About palaces and deadlines.

[Magnadeus]

So i'm doing the first palace and the game gives me 18 days to finish it. So my question is: Can i spent 17 of those days increasing my social stats and finish the palace on the final day or can i just get the palace out of the way on day 1 and then knock out the rest of the days increasing social stats?

[Izlude]

Originally posted by Magnedeus:

So i'm doing the first palace and the game gives me 18 days to finish it. So my question is: Can i spent 17 of those days increasing my social stats and finish the palace on the final day or can i just get the palace out of the way on day 1 and then knock out the rest of the days increasing social stats?

Do the palaces first. You have to secure the route which takes at least 1 day and then the next you have to send the calling card which enables you to clear the palace. You dont want to put it off as if you mess up and dont beat the palace intime then its game over. finish the palace then work on social stats.

[Nibbie]

It is generally recommended you do the palace as soon as possible. This is for several reasons; as above it takes at least a couple days for the palace to be properly completed, so leaving it to the last minute may cause you to get story'd into a game over. You also have no idea how difficult the palace is on your first go through, so you may need multiple visits to beat the palace; doing it in two halves, while not ideal in terms of time management, is definitely not unreasonable, especially for a first playthrough. Lastly, there are some confidants and other events that may require the current palace to be completed before they can occur, so doing the palace first lets those confidants start as soon as possible. You will never lose out on your remaining time because you did a palace early, so while you can take a few days to upgrade your confidants and get items, you should make the palace a high priority when deciding how to spend your time.

[Silyon]

Always get the palaces out of the way as soon as possible, ideally in a single day immediately after they become available. Even then, plot shenanigans will often involve you dropping out of the palace before actually completing it, and the calling card is always a 2-day investment anyway. Usually you're looking at 4 days minimum to get everything involving a palace done.

Why always at the beginning? Confidants, basically. Your party members will continually hound you about your Palace progress until you get through it, and their own Confidants will be unavailable until the boss is beaten. Both gameplay and story don't advance until the deadline hits regardless, so it's really about maximizing the time you have available to do stuff.

There are late-game exceptions to this rule though. The last couple of palaces (November, December, and February if you get to the Third Semester) you want to clear quickly but hold off on the Calling Card and boss fight until nearly the deadline. In those cases, beating the boss immediately makes plot happen that can rob days or even weeks of playtime from you, which in turn means incomplete confidants and limited time for other activities.

[Raos]

Originally posted by Silyon:

Confidants, basically. Your party members will continually hound you about your Palace progress until you get through it, and their own Confidants will be unavailable until the boss is beaten.

To be clear, this is pretty much only the case when you have secured the route to the treasure and have yet to send the calling card. Otherwise all party member confidants will be available on their normal schedule, assuming they were available before clearing the palace to begin with (only one party member that i know of can have his/her confidant started early by beating the palace early) .