Brutal King Rance (Kichikuou Rance) Walkthrough

INTRODUCTION

Brutal King Rance (Kichikuou Rance) was released in Japan in December of 1996. It quickly became that country's best-selling "adult" game of all time, and received a fan translation to English in 2015.

The AliceSoft wiki has a walkthrough of this game in English, but it's a problem for a few reasons:

One, it's very poorly organized and it can be hard to find specific information.

Two, it's the only walkthrough on the internet so if that site goes down, that's it for help with this game in English.

And three, though it's mostly accurate I did find some bits of incorrect information and missing things here and there.

Since there are so many complex variables and timed events that can kick off at random times in this game, it's impossible to do a straight walkthrough. This guide instead tells you how to navigate segments of the game and events in a way that won't be too difficult and will let you see most of its content in one pass. It's pretty much impossible to see everything in one go, so this guide focuses on being efficient and making decisions to maximize your general roster and their power to more easily survive the tough late stages of the game. In doing so it skips some optional H scenes, happy endings for certain women and superfluous characters that aren't needed for military purposes.

It's organized in terms of game phases in the order that is best to tackle. The game starts with the Bandit and Leazas Rebellion phases, which you have to go through first. After that my suggested order for the phases is Free Cities / Helman > Zeth / JAPAN > Demon War > Creator Phase

ACRONYMS

BOT - Beginning of turn event. Kicks off automatically at the start of a given turn. When you reload a game, these will play again and might change (which can be used to your advantage with save-scumming sometimes).

EOT - End of turn event. Unlike BOTs, these occur before the turn formally starts, so if you reload a game saved after them you won't see them again.

BASIC GAMEPLAY MECHANICS

The game begins in August of "Year 3", presumably based on the timeframe since the start of the first Rance game. Each turn represents a week of game time.

Each turn can be roughly divided into four types of actions:

• City invasion (attack one enemy city)
• City action (perform one action in a city you control)
• Exploration (enter one dungeon or a "remote area")
• Right-click menu (one each of harem, merchant, talk to generals, replenish or add troops, and construct something)

Battles are pretty simple, but look a little confusing at first just because everything is so basic and moves so fast. Each unit has a commander and a certain amount of troops. Attacks usually whittle down the troops first; when the troops get low, they may hit the general and deplete their HP. Units can lose all their troops and survive a battle, but if the general's HP is depleted it's almost always perma-death for them. Just about every character can be killed permanently. Enemies also usually die permanently when the general runs out of HP, but there are a handful of scripted events here and there where they "run away" indefinitely until some other event flag has been completed.

There are three basic types of units:

• Melee
• Archer
• Mage

Each side has two "front" slots and two "back" slots in each battle. Melee units in the two front slots can only fight each other. Range units in the back slots are safe from melee attacks (as long as two units are in front of them) and can hit any of the enemy units.

Additionally, there is a special class of "demon" units. These can be any of the above three types, but have some special rules. Any regular unit can wipe out their troops, but most cannot do any damage to the demon general. Only demons can damage other demons - you'll get a few demons in your army as the game goes on. Also, Rance can eventually damage demons with a special sword, and there is one other character that can also be equipped with a demon-damaging sword. In total there are about eight units that can damage demons, five are fairly easy to get but the other three are easy to miss.

Battles will end after each unit on each side moves four times. Defending just to run out the clock and end a battle is a valid and necessary strategy at many points, especially against demon enemies that you can't really finish off.

Some units have "special attacks", like the Rance Attack. These will be noted in their description on the "subordinates" screen. The way to do these is to "wait" for a turn (right-click anywhere outside of your own units), then the special attack will appear in that same menu on the next turn. For range units, special attacks are usually just a super-powered attack. For melee units, special attacks usually bypass the troops and do a few points of HP damage directly to the general.

You don't have to worry about stationing units in certain cities to defend them. During the enemy turn, they'll pick a city of yours to attack, then you can teleport up to four available units there. Your units can only fight once per turn, though, while some enemy units in the later stages of the game get to attack twice.

Advanced tip time: take note of "field size" in each area in which you'll be fighting. This determines the maximum of troops that can engage on each side when attacking. So if the field size is only 400, but your unit has 2000 troops, each attack will have only the power of 400 (but only 400 will also be risked with each skirmish). Smaller field sizes favor smaller armies trying to defend against larger forces. Your troop number must also be lower than the field size to directly do damage to an enemy general.

Fighting inside your cities gives you a big defense boost, but usually limits the field size greatly. Ignore what Rance says about civilians being hurt, it's apparently just a joke as there are no negative consequences for defending in cities as much as you want.

When exploring dungeons, you'll be able to start at whatever floor you retreat from the next turn you enter. When events require a weaker unit to enter a dungeon, use a more powerful unit first to get to the necessary floor then the weaker unit can enter at a later turn without having to fight.

DUNGEONS

This guide won't go into detail on dungeons. In general, you want to explore them as soon as they're accessible and you have a free turn. Keep in mind that characters have a special "dungeon" stat line and some have big negatives (like Rick), so you don't want to send just anyone in. Leila and Patton are generally the best choices, if you don't have either then Kentarou. Equip your main dungeon unit with the Safety Bonsai and reserve them for that purpose. Retreat when your unit gets to 1/3 of their troops or below. Bringing Merim along will cause her to find hidden stat upgrades in certain places, but be aware she can also randomly get bitten by a monster during a fight and will die if you don't have the hospital. If you do have it, she'll be unavailable for a few weeks while she recovers.

