Beginner's Guide

This is a guide for new players looking to get into Sengoku Fubu. Please keep in mind, I'm going as if you know NOTHING about the game so feel free to gloss over certain aspects if you already know about them.

Starting off, the whole point of the game is to unify Japan. The usual method is by conquering all cities on the map as well as other players by yourself or with an ally. Then start a new game and do it again. The charm of the game comes from "every game being a new experience" as you fight different people (some passive, aggressive, strong, weak), and you start in different places on the same map almost every time. There is a story BUT the English translation is... well at this time it's REALLY bad. So if you're here for the story, God help you. If you're here for the game you're in better luck because, I promise you, you can find a better story in a preschool story book than what Sengoku Fubu currently has going on.

Starting off, follow the tutorial to learn the basics about food, coin, and troops and how to use/get them. This will also introduce you to the town layout and give you an understanding on how to navigate and setup your armies.

You will recruit heroes from that era who will decide how good (or how sucky) you will be when it comes to a fight. The Key is SYNERGY of your heroes' abilities, their Star-rank, and in advanced levels, who you pair them up with (which has to be discussed more in-depth later on). Also the nice feature about this game is that they made a time wherein players (especially for players in the Asian Hemisphere) can "take a break" for 8 hours and get some sleep! However, this can be rather annoying to those in the Western Hemisphere as these 8 hrs occur from 11am-7pm est, 10am-6pm central, 9am-5pm mtn, and 8am-4pm pacific (for those of you reading in the states). During these hours, marching on an opponents town or castle costs 10x the normal amount of food so 11,000 becomes 110,000. Though you are still able to capture unowned towns and cities for the usual amount.

**For NEWBIES: (Ashigaru to Ashigaru General)**

You start the game by just capturing a few cities and "Unifying Japan". This is a basic map that teaches you the game in baby steps. It's very easy to complete and gives you a starting understanding about troop movement and resources. Once this map is completed, you will be abruptly launched into your first game without much warning. Please be aware that this first match will be for players between levels 10-15 so if you lose, it's not that big a deal. You will also be dealing with the entire map of Japan unlike the tutorial where you only were given a few castles. Please keep in mind, starting out games will go very quickly but as you rank up it's pretty common for a game to last 2.5 to 3.5 days. The game runs from 1520AD until 1615AD and 1hr IRL is equivalent to 1 year in game. If the entire map isn't conquered before this, the team with the highest number of castles wins. You will start with a set of heroes who combo together, but are most likely not the ones you will stick with for very long.

**Learning about the Heroes**

This totally depends on who you get starting out but there are general guidelines (which we will look at later) for who you should be looking for in the early game. While you can use Koban for early advanced recruit summons, during the early game it is recommended that you hold onto your Koban as it's very important later. You will receive Common Recruit tickets from Merit boxes that you can obtain daily. At the time of writing, it is possible to obtain 30 merit boxes per day (though 60 is possible during events. In this case, the merit quests will run up to 6,000 merit points instead of the usual 3,000). When it comes to actual team setup it is important to look at the following traits for heroes. What I am about to describe can be found by tapping/clicking on the "Heroes" tab at the bottom of the screen and then tapping/clicking on any Hero. On the first page you will find:

Reserved Hero Exp: This is how much Exp you have saved up to spend on your heroes. Reserved Hero Exp can be earned through capturing castles in the campaign and through Military books you earn/buy. One Military Book is equivalent to 50,000 Hero Exp.

Next Level: Self Explanatory. This is how much Exp a hero needs to level up. Please keep in mind that a hero's level cannot exceed your current level.

Hero Type: These differ between Strength, Intellect, and Omni. It gives you a little bit of insight into what this hero does and where they should be positioned. Tapping/clicking on this will bring up the basic stats of your hero. To explain this simply, Valor = P-Atk, Aura = P-Def, Intellect = S-Atk & S-Def, and Might = Troop amount. This isn't exactly how it works but it will give you the general idea.

Gear RECO: Tapping/clicking on this brings up a recommended list of the gear that said hero should have equipped.

Troops: Found below the Hero's Portrait on the left hand side of the screen. This is a Hero's maximum "health"/troop number.

