It seems that units stationed in a Temple will gradually gain ALI points.
This ought to help those who keep having trouble with ALI management.
Do not let the enemy take one of your cities so you can retake it and
get another Tarot card. It kills your reputation level. Besides, few Tarots are actually
useful.
You require a high reputation to recruit many characters in
Ogre Battle. The more you recruit, the better chance you stand of getting the best ending.
If you want a bad ending, though, just wing it and see what happens. There are two evil
characters you can recruit: Deneb the witch and Galf the demon. You need a very low
reputation for this.
Raise your reputation by using units with high ALI stats to liberate
cities. Using units with low ALI will decrease the reputation. However, after the city is
liberated, you can move any unit you want into it and it won't matter.
Units with low ALI fight best at night. In the daytime they are weaker
and miss a lot with their attacks. Furthermore, all of the were-units (Werewolves, Tiger
Men, Vampyres) are incapacitated shadows of their true selves in the day time.
Contrarily, units with high ALI fight best in the daytime.
A Sun card is extremely dangerous. It causes damage to both you and the
enemy, however the amount of damage depends on your ALI. If it is low, your unit won't
survive. Don't keep these cards unless you're in a stage with a lot of undead enemies (low
ALI).
Picking a Fortune card when liberating a town will cause your Reputation
Meter to go up OR down randomly by 1 to 3 points.
There is a maximum to how many soldiers you can have. I believe it is
96. Since most hero characters come with their own unit, and there are many hero
characters, you're going to have to pack them together and throw their cohorts away.
Since a unit standing in a town will regain HP slowly, it's best to
position strong units in towns and wait for the enemy to come to you. That way, you can
destroy unit after unit with little threat to your life, and if you lose a battle, you can
hurry back to the town before the enemy seizes it. Advance when there's a break between
attacks.
You can return to already cleared stages, so you don't have to find ALL
the secret cities in one bout. Do find the important ones though, or else you'll have
missed out on some stuff if you liberate them after the stage is done.
Finding the Chaos Gates in various stages will cause Sky Stages to
appear on your map. You should definitely visit these stages, because you can get very
good units there. However, you must have the Holy Sword Brunhild to find them.
You don't have to clear every stage to beat the game. You probably
should, though.
Wasting enemies weaker than you in level slashes your ALI. Contrarily,
killing those stronger than you raises it.
Don't forgive Deneb the witch after fighting her. The Glass Pumpkin she
gives you if you do isn't good seeing as you can find neutral Pumpkin units wandering
around, and Witches suck too much for you to extensively use them.
If you want to recruit Galf the demon, you have to give him the holy
sword Brunhild, which means you have to start out with high reputation and slash it after
you get the sword.
Fool cards are VERY useful in boss fights. They eliminate everyone but
the leader (usually in the back row) in an enemy unit. Of course, you have to kill the
leader fast or else he'll have a new lot of cohorts when you attack him again.
Judgment cards effectively conclude the dawn of the living dead. So do
various items which contain White Magic. The Rune Axe or Mystic Mace are such items. Also,
Clerics will kill the undead if you set your tactics to anything but Strong.
Set your tactics in battle to Leader. This makes your spellcasters focus
on the leader when casting their spells. If they kill him, the unit will leave for home
even if declared victor.
If you kill only a few guys in a unit, the unit will leave for the
nearest town friendly to it and recruit some more. If you kill the leader, it will go back
to base to get a new one. If you kill everyone in it, it's gone for good.
A Charm item will recruit everyone in an enemy unit except for the
leader to your side. The leader will then still attack you; however he'll go down easily.
Mages are superior to Wizards because they cast magic which affects
everyone in an enemy unit. Sorcerers are better still because they can cast twice in one
battle; however, you need an item to turn a Mage into a Sorcerer.
Usually you can switch classes if you reach a certain level and/or fall
within a certain range of stats. Sometimes you need a certain item in addition to that.
For instance, Mages need an Undead Staff to become Sorcerers. Beast Masters need a Stone
of Dragos to become Dragon Masters.
Wild Men suck. They turn into Evil Ones later though, which are far
better.
Pumpkins rule. They only have one attack, but this attack cuts the
target's HP in half. Put one as support in a strong unit with Sorcerers and Paladins.
Doll Mages are great against enemies vulnerable to physical attacks
(Wizards, for instance). Place them in the back row and their attack (Acid) will decimate
such enemies.
Nearly all supporting classes that aren't part of the main
Fighter/Amazon families (Octopi, Hell Hounds, Golems) all suck. Dragons, however, are very
strong, regardless of whether you make them good (Gold Dragons), neutral (Red Dragons), or
evil (Black Dragons).
Octopi are annoying to kill in water; on land, though, they're dead
meat.
Gryphons and other flying units provide High Sky movement (very fast
regardless of terrain). However, they suck in battle.
Enemies tend to stick to the roads while traveling. Early on in a stage,
capture a city directly across a road from an enemy city. The enemies will mostly attack
that city, but the strong units you'll place there will win out. Plus the rest of the map
will go mostly unnoticed by the enemy.
There are several special classes which usually contain only hero
characters. Such classes are: General, Baron, Dragoon, Overlord, Gemini, Black Prince and
Lord of all Evil. These classes are all incredibly strong; if you get some units from
these classes, make use of them.
Using a Sunshine item will forward the time to high noon: tribute time.
Use this if you're running out of money. It's always a good idea to keep track of how much
tribute you get from each city and not deploy too many units. The better a unit, the more
expensive it is.
When you finish a stage, you get a huge cash bonus. Since you'll rarely
have to buy something beyond the regular Cure/Life/Heal All items, you won't go broke.
When fighting a neutral character, calling up the battle menu will
contain the option "Befriend". If successful, the neutral character will join
you. If not, well, he won't.
Samurai rule. Make some Fighters into Samurai. If in the back row, they
will use the incredible Iainuki attack. It drains some of their HP, but the extra punch is
worth it. Dragoons use this attack too.
Don't wait in stages until high noon just to get the tribute.
Eventually, the cities get annoyed with paying it and your reputation goes down.
A low-ALI Black Dragon can be turned into a Tiamat, an extremely strong
evil dragon. Using an Undead Ring on a Tiamat will turn him into a Zombie Dragon. Zombie
Dragons are extremely strong and have high affinity towards every element except White,
which tears them to bits. You'd be better off using the Undead Ring to make a Lich.
A Princess is a very rare character. Get one by using the Royal Crown
item on a regular Amazon. You can get 2 Crowns in the normal game, however I have gotten
some as random items after some fights. A Princess has a good White back-row spell, but
that's not all she's good for. Make her the leader of a unit and every member of
the unit will get an extra attack, including her. Using her in conjunction with Liches
nets you an incredibly strong magic unit which will kill any enemy.
Members of unique classes recruit different units depending on the
member. Tristan and Debonair are both Generals, for instance, but they recruit very
different units.
Empress cards are very useful, as they fully heal your unit. Use them
and not Priestess cards.
Got your own? Email me.