Dungeon village 2: Tips & Tricks for Newbies

Here are some useful tips and tricks for you to start the game. if you have any good tips. please add at the end of this post.

 

General gameplay tips to start!

1. Lock the orientation in the options menu, unless you hate yourself. You can also pinch the screen to make the viewing area bigger or smaller.

2. Turn off auto-equip in the options menu once you start investing in the cauldron! Otherwise your peeps will start buying stupid stuff and taking off the better gear. It’s fine for very early game when you’re poor, but it hurts more than helps before long.

3. Once you unlock fast mode (pretty sure after you “beat” the first city and get a score screen), turn it on in the options menu! There’s pretty much no reason to leave it off, unless the constant stream of popups is killing your calm… which I get!

4. You can add people to dungeons and invasions that are struggling if there’s less than 9 at it. This comes in handy early on, and becomes less of a problem as you progress as your high work peeps that accept this stuff tend to be your strongest, so they should be able to handle it by themselves.

5. You can also remove people from an invasion/tower when they draft people. There’s a remove button hidden in the bottom left.

6. Facilities: Price is price per use (for your combat people… non-combat shoppers that visit your town spend a fraction of the Price stat when they use a facility), Quality is linked to Satisfaction (I’m guessing it’s a chance to gain 1 satisfaction on use, not sure of actual mechanic), and Appeal is the chance for someone to choose that facility over another.

7. Info->Adventurers let’s you change their jobs, check what their jobs do for the city traits, and change their names.

8. Last “gameplay tip” – If you get to a point where you’re getting frustrated by the CONSTANT AND OVERBEARING INFORMATIONAL POPUPS, then take a break for a bit. Medal ceremonies shouldn’t be exhausting, but they can get that way. I find myself enjoying the heck out of the game, and hitting a point where I get frustrated because it’s virtually impossible to do anything before it pauses again and demands my attention, and then I need to try and go do whatever I was originally trying to do before it interrupted me to tell me that I got yet another medal or trait unlock. DV2 has a weird thing where it actually feels a little intense since there’s ALWAYS something happening, and it gets moreso as you progress and you get more dudes and more xp flowing in and more jobs to shuffle and PHEW! Time for a break!

 

First city/slightly spoilery section!

1. Jobs: I’ll avoid listing the later jobs, but for early on, there’s some preferables over the others. Warrior->Knight is a nice early stat boost. Monk is a must-have for everyone for the Cure spell. There’s better options later on to get your people rolling stat-wise, but knight/monk are great staples for any combatant. When you master a job, switch it! Jobs cap at level 99 and “master” at lvl 10, but the leveling speed slows WAY down after 10 so it’s better to gain stats in a new job than stick with a more powerful job 10+.

2. Cauldron: Get your cauldron going early (Fresh Milk, Homemade Cookies, Regular Tea, and Sweet Juice are items you want to keep shoving into the cauldron on a regular basis). Those items are cheap (3-400 per) and they provide fire + another element, as well as 1 knowledge point. Knowledge points cap at 999, so the sooner you start shoving cheap stuff into the cauldron the sooner you’ll unlock the endgame stuff it has to offer. ZirePhiinix recommends Spicy Corn to replace the cheaper stuff mentioned above once you have the spare resources for it (can buy it or grow it), as it will give you 3/2/1 fire/lightning/ice instead of 1/1.

3. Cauldron: Meteorite, magic lamp, old spellbooks, ancient manuscripts, & eye-catching piece are also great for cauldron, especially for whatever dark element you need. They’re the high-end stuff I wouldn’t use elsewhere. There’s others that have nifty little +’s by them in the item list, but I found them underwhelming for cauldron points and generally better used elsewhere.

4. Cauldron: Buy Iron Swords for all your melee people and Holy Staffs for your mage-centric people. You can choose different ones but these were the starter weps I went with. See Tip 4 before pulling the trigger on this but make sure to implement this step FIRST once you choose your weapon(s).

5. Cauldron: Start upgrading the weapons (same ones you bought in tip 3) in the cauldron. Iron sword, for example, is cheap to upgrade with fire element, although the upgrade price goes up as you level it. The cost of the weapon to buy from the shop ALSO goes up as you level it, which is why you bought them for your people BEFORE upgrading them in the cauldron! You could do JUST the Holy Staff for everyone and it’ll be a lot more versatile for all the little warrior-mages running around, but it won’t hit as hard for all the little newbie-farmers and merchants you’re gonna keep picking up as you advance. Your call… there is no “wrong” call here, and it won’t hurt you or slow you down in any significant way. Note: The higher end weapons take significantly more resources to upgrade, so they’ll actually be weaker than stuff like Iron Swords until MUCH later in the game.

