General Tips

How to do what you want, faster.

Introduction

Note: This guide was last updated for v0.17.Bloom. I haven't been following the game much since then. Information may be outdated.

Princess & Conquest is a wide open sandbox RPG, and progressing in one aspect of the game doesn't quite affect the other aspects so much. Refer to the fandom wiki for what specific goals there are (recruiting a princess, clearing a dungeon, clearing a route etc.) and how to achieve them.

However, some mechanics such as Swirlies (the in-game money), combat and mobility are just universally applicable throughout the game. This guide is meant for beginning to intermediate players who want to be quickly empowered to do what they want.

Just Starting / Settings

Permanent settings:

• The number of active/travelling NPCs mostly affects who wins what battles in a war, but the ultimate effect on the game is not easily predictable. You may want Amelie to generate though, to recruit her for the achievement, so set the number to max. Generating Niu'Ya also gives you free heals if you meet her (and she's just a cute and peaceful girl in general uwu).
  
  
• Most of the Knight traits provide benefits (affinity or items) that can be earned in-game at some point or other, and thus won't be that useful. (Tho ofc feel free to pick what you want for RP reasons - they can suit your playstyle better, nothing's really locked out permanently and you can always NG+.) (As of v0.17.Bloom, traits can be upgraded in NG+ to offer some unique benefits, which makes the choice of a trait less calculative and more original, if you're going for the long haul.) The ones that boost the Knight's stats are a bit more useful since stat points for the Knight are scarce and become very expensive at higher levels, not to mention the Knight's level cap of 30, but they ultimately provide only small combat benefits (and your Knight usually won't be doing most of the fighting either). The most useful traits in the long-term are:
  
  • Prince Knight: +1 affection with every princess. Affection is otherwise only earned via convos with princesses. Given that you need a standard of 3 affection to sex a princess, this is a HUGE boost for you in terms of time saved and less reign affinity grinding, if you want to (peacefully) recruit a lot of princesses. Furthermore, it's required if you want to (peacefully) recruit Ghost Princess.
    
  • Man of the People: Makes random NPCs a hella lot easier to recruit (that's 1 point saved in every stat, which is the equivalent of EIGHT levels for the Knight). On the other hand, the -1 affection for all princesses makes it a lot harder to (peacefully) recruit princesses, and by extension harder to recruit NPCs of that princesses' race. Furthermore, it takes a long time to grind up to the point where you get the Hero Banner. If you don't care about recruiting randos, then this trait is useless.
  Comments on other traits:
  
  • Stud Knight: +5 Lewdness is hardly worth much - Lewdness scales from 0 to 150. The Endurance boost can be useful for lasting longer in bed, especially with a succubus.
    
  • Pacifista: +2 Diplomacy helps with avoiding early-game wars. As you progress, you'll probably find Helias a few times that'll boost Diplomacy for you and you won't ever get any more wars. Ofc, all this is assuming you don't want wars.
    
  • Wealthy Knight: Really just a luck of the draw of whether you'll get a dowry that you'll find useful or not, and you'll be earning most of them the usual way anyway.
    
  • Stranded Knight: Useful if you want to reach Finhead Princess or Mermaid Princess super early, especially since they'll go to war with each other soon. Otherwise, Fish Lungs is available early enough (10 Cogs) and is cheap too (500 Swirlies), and the -1 affinity can hurt your early game with everyone else by quite a bit.
    
  • Testo-Monster: A reliable way to pump the Lewdness up, but you'll have to go out of your way (specifically, you'll have to pay money for the inn, and also forgo levelling up and campsite events for the night). I just feel there are better traits because Lewdness can be earned somewhat easily and doesn't affect much.
    
  • Soul Master: Seriously don't bother, unless you know that you will need more than one and don't feel like grinding for it. Get the one in Dog Princess' tower - it's just one fight away.
    
  • Goddess Soldier: This can be helpful as Prayers are in very limited supply. But only get this if you're clear on what you need/want the prayers for, otherwise it's just a waste.
    
  • Traveling Chef: Good if you want the combat boosts and/or want to fatten the princesses up. Otherwise, just buying more food or getting the Lump on a Stick is good enough as an alternative to this trait.
  
