Ogre Battle
March of the Black Queen
Mechanics FAQ -- draft version 0.2 -- 06.11.2001
by Locke N. <
[email protected]>
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A few words about this FAQ: This is a draft version. It is likely
to contain some poor grammar, etc. It may even contain some bad
information (though I certainly believe, it doesn't), so if you find
anything that doesn't seem right, let me know. If you think something
should be added, or if you would like to contribute send me an email.
New to this Version (0.2):
Questions 12, 13, and 14 were added.
Questions 4, 9, and 10 were updated.
Locke N. <
[email protected]>
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Contents
About this FAQ
Q1) What does the FAQ cover?
Q2) Where can I get this FAQ?
Q3) What if I have a question not answered here?
Q4) Who helped write this FAQ?
Mechanics
Q5) What are STR, INT, and AGI? What do they effect?
Q6) What is ALI? What does it effect?
Q7) What is CHA? What does it effect?
Q8) How can I raise or lower CHA and ALI?
Q9) How can I raise or lower my reputation?
Q10) What is LUK? What does it effect?
Q11) Is it true that certain classes work better together?
Q12) Is there a limit to the number of enemies?
Strategy
Q13) What are some good ways to get lots of money?
Q14) My liberated towns keep getting recaptured, what can I do about that?
Bonus FAQs
Q15) How do I recruit Canopus and Gilbert?
Q16) I'm doing everything right but so and so won't join my army. Why?
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About this FAQ
Q1) What does the FAQ cover?
A1) This FAQ has been written with the intention of answering frequently
asked questions about the mechanics of Ogre Battle. Often times on
the GameFaqs <www.gamefaqs.com> message boards people ask questions
like, "Why does my reputation always go down?" or "How can I fix my
alignment?" The goal of this FAQ is to answer questions like these.
This FAQ is not concerned (at this time) with questions about
character classes, hidden treasure, recruiting characters, how to get
the best ending, etc. Perhaps in the future these issues will be
addressed, but most of these subjects are already handled by other
FAQs and resources. For now, consider this FAQ a companion for the
other FAQs that are out there.
A few non-mechanics questions are thrown into the bonus section,
simply because they are asked so often.
Q2) Where can I get this FAQ?
A2) This FAQ is available from GameFaqs <www.gamefaqs.com>.
Q3) What if I have a question not answered here?
A3) If your question concerns ogre battle, please check with other FAQs
at GameFaqs <www.gamefaqs.com> before sending email to the author of
this FAQ. Another good resource is the message boards located at
GameFaqs. Many friendly and knowledgeable players answer questions
there.
Finally, if you really want to contact the author of this FAQ, email
your questions to <
[email protected]>.
Q4) Who helped write this FAQ?
A4) This FAQ was written by Locke N. Direct contributions have also been
made by:
Soap
The answers provided by writers other than Locke N. are attributed, as
appropriate, in the body of this FAQ.
A full list of credits would likely include the dozens of people who
have contributed to the GameFaqs <www.gamefaqs.com> Ogre Battle message
boards over the years. To those people: Thanks! You know who you are.
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Mechanics
Q5) What are STR, INT, and AGI? What do they effect?
A5) The in-game abbreviations STR, INT, and AGI stand for Strength,
Intelligence, and Agility, respectively. These are the stats that
primarily effect a character's fighting ability.
Generally, characters that use physical attacks (fighters, knights,
etc) will benefit most from elevated STR. Characters that use magic
attacks (back row wizards, valkyries, etc) will benefit most from
a higher INT value. Both physical and magic attackers stand to
benefit from higher AGI. Agility effects both hit percentage and
attack order. So a high agility character will have a better chance
of hitting the enemy as well as dodging the enemy's attacks. Further,
the highest agility character will also go first in battle (usually).
Having the first strike can sometimes be pivotal.
Q6) What is ALI? What does it effect?
A6) In Ogre Battle, ALI stands for Alignment. Each character's ALI is
on a scale between 0 and 100, where 0 represents pure evil and 100
saintly goodness. Alignment has several important effects on game
play.