6. Combat Power: You power up your combat peeps in 4 different ways: (a) Cauldron via weapons (b) Constant class changes as you master them at level 10 (c) stuffing food/items into them and (d) Upgrading your Work stat. We already talked about (a), (b) is just something you should do until you master everything since levels 1-10 come very quickly as opposed to lvls 10+, (c) is neat but I wouldn’t do it until you figure out what upgrades facilities/cauldron well so you don’t use that stuff, and then there’s (d)…

7. Combat Power: Work stat can be raised/maxed for cheap. Tab 4 of presents, buy a Wooden Ring. Now buy a Fang Pendant. You should gain 4-6 work. Buy a Wooden Ring, then buy Normal Glasses. Same, should gain 4-6. One of those options will be better than the other (Seems to lean into Fang for Melee jobs and Glasses for everything else, but maybe gender? Hard to tell). Keep buying the wooden ring and then the better of the two 1190G items until you’re as high as you want to be. You’ll start getting diminishing returns on this… I got my main person up to 210 before I got bored, since it switched over to 3 work per down from 5. Not sure if work caps at 300 or keeps going! Note on Work: It’s especially potent for character growth, since it’s a multiplier AND increases their chance at getting an Aura, which boosts their stats in combat.

8. Medals: Everyone should get 1. 2 unlocks a bunch of other professions you’re going to want to have to actually get strong. After that? Pretty useless until you get to 5. If you can’t jump from 2->5, it’s probably better to spend them elsewhere. Be heartless in your medal awarding… it doesn’t matter how much they contributed, it matters what jobs they can unlock!

9. Farming: Early on, just grow whatever you feel like and make a few if you feel like it. They generally won’t produce much and won’t produce anything useful. They do, however, update the things you can harvest as you unlock new veggies/fruits. Check them now and then and update what they produce. Once money becomes meaningless, set it to the best/most expensive stuff.

10. Monsters: You’re going to want an Animal Tamer at ALL times once you get one, and they need to be added to EVERY monster invasion mission you get. That’s your chance at getting monster companions (It’s not certain, and it feels like there’s a lull after you get your first few). You seem to have a far greater chance of getting monsters in the single-monster type invasions when they announce themselves first, but I could swear I’ve gotten some from the multi-monster-type invasions too (entirely possible I’m mistaken). Either way, always an Animal Tamer. At first, it’s no biggie to just shuffle the job around, but at some point you’re gonna have so many people CONSTANTLY job changing that it might be too big a hassle. If that’s the case, pick some rando farmer/merchant you acquire along the way and turn him into your perma-Animal Tamer, simply to save yourself the headache when there’s 40 other things to manage. Just be aware of accepting a monster invasion quest if your Animal Tamer is in the middle of a Dungeon-Crawl quest! Tamer needs to be drafted to the invasion quest to get a shot at a companion, and I’m fairly certain they need to be drafted BEFORE you start the quest (unconfirmed).

11. Monsters: Monster companions are nifty! At 50 compatibility with them, they’ll let you ride them, which is particularly amazing for the ones that fly! If it looks like it flies, it probably does (so ghosts and the like). Flying monsters beeline to their targets, going over walls and the like.

12. Monsters: You can swap your monsters in the Adventure tab under Monsters. You’ll lose the compatibility, but as far as I can tell, there’s no real bonus after you get them to 50 so don’t be afraid to swap them if you get a cool new flyer you want on one of your “main 5”.

13. XP: One neat way to get xp for your crappier people is to Add them to monster invasions. They don’t have to actually DO anything to get the reward, or even make it to the area if your strong peeps steamroll it fast. I don’t add them to dungeons since they take too long and generally your people LOSE xp in there compared to what they’d get if they didn’t go in and just killed stuff around town. From very early on, I made it a habit of always having 9 people going to every invasion… one Animal Tamer and whatever my weakest people are (like that cook who’s been a cook for ages).