  
• Your starting dowry from the kobolds doesn't matter much, as you can revisit the Kobold Fortress early on to get the other dowry. You can also get a second Chunga Root from the forest north of the Kobold Fortress, although you'll have to beat a King Cucco first.
  The Sacred Candle is good if you just want to win more combat. The Chunga Root is good if you want to get Dragon Princess II off your back early.

Settings that can be changed anytime in-game:

• Battle-fking (BF) can be left on if you plan to get some princesses' succubus forms. Otherwise, it may just interfere with combat.
  
  
• Day length: There's usually no consequence for just letting the days pass, unless you expect imminent kingdom conquest, or Komachi starvation, or princess starvation (if you enabled it), or the goblins to sell a specific slave, or want to catch a princess in her fertile period. On the other hand, letting days pass lets Knights Inc and other events cooldown, and speeds up pregnancy and egg hatching. If in doubt, just set this to maximum - there are ways to just skip time, including temporarily setting the day length to 1 min.
  
  
• Pregnancy Speed: If you don't want any children, set this to 0. Otherwise, just set this to max, honestly. There's no benefit in dragging out pregnancies... unless you like admiring preggo bodies for as long as possible but don't want the children. Or you enjoy BFing but want as little children and wasted campfire events as possible.
  
  
• Metabolic Rate: I just set this to 0 cos I don't wanna bother buying food and feeding my princesses every day. The only thing you lose out by disabling this option (apart from the experience itself of paying the bills to feed your princesses) is the princesses' THICC forms.

Early Game

• First thing you probably wanna do is clear the Princess Purity quest from Knights Inc. It's super easy, gives you access to the princesses' diaries, and also gets you to lvl 1 with Knights Inc.
  
  
• After that, head to the Old Church in the Skeleton Reign (that haunted house in the middle of the ice rink southwest of the tavern). Go up, and there's a room to the left where you'll find the Death Not and a couple bones. With those, you can immediately summon a skeleton progeny who will be your main fighter for quite a while: Best attack stat out of any race (beaten only by a dragon), and poison and cold immunity to boot. Give em your best gear, and level them up to lvl 8 as soon as you want (costs 5361 Swirlies) and pump all the stat points into Power, and you're good to go. You can continue leveling them in the future for better stats, or you could replace them (see next section).
  
  
• Obtain a mace/club for busting rocks. There are a few places in this game (mainly Komachi and Wyvern's Peak) where busting rocks gives you access to new places. You can buy one from Merchant Princess for 200 Swirlies, or just grind for one as a random drop from enemies (e.g. from the Kobold Mines).
  
  
• For now, your main way of earning money is through quests. (Enemies drop some too but it's not that profitable.) After you get 3500 Swirlies, buy the Family Jewels from Merchant Princess and equip it on sir Knight. Trust me, this item will pay tremendous amounts of dividends. From now on, whenever you sex someone, you'll get a few hundred Swirlies per round. Now just find excuses to sex people: Talk to random NPCs (there are plenty), or raise a princess' Love stat until you can freely sex her in camp. (Maybe even make her a succubus. ;) ) Do remember to take it off if you want to get someone pregnant (e.g. if you want a princess to generate a heir so you can elope with her next time).
  
  
• At your convenience, clear the Rock Tunnel North of wendigos, so you have an easier time travelling between the north and south regions and Mouse Clocktown before you get flight. You clear them by going into the room on the lower left of the map, do NOT attack, and follow her to the top right of the map.

Middle Game

• Continue talking to any and all random NPCs you meet. There's a chance you can have sex with them, which gives you +1 reign affinity with their race, and Family Jewels moolah.
  
  
• Grinding Knights Inc EXP gives you access to a few things, if you care about them: The lvl 2 quests raise a reign's affinity by 2 if you complete it, which will be your main way of raising affinity and thus gaining access to reigns for a while, until you get the kingdom lewdness high enough to sex any NPC you want. Assist HarvestP is recommended, as it is one of the easiest quests to do, and also the main way to raise reign affinity with her, as Harvest NPCs don't roam the world. The Milky Way (lvl 3) and My Dear Love (lvl 6) are repeatable quests that give you costumes. At around lvl 5, you get to have the Hero Banner, which lets you recruit random NPCs (if you have the stats or princesses to do so).
  
