Fire Emblem: Three Houses, any tips for a newbie?

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I’ve got a bit of an idea of how these games work, but my “strategy”, at this point, seems to be “mass at one point after making the enemy come to me”.

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This won't last long, but it can work.

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What is the most beneficial activity to partake in on off days? Cooking? Eating with students?

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A balance mix is important. Interacting with students is critical, particularly for your third to last point. You can get non-house students to join you which can fill some gaps in your Black Eagle group. There are some powerhouses out there that aren't in Black Eagles.

Have a plan and stick to it.

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Also, is it beneficial to pickup a house member from another house for battles? I know you can get one to help.

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This can help with the above by gaining a lot of points for conversion, but do it sparingly because spots are obviously limited. It's good for a non-house member you really want.

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Just looking for any background tips they don’t make apparent.

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I actually haven't played the Black Eagles route yet, but know your gaps in your house (I feel like like for Black Eagles that's mostly bows and mounted), plan to get at least 3-4 other house members to join. Keep your team balanced in terms of levels, there are some BIG maps later where you need a large team of well-leveled characters.

Do every side quest in the Monastery and you should get enough stuff that you won't have to purchase battalions and what not.

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I’ve got a bit of an idea of how these games work, but my “strategy”, at this point, seems to be “mass at one point after making the enemy come to me”

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The strategy you need to learn is looking at the range of the enemy and standing just outside of it - sometimes they will come to you and you get the first hit. I think after awhile you have to start moving forward because if you don't you will run out of time of more enemies will keep spawning making it impossible.

In those cases you put your most tanky character just in range of the enemy and make the enemy attack him: then finish them off with other characters.

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What is the most beneficial activity to partake in on off days? Cooking? Eating with students?

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Yes - as time goes on it'll be easier to do even more stuff without feeling like you are always running out of stuff. Also makes sure you are gardening every single time you are walking around the academy, those items become extremely important as time goes on.

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Also, is it beneficial to pickup a house member from another house for battles? I know you can get one to help.

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I would actually say no: 1) it's not that beneficial as far as recruitment goes because there are a lot better ways to build trust and friendships with other class members than 2) losing experience points to a classmate that can't receive any exp. The experience is literally lost to the void and if you manage to recruit someone they will always join your team at the same level your team is.

For recruitment give them gifts anytime you are in the academy and level up your stats a bit to recruit. By the last month you can recruit I never had any trouble recruiting who I wanted.

Also: make sure you recruit Shamir and Lysethia (also Petra, but she is Black Eagles).

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Also, should I hire battalions for each soldier early on or wait?

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You end up being overrun with battalions by the end, so getting a few now only really helps you, so why not if you can afford it.

slight subject change. Grandia2 is shockingly a good play and worth the money. do not try forward to the sky I saw BAD reviews that the combat was just dicing away with no results until they disappear, crappy.

The biggest thing that helped me in my first playthrough was actually learning to wait to fish: only fish on the "double experience for fishing" day. It is the most important thing you can do before the end of your first year.

Also, make sure you keep your relationship with edelgard as high as you can get it, and always talk to her in the school settings, and do things she ask you to do, and don't read the post above mine...

frick me.

I’ve been running around the monastery looking for people.

I just figured out that the map shows where everyone is.

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I’ve been running around the monastery looking for people.

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Well, it's still good to go around the monastery any day you can since you can pick up those shiny objects to max out your professor level or whatever it is called.

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I thought the only map was the zoom in feature.

I just never noticed that L was an actual map.

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Not going to lie, this happens for me from time to time. Even though I'm going on like 32+ years of playing video games.

It really wasn’t that way until about 10 years ago when they really put an emphasis on the relationship aspect and marriage etc. It used to be a game with really complex commentaries on the harsh realities of war (to an extent) and how classism and racism among other things affect different communities’ lives. 3H mended that a little bit. They still took a good bit of liberty throwing in a fair share of big titties and fat asses in the cast but the fact that in any given run through a good portion of your closest friends in the game will end up being someone you have to kill down the road is refreshing for the series. At least given the past 2 new entries.

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Man to each his own, and I like some weird stuff, but I can’t for the life of me get into FE, aka Waifu Chess

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Every FE before Awakening was not "Waifu Chess" as you put it. You should probably try those out.