Together RPG - SRPG - Ogre Battle MotBQ - 1/11/14 -> 3/11/14

[MrPopo]

I once had a princess on the first real map, but it was so early in my Ogre Battle career that I didn't fully realize just how amazing that was. It took me several maps to realize that all my guys were attacking one more time than normal.

[Ack]

So I have begun playing this one and am enjoying myself, but I have to ask, is there any way to keep my units from missing so much? My Fighters have a hit rate that is absolutely horrendous. I ended up having a leader get killed because they simply couldn't hit the enemy to hold them off. So I guess I need to find a good way to level, and I'm also struggling with how to recruit leaders and build new squads.

Also, those hidden items are extremely helpful. I came across a Sigmund Sword on the first map and put in on Lans, and he's become my heavy hitter.

[Jmustang1968]

The Sigmund is a very good blade, lucky find. Many of the maps have a lot of hidden items. Some are somewhat story driven. Using a guide for this game may be very helpful to some...
Since Lan is already boosted, it may be best to give your good blades to some of the other guys to help them out.

They just miss on the low levels. You need guys to get to level 4-6 to start promoting. Also play very close attention to alignments and managing alignment.

[nightrnr]

I don't even worry about alignments. I just promote as they become available (mostly) and then trade out party members to my liking or as needed. A bit of randomness to each game isn't a bad thing IMHO.

I'm probably missing the point of the game on some levels, but hey, no one said I HAD to play a certain way either.

One of these times, I may just rampage with the starting party. But, the real appeal of the game, as you said... :

I also max out the number of units. The micromanaging of the characters and units is one of the biggest draws to me. I kind of end up stressing and nitpicking over them a bit too much.

...is micro-management of your own custom fantasy army. I think I might spend just as much time (or more) in between maps as the battles/episodes themselves.

As far as party building, I usually don't use more than 1 over-powerful unit in one group (although it can be fun, as mentioned). I find more satisfaction in stumbling on to effective and well balanced units (and I swear chance often has a lot to do with it, but I don't get too deep into the actual game mechanics either, beyond basic strength/intelligence/etc. stats; equipped items help, but still...).
I tend to send them out in 3's to liberate and conquer and leave my Hero party to explore and/or guard the base.

OOh, another strategy I've wanted to try from scratch is to send out the same 10 units out every map and do a "Survival of the Fittest" thing...
...weed out the week and (after a few maps or so) reorganize into like 5 "ultimate parties". That would still make the game too easy, but could be amusing to see what I ended up with.

[Jmustang1968]

The problem with alignments, is that they change easily and that affect is built into the basics of the game. Your characters act a certain way and their alignment responds in kind. It isnt random at all.

[nightrnr]

The problem with alignments, is that they change easily and that affect is built into the basics of the game. Your characters act a certain way and their alignment responds in kind. It isnt random at all.

Yeah, I think my friend who introduced me to the game got into the nuances of Alignments and how they affected class options and the Reputation Meter as well.
I never really got that deep into it. Maybe some day, I mean I do have the strategy guides and FAQs are easy enough to look up anyways.
I wasn't saying it IS random, just that you can play that way if you wish or want a more casual experience.

...and what casual gamer plays Ogre Battle, you may ask? Maybe just me?

[MrPopo]

Let me give a shot at doing an army mechanics guide for people.

There are three classes of units that make up your army:

- Human male
- Human female
- Monster

The two human lines have a long branching chain of promotions based upon the stats of your unit. So a beginning fighter can promote to a mage, knight, dollmaster, etc depending on his stats. The stats in question are level, alignment, and charisma. Generally once you've upgraded from the base (fighter/amazon) to a promoted class you are on a single track, so future promotions are class++. Aside from ninja all promoted human classes are eligible to be a leader and recruit (ninja needs their second promotion, ninja master).

Monsters for the most part are either no-evolution or upgrade evolution (Octopus -> Kraken). A handful of monsters have alignment branching promotions (dragon, giant, hawkman). Many monsters are large units, which mean they take up the same space as two small units (but they have higher stats and more attacks to compensate).

Recruiting allows a leader to create new units that are set to 2 below the leader's level, and the available units depend on the leader's class. They tend to be on-theme for the kinds of people you'd expect to follow him and are a tier of unit below theirs (so a first level promote would recruit base units, and a second level promote would recruit first level promote units).

Since charisma and alignment are the only stats that matter for promotion it's important to understand how they work. From a high level, charisma and alignment are based on your level vs. the enemy level and your stat vs. the enemy stat. Having your level being lower than the enemy level improves charisma and alignment, and the reverse decreases it. Having your stat being higher than the enemy stat improves the stat, and the reverse decreases it. You always want a high charisma, while alignment needs to be managed. If you don't pay attention to it you'll find your units will gravitate to either 0 or 100 alignment, and once at those points they don't tend to move much. For about half the units this works just fine, what gets tricky is the promotions which require somewhere in the middle (which frustratingly includes the mage line, where you need at least 10 alignment, but still in the evil half of the spectrum). The nice thing, though, is once you've gotten your final promotion you don't need to care about alignment anymore. Note that alignment and charisma only change when your unit kills an enemy unit. Also note that using tarot cards is as if it was a spell cast by your main character.

It helps that there are a lot of named units that you can get in the course of the story, in case you've gotten your army in a bad state alignment and charisma wise and you can't get to some of the high level promotes.

[nightrnr]

From a high level, charisma and alignment are based on your level vs. the enemy level and your stat vs. the enemy stat. Having your level being lower than the enemy level improves charisma and alignment, and the reverse decreases it. Having your stat being higher than the enemy stat improves the stat, and the reverse decreases it.

I've heard about keeping to a lower level for Alignment/Charisma increase. Not sure I follow though. What other stats are we talking about: Strength, Intelligence, everything else besides Alignment and Charisma? Or do Alignment/Charisma only go up if you kill a unit with a lower level AND yours is a higher stat?

Maybe I'll just stick to High and Low Alignment parties. Weaken with the High, kill with the low... and maybe a bit of both with a couple mage-focused parties.

For anyone that finds this to be too tedious, I still think the game can be a blast just marauding with parties at your whim, as I've done in the past.

[Jmustang1968]

Whenever a unit kills another character in a unit, an alignment change can occur.

If the character level is lower than the enemy, the alignment may go up.
If a character's alignment is lower than the enemies, it may go down.
The reverse is of course true.
Killing undead also increases alignment.

This affects reputation when you liberate towns. For the majority of the game, liberating towns with high alignment units raises your alignment. Low aligned units will lower it.
A good strategy I always employ is to create 1 or 2 high aligned flying units as town liberators. Then I will follow up with a low aligned one to hold it. If you want the best endings and certain special characters, manipulating your reputation is crucial. You have to do it fairly early if you want the Brunhild sword which is required to get the best ending and several good characters.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Whoa you guys are jumping right into this. Nice! Too bad Together Retro is also an RPG, I have a ways to go in PSO.

Someone refresh my memory - about how long is Ogre Battle?