I just got the game and there is a lot of strategy to it. So I thought I’d ask you guys for tips. (I’ll admit I haven’t gone through the entire tutorial yet.) Mainly, I was wondering if I need to strategize who gets what experience points in battles. At first I didn’t think I needed to, but I can’t replay levels and training costs money which I can’t get more of if there aren’t any random battles.
Anyway, any tips from fellow Ogre Battlers would be helpful! :hahaha;
Combine your casters so their spells fuse together. The fusion spells are much more powerful and they are worth it.
Your units get experience when they kill other units. You get minimal experience if they don’t get kills.
As Sin said, combine your casters into one unit. Since you get more XP for killing units, consider using your stronger units to take out leaders and have your weaker ones do mop-up duty. Once a unit’s leader is taken out, the computer never assigns a new leader, so the unit aimlessly runs. Jump 'em when they’re out of health.
Don’t worry about training so much now, you’ll have money out your ass by the end of the game. If you need experience, enter areas you cleared and pick on local wildlife. Personally, I had a hard time keeping my alignment at neutral, so picking on local monsters helps with that as well (which is key for getting spellcasters and Black Knights). It’s either that or you glitch yourself 99 Urns of Chaos. :\
Consider creating one unit as an anti-cockatrice unit. Two golems plus a Paladin with the Hallowed Shield make cocks very easy to deal with. I believe undead will work as well.
Don’t forget to use your little soldier dudes early, so you have a good supply of fighters and archers later in the game.
I used to Ace this game so hard it was unreal…
Ok! Some tips…
-Unit Formations.
The ONLY! time you should have your leader to be in the center is thus:
If the leader is a Phalanax/Cataphract/Black Knight/Special Character with extremely high defense/has Fireseal equipped, etc.
If you’re using a unit with three offensive magic users, make the lead caster in back middle and put one of the character choices from #1 in front center. Everyone targeting the leader will have to go through your defensive man first, which granted they should have a hard time with.
Purposely have a weaker character in the front center WITH two front-line fighters on left and right AND have another character in dead middle. The strat. with this is to have a Priest in the back most always heal the front center character as he will recieve the most damage. The kicker is with the Priests Heal+ spell, it’ll heal everyone adjacent to the healed unit, which is everyone IN the unit but the Priest. Example…
Knight/Pally - Knight/Pally(weaker) - Knight/Pally
xxx - Whatever/Dio - xxxxx
(priest in any of these slots, prefferably NOT back center)
You’ll have a strong melee unit that most always stays at full or mostly filled health. Unless you’re up against long range units with the priest in sight.
The reason being enemy units tend to attack leaders more often than not. And the center rank is THE most vunerable spot to be in. An enemy on the front left or right rank HAS to attack whatever is in front or one rank to their left/right before going to the far rank to attack. Therefore, putting your leader on anything But the middle rank will just lead to a faster death. This goes doubly for soft characters, ie. magic users.
About Phalanaxes/Cataphracts… unless you REALLY need men, they are really effin’ useless. Defense does NOT win skirmishes OR battles. Even if their physical defense is off the charts, around midgame and then on, a lot of enemy units will be using elemental units, which will plow right through that nice physical defense they have. Don’t use them. Same for Golems unless you go for the anti-cockatrice unit.
Do your best to try and find five hawkmen for an all-aerial unit. If everyone in a unit can fly, they will travel significantly faster than any other unit combination. However they get exhausted faster (NEVER fight exhausted i.e. the units flag red and drooping) so carry some fruits to replinish that in a fix. You will also find a fast moving unit helpfull for chasing down escaping enemy units or having to cover ground fast enough to capture/liberate a town.
The fastest way to promote soldiers (the small unit of three little men): Take a higher level character and make him the leader, front rank and center. Put three groups of soldiers on the middle row and one in the back. Use this unit to finish off weaker or disabled enemy units. The leader will attack, and the smaller units will rush foward together for a more moderately powerful attack. Now, how Soldier exp works: Every time a skirmish ends, the entire unit gains 1 Soldier EXP for every soldier present. Not soldier group; individual soldier. Meaning if you fight with a fresh unit and none of your little guys drop out, that’s 12 soldier EXP right there. Every time a soldier unit goes below one-third health, a solider dies and the HP cannot be replinished past it’s maximum. So keep skirmishing and then one of them will randomly promote at the end of a skirmish before the victor is announced. The gender depends on the gender of the unit UNLESS you have a special item which reverses this. I forget what its’ called, it has been a while.
Looking for a good way to lower your units Ali? Find skeletons in the wild. Ghosts and Zombies work, too, but Skeletons are hella stronger and will serve you better. Mix one or two in a group you need to turn evil and it’ll work like magic. Do this EARLY so you don’t have to find/clone Urns of Chaos.
It’s my general advice that if you want Freyas towards midgame, raise your female units as Dragon Tamers until they can become Freya’s. Their stat gains are slightly better than Valkeries, which adds up in the end. This is for front row Freyas in mind, though.
Combo Magic= Win. Two spells that normally target one enemy Combined will be stronger and do minimal splash damage around those adjacent in a plus formation. Two spells that targets in a plus shape combined will target the ENTIRE screen, doing largest damage to whoever is in the middle of the unit. Then a plus formation from that. Finally everyone who is on the diagonal edges. Also, the chance of causing a status effect is higher. Anything that paralyses or sleeps is best. Three spells combined = Win. Abuse this power. It will take down any unit you come across provided the combo triggers and you attack before any of your magic users are disturbed (status effect or death.) Use your “Target Select” options to have higher chances at comboing with magic. You don’t ALWAYS need it set to “Target Leader.”