Looking to the right of the page, you will see a number of tabs. The current tab we are on is the suit of armor. Tapping/clicking on the double swords below it will take you to the hero's Talent and another tab to tell you who this Hero combos well with. The names of the hero's in the combos detailed below will be tappable/clickable so you can see the portrait for said hero. Heroes you own will appear highlighted orange to indicate you can use this combo if all needed heroes are on the field for combat. Otherwise, the names of the heroes you are missing will be greyed out.

Going back to the Armor Tab, let's talk about gear.

**ITEMS**

There are 3 item types with four variants of weapons and two variants of armors. Horses all function the same initially.

Matchlocks: These are guns that only increase Valor for pure physical damage. They are best put on backline units that target the enemy for high P-Damage with their talents or frontline units if you're building a high damage glass cannon team.

Katanas: These are for front line units and increase both Valor and Aura. They are meant to help increase both offense and defense.

Bows: These are for both frontline and backline units depending on what you need but it focuses on their defense and talent damage. Bows increase both Intellect and Aura for more S-Damage and P-Defense so it's recommended for Intellect units you've decided to put on the frontline or if the opponent has heroes who target your backline with P-damage.

Saihai: Purely for Intellect units that deal S-Damage or heal.

Armor: Increase P-Defense and slightly increase S-Def. For your frontline units or your backline units designed to deal with oncoming Physical enemies.

Haori: Greatly increase S-Def. Helps heroes to shrug off damage from S-Damaging talents.

Horses: Increases a heroes troop amount.

**HERO TYPES AND PUTTING TOGETHER A STARTER TEAM**

The rarity for heroes are as follows. Green/N, Blue/R, Pink/SR, and Orange/SSR. Pinnacle Heroes fall under their own rarity. Obviously, Green is the weakest and easiest to get while Orange/Pinnacles are the strongest and the units you'll be whaling/patiently waiting for. Starting out the game, you will have mostly Green and Blue with a few Pink. Maybe an Orange if you get VERY lucky.

When it comes to putting together teams, you can set up Queues to help you remember which heroes synergize well and automatically select that team in your castles when you have the troops for them. In order to setup a Queue Select the Hero tab at the bottom of the screen and at the bottom right you will see two blue tabs, Hero Filter and Hero Queue. Select Hero Queue. The layout will change to a 9x9 grid which represents your front line, back line, and reserve. Using the scroll bar at the bottom, you can put together your team by selecting them at the bottom one at a time. You may also tap and drag the portraits of the heroes you have selected to rearrange them at the top in order to have the correct formation.

The best way to go about setting up a proper team is by figuring out your heroes strengths and weaknesses. You want high Valor and Aura heroes in the front and high intelligence heroes in the back. High Valor and Aura heroes will typically have talents that deal Physical Damage while high Intelligence heroes will have talents that deal Stratagem damage, heal, or buff/debuff. Please keep in mind, some talents will have drawbacks such as damaging the unit or friendly units while inflicting damage to the enemy so it's very important to read and see what each unit does. Just because it synergizes with other units you have, doesn't mean you want to use them. A well balanced team has a mix of high P-Atk and high P-Def heroes in the front. The back consist of heroes that you don't want hit as often so healers, high Intellect heroes, or heroes that specialize in dealing high physical damage to the backline. You can change it up as need be depending on the heroes talents and what you think works best as you can't control exactly what heroes you get from recruitment.

Some of the best units for the early game include:

**BLUE UNITS:**

Sassa Narimasa: Deals minor damage to all enemy units and **stops them from healing for 2 rounds**. Combos with Ikeda Tsuneoki(Green) for more damage. Available from the **Tokai** Region.

Boba Nobufusa & Naito Masatoyo: Boba applies Desperate Fight (80% chance to not die from a fatal hit) to himself for 2 turns and Naito deals 150% P-Damage to 2 random enemies. They are both very durable when paired together having a +30% P-Def combo. Great early frontline units. Both are available from the **Ou-Kan-Kou** Region.