Firstly, a character's ALI has an effect what classes will be
available to that character. For instance, if a knight's ALI falls
too much he won't be able to become a goody-two-shoes paladin later
in the game--unless of course he can bring his ALI back up to a
suitable level.
Secondly, ALI has a large effect on a character's battle
effectiveness. High ALI characters are at their peak during the day,
while low ALI characters are at their best during the night. Middle
of the road, neutral characters are at their peak during the twilight
between night and day.
Thirdly, ALI has an effect on your army's reputation. This effect
will be discussed in detail in Q9) How can I raise or lower my
reputation?
For discussion on how to modify ALI, check question Q8) How can I
raise or lower CHA and ALI?
Q7) What is CHA? What does it effect?
A7) CHA stands for charisma, and represents each characters leadership
merit. The more charismatic a character the better they'll perform
in a leadership role. Charisma doesn't have nearly the same effect
on game play as ALI does, but it is still important.
Like ALI, CHA has an effect on what classes a character will be able
to become. As a rule of thumb, classes that are capable of being
leaders require a generally high level of charisma. The more advanced
the leader class, the higher the requirement for charisma usually is.
For example, knights can be leaders and as such require a certain
level of charisma. Later when knights can become the more advanced
paladin class, it is required that they have still higher CHA.
Further, the author of this FAQ has a, largely unsubstatiated, theory
that the CHA of a unit leader has a drastic effect on the stat growth
of characters in that unit. If a unit leader has low CHA the other
characters in that unit will eventually become inferior statistically
to characters who were under high CHA leadership. This change is most
noticeable in high level "death squads". A death squad is a unit of
offensively powerful characters who are used to kill the bulk of the
enemy armies at most stages. Death squads will usually end up with
a lot of 0 CHA characters (see Q7 for the reason why) including the
leader. In one game where I had a death squad they finished the game
6 levels higher than most of my other characters. They were under 0
CHA leadership for many of those levels and despite being at higher
levels they had inferior stats (STR, INT, AGI) to many of my other
units.
While, the above is only a theory, it is generally accepted as a good
idea to use high CHA characters in leadership roles.
Q8) How can I raise or lower CHA and ALI?
A8) Charisma and Alignment typically only change in two situations, when
certain tarot cards are drawn and whenever a character kills an enemy
character. Changes in CHA and ALI due to tarot cards are so small
and infrequent that they aren't worth paying attention to.
For this discussion I'll refer to your character who does the
attacking and killing as the "attacker" and the enemy character who
gets killed as the "target".
Alignment and Charisma will go up in the following circumstances:
1) The attacker is at a lower level than the target.
2) The attacker has higher CHA/ALI than the target.
Think of it like this, in situation 1) the attacker is the underdog
and as such is considered the good guy (so ALI goes up) and everybody
loves the underdog (so CHA goes up). In situation 2) if the attacker
has higher ALI he is perceived as the good guy vanquishing the bad
guy. This reinforces the attackers status as being the good guy so
his ALI goes up even more. Notice that class does not matter. If a
Lich (usually considered evil) has 100 ALI and attacks and kills a
Monk (usually considered good) that has 85 ALI, the Lich is playing
the role of the good guy. Also in situation 2) if the attacker has
higher CHA he is going to come off looking better for killing the
low CHA target. So the attacker's CHA will go up. Think of two
politicians going at it in a debate. If one is far more charismatic
than the other, who's going to come off looking good? The higher
CHA character just reinforces the fact that he is very charismatic.
The corrolaries to the above are also true. Alignment and Charisma
will go down if:
1) The attacker is at a higher level that the target.
2) The attacker has lower CHA/ALI than the target.
Also, notice that in 2) it is possible that CHA could go up and ALI
could go down from the same kill if the situation is right.
Another thing to note in 2) is that the difference in CHA/ALI has
to be fairly large. In fact, only 1 point of CHA/ALI will be gained
or lost for every 20 points of difference in the attacker and
target's CHA/ALI.
