There’s a handful of things certain in life: death, taxes, and the Nation of Baseball Conquest map. Every year, this hulk of a map stares down any player who dares conquer the entire MLB in Conquest action. For the new players out there, this can be a daunting task so I’m here to tell you how to complete the Nation of Baseball Conquest Map in MLB The Show 23.
How To Complete The Nation Of Baseball Conquest Map
General Tips
Conquest can be a bit tricky if you’re a new player. I know when I started playing, I didn’t consult any online guides and made some decisions that ultimately cost me a ton of time. Keep some of these general tips in mind while learning Conquest:
- Simulate every game you possibly can! The only games you must play are the Stronghold battles. Whether you’re attacking the CPU strongholds (represented by the team’s logo) or your stronghold is under attack, those games must be played and you must win. As you move your fans around and initiate battles, you can simulate those moves.
- Reinforce your territories when surrounded. A common mistake I made in my early days was dumping all the new fans I’d earn each turn into whatever my “attack node” was and leave my other territories vulnerable. Trust me, nothing is more annoying than progressing across the map and having your progression stopped dead because the CPU broke up your territories. Even worse is getting distracted with conquering and forgetting to reinforce a stronghold under your control. You’re already going to be playing a lot of games. Having to play additional games because the CPU weaseled in and attacked your stronghold is disheartening.
- The CPU will only attack your territories if they control 2+ million fans more than in your territory. More specifically, if you have a node with 1 million fans (1) and the CPU has a node with 4 million (4) fans, they’re very likely to attack. However, if they have 3 and you have 2, then they will leave you alone. This is important when you factor in tip two. Every turn when you generate additional fans, go up and down your territory borders and reinforce nodes that are vulnerable to CPU attacks. Yes, this means you’ll end up spending most of your extra reinforcements early in the map just defending, which makes the conquering part take longer. Ultimately, it will save you time in the long run and you won’t even worry about it.
- The more territories you control, the more fans you generate each turn. This is an easy concept: conquer more, generate more fans quicker.
- Take a break! This map is a beast and will easily take 10+ hours to complete. Even if you’re physically capable of knocking this out in one sitting, it’s a terrible idea. I broke the map up into four chunks across each of the early access days and worked on other stuff in between. I also, you know, walked away from my monitor and did other productive stuff as well. Don’t burn yourself out. It can leave a bad taste in your mouth, and I know my swing timing suffers the longer I play so just save yourself the grief.
Phase 1
You start pretty much in the middle of the map in the above highlighted region. When you start moving, spin a circle around your stronghold to help protect it and then swing back around toward the Colorado Rockies stronghold. The Rockies don’t like running an organization well so we’re going to do them a favor and conquer them first.
Phase 2
We’re not running at them quite yet. Referring to the earlier tips, keep in mind that you’ll generate more fans quicker by controlling more territory. Early on, there’s a ton of blank spaces that represent free territory. Moving your fans to these blank nodes claims them immediately. You can pretty much spread out in whatever direction you want, but the tried-and-true method is attacking the northwest before swinging around across the map. So here, we added more fans below that initial circle we created and eventually worked our way between the Cubs and Twins before swinging up north and across the west. This allowed us to generate plenty of fans over the next several turns that allowed us to defend to the east before stacking 11 million fans to attack the Rockies’ stronghold.
Phase 3
We even have a team logo now because I remembered that was a thing! Once we took down the Rockies, we continued expanding westward and eventually took down the Mariners. At this point, you’ll be generating fans at a decent clip so make sure you’re checking your borders and reinforcing vulnerable spots. If the CPU does break through and takes some of your territory, don’t panic because it happens. But if you keep a persistent eye on your borders, especially early on, you’ll minimize the damage.
Phase 4
We moved on from Seattle and simply moved south, conquering everything in our path. You can take whatever approach you want, either going diagonally or horizontally as you conquer. I typically go in whatever direction has the most CPU fans so I can take out threats before they get too powerful. Also, you have turn priority so you can shake down a sizable foe and prevent them from taking your territory. If you constantly pick on the 1 million fan nodes, eventually the CPU will swing at you with a beefy crew and annoy you with additional turns by recapturing territories.
As you can see here, we just kept on with the game plan described earlier until we had half the map conquered. We took down the Rangers and then stacked up south by the Astros, took them down and started working our way directly north to hammer the Central division teams.
Final Stretch
Hopefully by now you understand the basic movement principles. Once the Central was ours, we just needed to expand eastward and finish off the rest of the MLB. I highlighted this part specifically because my personal purgatory every year with this map is playing the Red Sox a half dozen times to end the map. I hope you enjoy Fenway Park.
That’s about it! Once you get to the final quadrant of the map, it’s just a handful more stronghold battles and you’ll have the map knocked out. You’ll get a ton of XP, Stubs, free cards, and packs for this effort so it’s well worth it. You can replay this map as many times as you want and you’ll earn those 20 Show packs upon each completion. Just keep in mind that all the other rewards are earned a single time.
That’s how to complete the Nation of Baseball Conquest map in MLB The Show 23! Do you use a similar strategy or do you have another method that works for you? If you’re a first time player, did you find the map challenging or was it a piece of cake?