  
• You can level up your Knight (and/or other companions too) if you want. He won't be your main fighter, so I suggest sinking points into Endurance, just so he can sex more per night (especially with succubi). If you are going to recruit people with the Hero Banner, you should sink points into all the other stats as well.
  
  
• Get SlimeP or MothP in your party asap, if you want to reliably slip past the front guard to meet a princess at night, and also to slip past the goblin guarding the daily brew of Shorty Special. SlimeP/MothP will be even better if you equip the Shadow Scarf (from Ninja Princess) on them, then they won't even trigger enemies or guards.
  
  
• Visit the Ancient Battleground at the Golem Reign often. This is the best way to get Cogs, and you will need plenty of Cogs to give to the Tinkerer at Mouse Clocktown in exchange for mobility equipment.
  
  
• Speaking of which, go to the forest above the (ruined) Kobold Reign, and keep fighting the King Cucco there (he respawns every day or so) until he drops a Cucco Tailfeather. You will need it once you feed the Tinkerer enough Cogs and they give you the Cucco Wings, which is the most reliable flight in the game.
  
  
• You may want to replace your Skeleton fighter with a Dragon fighter at some point, as dragons just have the most OP stats beyond anyone else. (The only downside is that dragons do not have poison resist.) There are a few wild dragons around the kingdom that you can have sexy time with and may lay an egg for you:
  - Sneak into Human Princess' palace at night (wait for the guard to sleep, or use Trevor's sleep powder, or have SlimeP or MothP in your party), and go out the window. There may a dragon there.
  - If you're progressing HarvestP's affection, there may be a dragon atop the windmill at night.
  - There may be a dragon inside Gazer's Prison. Gazer's Prison is across the ocean to the east of Finhead's Reign, and you'll need to catch PirateP to get there.
  - Some shady merchant sells a dragon egg for 2000 swirlies at Festival Plaza on festival nights.
  - If you've defeated CrusaderP at Sphinx's Pyramid and got the Hero Banner and some stats, you can recruit Faint (who's a dragon Patron progeny) at the Festival Plaza.
  
  
• Raise affinity with Goblin Princess so you get access to the slave auctions. This is a cheap way to get new NPCs to diversify your gene pool, although they're usually only from certain races. More importantly, if any princess gets defeated and enslaved, you'll want access to the market to buy her.
  
  
• If you care about Komachi, clearing Frog Princess' "route" is the easiest way to get you the Lump on a Stick that feeds Komachi permanently and stops you worrying about her. Meanwhile, keep catching butterflies to feed to her.

New Game+

Eventually you'll have gathered enough princesses, chosen who you want to waifu, and the game officially ends after completing her route. You can then restart the game in NG+ to go after a different princess.

Reasons why NG+ may be important to you:

• A completionist run, to get all route-exclusive medals and content (animations, costumes).
  
• Reset something permanent, such as a princess death or Komachi's death, a wrong choice that locked you out of something, or the wandering NPCs you got. Or reset something that's otherwise really difficult/annoying to reverse, such as low kingdom lifeforce, high lewdness, or corrupted princesses.
  
• Getting upgraded Knight traits.

Imma be upfront with you: only two things matter for NG+, items (incl. money) and progeny. You will lose your princesses, all their levels (!!), and all affinity you had with them, so sadly, don't be too attached to them. At least you get to waifu them all over again.

First off, Mystery Box. Use it right before you finish a route, and it will save all your unequipped items. (Don't worry, items equipped on you or your progeny (but NOT the princesses!) will carry over.) When you start a NG+, the Mystery Box will be in your inventory and you can use it to get all your items back. You get it by defeating the 7 mimics all around the world:

• Kobold Mines
  
• Desert's Oasis
  
• Sphinx's Pyramid
  
• Grim Forest (on the right side. On the world map, it's a single dead tree to the west of Babs' Hut in the south region.)
  