Only a few dungeons are worth noting. The cave in Helman near the path to Ho-Raga's tower has a Snow Charm on the 12th floor that you'll really want by the end of the game. The key to the Ancient Battleship is found by levying in Path (do it a second time if you levied there to stop the Crusader Army), stop short on the 19th floor with your dungeon unit. On the 20th floor you can choose to press three buttons - 1 gives you a bunch of stat upgrades, 2 gives you +1 attack, 3 gives you +1 HP, 4 and 5 start a fight with a tough enemy. You'll also want to start scaling the Dragon Mountain in Zeth territory as soon as possible, you'll need a few turns as there's a tough dragon battle every five floors. Stop short at the 29th floor. The Ancient Ruins is a joke dungeon with 1000 floors, there is nothing at the bottom but a bonus CGI once you have Chaos. The two treasures in it are useless items.

BANDIT PHASE

This phase is basically a tutorial chapter that really can't be lost. It can last for a while if you want, but the best thing to do is to get out of it as fast as possible (three turns) as there's very little of value here.

In this phase you can only attack two cities - Golak and Vladivostok. Golak is where all the interesting stuff is, and if you want out of this phase ASAP just keep attacking it every turn.

You can talk to units and do harem nights for fun before attacking each turn, but there's little real benefit to it. After the first or second attack on Golak, you'll capture Anisel. H her and she'll tell you about her rival in Golak. Attacking again and finding her triggers the almost-unwinnable battle with Ruberan that ends the bandit phase and starts the "real" game.

Almost-unwinnable? Yeah, actually there's a secret ending here. To get it, grind all your units with Vladivostok battles for as long as you can. Eventually you'll get thrown into the same battle with Ruberan, but if you have Bound and Soul constantly defend, Sill constantly attack with spells and Rance keep doing Rance Attacks, you stand a shot at winning (might have to save-scum to pull it off).

LEAZAS REBELLION PHASE

Once you get control, start building a hospital immediately. It will seem expensive, but don't worry, money never really gets tight in this game. Characters you recruit later have events where they instantly die if you don't have the hospital, but it should be ready well before you get to those events. I won't mention specific building times again, but generally start a new one as soon as one finishes. The best order for this guide is Hospital > Academy > Maria Research (should have Maria by this point to make this available) > Library > Magic Research > S&M Tower.

Also, levy in Leazas on your first turn to get Safety Bonsai, which is really helpful later in the game when you start exploring dungeons. Give this to Leila for now, since she's the best initial unit for dungeons. Don't start doing dungeons until after the rebellion is put down, though, as you'll need all your troops to defend.

The rebels attack in a very predictable way. The weaker group keeps throwing itself at North, the main group keeps throwing itself at Wes. Just wait and defend at both instead of attacking their cities. You can kill Pegasus at North in your first defense if you focus on him. This reduces Ex's attack power. At Wes, focus on chipping down Haurein as you'll capture and recruit her once she's taken out. She's a very good unit that will be useful through the whole game.

Basically, defend North and Wes until you've recruited Huarein and Melfeis. Then press the attack toward Oaks, though the final battle will probably end up being in Ys. When you defeat Ex you automatically end the rebellion and get all those cities back.

When prompted, let Ex go. He's a great general and you'll definitely want him, you can't recruit him just yet but letting him go will let you get him shortly.

This whole period will probably last about a month. During this time, it's best to go through Leila's whole sidequest (see harem section) with your talk and H turns. Also have her and Rick fight together. When you use Menad, try not to replenish her troops unless you really need to for her sidequest as well (see harem section, you can launch into this after Leila). Levy at South at some point to get Mokomoko in your harem, otherwise levy at Prettyria until you get the Ultimate Sweet, then just levy around at high economy cities for money. Use your first dungeon turn on the Thieves Dungeon, the little cave right next to Leazas, and exhaust all conversation with British. Also click on the tower on the island to the north at some point to learn that you can only get there on the first week of the month; no need to go yet, though.

You might see events with Gandhi wandering around during this time. You can respond to these by levying if it's a city you happen to have, but don't worry about missing anything. You just need to see his BOT events a few times and then you can recruit him when you care to.

FREE CITIES / HELMAN PHASE

The conventional thing to do is fight on one front at a time, but you can't really do that if you want to rescue Soul and Sill from Volgo Z in time (Soul is executed in month 8, Sill kills herself when it turns over to year 4).

Fortunately, the free cities to the south don't try to invade when you attack them. So focus on getting to Volgo Z while also acquiring the free cities at first.

Demons will also start attacking every turn now. But they're easy to run off. At first, focus on just running them off ASAP by damaging the lead general with Rance Attack or Meglass's High Speed. If they aren't available, pick a good defensive unit like Cordoba and have them defend in the city until the 4 turn limit runs out. Miki can also be used by herself as a meat shield as she can't be killed, and her attack might wipe out an enemy unit.