14. Facilities: At first, I thought you couldn’t increase the price of facilities, but you absolutely can! Things like pizza, sodas, melons, peaches, steak, cakes, bird’s nest, wind-up dolls, party pinata/key/silver spoon, violin/piano, 1000yr bansai, ores & gems all raise prices for facilities. Generally speaking, the more expensive the item is the more it can increase price at a facility if it has “good” or “great!” compat with it. However, Ores are especially noteworthy since they work on a bunch of facilities at good+ compat and they’re pretty cheap. Stock up on ’em when you can! If you’re going in heavy on a price/quality item because it has Great compat, make sure you shift it to something else once quality caps so you can get Appeal up too. You can save scum (save before experimenting) if you feel like you need to, but frankly, money becomes meaningless once you get to a certain stage. It’s more work buying and using the stuff from the shop than getting the money to buy it all. Whenever I start working on a new facility (most of mine are un-upgraded and won’t see the light of day after the first city), I just toss 1 of something I think might work and see how it does, then move on to other stuff.

15. Unlocks: Traits get tallied for when you USE a consumable item, not when you buy it. You “consume” it via giving it to a facility, giving it to a person as a gift, or throwing it in a cauldron.

16. Unlocks: Traits unlock requirements for “shoppers”, or people from the World information screen who will come visit your city and spend money there. It also unlocks people who will become combatants! Traits can be gained by consuming items, building stuff, doing events, and various little stuff like having monsters stick around for too long outside (there’s negative traits, some of which you’ll actually want for unlocks). Traits are also lost over time! If you’re trying to unlock something specific, be cognizant that if you don’t have enough items to pull it off, you might be “wasting” them to some degree! I’m not sure of the decay rate, but probably 1-3 per in-game month sounds about right. Traits also unlock titles via the contest screen (Which I find to be underwhelming but I might be missing something), and sometimes it’s not easy to tell what might give you what you need. For example, Fashion in the first city is virtually impossible to get… unless you know that you can consume Pocket Mirrors and get 5 fashion for each. Generally speaking, I’d recommend focusing more on the resident/visitor requirements in the World Information screen and less on the Contest unlocks… they’re nice bonuses but generally don’t give anything I’ve needed, at least so far.

17. Wiki: The Japanese wiki is a great resource for stuff like “how do I get Fashion?!” For stuff like that, go down to the item area, expand the item list, and run a search on “fashion”. There’s gonna be translation issues, but regardless, it’s a great resource for the moment! https://wikiwiki.jp/kairoparknew/%E5%86%92%E9%99%BA%E3%83%80%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B8%E3%83%A7%E3%83%B3%E6%9D%912#google_vignette

18. Unlocks: Some contests I’m pretty sure are actually impossible before moving to the next city. Stuff like needing 50 Castle seems to be linked only to plopping down more castles, which isn’t possible until later in the game. Basically, don’t kill yourself trying to get all these yet.

 

Am I ready to move?

This next little section is for things to keep in mind as you’re asking yourself “Am I ready to move to the next city, and “what do I take with me?” It’s somewhat spoilery of course, but if you’re the type to want to make sure you’re properly prepared then you’ll probably appreciate it!

1. Here’s what it will NOT look like: A true New Game+ feature. This is a GOOD thing… don’t worry there’s plenty of content wrapped into the game after you beat your first city! Your first city will always be accessible and you can come back to it, as it is when you left it (minus any quests/activities active in the field), whenever you want. This means you don’t actually “lose” your money/diamonds when you go to the next city, they’re just only usable from your first city when you go back to it.

2. Here’s what the actual “move” looks like: You get to pick your favorite (strongest) 5 people who will be your “caravan” of sorts. Those 5 people bring their monster pals with them. They stay exactly as they are (gear, job, masteries, etc) where-ever you move them. Consider this to be your permanent power-party. You can, however, change who those 5 are at any time (via “remove” button that’s easy to miss in bottom left of party select screen)

3. What your second/next city looks like: You’ll be starting over with an empty city, the 5 people you brought, and no money/diamonds. You WILL have all your items, cauldron + upgrades, event unlocks, etc. This city will have it’s own Traits and Citizen unlocks and tracking, so check the World tab to see what the new citizens want/need (the “shoppers” don’t matter much, but keep an eye on the playable character unlocks towards the end of the list!). As you start playing, you’ll start having your people show up from your first city. If you build them a home, they’ll now be permanent residents of both your second city AND your first… anytime you shift between the two, that person will be there and doing stuff. You’ll also start unlocking new people as your population increases, and boy does it start getting crowded fast!