Suzuki Shigetomo & Tsutsui Junkei: Suzuki deals 105% P-Damage to all backline units and applies confusion (small troop loss per turn) to them. Tsutsui removes debuffs on your opponents frontline but heals your frontline for 105% S-Damage. Paired together, they get an in increase in damage/healing. Both are available from the **Kinki** Region.

Hara Toratane: 55% P-Damage to the enemies backline and **applies** **Despair (Stops healing)** for 2 turns to them. He combos with Akiyama Torashige(Green) for +15% dodge. Available from the **Ou-Kan-Kou** Region.

Akokuji Ekei: Replenishes enemy frontline troops for 40% S-Atk, but replenishes your frontline troops for 85% of S-Atk. Additionally, **he applies high morale to front line units which adds an additional 20% crit rate to them for 3 entire rounds.** Pairing him as a healer/buffer for your front line is VERY effective, and works even better with his combo partner, Shimizu Muneharu, who gives them both an additional 20% damage. Available from the **Chuu-Kyu** region.

Miya: Miya is interesting. She is a general healer that you get from the very start of the game and she advances from Blue to Orange as you go up in rank. While she is a phenomenal healer in the early game (she heals all troops and has very high intelligence), she doesn't combo with any characters, and upon advancing to the next rarity she loses her levels gained and her stars. For this reason, I highly recommend using her in the early game but unless you're struggling to have a good healer you should drop her by the time you reach Soshi. Even using her in the Samurai General tier isn't really recommended.

**GREEN:**

Ikeda Tsuneoki: Mainly for his combo with Sassa Narimasa as Sassa is a very important early game unit. He deals 80% P-Damage to enemy frontline units. Available from the **Tokai** Region.

Akiyama Torashige: Deals 60% P-Damage to ALL enemies. Combos with Hora Toratane for +15% dodge but is mainly notable because he also combos for +20% damage (physical and stratagem) with Lady Otsuya. Otsuya is a VERY strong early backline pink unit. She is buyable and thus easily obtained. Akiyama is available from the **Ou-Kan-Kou** Region.

Toyotomi Hideyori: Combos only with Orange card units but is VERY valuable early for his talent. He deals 160% S-Damage to all enemy units and applies Weakness (Decreases P-Atk by 20%) to all allies for 2 turns. His damage output far exceeds the drawbacks of Weakness in the early game. Available from the **Kinki** Region.

Shimizu Muneharu: Talked about with Akokuji Ekei, Shimizu deals 200% P-damage to a random enemy troop while dealing 75% P-damage to himself. At two stars, he gets an additional 30% crit so when he's paired with Akokuji's buffs and healing, he heals the damage he deals to himself and crits 50% of the time! Available from the **Chuu-Kyu** region.

**RECRUITMENT**

First and foremost: You can have some control over what heroes you get when you are running your recruitment draws. When you go to the Recruit tab at the bottom of the screen, make sure you are in the "Hero Recruitment" tab on the left where the **Common Recruit** and **Advanced Recruit** are. The banner running across the top of the window will have an orange and blue tab called Replace and Records. Click replace in order to pull up the map of Japan. You will have 4 regions to choose from **Chuu-Kyu, Tokai, Kinki, and Ou-Kan-Kou**. Tokai will always be the default location you start out on. You will keep on getting heroes from a certain region if you do not change this so when you are running out or have gotten everyone you wanted from a specific region, make sure to swap it out.

Common Recruitment: You need Recruitment Tickets in order to recruit here. The easiest way to obtain recruitment tickets early is through merit quests which were described earlier. While I personally wait for 5 tickets at a time, there is no reason you can't draw as soon as you obtain one. I personally have never obtained an Orange Hero from this recruitment but it is possible to get Pink heroes from here occasionally. Once you reach the title of Samurai General and can access the "black market", you can also buy recruitment tickets from here for 20,000 Silver Chogin a piece.