The easiest way to get to Volgo Z is to take Shangri-La, a quest line that you can start immediately (and is best to because it will eat a month of your time automatically). You won't have to defend against demons during this quest line. To start it just attack Shangri-La, send any two front line troops as you'll only have to fight a few very weak units. You'll fail the first turn, but next turn you'll get a BOT event where you're invited there for a feast. Rance automatically accepts and you'll pass four turns there, culminating in a one-on-one fight with a genie that Rance should be able to win easily just by normally attacking. When you get back to Leazas, H Shariela at the first opportunity to learn about the secret room in Shangri-La. That will now be an option when you click on the city. Choose to keep Housenurse imprisoned and you can now move from Shangri-La into both Helman and Zeth. Enemies will not be able to go through Shangri-La.

Shangri-La gives you a direct path to Volgo Z, which is guarded only by one mediocre melee unit and maybe one mediocre archer unit. You'll easily rescue Soul and Sill, but war with Helman will begin and they will now attack you every turn. How many units they attack with depends on how far you go into their territory. If you've gone no further than Volgo Z, only their 1st Army will attack - most of it is no big deal but it does have commander Lelyukov, who packs a real punch with his attacks. Abandon Volgo Z when they attack; this forces them to attack through the mountains in future turns, and they can only send one unit through which is easily defended from your fortresses there.

You can let this situation sit indefinitely without losing access to anything as long as you go no further into Helman for now. So we'll focus on what to do in the Free States first, then the best Helman strategy assuming you jumped from Shangri-La to Volgo Z.

BUT FIRST, one very important Helman side quest that will kick off soon now that you attacked one of their territories. Two to four weeks after attacking Volgo Z, you'll see an EOT event with a ninja girl named Freya in your territory. It's important to start tracking her down, as she's now going to spend a series of turns visiting each of your starting towns randomly (not anything conquered outside of the rebellion cities) and when she's done she will have poisoned all your food and you lose literally all of your money. That's too much of a setback to recover from so it's basically a game-ender.

Every turn from the one where you see her "begin her sabotage campaign" in the EOT event, she will move to one of your random cities. You're supposed to get notice from Maris in a BOT event as to which one she's in, but the problem is that event seems to get the lowest priority and there are heaps of BOT events going on during this time, so it's possible you might never see any of these warnings. Once she starts sabotaging, use your city turn every turn to check cities (by levying), save-scum if you have to if Maris doesn't tell you which one she's in. It's tedious, but it's very important because catching her takes four turns and it's so devastating if you don't.

The first three times, she'll escape. After the third encounter, call the merchant and there is now a "Ninja Birdlime" item available. Buy that, and once it's in your inventory you'll automatically catch her the next time you find her. When given a choice, you have to recruit her as she'll just complete the sabotage if you let her go. You now have another ninja for scouting, which will be quite useful shortly. You can't seem to harem her though.

So keep Freya in mind while doing other stuff for the next four turns. Another thing to keep in mind is the tower on the island just to the north of your land. You can only access it during the first week of each month. It's a 38 floor dungeon, and there's no purpose to it right now - but there will be eventually. So it's a good idea to send Leila to it (with the Safety Bonsai) and clear a path down to the final floor. You won't get anything yet, but you'll need to get in with Rance later and it's very tough to get him down to the final floor from the beginning in one turn. This way he can just skip in to the final floor later when you need it.

The first Free City up is Zeo. They will just ignore you if you try to negotiate, so you have to attack with force. The civilian guards are weak and will barely scratch any of your units, but there is a big pile to chew through and this might take two attacks. Send Rick, Rance or Barres, Melfeis and Asuka for the best chance of doing it in one turn.

Next in line is Red. This is a key city to get early as you need it to get Chaos, which is extremely helpful and will become unavailable if you don't get it by month 10 or so of year 4. This is the next thing to prioritize with city events after catching Freya. Fortunately, this time you can just negotiate for Red with an empty promise not to pillage (you'll need to do so later to get Gandhi, but there are zero repercussions for it).

Inside Red is Cell's Church. This is the starting point for getting Chaos. Visit Cell whenever it is convenient and Rance will ask for it back. The "test" answers don't matter, you won't get it. The next part of this is dealing with Lei, a demon who should appear for occasional attacks two or three weeks after the demons first attack you. After a couple of Lei attacks, you'll get an EOT in which he visits a woman named Mary in Rich. You can now levy in Rich to find Mary's house, but it will take another turn to actually visit it. When you do, Lei shows up to fight. It doesn't matter what you pick (except "run away" which just forces you to do this again sometime), but "fair fight" is recommended as Rance can take him easily and it's some bonus experience for him. Either way, Lei dies and will be replaced the next turn by a new demon named Seig who is a shapeshifter. If you've seen Cell, there will be a EOT event where Seig pretends to be Rance and gets Chaos from her. You then need to visit Cell again to learn what happened (Rance saves her from bandits). Once that has happened, when the demons attack use a ninja to see who is in the army then send Rance to fight Seig. Have Rance attack him once and he automatically gets Chaos back. If you have Rance fight Seig on the plains in future battles, he can easily trash him solo in one or two fights. Seig doesn't heal personal damage between fights and is dead for good when you run his HP out.

Once Seig is dead, demon attacks become trivial to repel. You can't kill Camilla or La Seizel, so just focus on running them off. La Seizel attacks fairly often, and it's good to whittle her troops down occasionally as she'll build a big pile after a while. Camilla is lazy and rarely attacks. Use Miki as a meat shield to defend, maybe including a decent melee unit and a couple of other units you aren't using to soak up experience or chop down La Seizel's troops when needed. La Seizel will leave due to an automatic plot event around the beginning-middle of year 4 somewhere, Camilla will not leave until you go to war with the demon world (near the end of year 4).

