Touhou Pocket Wars EVO Plus

[Zil]

I can't seem to find any kind of guide for the rules to TPWEVO. I've figured most of it out, but I still have some questions which, hopefully, someone here can answer. 

1. Sometimes I get blue circles in the random rewards after a battle. What do these do, and how can I use them?

2. What's up the UFO's? They appear over your head in battles and you can synthesize them or something?

3. Is a character whose stats increase by a greater amount but also at a higher cost better than one with lower stat growths, but easier level ups?

4. If I'm customizing a character's appearence (for example, Reimu has Sanae's outfit on the list of options) some say they cost "200 affection" or something, but what does that mean? I thought those hearts that you spend on stat level ups were affection points, but I guess they aren't. How do I get affection points, and what else do they do?

5. If there is a better place to ask these questions, or somewhere where I can just find the information, please point me in the right direction.

[Sophilia]

1 - The blue orbs are weather effects you can use with the Item command in battle.
2 - The UFOs give various effects to your characters in battle, and are separate things from the UFO items you can make in synthesis.
3 - Cost is actually not related to how much it grows.  Every time you pick a stat to raise it goes up randomly in a certain range.  HP can increase from 8-16 points, and the other stats from 1-3.  Lower cost is always better.
4 - You have to go to the character in question's house in Gensokyo to give them gifts to increase their affection rating.  It lets them put on different costumes and unlocks Encounter battles.
5 - http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Touhou_Pocket_Wars_EVO - Still needs work, but has a lot of the basic information.

[Zil]

Ok thanks for the info! I've been to the wiki and as you said it's incomplete, but you've basically answered all of my questions. 

[Sophilia]

Yeah the answer to #3 wasn't on there at all...until you asked that question.

[Moekou]

However, even though lower has the same effect,  if you want to be efficient then when you first play through you want to pump as much points into a single stat as possible, because when you reform characters (reset them back to level 1 with bonuses) you get to play a board game to keep percentages of certain stats permanently. (ie, at reform if you keep 20% of your lv 500 attack stat, then you'd always get that amount after later reforms too, even if you don't roll any attack bonuses, and if you do the effect is cumulative, so technically there is no limit to how high your stats can go)

[Zil]

So you just keep restarting the game and do the board game until you manage to retain some of the stat you've been focusing on, I take it? It didn't occur to me to do that, but it makes sense. Thankfully I've been focusing on attack anyway, rather than spreading evenly.

Another question, I hear there are "lightbulbs" or something that can increase your spell cards' power. Is there a way to trigger those, or are they just random? I haven't seen any yet...

I've also noticed that the cost of leveling a stat seems to be entirely determined by how high the stat already is. (I bought several copies of the same girl, and did some experiments). There aren't some characters with lower costs for leveling, the cost will just be lower if the stat is lower. At least, it seems that way. So all the gachas of the same girl are identical, basically.

[Sophilia]

Lightbulbs only come into play when you have a level 10 spellcard.  Basically, once you get level 10, when you use the card the lightbulb can increase your card's stats.   It'll keep doing it randomly until the card is all maxed out.

[Moekou]

The base figure is identical, but you can develop them differently. Some characters have well rounded attributes (like the shrinemaidens as usual, being the marios) so you have to make choices. In the end they can turn out differently, and remember, you don't have to use 6 different cards. You can have all duplicates of a single move if you want.

And with all those alternate costumes, you can have multiples of the same character perform very different roles.

[Vhaltz]

Lightbulbs only come into play when you have a level 10 spellcard.  Basically, once you get level 10, when you use the card the lightbulb can increase your card's stats.   It'll keep doing it randomly until the card is all maxed out.

Woah, this piece of info needs to be added to the wiki if it hasn't been done yet (it may have been since I got hooked four months ago). I always thought that the lightbulb was a random damage multiplier or something of the sort, but it makes a lot of sense considering that the damage % of level 10 spellcards I uses a lot (I.E double spark) were relatively higher than the % on those I used little (meaning in terms of min-max damage percentage according to the wiki).
Props on finding that one out, I could've kept playing forever and never find out.