Advanced Recruitment: You get one free recruitment every day. Otherwise, this recruitment takes Koban (in-game Gold that you buy) or Advanced recruit tickets. At the current time, this is one of the more straight forward ways to get orange heroes (aside from orange hero packs) but your Koban is better spent on other recruitments as these heroes are slightly outdated and have been powercrept (more on this later). When you reach the title of Shoshi, the cooldown for the free recruitment is halved from 22 to 11 hrs. You will also receive Advanced recruitment tokens. However, **the advanced recruitment tokens can be used for Pinnacle recruitments.** So it's best to save them and use them there.

Chance Up Recruitment: Features a rotating assortment of Heroes and it will grant you one of the SSR Heroes after 150 recruits. However, this method also takes Koban so unless there's a Hero you're really after in the rotation this recruitment is better off forgotten about until you reach higher titles where Koban is granted a little more easily.

Old World Recruit: An older recruitment pool that features a large number of Orange and Pink Heroes with only a few blue. However, your chances are 3% for an orange hero, 30% for a pink, and 67% for blue. This recruitment takes Koban and is more or less better off avoided.

Glorious Past Recruitment: On the main page on the left where your quests are, you'll find Glorious Past Quests. There are a total of 10 quests that reset at the beginning of every month and you "draw" these quests one at a time. Once one is completed, you obtain a Past Recruit Ticket as well as fill up the bar at the bottom of the screen before drawing a new one. A total of 22 tickets can be obtained from here per month and it's another way to obtain Orange and Pink heroes.

Pinnacle Recruitment: This here is why I said you need to save up your Koban. Pinnacle Heroes are absolutely game breaking in strength and getting them early will sky rocket your teams. This is where you want to be sinking your premium currency. There are currently (at the time of writing) 4 heroes with 1 new one being added once every two months. This is where your best units will come from should you pull any of the focus heroes as all of these heroes are insanely monstrous. Additionally, recruitment chances roll over when a new hero is added so when you pull a total of 50 times, you **will** get one of the current heroes in the pool. Keep in mind that pinnacle heroes do not combo with any other heroes at this time but are so disgustingly strong that they really do not need it. So fit them onto teams where you have gaps.

**THE MAP AND HOW TO NAVIGATE IT DURING THE WAR**

The game map has two different types of control points, Castles and Towns. The only difference between the two is that castles can have their Tenshukaku upgraded up to Lv5 while towns can only go as high as Lv3. Pulling up the world map will give you a good overview of where your enemies are, the roads they will need to travel to get to you, and strategic points you can use to close them off. The map to the right offers three different areas where chokepoints (red and orange circles) can be used to help block off your enemies for when you are planning to put the game down for extended periods of time. However, please keep in mind you won't be able to have any opponents behind you when employing these choke points either in order for them to be effective. The far right red chokepoints defend the far North Eastern towns and cities. Building up both Yamagata (the left) and Sendai (the right) will prevent any opponents from coming north or can lock opponents behind them to give you the advantage as you gain more territory to the south.

The middle chokepoints are Hamamatsu (the bottom), Inabayama (the middle), and a choice between two options for the northern chokepoint; Kanagasaki and Kanezawa (circled in Orange). Prolonged matches will see these and the Western Chokepoints being used more often as these chokepoints separate the Eastern and Western halves of the country. The middle is more or less a no man's land as attempting to defend these from multiple opponents can be VERY demanding on your resources and is not recommended if you don't have to do it. Otherwise, starting in Osaka or Tsutsui castle (circled in blue) is pretty much a death sentence if you are surrounded on multiple sides.

Obviously, the more well built teams you have, the more chokepoints you can place to defend yourself. However, in the early game your equipment and heroes will be slim and not easily dispersible which is why I've only specified the two or three. Additionally, taking these chokepoints from an opponent should be a high priority as once they're built up you'll have an easier time holding off said opponents. When you are looking to take an opponents castle/town, you have the option of clicking on it and scouting them first to see what they have there. This is generally a good idea for opponents who are offline. However, if an opponent is online don't be surprised if a large number of troops suddenly appear in their castle as opponents will have their own stratagems they can use to instantly create an army.