• Mushroom Cave (south of the Skeleton Reign, past the broken bridge which you can either repair or fly over.)
  
• Dragon Princess II's Castle (outside the gate to the left. The castle is north across the sea of the Slime Reign. Get there by flight or some other means.)
  
• "HUGE Treasure Dungeon", where MimicP can be found.

After that, go dungeon diving in the Huge Treasure Dungeon, and at the end you'll receive the Mystery Box from MimicP.

Money is not saved by the Mystery Box. But you can save it in the Rattesein bank in Mouse Clocktown and it'll carry over. Remember to do that too.

In NG+, your progeny will only be accessible after Dear has appeared again, which shouldn't take too long (if not, then raise the Love stat of your princesses a bit). There's isn't much else to say about what you should do to carry over your progeny. Instead, there is a lesson here that your progeny are way more important than the princesses, and you should invest in them instead of the princesses. Invest in their stats, their equipment, and their looks, cos they will be with you forever. Try to find and breed as many progeny as you can, so that rare genes can appear.

Conclusion

If you've done everything in this guide, you should now have these things:

• Lots of money from sexing every NPC you meet and sexing the princesses regularly.
  
• Tinkerer equipment that provides water-breathing, poison resist and flight for sir Knight.
  
• A skeleton or dragon fighter that wins every battle for you.
  
• SlimeP or MothP that lets you sneak past all guards.
  
• A healthy dose of Knights Inc EXP.
  
• Someone to break rocks.

and more!

Congratulations! You can now go where you want and do what you want! The world is now your oyster.

If you have any further tips to contribute, leave it in the comments below and I'll add it to the guide.

[Mr. Godzilla]

a good tip is to get moss princess instead of just waiting for slime princess or moth princess, the hikimoshi ability of moss princess allows you to do the same as slime princess, but constantly. not to mention moss princess is treated as a progeny, thus you can keep her through a new game plus

[XZ3F1R0Y]

How can I get queen's roar?

[SkullAce]

another good tips: If you have the patient to grind, you can just go to the mimic crypt on the southest region, use koboldP with sacred candle accessory for more frequent drop loot (Time seems to not flow in this area so you could item hunting till you satisfied)

profit: one stage clear can dish up swirlies around 1400 + sell-able weapon and armor for the price of 100 to 10000, i think that's all

happy grinding!

[Hauk]

I am having problems with campfires... I don't understand how to use them... what keys to press to make them work properly and how to escape the screen too... bleh.

[HERE'S JONNY]

@ICECOLDWRXST There are also preventative measures you can take to prevent wars from happening (too often). Talk to Helias whenever she appears, and some other stuff here and there that I forgot the details of. Attend tea parties. Visit Bird Reign in the skies.

And of course, at worst, just NG+.

[HERE'S JONNY]

@ICECOLDWRXST It's part of the game for reigns to topple. And in the early game, there's not much you can do about it, especially if it's MermaidP vs FinheadP (very common by far) since you'll barely have gotten underwater breathing by then.

A reign falling still allows that type of NPC to spawn iirc.
The most to be worried about is the princess not being available for you, I feel. But even if you care about that, there are ways to use the situation to your advantage - namely, being the big damn hero and saving the princess. Even if the reign has fallen, the princess may also have been taken hostage (I forgot the details of what happens and what you can do) or sold to the goblins (where you just wait for her to be sold as a slave). You can confirm if the princess is dead or not by visiting the basement of the church in the northern kingdom.

[ICECOLDWRXST]

Just a question, reigns are meant to fall right? Trying too uphold all of them is close to impossible in the beginning. I shouldn't be worried about every single one right?

[Muticere]

Just making a note, the Ancient Battlefield is also a decent area to grind for cash in the very early game, not just for cogs. The golems have very avoidable attacks and drop 300 swirlies a pop.

[Muticere]

I've decided to start a fresh save now that the game is out of EA and I'm hurting for swirlies, glad this guide still exists and is by far the most helpful thing out there.

[MrOgst]

you should make more guides bc i saw on wiki most thing you say is not on wiki so yeah (sry for my bad english)