Seeing as the questions so far have already been answered, I'll go ahead and ask another one, albeit unrelated to gameplay mechanics if you'll allow me to.
For the longest time I've had two main teams: Suika-Nitori-Yuuka and Utsuho-Suwako-Shikieiki, the first one being a survival team and the second one being a burst team. After the battle with Nue and the other UFO cast, I continued onto a quest to deliver books with Alice, and my two teams weren't enough to make it through, so I'm looking to build a third one but don't really have much of an idea on what to focus on, for now it's a temporary Rin-Komachi-Yuuka focusing on keeping null damage up and Yuuka bursting every few turns, it works fine, but I just wondered if anybody had come up with any better team ideas.
Also after quitting that book quest with Alice I couldn't seem to start up on it again, is this a known bug that needs fixing or am I missing something? I quit playing back in the day because I couldn't find anything on the issue neither online or in-game.

[Sophilia]

Woah, this piece of info needs to be added to the wiki if it hasn't been done yet (it may have been since I got hooked four months ago). I always thought that the lightbulb was a random damage multiplier or something of the sort, but it makes a lot of sense considering that the damage % of level 10 spellcards I uses a lot (I.E double spark) were relatively higher than the % on those I used little (meaning in terms of min-max damage percentage according to the wiki).
Props on finding that one out, I could've kept playing forever and never find out.

It's on there, and nearly the first thing in the Gameplay section.  Where were you looking?

Seeing as the questions so far have already been answered, I'll go ahead and ask another one, albeit unrelated to gameplay mechanics if you'll allow me to.
For the longest time I've had two main teams: Suika-Nitori-Yuuka and Utsuho-Suwako-Shikieiki, the first one being a survival team and the second one being a burst team. After the battle with Nue and the other UFO cast, I continued onto a quest to deliver books with Alice, and my two teams weren't enough to make it through, so I'm looking to build a third one but don't really have much of an idea on what to focus on, for now it's a temporary Rin-Komachi-Yuuka focusing on keeping null damage up and Yuuka bursting every few turns, it works fine, but I just wondered if anybody had come up with any better team ideas.
Also after quitting that book quest with Alice I couldn't seem to start up on it again, is this a known bug that needs fixing or am I missing something? I quit playing back in the day because I couldn't find anything on the issue neither online or in-game.

My favorite team has to be this one, but there are plenty of other good ideas.  For instance, Nue/Komachi/Murasa/Sanae.  Nue has evasion and huge damage, Komachi has invincibility and huge damage, and Murasa has accuracy boost and, yep, huge damage.  Sanae is for revival and heals, of course.  But the best way to find what team works for you is to try things out and see what sticks.  You could even end up with a team full of cats! (not a bad one either, I love Chen and Orin buffs and Shou isn't a bad attacker)

As for that quest, it'll pop up from time to time at Alice's house.  You'll know when it's done if you can use Shinki's gacha.  The message on the save menu won't go away afterward though, it's kinda dumb.

[Vhaltz]

Should've checked before suggesting. I think it'd be pretty accurrate to assume I must've been using a completely different wiki at the time, seeing as I remember there being different entries for Touhou Pocket Wars Evo and Touhou Pocket Wars Evo Plus, using that last one. There's no such thing in touhouwiki.net, so yeah. I'd remember it if the guide were this complete, too, since I had to figure out the whole close/mid/far system and how the UFO's worked by myself. Well, at least it's there now, I shared the game with a friend just today and it's kind of a relief I won't have to explain how every single thing works in the game.

I assume you're using Nitori as an evade spammer and Yukari for tanking/accurracy raising? or do you also increase damage on one/both of them?
That actually works nice, since it covers for Yuyuko's nuke having -10 hit. I preferred to use Shiki since no accurracy penalty kinda made up for the 20% drop in damage, but that combo would mean I'd only have to really level up a second nitori from scratch, I really didn't find it much fun to make my third team exactly the same as one of my other two teams, but having a single duplicate is fine.

[Sophilia]

Actually, they merged the sections at the beginning of August while I was in the middle of filling out the character articles.  If you were just looking on Evo+ before, that would explain it.