Back to the Free Cities, which you can keep marching through while this is going on. Next up is Lazeal. If you negotiate, you have the option of taking it now or waiting a month. There is no point to waiting a month unless you want Raylee (the secretary) for your harem. Nothing else to be gained for it. If you don't really care about H scenes I would take it right away.

Next in line is Custom, but you may want to wait on this a little bit. Reason being is that you'll get Milli of the Random Death Events, and the stuff to prevent her first possible death is not quite yet in place. So at this point I divert to Rockearth on the other side. This can be negotiated for. If you promise to overlook the DX you get Aoi (harem only) on a subsequent visit and you can get more money from them. There really isn't a reason not to, the only bad thing they can do is kidnap Mokomoko if she's still at large and she's probably either safe in your harem already or you don't care about her.

After Rockearth is Ice. Series fans might recognize this as Rance's hometown. Once you capture it, you can visit his house, but nothing seems to happen except a little dialogue scene with Athena 2.0. No Keith Guild in this game, sorry. Anyway, if you negotiate the mayor of Ice gives up the town immediately.

All that's left for now in this chain is Diptheria. Like Zeo, this is a mandatory fight as the mayor won't show up for negotiations. An easy fight but against a big pile of civilians.

On the other side, you can start with Hanna. Negotiate and pay the mayor a small bribe to take over and learn about the strategist Shinoda, whose house you can now visit. You can't get him until you take over neighboring M Land, though.

M Land is another easy takeover by negotiating. You get the choice to operate it at a loss and add Sayori to your harem, or be forced into fighting for it (which kills Sayori and cuts off Shinoda). H Sayori once in your harem and then visit Shinoda a couple of times and you'll get the option to marry her off to him for his services. This is her "unhappy end" but really, what was her alternative, running a taxpayer-subsidized theme park by herself and becoming a spinster? The guy may be a little weird but he's in shape and he dotes on her. The only other thing you can do with Sayori is take her to the amusement park and let her go, which gives her happy end but nothing else. So you might as well trade her off for Shinoda, who is pretty useful at times. His unit can't fight for crap, but he has a 100% rate of strategy success and will give you huge advantages in battle.

It's good to divert to Helman at this point as the remaining Free Cities (Custom, Mars, Portugal) all have good strategic reasons to put them off for a bit (they all kick off timers that you aren't prepared for yet).

The trick to Helman is to know what areas trigger what armies to attack. Right now, you're only dealing with the 1st Army (Lelyukov). That remains the case as long as you only capture cities to the north and east that branch off from Volgo Z. So the first goal is to stay in that area and deal with Lelyukov before triggering anything else in Helman. Don't take Sudoko 13 yet as that triggers a bunch of annoying stuff.

The way to take Lelyukov is to capture whichever Log it is that's connected to Volgo Z (I think Log B) and use its high defensive power to wear him out over a few turns. You can't wait on the Leazas side for this as he'll only ever send the one Oddses unit across and they'll replenish when killed. If you abandoned Volgo Z after the rescue, it should be held by the same lone loser with limited troops, send Rick and a decent attacker with the mages to run him out quickly. Taking Log B is a challenge though as you'll have to face the full Lelyukov army with a defensive advantage. Send your best party, and focus on the weaker unit in the front two slots, you just need to wipe one unit out to make him retreat. When defending Log B, use two good defenders (I liked Cordoba and Ex) backed by Melfeis and focus on getting his archers into one of the front slots then wiping them out. With them gone, it's safe to add Asuka for more firepower. Hold off on attacking Lelyukov himself until you see an event at Amigrad where he stays behind with a small force to guard his daughter's wedding. DO NOT attack during this turn if you want to recruit him (if you just want to kill him this is the best opportunity). After this scene you can beat him down and once he's captured, put him in your dungeon for now. You then need to take Amigrad and levy there to capture his daughter, use her as leverage to get him to join your army.

Make sure your army is replenished before you take Sudoku 13. Capturing it is no problem (should just be civilians) but kicks off a couple of timed things and some new Helman general attacks every turn. Also, when using Kinkaid to take over a town, you may get a CG where his troops start pillaging and raping. You'll get a choice to execute him for it, but there's no point in doing so and just lose a useful unit.

The main one to be wary of is the 4th Army, headed by Nero. He has a commander named Cream who can be recruited upon defeat, but there is a time limit. You have only three battles with Nero to either kill him or beat Cream's unit. Otherwise, at the end of the third battle, Nero murders Cream for constantly questioning his battle strategies. She's a good tactician, not really necessary though and more of a completist thing, so don't stress if you miss her and just want to beat the game once. If you're shooting for Cream, you need to make the most of every battle starting with the first. The easiest way is to kill Nero, since he always shows up but Cream does only sometimes. Nero is also a fairly weak mage and has only 600 troops. Put your two best offensive units in and focus on getting Nero up to the 2nd slot so they can hammer him, also the mages to pound the weakest melee unit first to move him up the ladder.