Next, let's talk about allies and war chests. When choosing the Dipl icon on the war map screen, you can pull up an overview of all players currently in the game. You will be able to accept and receive ally requests from everyone but you may only have one ally at a time. You are able to move your armies through your allies territories in order to attack other players but it will take a large amount of time as they move through towns as if they were your own. Additionally, you will not be able to change allies or break ties with your current ally. When you and your ally are the only players left, the game will end and it will be considered a victory. On top of this, you can obtain war chests based on how many opponents you have defeated. War chests give you silver chogin, war soul, and a small chance at an orange gear pack and SSR pack. The first 30hrs grant you an 80% chance at a war chest so it is advised that you move quickly in order to get as many as possible by eliminating as many opponents as possible. Additionally, you can obtain higher tier war chests upon completing a map (2 if you do so without an ally). Your win streak also increases your chances of a higher level war chest.

**STRATAGEMS**

Stratagems are additional power ups you can get in order to increase your resources, increase march speed, or hasten build times. Make sure to get them when you can as these can be game changing. You can research Stratagems up to 10hrs. Anything over 10 hrs will stop you from ordering more until the cooldown drops back below the 10hr mark. You can spend Koban to drop it back down, but you're honestly just better off waiting.

Resources: Coin Boost and Harvest provide an instant 1000 coins or 1000 food respectively and has a 1hr research requirement. Impressment provides an additional 1,000 troops to a selected castle and has a 4hr research requirement. These are very useful for getting a lead in the early game to establish your position or for using in a pinch when you're becoming boxed in.

Speed Ups: Forced March cuts the march time for armies in half and can be used twice for a 75% total speed up (10 min becomes 2min and 30 seconds). This is the cheapest Stratagem at 30 min of research. Fast Construction and Fortification are both building speed ups. Fast Construction instantly increases your buildings level by 1 while Fortification instantly increases your Tenshukaku level by 1 Please be aware you will still need to pay the total coin amount for said upgrades. Fast Construction costs 1hr and 30 min of research while Fortification requires 4hrs of research.

Joint Defense: This is different from the others in that you can instantly have an army appear at a friendly castle. They will remain there until defeated or recalled. (To this date, I still don't know how to use this nor have I used this. As soon as I figure it out, instructions will be put here). Takes 1hr of Research

**SHOPPING FOR ITEMS**

Stores in the game are a vital component as this is where you will get a majority of your gear. All three use a currency called Silver Chogin that is awarded to you through merit chests and login bonuses.

The Shop: Open to all ranks from the games start, the shop is run by Miya. It sells gear for your heroes and the quality of the gear increases with the intimacy level. Pink Gear appears after Lv5 is reached and Orange gear can appear after Lv8. Every time you refresh the shop, you increase intimacy by 1 point. Each refresh costs 30 min and the max cooldown cannot exceed 10hrs, meaning you can refresh the shop 20 times in one go. Starting out, blue gear is ideal but you will very quickly want to switch to pink. It's alright to buy lower level gear to get your heroes off the ground but by the time pink is available you should generally be attempting to purchase ONLY blue and pink gear. As for costs, Orange equipment costs 200,000 (200K), Pink equipment costs 100K, Blue 50K, green 20K, and plain costs 10K.

Black Market: Available once you reach the title of Samurai General. This store is a little more different in that it can only be accessed while you are in game and not in the waiting area. This store takes Resources as well as Silver Chogin and sells a number of goods from Recruit Tickets, to Military Books, to Land Deeds. The Black Market also has an intimacy counter but instead of it having levels, you raise Intimacy by giving the clerk gifts she sells. Once Intimacy reaches 500, the "secret room" becomes available for a limited time. There will be 3 item slots that have a number of different rewards that can be purchased with Koban (though the first slotted item will always be free and has a 50/50 chance of being either an Orange Gear Pack or 500 Warsoul). Once the timer runs out, you'll have to give her more gifts and refill the intimacy bar to get back to the secret room again.

Mysterious Store: Comes and goes (for what reasons I have yet to determine) but functions similarly to the shop, taking Silver Chogin as payment for its service. The mysterious store will always have gear and has a higher chance for there to be Orange and Pink Gear. Purchasing a piece of gear will close off the slot that piece of equipment was in and it will not be refreshed even if you choose to refresh the page. Refreshing the page for new equipment costs 50 Koban and the shop will disappear after 48hrs.