So how many levels of difference is enough to make an adjustment to
the attacker's CHA/ALI? One point is gained or lost per level of
difference. However, levels of difference are calculated from equal
levels. The exact formulas for CHA/ALI change look something like
this:
Change in CHA = (targetLevel - attackerLevel + k)
+ (attackerCHA - targetCHA)/20
Change in ALI = (targetLevel - attackerLevel + c)
+ (attackerALI - targetALI)/20
Where k,c are some constants that I don't know at the time of this
writing. If I had to guess, I'd say that k is probably 2 and that
c is probably 1. This would mean that if the attacker and the target
had equal levels and equal CHA and ALI, the attacker would get 2 CHA
and 1 ALI for the kill. Hopefully, by the next update of this FAQ
I'll have pinned down the actual values for k and c.
Q9) How can I raise or lower my reputation?
A9) Reputation is the feelings of the common people of the Ogre Battle
world for your army. A high reputation is needed in certain
circumstances while a low reputation is needed in other cases.
Reputation has an effect on story events, recruiting characters, and
the which of several endings you'll receive when you've completed the
game (there are other factors that effect the ending, though).
Reputation is a value between 0 and 100. However, the actual value is
not shown numerically in the game. Rather it is represented by an on-
screen meter. The meter consists of 25 1-pixel thin bars where one
bar represents 4 points of reputation. As a result of this, changes
in reputation are not always noticeable.
Reputation, like ALI and CHA, can change occassionally when you pull
a tarot card. The effect of tarot cards on reputation, though, is
minimal.
Reputation can also change in response to story events. For instance,
certain choices you'll be asked to make can have a positive or
negative effect on your reputation. Also, in the City of Xanadu
stage--before you complete the stage--everytime you liberate the
townspeople, they will whine about how much they hate you and you'll
lose reputation. Most story event changes to reputation are
inconsequential. However, on the City of Xanadu stage they can add
up to be a sizeable decrease in reputation. More will be said about
this in a minute.
There are several easy ways to lose reputation. One such way is to
allow enemy forces to retake a town that you've already liberated.
Another good way to lower reputation is to wait around on a stage for
a large number of days collecting tribute. After a grace period of a
certain number of days (4 or 5, though I'm not sure) you'll start to
lose 1 point of reputation per day. Because of the way the reputation
meter is set up, you'll only actually see this drop in reputation every
four days. This is both a good way to lose reputation and gain large
sums of money. However, be aware that reputation appears to effect the
size of tribute paid by each town. The higher your reputation the more
money the towns will hand over. Since you lose reputation per day you'll
also get paid less and less as you wait around at the completion of each
stage.
The most noticeable changes to reputation come when liberating towns
(temples don't matter). Depending on the average ALI of your
liberating unit you will gain or lose reputation. They higher your
unit's average ALI the more reputation you stand to gain. The lower
your unit's average ALI the more reputation you stand to lose. The
actual amount of reputation you'll lose or gain, though, depends on
the town's morale (if you select the city, morale is the ankh icon).
The higher the morale the more reputation you stand to gain with a
high ALI unit. You'll still gain reputation if you liberate a low
morale town with a high ALI unit, just not as much. Finally, since
you can't do anything about the town's morale, you should concentrate
on only liberating with your highest ALI units (provided, of course,
that you want your reputation to go up).
Q10) What is LUK? What does it effect?
A10) LUK as you might expect, is each character's luck. It is on a scale
from 0 - 100 with 100 being the most lucky. Luck primarily influences
two situations.
1) When you liberate a temple they will sometimes give you a piece
of equipment. The higher the LUK of the liberating unit's leader
the more likely you are to receive a piece of equipment. This is
really noticeable if you liberate a lot of temples with a 100 LUK
led unit. The actual equipment you'll receive seems to chosen
completely at random.
