Chapter 1: Three Houses

After reaching the monastery, you’ll be introduced to Rhea and Seteth, as well as your fellow professors, Manuela and Hanneman. They’ll explain briefly the leaders of the Three Houses studying in the monastery at the moment.

Great Tree Moon: 4/23

After the cutscene, talk to Rhea to accept your first task. (Informal Introductions) Use this chance to explore the monastery as well.

The leaders of the three houses will be visible on the Map. Talk to all of them, and have them tell you about their members. Learning more about them may help you decide which ones to Recruit and eventually which house to Support.

After Talking to the leaders, you’ll have to report back to Lady Rhea. You’ll have the option to continue exploring or transport to the Audience Chamber. Upon returning to the Audience Chamber and talking to Rhea with the other professors, you’ll have to choose which house to Support. For our first playthrough, we opted to go to the Golden Deer, Claude’s house. You’ll introduce yourself automatically to your new students.

After the scene, the weekdays will move automatically. Hanneman will see you on Saturday as part of the story, in which he’ll show interest about your Crest.

Great Tree Moon: 4/27

Welcome to your first weekend. Rhea will introduce you to The Calendar Activities. For now, you can only spend the weekend to explore the monastery. You’ll start off in your room. If you bought the expansion pass, you can change to costumes here. You can also accept three new quests from the Bulletin Board.

* Fresh Catch

* Green Thumb Beginnings

* Share a Bite

Leave your room and talk to your House leader. Story-related quests will have the red scroll icon. After Talking to your house leader, explore the Map freely and talk to various students and characters in the monastery to learn more about them.

You can also do the three quests but save “Share a Bite” for last since it consumes Activity Points. After using up your Activity Point, you can still go Fishing as long as you have baits. When you’re done, select Finish Exploring to end your free time and exploration for today.

Great Tree Moon: 4/30

Today is Ferdinand’s birthday. I suggest giving students and teachers Gifts whenever you can during their birthdays since that’s an opportunity to increase your Support with them. This is the end-of-the-month story battle so you have no other choices.

Battle: Rivalry of the Houses

Rivalry of the Houses Strategy

After the scene, you’ll be taken to the battlefield for a mock battle. You can only deploy 5 units including Byleth so you’ll need to choose four of your students. Include at least two frontline units, a healer, and an archer/spellcaster.

Once your turn starts, move your units to the forest and bait the other students to come to you. Don’t overextend your units and just keep them close so you can easily Support and heal them.

After defeating them, you’ll have two paths to take; head straight to the northeast or circle around to the west. If you go straight to the north, the rival house on the west will be forced to leave their position and attempt to pincer you. In this scenario, Edelgard’s group will be forced to leave their barricaded position and try to go around to engage your group.

As long as your entire party is close together, you can easily take out Dimitri’s group in the northeast. Edelgard and her team will still be a few steps away before they can engage you so hold your position and heal up, while using the forest as cover. Don’t worry about Hanneman since he won’t move from the stronghold until you defeat Manuela. Finally finish off whoever is remaining to complete the mission without losing anyone.

After the battle, watch a few more cutscenes and the chapter will be complete.