Samurai Warriors 5/My Castle

My Castle (居城) in Samurai Warriors 5 is the stylized menu for preparing characters for both  Story Mode and Citadel Mode battles. This menu is divided into multiple categories, offering different resources to prepare and improve characters’ abilities. March, Dojo, Blacksmith, Shop, Stable, and Settings. Most of the buildings can be upgraded, outside of the settings and march options, which merely access other parts of the game. My Castle is slightly different between Story Mode and Citadel Mode, with the Citadel Mode containing Hermit's Retreat, where bonus conversations between characters can be viewed after they’ve developed max affinity with one another.

List of options:
 * March - moves into the story mode and the citadel mode battle selection screen.
 * Dojo - Characters can be given new skills, leveled up, and equipped with weapons or Items.
 * Blacksmith - weapons can be upgraded and reforged here.
 * Shop - sells an assortment of weapons, Items, and gems.
 * Stable - horses are stored here, where they can be merged to upgrade and grant skills.
 * Hermit's Retreat - unique conversations between playable characters are viewed here
 * Settings - the game's difficulty, volume, brightness, etc. can be adjusted here.

The facilities that can be upgraded are improved with gold and the three materials (lumber, mineral, and fabric) earned from Citadel mode. The buildings can all be upgraded from levels one to five, with each new level unlocking higher level features and totally new functions. Each building has its upgrades tied to story progression, with My Castle itself leveling up as chapters of the story mode are completed. Finishing chapter 1 unlocks the second level of My Castle, clearing chapter 4 unlocks the next level, and completing the last chapter upgrades My Castle to  its last level. Dojo=


 * -|Blacksmith=
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March
This option takes players to the battle selection screen for both Story Mode and Citadel Mode, depending on what mode was selected from the main menu. Essentially acts as the ready for proper gameplay, preparations are now complete.

Dojo
The Dojo is the building where individual characters can be managed. It is unlocked once the Assault on Mino is completed. Character skills, levels, and weapon levels can all be increased under Officer Training. Gear such as items and weapons can be managed under Change Equipment, with Citadel Mode removing items. Select Troops is an option that only appears in Citadel Mode, as summonable troops replace Items in this game mode. The Character Info allows for weapon combos, stats, and info to be displayed and reviewed. Only characters unlocked in story mode can be upgraded, with still locked characters treated as blank, ? spaces.

The Acquire Skills subcategory of Officer Training allows skill points to be spent to unlock new skills. Skills points are earned through skill books, which drop from defeated officers or purchase from the Shop option further down My Castle. These books represent a specific number of skill points, which are used to unlock skills. Each character has their own skill tree and spending skill points unlocks different buffs and bonuses for each character individually.

Within the Training option within Officer Training is where the stock experience can be spent to level up characters. Stock experience comes from the stock experience scrolls dropped in battles and earned as a reward from completing battles. Characters can only be leveled up by this stock experience to certain thresholds until the Dojo's own level is increased. A fully leveled Dojo can increase any character to max level, allowing players to skip grinding up a character if enough stock experience is possessed.

Weapon mastery level can be boosted at the Increase Weapon Mastery subcategory. Stock weapon mastery can be redeemed here, which like stock experience  and skill points are earned from officer drops and battle completion bonuses. Like the training option, the Dojo can only increase weapon mastery to a certain threshold, depending on its level. At its max level, the Dojo can increase any weapon mastery to the highest tier, S rank. Higher ranked weapon mastery allows the use of higher ranked, and thus more powerful, weapons.

Change Equipment is where weapons, ultimate skills, Items, and mounts can be changed. This part of the Dojo is accessible even in the battle preparation menu. Only the gear already unlocked can be accessed and changed here. Citadel Mode's My Castle blocks access to Items here because troops replace Items in that mode. Only one weapon can be equipped at a time, and four ultimate skills.

The Select Troops is a unique option in the Dojo for only Citadel Mode. Here the player can choose three different types of troop units to be able to summon onto the battlefield. There are 16 different types of troops available with different strengths and weaknesses. All but the initial three troop units must be unlocked by either story progression of training of available troops.

Character Info simply summarizes characters' loadouts, showing their stats, level, weapon and the weapon's skills, ultimate skills, Items or units, and mounts (plus the mount's skills if it has any). A second screen is available to look at the combos the character has access to at that moment, and will possess the full moveset around level 25.

Blacksmith
The Blacksmith is where weapons are upgraded with weapon gems. Access to the Blacksmith is gained after the first competition of Turmoil at Mt. Inaba. Weapon skills can be slotted and upgraded here with the Upgrade Weapons. Aiding in this first option, Dismantle Weapons allows the player to break down weapons for gold and weapon skill gems. Craft Weapons allows one weapon to be converted into another weapon of the same tier.