2) When you wipe out an enemy unit, it appears that the average LUK
of the unit that did the wiping out determines whether or not
you'll receive an item. The author of the FAQ hasn't tested this,
but has seen enough anecdotal evidence to believe it is likely
true.
NOTE: Aside from these to effects of LUK, it is also stated in the
game's instruction manual that LUK increased a characters evade rate in
battle. In this author's view, this effect of LUK is not terribly
noticeable.
So how do you increase LUK? Well, some classes have naturally good
luck. For instance, witches and pumpkin heads have fairly high LUK.
Some special characters also have high LUK (Canopus, for example).
Also, normal characters will get a LUK boost whenever a Fool tarot
card is pulled. However, over the course of a whole game it is
unlikely that pulling Fool cards is going to give you an awesome high
LUK unit. What you really need is the MERCHANT item. It calls a
mysterious merchant, called Anywhere Jack, who sells the stat raising
items STR, INT, AGI, and LUK.
Q11) Is it true that certain classes work better together?
A11) Yes, although to be more specific, certain classes work better
under the leadership of certain classes.
Class compatibility works like this: Leadership of certain classes
will give certain other classes a stat bonus. If a class doesn't
like the leadership of another class you'll see a stat penalty. The
bonus or penalty will be between 1 and 3 points to STR, AGI, and INT.
Class compatibility is easy to check, just change leaders. Or create
a new unit. If a character is not in a unit (just in reserves) you
can see their raw stats. When you add him to a new unit, their
stats will change based on class compatibility.
Be careful though, because there is another form of compatibility
at work. If the leader is has superior stats (STR, INT, and AGI)
the characters in his unit will all receive a bonus to their stats.
If the leader has lousy stats, the characters in his unit will all
receive a penalty to their stats. Again, the bonus and penalty is
small and requires a large difference in stats. Also, if a leader
had stupendous strength but is dumb as rocks, the characters in his
unit will likely receive a bonus for STR and a penalty for INT. For
this reason it can be a bad idea to have a wizard leading a strong
character like a dragon. The dragon might get an INT boost, but
it needs STR and that will likely be penalized.
One final note, every leader receives a +1 bonus to STR, INT, and
AGI while they are a leader.
Q12) Is there a limit to the number of enemies?
A12) Yes, though some times it might not seem that way. As an example the
Borders of Sharom stage has only 8 enemy units. The reason that the
number of enemies can sometimes seem infinite, is actually because you
are probably facing the same units multiple times without realizing it.
Under certain circumstances enemy units will retreat, only to return
later for more punishment. For example, if you do a large amount of
damage to the enemy leader, he or she may choose to retreat to the
nearest enemy held town. The unit will then sit on that town until
the leader's HP has been refilled before coming at you again.
Similarly, if the enemy leader is alive, but other characters in his
unit have been killed, the enemy leader may take his unit to a town
or temple to get replacement troops or bring his dead troops back to
life.
Finally, if you kill the enemy leader in a unit without killing all
his charges, they will return to the enemy base. The stage boss will
then replace the leader and send the unit back out.
So what's the moral of the story? It is always best, unless you want
to rack up tons of experience, to completely wipe out enemy units. If
you don't, you'll be forced to fight them again and again. For this
reason, you should always consider whether or not you'll be able to
catch the enemy unit if they decide to retreat. I've found it useful
to have one or two high sky units on the battle field with the sole
purpose of finishing off retreating enemy units.
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Strategy
Q13) What are some good ways to get lots of money?
A13) This answer has been contributed by GameFaqs user Soap.
a) Make cost efficient groups... just because you can fit 5 small units
in a group, this will make your groups expensive, usually make the
smallest and/or cheapest group that you think can survive.
b) Liberate all of the towns in a level before you start liberating
R. Temples... it might not seem like much of a tip but in the larger
levels this will definitely help save cash and I would also recommend
having two high sky movement type liberating groups so you can get
as many of your towns liberated as possible before you get your first
income notification.
c) When revisiting old areas, here's what you can do to save money: In
your opinion leaders group, put a Griffon in it so the group will be
high flying. When searching for hidden treasure/towns/temples don't
deploy any units (this costs you money and you don't recieve money
from levels you have completed)... just use your Opinion Leader's
group to search and when it comes close to the time when you will
get your income notification, just use the return to map option and
then go back into the level and continue searching for your hidden
treasure, etc.
d) Money making trick...