4. If you want to feel “ready” to move to the second city and you’re not in a rush to progress the game (Probably no where near necessary, but the more you have the better), I’d recommend the following: Pick your favorite 5 people… ie the ones with the greatest base stats, job masteries, and work stats. Make sure those 5 people have 5 medals. If you get flying monster companions, make sure those 5 end up with them and you “bond” them (50 riding, use the monster event at the end of the event list if you need a boost!). Make sure those 5 have upgraded weps and the best armors in the shop; these 5 will steamroll city 2 with no issues. If you have millions of G lying around, buy as much of the 5k+ worth items as you can stomach. Use them now if you want, but I prefer using them in the next city so I get the trait bonuses there! It’s also nice to have some stuff you can sell in the second city, since you can’t bring your money but you bring items. Don’t go nuts selling… you won’t need to, but you can toss yourself 20-50k seed money if needed.

5. Rip up your facilities that are limited (stuff like castles & schools). Just remove them when you’re ready to move. The travel agencies (balloon, blimp, horse) might be worth ripping up, but a note: having more than 1 will do you no good, and the next city has its own shoppers… shoppers from prior cities won’t visit your new city, so nothing will actually arrive in those facilities if you place them right away.

6. Don’t be afraid to go back to your first city if you need more supplies/specific items! There’s no real penalty for shifting back and forth. Of note: The calendar date is universal, so if you shift back to your first city in December, you run the risk of having a medal ceremony there. I’m not quite sure of how the game tracks medals, so it’s something to be aware of… it almost feels like they’re uniquely tracked by each city, similar to money/diamonds, but it’s hard to tell. It also means you can’t give medals to anyone from city 2 who hasn’t yet visited your first city, which is probably the people you want to most give medals to!

7. Your monsters that are NOT attached to your main-5 in the caravan are unique to each city! Your people will come to your next city, but they will NOT bring their monster buddies. They’re not lost, but unique companions tied to the city. This means you want your best flying buddies attached to your main 5 companions!!! Don’t be afraid to swap them out as you get newer/better ones, and don’t sweat getting 5x flyers or anything… it’ll happen when it happens.

8. Shop inventory is universal across cities. If you buy a shop out in city 2, it’ll be the same looking shop in city 1.

 

After the move(s)

1. Pick some high-end shops to place, and place ONLY those. Sell some items to get you started… 20k is probably plenty. I went with the combat-oriented ones (combat school & shooting range), school, library, magic lab, castle, high-end restaurant, and a few inns. Oh, and the monster pen so you can get new tames. I didn’t place ANYTHING else, since I wanted my people using only my best/highest Price facilities. After you place them, upgrade them fully or close to fully with the items you bought in your first city. Go back to the first city as needed for items if you find a good compat one you want more of! Inns and some combat places are plenty to get you started on… money will FLOW with your guys spending 1k+ constantly.

2. Get 1 medal to all the new peeps, and start deciding if you want to get the 2nd medal to them or start pumping your main 10-20 peeps to 5 medals. If the newbies are leveling fast it’s probably worth giving a 2nd medal to, but 5 medals on your best-of-the-best will help keep you ahead of the danger. Note on medals in this more-spoilery area: there’s a few jobs that take 3 medals and the final ones take 10. Anyone that takes a 3-medal job probably already has 5, and I don’t think you need to pre-prep for the 10s… you’ll be medal starved for a while and it’s better to get more people to 5medals than push for the 10s until you find the jobs and get itchy for them.

3. Get used to giant residential areas… the further along you get the more people you acquire and the more people arrive from your earlier cities. Later on it’ll probably not be worth adding EVERYONE, just add your powerhouses and let the other visitors come and go as they please.

4. The power creep is real, especially with monster difficulty. You can combat it by upgrading your main people and upgrading weapons. Personally, I’m sticking with Iron Sword/Holy Staff upgrading (they’re 25+ or so atm) until I get whatever the true endgame unlocks are. Work is easy yet annoying, and I wouldn’t bother with going nuts on it unless your dudes die a ton. This is also a good time to pick some poor plebe to be your permanent Animal Tamer, since you’ll be leveling so freaking fast that it’s a royal PITA to try to shuffle the job around anymore. You can always regulate some new schelp to be the animal tamer when you move, and it MIGHT be worth turning one of your main 5 into a tamer right before a move so you can get the taming chance. You can change them back to something useful once you assign the role to someone new in the new city.

