really slow and unreliable Pokémon, and his Warrior Ability, while good-looking, does not do much on a 2-square-turn Pokémon.


Q: Why are you doing mid-game in the Cragspur - Viperia - Avia - Yaksha order?
A: I leave Yaksha for last because it is very difficult without strong pokémon (we have very few type advantages on Yaksha and Zoroark is bulky as fuck). I do Avia only after getting Jolteon for massive time saving, wich leaves us with doing Cragspur > Viperia before jumping into Avia and Yaksha.


Q: Why are you using the Ponigiri shop after Yaksha?
A: I need to get Darumaka and Drilbur to almost-full Energy to make them meet the stat requirements to evolve. If I don't get to evolve them both right after Yaksha, Spectra is surely going to be a huge time loss - the turns in Spectra last long as fuck because of the statues/purple fire movements, so I need to beat Spectra with 13 or 12 turns remaining.


Q: What is your goal time for this game?
A: 1:55 In Game Time. If, when I get close to this time, I see that a 1 5 4 or a 1 5 3 are not extremelly hard to achieve I'll go for them.