Pokemon Conquest, Conquest Eight: A Rocky Start (2/7)

The next thing you’ll want to do is examine your two new territories.  Illusio comes first, with four places within its fortress.  The Ponigiri Shop and Gold Mine are both the same sort of thing as you’ve been seeing so far, but the ‘hunting grounds’ area and the curious tree are both new.  The tree, labeled ‘Power Spot’, can be visited by one of your Warriors boost their Power, Wisdom, and Charisma for a few months.  The value of this boost is based on the Wisdom of the Warrior attempting to use the spot, so there are some who you might want to have use the tree that won’t gain as much from it, sadly.  On the upside, like any other activity, it grants a small boost to the Link rating of the Warrior who uses it.

The ‘hunting grounds’ area of Illusio is Floating Rock.  This area is composed entirely of the same sort of floating purple crystal that makes up the majority of Illusio’s control-battle map, but rather than a series of platforms it’s all in one place.  It creates a sort of spiral-ridged tower that would turn every battle here into a horrifically slow uphill slog if it weren’t for the four pairs of portals.  These can be used to ascend quickly, but keep in mind that a pokemon can only attack -before- passing through a portal it’s standing on.  This is an excellent place to train any Dark-types you happen to have, and the tougher Bug-types will like it here too.  There’s a bit of advantage to be gained with Flying pokemon as well, since they don’t have to muck about with the portals.

Floating Rock contains mostly Psychic pokemon- Abra, Ralts, Kirlia, Gothita, and Gothorita make up the majority, with an occasional Munna on the side- although you’ll occasionally find trainers here with other things, like Riolu or Skorupi.  It also, curiously, is marked as a ‘Lv 2' area.  The meaning of the level is not immediately apparent, but keep it in the back of your head- you’ll find out more on that later.

Your other new fortress and likely next staging area is Terrera.  As with Illusio, it contains four locations of note, however, three of them are things you have already elsewhere.  The Open-Pit Mine is just another mine, and there is not only an Item Shop but also a Ponigiri Shop here.  The Level 2 ‘hunting grounds’ area here is the Farm, and it’s not like the farms you’ve seen before.  This place’s terrain is tiered into three layers, with a three-square-wide dirt path sloping up from the lowest to the highest points.  Pokemon that do not fly and do not have Jump Up cannot reach the higher tiers without using the dirt path, and naturally you start at the bottom layer of the farm.

This area contains entirely Ground-type pokemon, though there’s a good variety.  Rhyhorn, Larvitar, Sandile, and Drillbur are all common here, though you may occasionally spot a Starly waiting for you just to put your Grass-types off a bit.  Still, overall this is a good place for Bug, Grass, and Water pokemon, with Bugs taking a more defensive advantage against non-Starly, non-Larvitar targets.