Step 1 - Buy about 4-7 SUNSHINE and MOONBEAM items.
Step 2 - After you get these go into a level and wipe out all of your
opponent's units (see Q12).
Step 3 - Once this occurs send all of your units back except the team
you plan on using to beat the boss.
Step 4 - Ok, now, go into your item menu and use a MOONBEAM.
Step 5 - After using it, get out of your menu... even it it's just
for a second.
Step 5 - Go back into your item menu and use the SUNSHINE.
Step 6 - Get out of your menu and you will recieve money from all of
the towns you have liberated.. and since you sent back all
of your units you should get a large amount of Goth.
Step 7 - Repeat steps 4 - 7 until you have the desired amount of
money or you run out of Moonbeams/Ray of Sunshine
[Editor's Note: If you are patient you can just let time flow
normally, collecting tribute for serveral days in a row without
the use of SUNSHINES and MOONBEAMS, though it does take quite
a bit longer.]
Note: After four or five days you'll start to lose reputation
at a rate of 1 point per day (see Q9).
[Editor's Note: It appears that the amount of tribute you receive
is related to your reputation. The higher your reputation, the
more tribute you'll receive. Therefore, this trick is most useful
when your reputation is full, and the longer you wait around at
the completion of a stage, the less effective this strategy
becomes.]
Q14) My liberated towns keep getting recaptured, what can I do about that?
A13) This answer has been contributed by GameFaqs user Soap.
If you have plenty of money look into purchasing quite a few 7 League
Boots (BOOTS). The first stage where they can be purchased is the
Kastolatian Sea. These boots will allow you to instantly teleport one
of your units to any town (that you've liberated). Please be careful,
BOOTS will only teleport your units to towns, not temples. So if your
team is beaten you will get pushed away from the enemy. A message will
appear that says "So-and-so's unit has finished moving". DO NOT hit the
button to get rid of the message... instead hit the start button and
proceed to access your item menu and use the 7 League Boots to transport
your beaten unit (or any other unit for that matter) to the town that
will soon be taken over.
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Bonus FAQs
Q15) How do I recruit Canopus and Gilbert?
A15) A lot of people have trouble with this one. Just keep in mind that
if at first you get turned down, revisit cities until you get it
right. The order you liberate the cities in the Sharom stage does
not matter. It is the order you visit the cities in, that matters,
and you can keep revisiting the cities until you get it correct.
The actual steps you'll need to recruit Canopus are:
1) Visit the shop town (as of this draft, the name of the town
escapes me). They'll tell you about the Wind Rider Canopus.
2) Visit Canopus. (again the actual name of the town escapes me)
He'll ask you some questions, it doesn't matter how you answer.
3) Re-Visit the shop town. This is the step a lot of people skip.
They'll tell you that Canopus has a sister.
4) Visit Yulia. If you've done everything else and you've liberated
all the cities in the stage, she'll give you the Wings of Victory.
If she turns you down, retrace your steps and try again. She'll
forget the harsh words and still give you the Wings.
5) Re-visit Canopus. At this time he'll offer to join your army.
6) Defeat Gilbert. At which time, Canopus will talk you into sparing
his life. It is a common misconception that you have to fight
Gilbert with Canopus, you don't--though it doesn't hurt.
That's it.
Q16) I'm doing everything right but so and so won't join my army. Why?
A16) If you believe you have all the CHA, ALI, Reputation requirements
met and all the items needed, check the number of units you have
in your army. There is a limit (100) and if you don't have room
for the new character and any characters they join with, they'll
turn you down. If you delete enough characters to make room for
them, they'll join.