Once the Blacksmith is unlocked, weapons skills can only be upgraded to level three, with their max level being nine. New levels and weapon skills are purchased with gold and weapon skill gems, which like the other items used to upgrade officers, are earned through enemy officer drops and battle completion rewards. Weapon skills each have their own gem, and are divided into four tiers. The tiers control how much they cost to upgrade and how rare it is to find that type of gem in battle.

A weapon can only have as many skills as it has slots for, up to eight possible slots. Stronger weapon skills and weapons with more slots are more often dropped on higher rated stages and on a higher difficulty. Improving and adding new weapon skills to a weapon increases its mastery level requirement, regardless of the weapon's own tier. Rare weapons cannot have their weapon skills increased, despite never possessing the highest level of their equipped skills.

The Dismantle Weapons option allows weapons to be broken down into gold and weapon skill gems. The base weapon, rare weapons, and DLC weapons of each type cannot be dismantled. Every other weapon can be dismantled, and the amount of gold given is dependent on the weapon’s tier and how many/how strong are the weapon skill gems attached to it. The weapon skills gems themselves are retained, including whatever level they were before being dismantled. This allows a fairly seamless way to move a weapon skill from one weapon to another.

Craft Weapons is only unlocked once the Blacksmith is upgraded to level two. It allows weapons of one type to be converted into another. This process cannot be undone and afterwards, the newly forged weapon is marked by a small smithing hammer on the bottom right of the weapon's icon. A weapon crafted into another type of weapon maintains its tier, weapon skill slots, and whatever weapon skills are currently already attached to it. Like dismantling, base weapons, rare weapons, and DLC weapons cannot be crafted. A weapon cannot change tiers and cannot become a type of weapon not yet unlocked. Weapon types and tiers are unlocked when received in battle. For example: Nobunaga's Sōsan Samonji (Katana) cannot become Ieyasu's Muramasa’s Twin Blades (Twin Blade) until Ieyasu has received Muramasa's Twin Blades as a drop in battle.

Shop
The shop is where items, weapons, weapon skill gems, etc can be purchased and sold. It becomes available after completing Battle of Muraki Garrison. The options to purchase goods are divided into two categories: Purchase Accessories and Purchase Scrolls/Materials, with both of their storefronts expanding as the building is upgraded. Selling weapon skill gems is done at the option: Sell Skill Gems, while resources can be sold at the Sell Materials option.

Items for sale in the Purchase Accessories expand with each level, along with higher tiers of the items to improve or extend their time active. The weapons and skill gems also increase in tier as well with the increased shop level, although never offering the highest tiers of either category. The items are standard and always available, but the weapons and skill gems for sale are changed up after each battle.

Both Purchase Scrolls/Materials and Sell Materials are only fully functional once materials are earned from Citadel Mode. Only five of each type of material can be purchased per battle for a thousand gold each. These resources lose their use after every building is fully upgraded, so selling them is a viable option. The scrolls sold are small and big Principles of War and Strategic Tomes to supply stock weapon mastery and skill points. The Principles of War and Strategic Tomes are also earned by completing battles with high ratings and occasionally dropped by enemy officers. Selling skill gems and materials grants extra gold to use for other purchases.

Stables
The Stables is where horses are purchased and trained. The facility is unlocked after Battle of Nagara River is completed. Purchase allows new mounts to be purchased, Skill Drills allows horses to be combined to gain and improve skills, Equestrian Drills allows mounts to be merged to increase their levels, Sell does exactly what its name says and sell horses, and Mount Info allows horses' stats to be examined more closely.

The available stock of horses in the Purchase option is improved with each level of the building. Horses, unlike weapons or skill gems, are only earned through battle completion bonuses or purchased from the stables. The two strongest horses in the game, Matsukaze and Hoshōtsukige, are not offered in this building until they are unlocked from completing the game modes. The DLC horses can also be acquired here once the DLC is purchased.

Skill Drills is where horses can be combined with another horse to grant new skills or upgrade existing ones. Each horse can only have up to three skills, and level all the way to nine. The two bonus horses and DLC horses have their skills preset like the rare weapons and cannot be adjusted here in this submenu.

Mounts can be merged at Equestrian Drills subcategory. Combining one horse into another sacrifices the one to increase the experience and levels of the other. Horses also earn experience through being equipped during battle, this feature allows for faster leveling. As the stables can only hold 30 mounts at the maximum level, any extra horses either need to be sold or merged for their experience or skills. The same rules for the unique horse rewards and DLC mounts in the Skill Drills, applies to the Equestrian Drill and Sell options.

Hermit's Retreat
This option is only available in Citadel Mode, and is where bonus conversations between characters can be viewed. These conversions are earned through completing Citadel Mode's stages with two characters who share a possible bond. Each character displays who they can form a bond with by the small handshake symbol and bar over their character portraits in the character selection screen. The possible bonds are also listed by character within the Hermit's Retreat, where they can be viewed at leisure.