How to increase initiative in Songs of Conquest

This makes initiative an important part of Songs of Conquest's strategic gameplay. Increasing your initiative will mean that your troops move and attack before others. This gives you an increased tactical advantage during a fight. This guide will show you how to check the initiative of your units and how to increase it using magic, skills, and map interactions.

How initiative works on the battlefield

In Songs of Conquest, every unit has an initiative stat. This decides their turn order in battle. You can see the initiative for any known and unknown units in the bestiary.

Initiative is not fixed and will change through temporary or permanent buffs. These can make a huge difference in having your unit go first in combat.

This directly affects the order of actions taken during battles. Units with higher initiatives get to act first, followed by those with a lower one. High initiative is definitely an advantage since it allows your units to attack first, which might disable enemy attacks before they have a chance to launch.

Always visible at the bottom of the screen, the move queue shows the visual ordering for the turn sequence. Keep in mind that spellcasting is part of the queue; many spells will temporarily alter initiative for a unit. Naturally, all opponents have access to these same techniques for their own forces as well.

Quicken Spell

Quicken is an extremely powerful spell from the Order school, consuming 5 Order Essences per cast. It increases the initiative of one selected troop stack by 5, enabling it to move earlier in the turn order.

The units that can benefit from Quicken are increased by a higher level of spells. At highest levels, a single cast could increase the initiative of up to 3 troop stacks.

In addition to improving initiative, Quicken also raises by 1 the distance of movement possible by affected troops. This extra mobility makes more of a difference for close combat units since they are capable of closing with their targets faster and hence start their combat earlier.

Insect Swarm Spell

Insect Swarm belongs to the Creation school and costs 4 Creation Essence. This spell does the opposite of Quicken, reducing enemy troops' initiatives so that they end up lower and thus further down in turn order.

Spare Insect Swarm, and you can use that to your tactical advantage. That lets you weaken dangerous units just as they're about to act. This will make Insect Swarm increasingly useful at higher spell levels, with level 3 reducing enemy initiative by as much as 20 points.

Beyond initiative reduction, Insect Swarm inflicts additional damage, serving as a tool for botching enemy turns and producing direct damage. The debuff of the Insect Swarm maintains two rounds after it is cast, being, therefore, a continuous effect.

Readiness Skill

Readiness is a skill that any wielder can receive when leveling up. Once the wielder learns the skill, it would then benefit only troops that are part of their hero's army.

Readiness enhances substantially the initiative of all troops under the wielder's command. By default, it raises initiative by 5 points. As the skill is leveled up, this bonus increases to 10 points. At the highest level — 3 — it also grants a 1-point increase to troop movement range.

Aurelia Shrines found on the map

You'll often come across shrines as you wander around the map that offer all sorts of benefits. The shrine increases the initiative of all your troops by 5 and their movement range by 1 for a little while when interacted with.

This will apply only for the next battle; however, it is possible to visit shrines repeatedly to obtain multiple benefits. On another note, multiple wielders of different personalities can source from the same shrine, making it rather easy to have that extra edge with your whole army.