After either 12 turns since taking Volgo Z or upon taking Sudori 10, the 5th Army will also mobilize. This is headed by Rolex and has two recruitables, Saulina and Katyusha. Though they fight against you, when recruited they are just harem girls unfortunately. To get them you just need to beat each of them before Rolex. To get Rolex, you'll have to opt to not ally with Patton and also manage to not kill him for a while. Rolex is arguably the best melee unit in the game, with a special attack that halves the enemy's troops (which is super useful in the late stages). However, Patton's forces give you the game's best mage (Hanty) who is also super useful all the way through the game, and also Freak who is a mediocre mage but is part of a plot event that makes one of the most annoying late-game generals much easier to kill. Up to you.

If you want to ally with Patton, you might as well do it as soon as it's convenient. After you've seen the scene where he visits Rick in Leazas, you can meet with him by attacking his territory. Agree to ally and you get him, Hubert, Hanty and Freak plus two free Helman territories. Hanty is an awesome mage who shreds everything she attacks, Freak is very meh but is a big help in a demon fight much later on. Patton is up there with Leila as the game's best dungeon diver, and Hubert is a pretty good defensive fighter.

A little after the 5th Army starts attacking, the Crusader Army will also start attacking. This is an annoying monster army based out of Path that only stops when you conquer Helman (by taking Lang Bau) or if you conquer Path (and then levy if the Crusaders have already appeared). I found it most convenient to just throw Cecil the busty mercenary at them by herself with 5000 troops, then just re-recruit her the next turn.

The 2nd Army is headed by Aristotles, who can only be recruited if you turn down Patton. You have to keep Patton and Rolex alive until you've conquered Helman and then for some weeks after, which is annoying. You can kill Patton after Aristotles joins though. There will eventually be an event where you can choose to trade Shiela (who enters your harem after conquering Lang Bau) for his services. This is also the way to get Rolex. Once you have Aristotles, levy in Sudori 10 to get him. I don't think they're worth all the trouble over just getting Patton's forces right away.

You can put Ruberan (the female general who spanked you in the bandit phase) in your harem by conquering Ancient Ruins before you conquer Lang Bau, but there seems to be no way to make her a general. This option is also not open if Sill died at Volgo Z, as Rance will throw her to his troops.

Last issue in Helman is the 3rd Army, who protect Lang Bau and neighboring Micrograd. Leave Micrograd alone until the other generals have been dealt with. Also, you'll probably want to explore the forest to the west first before taking it, as that opens up the Pastel side quest (which is one where you just visit repeatedly, nothing special to it). If you take Micrograd before visiting the forest, the 3rd Army will raze it and kill all the Kalars, using their crystals to become much more powerful and annoying to fight. Minerva, leader of the 3rd Army, will respawn infinitely until you take Lang Bau.

After taking Lang Bau, the five Helman cities to the west will rebel and go out of your control if you took them. They are just stocked with weak civilians and will sit there waiting for you to take them back, though. The active resistance is over at that point, you can take those whenever you feel like it. If you aren't trying to recruit Aristotles, H Sheila once then have one of your better tactical commanders attack one city. Maris will mention a plan of using Sheila in a nasty way to make them all surrender at once.

With Helman subdued and not having to commit generals to defending their attacks every turn, we can now clean up the Free Cities and kick off those timers, which involve fighting on your next two fronts - Zeth and JAPAN.

ZETH / JAPAN PHASE

Again, because of game time limits, you'll want to pick a fight with Zeth and JAPAN at the same time. JAPAN is easy to keep at bay while still marching through Zeth so it's no big deal.

Let's start with the last of the Free Cities to get some more generals, though. Start with Custom. They surrender without a fight and you get a bunch of useful units - Maria (strong range attacker), Mill (can be built into the game's 2nd best mage eventually), Milli (strong attack-focused fighter like Rick), Eleanor (mediocre mage but good for damage-sponging against magic-users) and Shizuka (3rd best mage w/ a strong charge attack).

So why did we wait so long for this? Well, this also kicks off a random chance every turn of Milli getting snatched right back from you due to "genfluenza." It took about 10 turns for me, but it's inevitable she'll get it at some point. If you don't have the hospital built, she'll die on the spot. If you do, you get what eventually amounts to 40 turns to cure her. Curing her requires you to go to war with Zeth because the cure is in their territory.

It's debatable whether Milli is even worth all this effort. She's one of the few good attack-focused melee units and helps to make Cecil's pile of 5000 warriors attack better, but that's hardly indispensable. You basically have to start two wars early (Zeth and the Demon World) to save her from random death events. However, this path is also a very good one to beating the game, so you might as well keep her. She's Rance's real soul mate after all!

Anyway, the cure. If you don't automatically visit her in the hospital and hear from Aya about herbs that can help, do that. Then you should get an event with Maris suggesting you visit Juliette in the isolated tower to the north. You can only visit on the first of the month. Also, Rance will have to go in for her to show up, but this dungeon is pretty tough for him to clear by himself. There is plenty of time for Leila to clear the dungeon the next 1st and then Rance to go in four turns after that.

I don't think the game tells you this, but you have 20 turns from when Milli enters the hospital before she dies. You can extend this 20 more turns at any time by visiting Cell to get some healing herbs. So we can put this quest on pause for a little bit.

Now let's back up to the remaining free states. Go ahead and take Portugal next. First, Pluepet will ask you to negotiate for it and bribe you. I found it better to negotiate. Attacking it kills off Pluepet and all you get in return is Rebecca in your harem, IF you didn't pay to H her previously. Keeping Pluepet means you can keep hiring the mercenaries which is borderline necessary later in the game when fighting the demons.