Nitori is pretty much purely for evade boost, yeah.  Yuyuko has a UFO item, so her low speed isn't a factor, and she can use either of her nukes right away.  Yukari is there for accuracy buffing, secondary damage, switching out for Sanae in case bad things happen, and because I'm an unrepentant Yuyukari 'shipper.  :V

[Zil]

Another question: I just did some kind of "quiz battle" where I matched a bunch of cards. Afterword I got a list of rewards. Most of them were pretty straightforward, but one said my part-time salary was tripled. Is that permanent, or just for the next time I collect it? Also, how do I trigger these quiz battles? I'd never seen it there before, and now it's not there anymore.

[Sophilia]

All the rewards except if you get a costume are one-time benefits.  Quiz battles show up occasionally in the game center, and you don't need to do anything to make one happen, so just keep your eye out for them.

[Vhaltz]

A quick tip for the quiz battles. Open excel and resize window to get a 5x8, then start typing in the names into the boxes as soon as you see them, it may be a bit of a hassle, but it sure makes it a hell of a lot easier and it's difficult to score under 12-8 doing that.

[Zil]

Can you save up the effects from these things (like getting triple salary the next two times I collect it), or will doing a new one replace the rewards from the previous? I ask because I've already done another without utilizing all of the first one's rewards.
Another unrelated thing: Do all of the girls have the same number of spellcards, and if so, what is this number? (I know you can only bring 6 cards into battle, I mean the total number of different card types.)

[Sophilia]

I don't believe the effects carry over, sorry.  As for number of spellcards, most girls have seven total, but it varies.  Yukari, for instance, has nine, while Hina has only six.  But certain spellcards won't be available until you unlock the fourth packs.

[Vhaltz]

Forgot to mention that the rewards from Quiz Battle escalate as you score higher, specifically the love increase for next battle and the part-time job bonus, hence using excel to try and get the best rewards each time.

And yeah, girls all have 6 "regular" spellcards that are unique to themselves, and then there's special union spell cards that you can get by buying level 4 card packs (these pop up in the shop after buying a crapload of other card packs). Like Sophilia said, most have 1, making a total of 7 spellcards on that girl, but some have 2, 3, or even 0. You can only use these spellcards when you have both girls that share the spellcard in battle at the same time, and meet the MP requirements etc. They don't both need to have bought the spellcard and/or have it in their active spellcards group, though, as long as one of them has it, she can cast it and the other girl/s involved in the union spell card will supply the support for it whether they have the union spellcard or not.

[Zil]

So I've got two new questions...

1. What is the "King's game"?

2. What is the max level for assist abilities, or does it vary depending on the girl?

[Vhaltz]

King's game is something you might've seen in anime. It's similar to picking straws and the one getting the shortest losing, only it's with sticks and the one who gets the stick with "king" printed on it gets to command the rest of the group around.
In gensokyo, of course, this isn't entertaining at all, so you play rounds of king's game by blowing each other up, and whoever wins gets the opponent to do what they want to. In Pocket Wars, you basically strip down a piece of clothing off of them for each win, up to three consecutive wins. Every time you win you get the avatar for the girl with less clothing on.

It depends on the girl, Sanae for example only gets 4 level-ups on her assist ability, some others get 19, and Flandre doesn't seem to get a limit.

[Sophilia]

I could have swore Flan maxes at level 20.  It's Youmu and Keine who have the highest level assist, and those only go to 25.

[Hanzo K.]

Confirmed this, Flan does max at 20.
I should know this pretty well, my starter team used to be Remi(Mid), Flan(Near), and Ran(Far).
Flan was trashing everything she could get at with Ripples Of 495 Years, Remi was dropping anything she could(Though she tended to miss a lot, even with a beefed-up HIT.), and Ran was the ranged bombardier with Fox-Tanuki Youkai Laser, and refilling Flan when she ran out of castings of 495, via Nine-Tailed Strategist.

Of course, I also used Sweet Game and Kokkuri-San's Contract for the +XX% Damage Received debuff, it was amazing landing both for magnified damage, then dropping the Youkai Laser, or Ripples.
That team's still my backup beatdown team, I would usually use Kaguya as the supporter, so that way any damage I did take would be rather low.