Drakonite Spells do NOT combo. However they target EVERYTHING that is on the screen for equal damage in all ranks and rows and can NOT be dodged. However, it is not as powerful as combo magic towards end-game and does not cause status effects. It IS useful for letting your battle meter fill up so you can use your Pedra attacks. If you can’t stand the battle animation, you can always turn it off with the L-Button.
Colored Dragons do Magic with splash damage attacks with their “Breath of [whatever”. Promoted dragons do Magic that targets everything with the plus-formation damage reductions and status effects. In my experience, you have to have them at a significantly higher level for them to do some really powerful damage. But they’re great if you want to buff them with Dragon Masters or if you want a flying Magic unit with a Raven/Vultan/Angel/Seraphim leading.
Angels/Seraphim are great units, but a pain in the ASS to obtain. Go look on gamefaqs for a how-to to get them. Save your item that attempts to get enemy units on your side. Love and Peace? I forget.
I’ll post more later.
Kagato Toujou posted most of what I was going to say, but that’s what I get for waiting a full day before posting. <_<
(besides some of these points are worth repeating)
Try getting healers as soon as you can. Especially one for your main party. It’ll help keep your unit on their feet longer (though it doesn’t help with fatigue).
Third the Anti-Cockatrice and All-Magic unit suggestions as well.
There’s no harm in deploying all ten units during a battle (though keeping one in reserve may help in case things turn sour on your base defender).
Also don’t bother with legions. They’re not worth tieing up your leader units into especially since you can’t do much with them but fill them with soldiers and centurions (neither of which are worth using once you reach the point in the game when you can form legions).
Probably not feasible until at least the second chapter but forming a flying unit can be really useful later in the game due to their ability to haul ass (which depending on the situation can really save your bacon). Just don’t expect them to lay waste to the battle field.
Going back to places you’ve already cleared will not only help with cheap leveling but you have a much better chance of recruiting some monsters onto your team. Plus there are several hidden items (including some really good ones) if you explore long enough. And the towns themselves can sometimes hold really good or important items that may not have been there before.
There’s one thing I didn’t really like about 64 over the original is that the game doesn’t show where your reputation is on the alignment scale making it very difficult if you’re thinking on recruiting certain characters.
And for the love of all that is good keep somebody on homebase at all times. If you’re worried about exp for your defenders switch out defending units every battle while having the former defending unit stay near the front lines to pick up exp.
Very good point on the leigons. It’s better to have three or so characters lay in wait as they charge right into you.
-Pumpkinheads.
Get one. ONE. It’s all you need. A front or middle row Pumpkinhead attack will attempt to target one enemy and half their HP. Pretty nifty, right? Slap them in the back… They’ll only do this once, but they’ll do Pumpkinshower, which targets a plus-formation and CONTINUOUSLY half an enemy’s HP. This attack will quickly send any unit’s HP into the double or single digits when targeted on one person alone. Against a group it is equally devastating. It can’t be dodged, but it can be resisted and only take 1/4th HP off of their current HP instead. However, upon doing this, it half’s your Pumpkinheads HP.
The strategy (Unit Placement)
Pumpkinheads in the front row is suicide. In the middle row they’re not as efficient as some other characters. You’ll be wanting them in the back. BRING. A. HEALER. Items won’t suffice if you’re up against archers or magic users. With this in mind, it’s up to you to leave him protected by the front row or not. Since I assume you’re a smart gamer and have one front row fighter protecting your healer that makes 3 out of 5 units possible already. There are two ways you can go with this…
You can have two front row fighters making a good offensive line with a healer and PH in the back. The disadvantage lies within healing priority and killing units. With your PH only halfing a group of enemies HP over and over, it doesn’t KILL them (unless they’re HP is one.) Also, Pumpkinshower tends to target enemies in the back row before the front, so he wouldn’t be of much use to your front-row fighters. About those guys… your healer will mostly be concentrating on the PH rather then your fighters, so expect them to take a risky bit of damage.
Have a back row of a PH, Priest, and any type of multi-hitting spellcaster. You will have to leave one of them unprotected, I recommend the PH. Pick a unit that can take a good hit (preferablly a Black Knight) and put him in front and center. The other front row fighter can be anything you want it to be. Now, with this combo in mind, the PH will nail a group of enemies and your caster will quickly finish them off possibly in one go. Your PH and front row may take a licking, but since you will be wiping out enemies faster, healing should only be a minor upkeep if you’re adaquetly leveled. Some general advice to make this strat. work better is to give your PH ALL of the Cup of Life’s (HP Increase) and Stone of Quickness’s (AGI Increase) so they keep more HP, take more damage*, and will use Pumpkinshower first before your magic user can attack.
Here’s the best unit placement I can think of.
xxx - BlackKnight - NinjaMaster
xxx - xxx - xxx
PH - Priest - Princess*
The ninjamaster’s AGI will contribute to the groups AGI and have better attempts at attacking first. It may seem foolish to put the Priest in the middle where she would be most suspectible to damage, but when she heals the PH, she’ll heal herself. If she heals herself, she heals the entire back row. The Princess class is THE BEST magic user to use with this unit. Everyone gets granted a second attack, meaning TWO Pumpkinshowers and more Alm Pedra charges (which you probably won’t need with a Princess-lead unit). Also, putting your unit leader on the far corner is an effective don’t-get-raped strategy against archers and other magic users.