Part 1: Welcome to the World of Warlords!
Main Theme
Hello there, welcome to Pokemon Conquest, a neat Gen 5 side game that I've been looking to show off a lot.
Boy we sure have some options right at the start of the game. Before we continue, I advise watching this game's intro video to get an idea of what to expect in this game. Also the game's music is amazing, you'll notice.
So we're gonna play as the girl like always? 
This LP will be slightly different as we're gonna be talking about Japanese history. Starting right now with our main character, Azai Nagamasa, a daimyō (or fuedal lord, get used to seeing these words a lot) from the Sengoku period in Japan. That's the main focus of this LP, on the leadup to the unification of Japan to the start of isolationist Japan and the Edo period.Also in this LP, we'll be using Japanese names, so surname first, given name second. I would prefer our Hero be called Nagamasa, but because of the character limit, we're gonna be Azai. Uh, it can be a descendant, sure.
Intrigue
A man of many words I see.
Ahh!
So, this is Aurora's new Warlord...?
Hmm... Hey! Is that an Eevee?!
That's a Pokémon you don't usually see around here... Hmm? Invasion
Hey, you! You're Azai, right? Aurora's new Warlord?
We're from Ignis. That's the kingdom next to this one... And we've come to challenge you to a battle!
Five seconds in and we're already fighting to keep our house. VS Aurora
Some real powerful contenders over there.
We should be fine, right?
Please, wait!
...?! Well, the more the merrier... Join forces if you like-it won't make a difference!
They're only moving up one space.
Please, let me help you! Okay, first things first: movement! Like this, see?
Okay, now it's your turn, Lord Azai.
We'll be going more in depth into how this all works in a bit, but let's just follow this through. Movement is simple though, every Pokemon has a certain amount of Range they can move each turn.
There's usually 2 options when you move to a given space, either use your move on an opponent in your move's range, or wait. You can press the B button at any time to rethink until you specifically click Wait, so take all the time you need to figure out your moves.
Damn tutorials stopping our fun.
But you're gonna have to leave that castle in Aurora before you can settle in!
All right! Leave this one to me!
I'll remember this, you know! Don't think I won't! You deal with that one, Lord Azai!
Now's the time, Lord Azai! You have to fight! Please select a direction in which to attack.
Every Pokemon in this game has one single attack they can use. You'll recognise them from the main series and they've been basically been ported over with some cool changes in certain cases. They also have an accuracy number that will vary from move to situation, as well as the expected damage the move will do. Usually it's lower, but sometimes it'll be slightly higher.
Our Hero isn't silent at least, he'll have some set phrases he'll say depending on the situation. So yeah, Quick Attack doesn't have the increased priority, since Speed doesn't determine attack order, nor does it hit one space away like in PMD, it's just Tackle with a different name.
Y-You're strong... Much stronger than they said you'd be... What are we going to do now?! Lord Hideyoshi is gonna be mad... Never mind that! Let's just get out of here!
Important characters like this girl have different emotions with their Pokemon, I'll try and show them off, since they're pretty cool. Victory!
After battle our Link with our Pokemon increases, which also boosts our base strength, as well as showing what happens to the enemy warriors. Again, there's more to this later, such as those gold circles. Long Day
I've been on a journey with Jigglypuff here... B-But... Umm, i-if you don't mind...
nah
Ah, a thou must, that was quick.
But it is a worry... It seems the flames of conflict have finally reached Aurora as well... Main Theme
An area inhabited by Warriors, those privileged few capable of communicating wordlessly with Pokémon.
In Ransei, there is a tale of yore, passed down from generation to generation: If any one Warlord can conquer all 17 kingdoms of Ransei, then the Pokémon that created Ransei shall reveal itself.
The Warriors of the land all believe that this tale is true; indeed, it is what drives them all.
And as a result, countless battles are fought for control of the kingdoms of Ransei. Long Day
Then Jigglypuff and I are going to have to become much stronger! But first, let's take a look around the kingdom of Aurora!
When system messages pop up like this I'll just have Oichi say them if need be, since she's basically tutorial lady right now. Ransei
Here's the region map, but let's just enter Aurora for now.
Ooph! Move. You're in my way. I-I'm sorry... There's a Farm not far from here, Lord Azai. I'm sure there'll be some wild Pokémon there... Let's go do some training!
We've got some wild Pokemon here. We can enter these areas with Warriors to train for experience and items and whatnot. There's usually more to do in a given area, but again, tutorial.