5. When I get a new person, I go through the same exhausting process with each of them (it’ll drive you a little batty when you first arrive to a new city and the population explodes from the self-feeding cycle you’re about to commit). I give them an upgraded weapon, then give them green overalls, then a round shield (upgrade both armors to best affordable if you have tons of cash), then do the wooden ring & fang/glasses trick to get them to 35 or so work. This will give them plenty of satisfaction so they can move in right away, a good weapon to smack stuff with, and 50 work after they move in. All those items you just gave them? Probably enough to jump the population up to the next 100, meaning another possible guy moving in now or very soon. It’s… a bit exhausting, but the sooner you unlock the new people the better off they’ll handle the incoming power creep so it’s worth it imo. Population bumps also trigger getting your people in from your older cities, so that’ll help you get started as well.

6. New events unlock as you tier up. Your should jump up in stars pretty regularly and quickly. Always try to run 7 events per season as soon as possible, even if you have to pick cheap-o ones like the 20 cost ones. Check the facility shop for new stuff when you get to new cities, but there doesn’t seem to be new ones every time you star up. If you don’t have space for a new star because you need to place a bunch of facilities, and desperately need the star for expansion event upgrades, rip up whatever you have to, such as schools and castles, and place inns freaking everywhere. It doesn’t matter if people can access them… just being placed is enough for the unlock. You can rip them back out after you unlock the city star and do the expansion event, and replace whatever you ripped up.

7. World tree unlock note: It’s actually a 2×2 even though the cursor says it’s a 1×1. Place it like you were placing a castle!

8. City 2 is a REALLY good place to unlock the pre-req jobs for your main powerhouses. Once you’ve “beaten” it or close to it, you’re gonna be job-hopping like crazy. If you have a choice between Archmage or scholar, pick scholar! Jobs like scholar/mage/warrior/jester/adventurer/monk are fairly weak, but they’re necessary for the more advanced jobs. I do NOT recommend finishing your unlocks here, I’m merely suggesting picking the pre-req classes while you’re finishing up the city.

9. If you get a new facility, go ahead and toss it down. It’s probably linked to unlocks for the city and worth checking the various tabs to see what it got you. Up to you on upgrading it, but I wouldn’t go nuts on it unless you think it’s worth plopping down in your next city too. There’s just too many other things that DEMAND your upgrading to waste much time here unless you’re a completionist (in which case, go nuts!)

10. There’s something like 7 cities. So there’s a loooot of gameplay built into moving to new cities and unlocking new stuff. I’m only a few in, so I can’t speak to true endgame, but it feels like there’ll be plenty to do between now and then, and plenty to do once you “beat” the last city and want to keep upgrading your people/weps/hunt for monster companions. At the very least, consider a playthrough of DV2 to be many times longer than a playthrough of DV1 to truly finish it.

Credit to u/CronkinOn

 

More Tips for Beginners:

Doll and Wind-up Doll are solid 4/4/4/2 in the cauldron, so they’re excellent alternatives to the big point items when you run out.

When job changing, the 2nd menu shows you the # of jobs you already have, so you can use this to keep your Animal Tamer “Mage” at a count of 1 or 2. If I know there’s a ton of units that have not mastered mage, I’ll just keep the count at 2 so I have buffer. Once the count goes low, I’ll only go up to 2 when the first one is at level 9.

If you’re committing to a new town, remember to delete your limited use facilities, especially the Cart/Balloon/Blimp Station. These 3 facilities bring in visitors that will bring in free money.

Equipment is only unequipped, not deleted.

Spells kind of suck compared to a high powered melee weapon, so if you want dedicated melee units, you want to avoid these classes that gives spells:

• Fire Magic: Mage, Druid

• Ice Magic: Ninja

• Lightning Magic: Summoner

• Dark Magic: Archmage

• Healing Magic (actually OK on a melee unit): Monk

Equipment have range. Spears have longer range than other melee weapons, and guns/bows are obviously ranged. A heavily upgraded bow will keep weak new units alive, especially if you give them a pet, because they’ll snipe the enemies while the pet tanks. The pet will get XP even if it falls in battle, unlike your own units (except quests).

Credit to ZirePhiinix

Related Posts:

• Dungeon Village 2: 100% Achievement Guide (Steam Version)
• Dungeon village 2: Adventurer & Their Ability Guide
• Dungeon Village 2: Forest Map (All Datas)