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We’re back for a new installment in our The Long Game series, where we break down things you can invest in early in games that will pay off long-term. Today we’re focusing on Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, the huge new installment in the long-running series that takes you to the capital of the Dagdan Empire to be a gladiator in the Heroic Games.
Like its predecessor Three Houses, Fortune’s Weave has a split narrative with multiple protagonists. However, this time around, you don’t have to choose one route. You can follow the stories of Cai, Leda, Dietrich, and Theodora in any order and can switch between them at any time once you reach Dagsion, the central hub city.
As with the rest of the Fire Emblem series, Fortune’s Weave is centered on grid-based strategy combat. But it also features a heavy focus on activities outside of combat, with access to a world map you can traverse between story battles. You can find dungeons, towns, traveling merchants, and skirmishes with roving enemies.
That’s on top of running around the giant city of Dagsion, which is full of shops, activities, and people to meet. It can all be a little overwhelming, especially if you’re new to the series and aren’t sure where to start. So that’s what we’re here to help with. Here are four things outside of combat that you can (and should) start taking advantage of as soon as you can.
Show Your Support
Support levels and conversations have long been a staple of the Fire Emblem series, with characters amassing points whenever they fight next to each other or provide healing or support in combat. Fortune’s Weave expands that system and adds new ways to build support outside of combat, which you should take advantage of whenever possible.
The primary way of building support is by eating meals together at the inn, which will be available to all protagonists very early in the game. Three people can eat together at once, and everyone has their own food preferences. The inn menu changes daily, and when you pick your group of three, you can see how they feel about each meal.
The amount of support points everyone gains is based on how much they like the meal, so don’t try to force people to eat stuff they don’t like. Meals are particularly helpful for building support points with people who aren’t actively in your party and are a vital way to convince recruits to join you (more on that in a bit), since you can’t build support with them in combat.
You’ll eventually unlock arena training, where you can assign two fighters to train with each other in a variety of ways. This will boost both fighters’ command of weapons, magic, or movement types, while also giving them support points with each other. Arena training is the most valuable way to prepare characters for more advanced combat classes. Plus, it’s available every week, so don’t forget to come back to Dagsion every once in a while to take advantage of it.
Raise Your Renown
Each protagonist will learn about Renown once they get to Dagsion early in the game, and it’s basically a stat that measures how well known you are in the city. Increasing your Renown adds important boosts at certain thresholds, will make it possible to recruit more characters, and it’s a big part of the central gameplay loop of Fortune’s Weave.
All protagonists can take on subquests given out by people throughout Dagsion, most of which will take you onto the world map to find items or get rid of certain enemies. These subquests each give Renown and all have deadlines, but they’re usually pretty forgiving, so you should have plenty of time to do them all.
Paralogues are the exception to that standard. These are more significant side quests that expand on the stories of individual characters. Fire Emblem veterans will already be familiar with paralogues, but they're handled differently in Fortune's Weave than the rest of the series. You can only start one if you talk to the right character in Dagsion during a set period of time, and the deadlines for paralogues are strict (in the most extreme case, there's one on Dietrich's path you can only get on one specific date).
This can be an issue because you might spend an extended period on the world map and blow right past the cutoff date without even realizing a paralogue was available. You won't receive any in-game notification, you just have to be in Dagsion on the correct dates. Completing a paralogue nets you 20,000 gold, a bunch of Renown, and unlocks recruitment for certain characters, so they're very worthwhile. I don't normally recommend playing with a guide, but this is one area where I think it's a good idea to look up the information beforehand. You need to be aware of the dates when paralogues are available so you can plan accordingly. Luckily, IGN has a full breakdown of their dates across all protagonists.
You can also earn Renown by visiting gods in their temples in Dagsion. This becomes available early in the game, but it can be easy to forget about since you don’t get reminded about it. On the map, there are icons for each god’s temple. You might notice that on some days, one of those icons is yellow, which means that god is there in person and available to visit. If you continue chatting with the same god, they’ll get chummy with you and might reveal some additional information about themselves or lore about the world.