Let's pick our team and set off. Ravine
The scene is set, let us dance.
You're the Warlord of this kingdom, Lord Azai. Jigglypuff and I will follow your orders! So, what do you want us to do? Try to work together to claim victory!
Now that we finally have control, let's go over what this game is all about. You know you love it. Victory conditions are usually laid out pretty clearly on a given map, while Defeat conditions are often the opposite of the Victory ones. You can view the info of your team and the opponents, run away from battle at the cost of your monthly turn, save at any point (very helpful) and head to the Title Screen (much more useful later on).
Nice settings, we'll keep them as is to make my screenshot life much easier.
Now for the Info. Like a Pokemon's status screen, there's lots of juicy stuff to go over, but this game emphasises a Pokemon's connection to a Warlord, represented by a Link at the top. Most Warriors can Link with most Pokemon, but will have different Link caps, so those with 100% links can make that Pokemon the strongest it can be.
By pressing L or R from the center screen, we can view our Warrior or Pokemon respectively and then press Y to get more info. Warriors have their own stats that affect battle in the same way that a Pokemon's stats do, Power increases the Attack of a Pokemon, Wisdom affects your Warrior's skill effectiveness and Charisma increases your Pokemon's evasion. A Warrior's speciality will give you a hint as to what Pokemon they can 100% link with, but that's something to go over later. All Warriors have a skill that they can use once in battle to turn the tide, but they don't become too necessary as the game goes on. Finally, you can equip one item to use at any time, though some are simply passive.
Pokemon also have stats that affect how much damage they'll do and take. Unlike the main games, a species of Pokemon has a set number for their base stats no matter what, so its how their linked Warriors stats affect that that make each individual Pokemon more unique. Also similar to Gen 1's Special, both Attack and Defense categories from the main games are rolled into one for simplicity's sake, though type effectiveness is still the same as is Gen 5, so no Fairy type and Steel has its resistances to Dark and Ghost still. Speed affects a Pokemon's evasion, much like Charisma. Since a Pokemon species only has the one move, status moves are very rare and are usually paired up with other Pokemon stratigically (sometimes). And also like the main series, Pokemon have abilities, though like in Gen 5, Conquest Pokemon have 3 abilities they can have in most cases, though the ones we get at the start are always the same.
When we meet a new Warrior or Pokemon I'll be showing them off like this so you can quickly see what they do, if I remember when I'm recording of course. Oichi has high Wisdom, so her Sweet Song skill will recover more HP than another Warrior with lower Wisdom using the same skill. All moves also have a power ranking from 1 to 5 stars, so don't rely on base powers from the main game. Eevee will definitely pack more of a punch than Jigglypuff, unless it gets lucky with its Doubleslap.
You can hover over a Pokemon to get a lot of useful info, as well as its movement range. Its attacking range is not included in that, so be careful, as its best to get a first strike in this game. Not the best angle though is it?
Much better! By holding Y and then using the d-pad, you can rotate the camera or zoom in or out to get a better view of the map. It's useful, but the default view the game gives you is usually just fine, so I won't be messing with it too much.
You can also view your opponent's stats at any time during battle, if you want to know everything about them.
Alright, enough info for now, let's get moving.
Ouch, critical hits do double damage, remember. But this is the first map, so we're not facing very dangerous enemies.
Way ahead of you there.
This is the difference between Eevee and Jigglypuff. While Jigglypuff could do more damage, if the percentage chance of getting the different hits is the same as the main games (I don't know the exact details of everything to do with this game), then it has a 33% chance for 2 hits, 33% for 3, 17% for 4 and 17% for 5, meaning it'll hit 3 times on average.
A quick way to take out Pokemon is to gang up on them. The red number is the damage you do, the white number is their health. Sometimes I take screenshots midway through the white number dropping down, so if things don't add up sometimes, that's why.
Celebrate is a super good Ability that lets you chain kills and lets you have some nice mobility.
There are small events that happen in different maps, such as digging up items in the dirt patches.
One benefit of multi hit moves are the increased chances of getting criticals, but you want something a bit more consistent.Victory!
Fighting wild Pokemon isn't as lucrative as fighting other Warriors, but it has its benefits, the least of which being obtaining new items. Long Day
The more time they spend together, the stronger this link becomes. This will make the Pokémon more powerful as well.
I think we should take a break. A Warrior can only do battle with their Pokémon or take them to visit a location once in a month. When all the Warriors in your army have moved, select Next Month to advance to the next month. Ransei
Yeah, like that.
