Hey guys! I thought it would be useful to have a FAQ for this game. Hope it can help if you have any question!

Feel free to ask if your question is not answered here. Or if you have an idea of something that is not here yet, please let me know.

I will try to keep the answers as short as possible so if you need more detailed explanations, you just have to ask.

Q: What is a CaW/CAW and how do I make one?
A: CAW is an acronym for “Create-a-Warrior”, in other words, a Custom Character. To create your own, just select Edit Mode in the main menu, then Custom Officers. Select an unassigned slot and you will be able to customize him/her.

Q: Can I use any Musou/Rage attack with any weapon?
A: Yes, you can. The character will automatically use a default tier one weapon to perform the animation. The damages will however be based upon your equiped weapon.

Q: Do the equipement parts have an impact on CaW stats?
A: No. It is purely cosmetic.

Q: What are Abilities?
A: Abilities define the starting stats of your CaW. It also gives him/her two starting stratagems. On a NPC CaW, these two stratagems will always be present. (More informations here)

Q: How do I set my own picture as a custom flag?
A: First you have to get an image. It has to be 1024*1024px, in jpg or bmp format. Once you have one, you must put it in the following folder: Documents\KoeiTecmo\Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires\Import. In the game, go to “Custom Banners” in Edit Mode and under “Insigna Variety”, choose “Original”. Then under Insigna Type, press Shift/Normal Attack button and choose your picture. And that's it.


Q: I have seen player made characters in my game! How is that possible?
A: In the options, you have a tab for the “Guest Officers Setting”. If one or the two boxes are on “Yes”, CaW that other people uploaded will automatically join your scenario. How cool is that?!

Q: So, I can upload my CaW's?
A: Yes. In fact, you can upload one male and one female CaW for each of the four Way of Life (WoL) Categories. You can however only upload one unit at once. To do so, go into Edit Mode, under “Custom Officer” or “Custom Unit”. There, press Space/Start and choose Upload then your character/unit.

For CaW's, the game will ask you a WoL and a Category. It's just sorting stuff as far as I know. For the WoL, I would recommend you to choose something close to your character WoL (for instance, Great Intellect for Unparalleled Strategist, etc.) For the Category, it's up to you. You can choose something that matches your character style or just put it in the “Other” category. The same goes when you upload a Unit!

Q: How can I download other people's CaW's?
A: You have two options here. The first is to go in the Custom Custom Officers of the Edit Mode and press Space/Start then choose “Download”. The second option is to do the same but choose “Register Visiting Officer” and load any of your saves. (Quicksaves don't work for this.)

Q: I serve a Ruler. How do I rise in ranks ?
A: To rise from Lieutenant to Officer and from Officer to Prefect, you just have to gain Merit, be it via Strategy Objectives or Battle Objectives. Once you are Prefect, accomplish Strategy Objectives to become Strategist and Battle Objectives to become Marshal. (It can be done in Invasions, Defenses or Raids.) In any case, if there is already a Mrshal, a Srategist or five Prefects, you will have free a space using the Slander scheme. Alternatively, you can also do an assasination quest “Assassinate the Regional Lord”. It is said that having a high friendship with the ruler helps to rise in rank.

Q: I don't see a “Slander” scheme in my list…
A: Except if you chose “Unlock All Fixed Strategies” in the Special Settings at the beginning of a scenario, you have to recruit a NPC that possess the said strategy in order to use it.

Q: How do I get promoted Ruler?
A: To become Ruler once you are Marshal/Strategist, just continue doing what you did up to this point and the promotion should come. Note that if the Ruler is your Sworn Sibling or your spouse it won't happen since he leaves the kindgmon once he steps down. Also, it appears that Rulers with a high virtue are more likely to step down than Rulers with neutral/negative virtue.

Q: Now that I'm a Vagabond Unit Leader, I can't recruit other nation's officers anymore!
A: You need the “Scout” scheme in order to do this again. To unlock it, you just have to recruit an officer with this fixed strategy in your unit. Alternatively, if you chose to “Unlock All Fixed Strategies” at the beginning of a playthrough, it will be avaible regardless if an officer with it is present in your ranks or not.

Note that “Scout” has less success chances than “Persuade” or “Invite/Recruit”.

The site True Achievements[www.trueachievements.com] has all the informations to get any of the 55 game's WoL.