This also prompts JAPAN to negotiate with you at the next BOT. If you let Lia handle the negotiations, Leila gets traded for a harem character and you have peace until you attack them. This is actually worth considering. It's true you lose your main dungeon unit, but with some troops added Patton can replace her just fine. And you don't lose a unit overall, because Julia steps in to replace her (this is the only way to get Julia). It's true that Julia is worse, but she can be improved by bringing her to Hanny King. The main reason, though, is that this is the only path to recruiting the incredibly powerful Hanny King. More on that later.

For now, back to JAPAN. If Rance negotiates, it doesn't matter what you pick, you go to war either way. JAPAN has three fighting forces that will alternate attacking Portugal just one time each turn; occasionally they'll take a break and just get a cutscene with Nobunaga puttering around doing stuff. As the cutscenes indicate, Nobunaga is a demon and the rules are the same for him as they are for La Seizel / Camilla. You can't kill him in the field as he'll retreat, but all the other JAPAN units will stay dead. It's best to wear them down gradually as attacking Osaka kicks off some VERY obnoxious random instant death events. Ideally don't attack there until it's down to Nobunaga and one other general. Also, when you see Isoroku prioritize attacking her, as defeating her captures her.

All you need to do with JAPAN right now is just hold off their one weak attack each turn. Back to finishing up the Free Cities. Attack nextdoor Toushin City next. Attacking by force recruits Merim. Sanakia will charge you with a meager 170 or so troops, so just send one decent unit to beat her. Negotiating gets Sanakia's happy end as she doesn't fight, but you also don't get Merim. Fighting her gets her H scene, but then she disappears from the game. There's no way to recruit her.

Hold off on the final Free City (Mars) for just a bit as we start to invade Zeth. You'll see why shortly. Adam Fortress is a pain in the butt to take, fortunately with Shangri-La we can skip straight past it. Don't attack Adam Fortress (unless you have to because you let Housenurse go) as we will use it for something later, related to holding off on getting Mars.

I won't describe attacking each Zeth city as they are all the same, with the exceptions of the ones that house enemy generals. The generic cities always have a tiny 80 troop mage unit and two wall units and are easy to overrun. This is a good place for attack-focused melee units like Rick and Milli up front, then use the safety to get some EXP for weaker range units like Mill (always try to include Mill whenever safe to pump her up for the late game, also Hanty with the Popularity Staff is a good choice).

Zeth will attack you with anywhere from two to eight units every turn, but none is particularly strong. First you have the four leaders, each holed up in one of the towers surrounding the palace. You have to take all four of these plus the palace to conquer Zeth, but initially there's a force field protecting them that won't be down until at least eight weeks of in-game events have passed. Anyway, one to four of these leaders will attack you randomly every turn. The leader never personally attacks, they just dispatch a generic unit of two piles of weak Slaves in the front and two mediocre mages in the back. These will wear down over time, but if you defeat them they will get new ones eventually. The more powerful attacks come from the four generals based in various cities around Zeth. On most turns, only one of these will attack, but occasionally you get a turn where all four attack in a row (you'll see a cutscene where they discuss it before it happens). These are fairly samey - the main general is a pretty strong mage with 1000 troops hiding in the back, with a smaller mage unit and two Slave piles protecting them up front. To defeat them, you can usually defeat the main general in battle to knock them out of the game, or you can overrun the city they are based in. The only ones that you have to overrun a city to beat are the old man and Alex, they will always run away and return otherwise.

The immediate goal is to capture Sabasaba and then Italia to get access to the Holy Gals Dungeon (the little hill area just east of Italia). In Sabasaba you will notice a menu option "Sakura & Pasta"; this is a side quest that doesn't have to be done anytime soon, but will pay big dividends in the late stages of the game. You just have to visit three times and have three different people challenge the cook; on the fourth visit you can pick Rance and win.

Clear Holy Gals Dungeon with your dungeon specialist, then have Rance visit the bottom floor. Welina should appear and Rance will ask about curing Milli. You'll have to re-enter with him on the next turn to automatically bring Milli there and get her cured.

The next target is Tape to the south. This will eliminate two enemy generals when taken over, so good deal there.

Around this time, you should see a BOT event of the Zeth leaders scheming about making a Flash bomb. This is something to keep an eye on, as well as Nagi's plans for Shizuka. Here's how this all unfolds. The first thing to happen will be that Nagi psychically challenges Shizuka. All your mages will hear it, but only Sill bothers to tell Rance about it. At this point, you can choose to save Shizuka or replace her with Nagi. On the next turn, don't use Rance for anything! If he isn't used, he will automatically appear during the duel to save Shizuka's life. If he is used, he won't be there and Shizuka gets captured and used to make the Flash bomb (pretty nasty death). But even if you save Shizuka, the bomb will be made with Annis instead.

Finally, back to Mars. Negotiate to meet Mars the Great, a suspicious character who seems eager to be a general. This is because after a few turns, he'll start seducing female generals (or possibly your Special Room girls) and kidnapping them. Once he takes one they are gone from the game forever, and he will either take five of them or all of the Special Room girls in total. However, if you choose to fight, you get the city but he shows up at Leazas with a giant army of zombies that replenishes every turn and keeps doing it until he's killed. The zombie route can actually be useful for grinding EXP and as a way to recruit Ex if you missed him before. If you just want to dispose of him, the easiest way is to recruit him.