Losing against a complete beginner like that... They need to get their act together! I'm not letting them mess things up for me now! I've got to make the kingdom of Aurora mine!
New month! What should we do? Well, we've still got some stuff to go over now that we have more control.
The menu is slightly different, can't do anything with passwords just yet, so let's check out the Gallery.
If you save your game while that Warrior is in your army, all their Pokémon will be added to the Gallery. Go to the Gallery to check the information about the Warriors that have been added. Warriors added to the Gallery can be used in Wireless Play.
At any time we can check out Pokemon in the Gallery to get all the info about them. The gold circle denotes Pokemon you've used in battle and have their info registered.
You can view a Pokemon's habitat, their cry and see all their stats and abilities.
Pokemon that we haven't registered have limited info, but you can see where they live and their cool ass art.
Unlike Pokemon, you have to use a Warrior in battle to get any info on them. And yes, there's 200 individual warriors in this game, should be fun.
A Pokemon that has a 100% link with a Warrior is called a Perfect Link and will be displayed here.
You can also see the cool emotion art, but alas not with the Pokemon included.
And Oichi's info. The in battle info we get will suffice, so I won't be showing off the Gallery entries of every Warrior and Pokemon. We'll be here all day. 
From the map, we can equip items to our Warriors, or view their info like we can in battle.
Pressing Y gives us the list of every Warrior currently on the map and lets us sort them in different ways, such as location, or gallery order. You might be wondering why this is a dedicated feature, but oh you'll see.
That place looks like it'd be full of wild Pokémon! It might be a good idea to do a little training.
Let's go! Ravine
If I recall correctly, Woopers have the Water Gun move. Some moves, like Water Gun, allow you to attack a wide area. Each Pokémon has a set move that they can use, so be sure to think about your tactics before entering battle!
The ravine map has some water, different elevations and random treasure boxes that the enemy can pick up. These are all mechanics we'll delve into later, but obviously only Flying, levitating and Water Pokemon can go on water. There are other hazards we'll see later. Also, Oichi, the plural of Pokemon is Pokemon, so it's just Wooper, not Woopers.
Took out Meowth before we could even see what it could do.
Lord Azai, at times like this you should select the Warrior option. You see, battles aren't just about telling your Pokémon where to move and when to fight. It's a Warrior's job to help out their Pokémon on the battlefield. You can use items... And you can use Warrior Skills...
My Warrior Skill is Sweet Song. It can be really helpful when you're in a bind. Warriors can help their Pokémon in battle by using their various Warrior Skills. Warrior Skills can only be used once each in every battle or training session. I only took 1 damage from that Water Gun, Oichi, calm down...
Top Speed is pretty great, increasing Range by 2, not that we really need it in this situation.
But might as well show it off. Ransei
We've done our battle, so that's our turn over. Next month! Whimsical Time
You're Azai, right? Hey! Mitsunari! Masanori! Leave them alone. Come on, Kiyomasa! We need to have a word with these guys, or they won't know what they're doing! Yeah... We hear that you're training your Pokémon a lot... But what for? What can you two hope to achieve? I-I...! Well, they're right, you know. You have to do more than just train. Eventually, you need to challenge another kingdom to a battle. If you win that, you can get some more Warriors and Pokémon to join you. Strengthen your army, and win battles. Those are the tasks of a Warlord. But I'm sure you know that much, right? Uh... Well, I... Lord Azai... If we really want to become stronger, we're going to have to challenge other kingdoms to battle. I think the time have come for us to make our move. Ransei
Select Warrior to take into battle into Ignis.
Hmm, who are we gonna take???
Time to turn the tables! Invasion
I never thought I'd see you over here... Well, two can play at that game! If it's a battle you want, I'm ready! Fine! Then a battle it is! But Lord Azai is going to win! Ho ho! Aren't you a cutie? I could do with someone like you in my army... Don't call me "cutie"! I would never fight for someone like you, anyway! Heh... Don't be so hasty... Once you see me in action, you might change your mind. All right! I think it's time for battle, don't you? VS Ignis
Let's start our first kingdom invasion.
That looks fun to get over.
This is the battlefield of Ignis! Pretty impressive, huh? The pillars of fire and magma will stop you from getting near me... But my Chimchar isn't bothered by things like that!
More hazards! Obviously the lava is something only Fire types can cross, along with Flying and levitating Pokemon. The pillars of fire block our movement for now.