**RAISING HEROES**

During the early game you will need a lot of work to get your Heroes ready to deal with other players armies. Heroes will have a star level that can be raised through War soul and equipment can be combined to enhance it. These two elements are invaluable in the early game as it makes a HUGE difference in army strength.

War Soul: Probably the most valuable thing in the early game, War Soul should be used sparingly and pointedly at first. Ranking up a heroes star rank offers boosts to their stats and increases their growth rates. The difference between a 5 star hero and a hero without any is absolutely staggering and it's VERY easy to rank up your Green and Blue heroes. That said, it takes a VERY long time to upgrade Orange Heroes and every upgrade on all heroes becomes more and more expensive. As a result, it is best to upgrade your early heroes that you use often and then slowly phase them out as Pink/Orange Heroes are obtained. Do NOT waste your War Soul! Always make sure you can justify using it. This becomes more lax later on as you get pellet that reset war soul but where you are now, it's best to hold onto it.

Enhancing Equipment: Equipment bought from the store can also be enhanced to +1 which is done when you combine a piece of gear with itself. A +1 piece of equipment will always be stronger than the next rarity up so a +1 Blue Katana will be stronger than a normal Pink Katana. This is why blue is recommended when you are starting out as it becomes easily available and mergeable towards the mid game and is stronger than Pink Equipment once it's enhanced.

**LEVELING UP AND CHANGING TITLES**

For far more detailed information on Samurai General and Shoshi, please go here Titles and their changes to the game. There is far too much to cover in this guide.

Without going too much into detail, you'll first want to level up your heroes as much as possible by playing the game and attacking cities as often as you're able. Keep up on their gear and enhancements and make sure you are doing the Main Quests that come by as Lord Exp is what levels you up. Every enemy player you take down grants Exp and Kokudaka. You'll start out at Ashigaru and pretty much immediately reach Ashigaru General. Once you hit 300 Kokudaka you will advance to Samurai General, and reach Soshi after obtaining 900 Kokudaka. Enemy players who have taken over 5 or less castles will grant 0 Kokudaka but 10 Lord Exp. Players who take over between 5-9 castles will grant 10 Kokudaka and Lord Exp, and players who have taken over 10+ castles will grant 20 Kokudaka and 10 Lord Exp. Every new title grants a title pack which comes with gear, war soul, and Koban as well as a monthly salary starting at Samurai General.

**Rashomon**

Rashomon is another game mode that is single player. It's important because other very strong units come from this game mode and because you can farm it by yourself, there's no reason you shouldn't be doing so in your free time in order to help boost your team farther. Unlike regular summons, when you get duplicate heroes in this game mode from summons you obtain what is called Ghostfire. It is used to upgrade and Awaken SP Heroes but can also be converted to War Soul for upgrading heroes you've already gotten. War Soul is still used occasionally to upgrade the star rank of SP Heroes though so both will be necessary later when you get SP Heroes.

Weekend Challenges: This is I feel a must to do every weekend (which somehow other players don't seem to). No matter how new/old you are in the game, you should do this both for the fun of it, as well as the rewards of it because there are some things here that you can get "orange hero/equipment packs" that you can no longer get after the 1st month rewards are over) I particularly enjoy Sanada Maru. It's short and you have a bigger chance of winning if you know how it works.

So for there are 2 modes with their own set of rules and reward computations. Try them both. The important note here is: YOU DO NOT NEED A FULL 3 PLAYERS IN YOUR TEAM TO PLAY. Just register even if you are ALONE.

Should this guide not answer all the questions you may have about Sengoku Fubu, you can find the reddit thread here https://www.reddit.com/r/SengokuFubu/ for anything else you may be looking for.

Should you be having trouble with the time zone differences and keeping up, there's a short summary here "How to Play on an American Time Schedule" that should help you.

PS. This is a start and I could go into more depth with the team-build section. Cheers guys and enjoy! - Saucyboygenius

PSS. I will be updating this more as I go and get time but for now, this will do. I'm glad to be able to build on what Saucyboygenius has already posted and I hope this has been helpful! - Sithra