character support conversations

[Icedfate]

are these just scripted to happen at various points in the story or is it like fire emblem that you have to have the 2 characters each leading a squad and have them fight enemies in close proximity to each other to build it up?
i'm assuming that they have to participate in the battle, so i'm bringing in all the named characters, but oftentimes, i finish a map and don't really see any support convos.
except, when a new character joins my army, there will be a couple of support convos with that one.

when MC rejoined the army later, i saw 3 options for a romance bond, it was
stefan + diana
or
MC + stefan
or
MC + diana. .
i'm playing a female and i read the only the female can be with diana, which seems odd that stefan and diana is a thing since earlier in the story, he was flirting with several other femalse and they all rejected him and then him and diana falling in love seems to have just come right out of left field.
it's weird because if Diana only goes for females, why did she go for stefan, despite i'm pretty sure the 2 of them never had a support conversation before up to this point, unless i forgot. .i'll have to see it on the next playthrough.

the tutorials also said that the options with a star on them are "the canonical choice", but all 3 of them had a star, despite the fact that i obviously could only pick one.

i let it be diana + stefan because i wanted to keep MC's options open ,but i haven't really seen much else there. just finished chapter 20 now and got beatrix. . which also seemed weird how that worked because she seemed like a bad guy and she's all like "why would i join you?" and MC is like "you owe us" and then she's just like "ok". .


also, since diana and stefan are bonded, do they need to stay close on the battlefield to get a bonus or something?

[grognardgary]

I just take mc one and done with Jules sister but then I always play male MC,

[God of Snacks]

Diana can be with the male MC. And yeah, characters get buffs from close proximaty to friends or bonds. I don't remember the range, not something i ever particularly paid attention to.

[grognardgary]

Ditto

[Icedfate]

well, how do I form the bond?
how do i "increase" the relationship status to trigger the support conversation?
do i have to bring both characters onto the map?
do i have to keep them near each other?

[God of Snacks]

Just progress through the story far enough. It's built into the story, not your game play. You get to choose who gets bonded to who. The further you get, the more options open up.

[Hand of Gabriel]

Originally posted by Icedfate:

well, how do I form the bond?
how do i "increase" the relationship status to trigger the support conversation?
do i have to bring both characters onto the map?
do i have to keep them near each other?

Bonds are always visible in the "Support" page. It tells you every character who has a bond of any kind.

Bonds can only be established by getting to a progression checkpoint. Conversations have indicators to tell you if they will form a bond.

Bonded characters get the benefits of that bond if they are within 3 tiles of one another on the battlemap. This includes two characters who are in the same squad.

[Icedfate]

so i don't actually have to "use" those characters or include them on a particular map?
i've been neglecting many of my non story related squads because i have every story character commanding their own squad and they use up all the deployments