Let's take a proper look at our opponents now that we know what all these words and numbers mean. Sure, it's 3 on 2, but those 2 previous guys haven't changed much.This is also a good opportunity to talk about the historical counterparts of these characters. We won't be going into too much detail about what they did, we'd be here all day, so we'll be going over their notable achivements in life, starting with Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a servant to Oda Nobunaga (who's in this game, spoilers) and eventually grew to succeed him and finally unify the entire country and stop the warring states. He also made it so only samurai could bear arms. He passed away during his second campaign to Korea after the battle of Sancheon and was unsuccessful in completely conquering the area to start attacking China.
Here's the rest of them, since we've already seen what Bidoof can do. Also when I mean most Warriors in this game has a historical counterpart, I mean it. Hachisuka Masakatsu, also known as Hachisuka Koroku, was a daimyō and retainer of Hideyoshi. His clan was in control of water transport on the Kiso river and were useful to the Oda and Saitō clans. Maeno Nagayasu was a samurai and vassal under service of Hideyoshi. Obviously we have more info about certain people than others, but I want to give everyone their spotlight. Also I'm gonna be sticking with wikipedia for most of this info, so if I'm wrong, so be it, that's why you're more intelligent in this area than me :P
This seems fine, can't do much aside from let them come to us.
Ah goddammit I need to get used to counting squares again.
"you can recover in a hot spring." These are very useful, but they're concentrated in the left side of the map, so if you wanna fight, do it over there.
Aww, the Bidoof can't follow its Fire buddies.
...It seems there are times when the pillars of fire disappear. Eevee and Jigglypuff can move across the area safely then.
Not much else to do but move back and let them come to us.
Before long, all the kingdoms will be mine!
Wuh-oh, we'll see what that means in a turn or so. Also it may look like that Ember only did 1 damage, but it's doing more than 10, the second number just hasn't appeared yet due to screenshot timing. Such is the curse of showing off move animations.
Here the increased range helps, since you want to start chipping away at the main Warlord as soon as possible.
This won't come to bite me, not at all.
Just in case you felt bad conquering kingdoms, they're evil so it's fine!
Uh oh
Oh okay, never mind then. Because of all these Embers being thrown around, eventually we'll get Burned. Status effects are in this game, but some work slightly differently. Burn remains the same. You still take risidual damage at the end of your turn and your Attack goes to shit. Just what we need right now.
Rocks fall and Chimchar and Bidoof take Fire type damage. We'll be seeing more of these kinds of hazards later on.
Ooh, lucky. Lullaby causes one random Pokemon in a 2 tile range to fall asleep. While asleep you can't do anything, though you have a chance of waking up when you get attacked. You're right, it doesn't pair well with Doubleslap at all.
This Burn is really annoying, where's the nearest Hot Spring?
Shit. Guess we'll have to manage.
We're getting quite beat up here. Sometimes the AI will retreat slightly, but usually they still end up in range regardless. The AI's not too amazing in this game.
Since we ended up in this little corner, most of the map's hazards don't affect us, that's just how some maps work, sometimes you use them to the fullest, other times you barely notice what they're about.
Bit of back and forth. We're getting real beat up, let's change that.
Sweet Song is suuuuuper useful and will get us out of a lot of tough jams throughout this LP.
This might be bad.
Or, uh, maybe not. Don't expect to see a load of large numbers flying around unless you have supereffective damage. Sometimes maps just turn into pretty slow slugfests. Hopefully we don't have too many of those.
Of course the Hot Spring replenishes right on the final turn. Bah. Victory!
Very nice. Moves become strengthened at every 20% interval, turning your moves into +1 and going up to +4 and then to +S, where some moves change slightly to have less negative effects, or so. Though, uh, unlike other Pokemon games, I don't have the exact formulas, so I dunno if it's just +5 to damage or it's a percentage. Someone dig through the code and find out! Long Day
But I have made a vow! I will be the one to find the Legendary Pokémon! And that means I will be back!
Congratulations, Lord Azai! Your second castle... I'm sure we'll start making allies before long. The only thing is...I don't know how...
Well, HELLO, what's your name gorgeous?
I watched your battle in Ignis. You're impressive for one so young. But if you don't even know how to make allies... Then I guess you've got a way to go before you can be considered a real Warlord. ... Hey, don't be like that! I wasn't making fun of you. Tell you what, I'll teach you how to make new allies, all right? My name's Keiji, by the way. Just come to Ignis Castle when you're ready to learn!
We'll be doing that next time!