About three turns after Shizuka's duel, you should get a BOT in which Papaya says the Flash is ready. The Flash will automatically be launched at the next Zeth city you attack with at least two units. Attacking with one unit doesn't seem to trigger it. When it hits the city, it wipes out your two units and reduces the city to 0 economy and 2000 field size (though any special stuff like Sakura & Pasta will still be there).

So this is why we waited to get Mars. Send him and Miki to Adam's Fortress (which has crap economy and no purpose to us anyway) to trigger the Flash after Papaya mentions it is ready. After selecting your units, a cutscene should trigger right away. If you go into battle, it didn't work for some reason. Mars will be dead and Miki will be OK (since she's invulnerable). Bye Mars.

With the Flash out of the way you can resume your offensive. There is one more in Zeth Palace, but we don't have to worry about that until we get there. The use of the Flash outrages Gandhi, he reveals his secret identity to Rance and will now deploy in Zeth territory. He also disables the force fields preventing you from reaching the four towers. Handy guy.

You have a choice to make regarding recruiting Gandhi's daughter Magic. She's a good mage, but you'll have more good mages than you can use by the late game. You will almost certainly have to trade one of your units for her, and most likely one of your good mages. Here's how that works. If you don't want her, just take over her tower before you take over Old Zeth (which also takes out Alex), or take Old Zeth and then overrun her tower in one turn. This shouldn't be too hard with your best attacking units. If you do want her, you have to lose one attack on her tower after taking Old Zeth. There is then an EOT in which she goes nuts due to Alex being killed at Old Zeth and summons a demon to attack Leazas, who will not stop until he kills 800 people. The demon will immediately attack during the EOT phase, and he always seems to pick a unit with far less than 800 - usually a good mage like Hanty. The demon has special battle rules and will not stop attacking until the general is dead, and most likely the unit won't be able to damage him, so basically whoever he attacks in that first turn is gone from the game. I don't recommend getting Magic because of this, but that's how you do it. Whatever route you take, Gandhi doesn't care at all what happens to his daughter and won't leave you. Cold guy.

Next target is Old Zeth. This will finally dispose of the old man general once taken over, it also removes Alex from the game if you didn't already take Magic's tower. So that's it for the four generals, now we just have the four towers (maybe three for you) and palace to deal with. There isn't much purpose to taking any more Zeth territory besides the towers and palace, when these fall you get everything else automatically.

You need to take out Papaya's tower before taking Zeth Palace, or the palace goes boom. But it's best to wait to conquer Papaya until the magic research facility is either done or at least within a couple of weeks of being done (you can check by trying to Build while it's underway).

If you need to divert, you can go take Nagi's tower (the northeast one) instead. This is a straightforward battle, but bring Shizuka along for some extra scenes. If you want to trade Shizuka for Nagi, this is where you do it (I never saw a point to this strategically, though I think this is how Shizuka gets her happy ending).

From there you can jump to Chizuko's tower in the northwest. Be sure to have Gandhi in the party when you take over the tower to recruit her. She's an OK mage unit and a harem entry.

If you're well ahead of schedule (nowhere near the year 4 month 11 deadline when the demons attack), there is some strategic value in leaving at least one of these towers standing for a while. Conquering the final one flips the "conquered Zeth" flag, which along with taking Lang Bau in Helman flips the "united humanity" flag (JAPAN, Helman western holdouts, AL Church don't count toward this) which can prompt the demons to attack earlier. You want to hold that off for as long as possible to build up, so consider leaving Papaya or one of the others alone for a while and just rebuffing their weak attacks (also helps grind EXP for units that need it).

Assuming you want to do that, we'll go back to dealing with the rest of the world. JAPAN should be fairly worn down by now. If you have Isokoru and have taken them down to Nobunaga and one or two other generals, it's a good time to take over Osaka. If you need to kill some more time, you can take back the Helman western cities manually (if you didn't use the brutal Sheila tactic already) and take out the AL Church, or clean up any dungeons you haven't cleared out yet.

Let's cover the AL Church first. If you want, you can burn city turns visiting them for a random chance of first getting Elizabeth Dea (harem girl) and then a Templar knight unit (OK but needs a lot of expensive troops added to be useful in the late game). City turns are at a premium in this stage of the game, so I didn't think it was worth it. Send strong units to attack, as you need to take them out in one turn. Once you do, Rance will pretend to be Sabobat and trick the people into thinking the church supports him. It says that you need to stop back every two months or so, but I never got a warning event about that. All that happens if you return is a couple of H scenes with Cell eventually, then a scene about a growing opposition that seems like the start of a side quest but just repeats endlessly and never goes anywhere.

Alright, JAPAN next. Take the first city if you didn't already for the Fuuka sidequest, there will be no negative repercussions yet. Bad things don't happen until you attack Osaka and fail, which will probably happen at least once as you have to chip away at Nobunaga with Rance, Kentarou and Satella (you can also try nuking him with Miki).