For this one, you must have two or three kingdoms attacking you during the same turn. To make other kingdoms attack you more often, they must be “Enemies” with you. (You can check it in the Kingdom Info menu.) To do so, define a Battle policy during War Council so your underlings will raid neighboring nations. It is said that having unhappy regions tends to make them attack you more often.

So… You have to put down a rebellion, yeah! It is quite unlikely that you will get this one during the normal course of a scenario. Indeed, there are a few conditions to fulfill.

First, your Strategist/Marshal must have a low Friendship level with you. (I'm not sure it works with Prefects since they don't have the Rebel command, only Betrayal.) Secondly, some WoL tends to Rebel more than other. Look for Flying Generals, Unparalleled Strategists or Duplicitous Jokers. Basically, any low-virtue archetype tends to rebel more than a high one.

It quite the same that for Astute Mind. Keep a Marshal/Strategist/Prefect spot empty. If you have low-virtue officers in your ranks, they will try to bribe you to get one of these roles. (As far as I experienced, friendship does not have an impact on the chances.)

This one is a bit misleading. To get it, you must Rebel and not Betray. So you need to be Marshal/Strategist and use the Rebel command.

For this one, there is an important condition: you must not be part of a vagabond unit. Basically, you have to get a high friendship level with a Rler. It should get you to the Prefect rank. It's enough for the Title, but you need Marshal or Strategist for the Achievement. Do a few battle with the said Rler and he should then propose you a Marshal rank. I'm not sure about the Strategist one.

To raise the Friendship, you have two options :
— Do Ruler-tier quests for him/her (Rescue the City, Escort the Ruler…)
— Join the Ruler's kingdom, use Interact/Celebrate, depart and do a few battle with the Ruler. This method is way faster.

Of course, if there is already a Marshal/Strategist, it won't work. You will have to Slander/Alienate/Assasinate him before. (Yeah, assasinating your way to the top is badass!)

Also, note that nobody will invite you if you have a very low virtue.

Basically, you have to join a nation and do ruler-tier quests for other nations until a ruler ask you to become his Prefect/Strategist/Marshal.

A quick way I found is to do the Yellow Turban Rebellion scenario and join a kingdom with a lot of different neighboring kingdoms. (You could also do this in GoT, but you would have to try until you have a good nations setup.) Then, do the Extermination quests (Slay the Tigers/Wolfs > Slay the Fierce Tigers/Wolfs > Repel the Bandits > Defeat the Officers > Defeat a Vagabond Unit) and repeat the ruler-tier quest for every ruler around your nation when it appears.

I don't recommend the “Escort the Ruler” quest since it tends to hardly spawn… Tried for ~30 months without it appearing once.

To get the needed quest, you have to do the previous ones of any of the two chain quest. (Guard or Rescue) Then it should appear. Note that you must be the leader of a Vagabond Unit.

Just do Escort missions until this one appears. ( Note that you must finish at least one of each tier, as for the Ultimate Mercenary Captain.)

Q: My Musou/Rage gauge fills so slowly…
A: To fill one bar of your Musou gauge, you have to hit 1000 times. You must hit 4000 times to fill your rage gauge. Of course, some weapons have more multi-hits moves than other which makes them more suitable for a musou build.

You have multiple solutions to fasten the process:

• Using weapons/moves that hits very often for both your Musou and Rage gauge. For instance: Xiahou Yuan's C1-EX, Zhou Tai's C2-EX or Zhong Hui's C1-EX.
• Musous that hit often will fill your rage gauge. For instance, Xu Shu's Hidden Surprise or Zhang Jiao's Miracle of Heavens.
• Weapons with special effects such as Enlightment (more rage per hit), Roar (Musou on kill) or Uplift (more Musou per hit)

In order to modify the keybinding, you have to go in the Options → Controls → 1P/2P setting → Button Settings.

Once you are there, use Tab to unbind all keyboard keys or F12 to unbind all controller buttons. (If you don't unbind before, binding the buttons will be significantly harder since you can't assign a function to a button that is already used for something else.)

You can find the default keyboard binding in pages 8-9 of the game manual and gamepad binding in pages 10-11. (Or just click here!) I would recommand you to follow these – at least for the gamepad. The way the game is made, if you assign buttons to something else, it will also affect menus. (For instance, up may become left, etc.)

Try do deactivate the V-sync. It should do the trick.

If you are on the strategy screen, you can quicksave to reload the UI. Otherwise, you may have to restart the game. Also, you can play in windowed mode – it should happen less often.