While completing subquests and paralogues is the base way everyone can gain Renown, each protagonist also has an additional one that’s unique to them. Cai’s involves doing more quests, called kindness quests. Dietrich can summon enemies to battle at any time, as well as duel combatants in dungeons to steal their combat arts. Theodora gets resource requests that allow her to trade items you’ve gathered for Renown. And for Leda, remember to check the tavern in Dagsion at the start of each chapter. She’ll have new performance requests in certain cities on the world map, where she can dance to receive thousands of gold and hundreds of Renown at once.
Mind Your Materials
Character levels and class progression are obviously important in Fortune’s Weave, but don’t forget about their equipment. You’ll start with wooden weapons, but the armory will quickly add bronze and iron versions that are significantly more powerful. You should upgrade as soon as you’re able to.
In Chapter 6, regardless of whose path you’re following, you’ll be introduced to the blacksmith. The main one is in Dagsion, but some bigger towns on the world map will have one too. They allow you to spend money and smithing materials to upgrade your weapons, with basic weapons only requiring Smithing Stones and more specialized equipment requiring unique materials.
You can gather these materials on the world map, but the best places to find them are mines. These dungeons have crystal deposits you can smash that will earn you guaranteed smithing materials. As you’d expect, higher level mines will have more unique materials, and you can gather a bunch of them in one trip.
Dungeons will also be filled with boxes and barrels you can smash with an attack, and ones that hold items will have golden sparkles on them. You can get a variety of materials this way, including stones and food.
Food can be used at rest spots in dungeons or feast spots on the world map to restore your health and magic, which is particularly important when you’re planning on staying outside of town for a while. Some quests and recruits will also require particular vegetables, meat, or fish, so try to keep a variety of food items on hand in case you need them.
If you’re playing as Cai, he can also use food as bait to lure out animals to catch and use as mounts. If you use rare food, noted by a blue icon with a sparkle in the corner, you’re more likely to attract rare animals. Just make sure you use the kind of food each animal likes: orniuses like fish, horses and pegasi prefer vegetables, while wild bau like meat.
Rally Your Recruits
No matter which protagonist you’re leading, your core group of characters won’t be enough to take on later chapters. You’ll need to add to your ranks by recruiting some of the many characters scattered around Dagsion, but you don’t have to wander aimlessly and hope you run into them. All characters will be noted by dots on the map: an orange dot marks a character you haven’t met yet, a green dot means you’ve spoken to them but haven’t recruited them, and a blue dot means they’re a member of your party. Once you’ve met them, you can also teleport to them directly by selecting them on the third tab of the map.
Recruitment combines much of what we’ve already talked about in this article. All characters require that you have specific support and Renown levels, which you can see when you select them on the map or by clicking the “Character Info” option when you talk to them. Some recruits will also have additional requirements, like paying them money, retrieving a particular item, or completing a paralogue, side quest, or story chapter.
In order to recruit anyone, you first need to give them a gift. Any gift will do for the first one, but after that, you should try to find ones you think they’ll like based on their personal preferences. Doing this will also make it possible to dine with them at the inn, which is how you’ll raise their support level high enough to recruit them. The only support level that matters is the one they have with your current protagonist, so make sure you’re inviting both characters to meals.
Recruits have different requirements for each of the protagonists. Someone who needs 10 Renown to be recruited by Cai might only need 4 Renown to be recruited by Dietrich. Meals and gifts are limited each week, so you don’t want to spread yourself too thin by trying to appeal to too many recruits at once. It’s wise to focus on a select few recruits at a time, then move on to new ones once you’re successful.
New recruitable characters will continually be added as each storyline progresses, including the leaders of squads you defeat during the Heroic Games. So keep an eye on the map in each chapter to see if there are any new orange dots. And just in case this is the kind of thing you worry about: Recruiting a character with one protagonist will not remove them from the pool for other protagonists. So you don’t have to be concerned about leaving later protagonists with nobody to recruit.
There you have it, four things to make sure you get a handle on early in Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave. For more coverage of this massive game, check out our review, recruitment guide, and 18 things the game doesn’t tell you.
Article authored by IGN Global and presented by Charles Schwab. IGN Global and Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. are separate, unaffiliated companies.
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