Support and meal guide

The fast answer

Give a candidate one gift, then use meals at the inn to build support. Meals can be repeated during a week and can include several characters; Stage Shows are a reported later option. Support is also reported to be global across the save, so work done on one path can make another path’s recruitment easier. Source 61 ↗ Source 59 ↗

Efficient natural routine

1. Decide which two or three characters you actually want next.
2. Talk to them, then give the first gift needed to open the meal option.
3. Invite the recruit candidate and the relevant lord or support partner to meals.
4. Revisit the People list after a story or Renown milestone.
5. Use the next available meal for another candidate instead of spending every gift at random.
6. Record the displayed support rank and the recruitment status before and after the action.

The practical advantage is focus: community discussion suggests that occasional meals with two or three targets can be enough to reach a threshold, but the exact amount varies by character and path. Source 66 ↗

Reported replay method

Once you understand Chapter Replay, a guide-reported method can accelerate global support without consuming a normal campaign:

1. Replay a completed chapter with enough free time.
2. Host meals for the pairs you want to raise.
3. Use the inn’s auto-activity to advance to the next week.
4. Repeat meals until the chapter is nearly spent.
5. Restart the chapter, then repeat from the same bookmark.

This is an attributed technique, not an official exploit. It depends on global support persisting and on the chosen chapter containing the characters you need; the guide notes that some groups are absent in some chapters. Make a save boundary before experimenting. Source 61 ↗

What support is not

A meal is not automatically a recruitment. A visible conversation is not automatically a combat bonus. A support rank on one route should not be copied to every recruit table without confirming that the game displays the same global value. Keep these as separate database fields.

See Supports, meals and bonds database, How to recruit allies and Replay, routes & global progress for the connected systems.