Here's the problem with Osaka. After a failed attack on it, Nobunaga dispatches his two ninja. One will eventually try to kill Rance, but takes so long (and is stopped automatically by Kanami) that you probably won't even encounter that scene. The other is a real bastard. He will immediately start causing EOT problems. Each turn he has a random chance of either playing some stupid harmless prank, taking 25% of your money, or trying to assassinate a random general. If the general was used that turn, he'll succeed (if they weren't used they block it automatically). You'll probably have to suffer at least two turns of this and may have to save-scum if he happens to get a general. I got off easy, for me he coated the halls in shit the first turn then failed at killing Rick the second.

When you conquer Osaka, you absolutely have to choose to go up the burning stairs or you can't get into the final phase of the game leading to the true ending. This gets you Kou, who has to be H'd exactly four times at some point prior to conquering the demon world or the game will end there with the generic OK ending. You can levy in Osaka for a harem girl after this, though it gets her unhappy ending.

All that remains is the city to the north, which has nothing but one weak unit of fleeing fighters. Nothing special there, but it has the strongest economy in the game and provides the most gold per turn so definitely grab it.

The demons attack around year 4 month 11's beginning, but it's actually good to get the jump on them just a little bit. You want to take the game to month 10 before attacking them. So if you have time to kill, clean up side quests and levy cities while adding troops to key units.

Now, Papaya and the last of Zeth. Taking her tower is a straightforward and not difficult fight. However, you find that she has planted a Flash bomb in the palace but won't say where it is. You need to visit her in the dungeon the next two turns to H it out of her. Then, capture Zeth Palace if you haven't already and pick the Zeth Palace option in its menu to discover the bomb. Now, the reason why building the magic research facility before this point was important. If it's open, you get the option of making Papaya a slave in it, which speeds up research. If it isn't open, you only get the choice of throwing her to your men.

DEMON WAR PHASE

Around the 9th month of year 4, you'll see a series of EOT cutscenes in which Kayblis eventually takes over the demon world. You can wait for them to attack in the 11th month (unless you unite humanity early), but it's a little better to attack them just before that.

There's another annoying random instant death event to be aware of here. After the first few weeks of the demon war, there starts being a random chance at the end of every turn that one of the demon generals (Medusa) will snatch one of your generals and kill them instantly. There's no way to prevent this, all you can do is re-load and re-play the whole last turn. She always takes three in this order: Milli, Isoroku, Kaori (ok technically two generals and one ninja). None of them are super useful, but if you want to prevent this you'll want to use the opening turns of the war to start cutting a path to Medusa as the only way to stop it is to kill her. The guide will proceed as if you want to do this as it's actually a good way to take them on, plus it lets you recruit another useful demon unit and keep it from attacking you.

So the first target is Tearing Forest, aiming to first take out Camilla and then Medusa afterward (Medusa is in Kayblis Castle, Kayblis has moved up north to the Demon Lord's castle). Unless you're fighting a place where a demon general is stationed, the demon territories are always protected by groups of 300-500 monsters with two melee and two mages. They're not particularly strong and should be easy fodder for your better units to overrun in one turn.

You'll also want to reserve a demon-fighting party for the generals, but only for the ones you can kill with brute force (Camilla, Medusa, and eventually Redeye once some plot stuff happens). Rance and Kentarou in the front backed up by Satella is best. For the fourth slot, pick a good mage to help clean up their regular monster troops, and if you're attacking a second time without any monster resistance fill that slot with a good strategist like Shinoda or Arlcoate.

The turn after you attack, the demons will start attacking you. Kayblis designates four specific generals to sortie in your territory - Babolat, Redeye, Kite and Galtia. They will be gradually introduced over four turns, then all four will attack each turn from then on. They also get to attack twice per turn each for some reason, although you can sometimes cut them off after one attack by killing one of their monster units and running them off. Camilla and Medusa will stay in their areas in demon territory. Kesselring and Pi-R will only start attacking after some of the four attacking generals are killed. Kayblis will never leave the Demon Lord Castle (unless you let Pi-R kidnap Miki), but he'll send generic monster units to attack your territory eventually after enough generals are killed. All of the attacking generals have some side quest that either seriously weakens or outright kills them, but the defending ones will just have to be fought to death as-is.

Camilla is the same as she was before, but now she won't run away after taking damage. It may take a couple turns to chip her down.

Once she's defeated, another timed event kicks off. Silky will start eating the souls of certain demons the turn after they're killed (Camilla, Medusa, Kesselring, Redeye and Pi-R). After she eats the first one (most likely Camilla), that starts a three-month timer before she automatically goes off to attack Kayblis. If she gets all five in the time span, she seriously weakens Kayblis but then also dies. However, if she only gets some of them, she gets captured. This choice actually doesn't really matter because you'll probably want to keep Kayblis around to chip at him if you're going on to the true end of the game, and you can't recruit Silky even if she doesn't die. So do whatever.

On defense, the first week you'll just face Babolat at the Great Helman Wall A. He can technically be killed by attacking, but with 400 HP he's gonna take a long time. There is a much easier way. Have a good strategy general (Ex, Arlcoate, etc.) in the battle when he attacks. You will then get a cutscene in which the general realizes they can just dig a giant pit for him. This then becomes a city turn option in the next turn. Dig it at Great Helman Wall A and Babolat is automatically killed in a cutscene during his next attack.

The second week, Redeye starts appearing. He is easily the most annoying demon unit, as he's a strong magic user that will do big damage to even your toughest melee troops (good mages like Hanty and Gandhi stand up better to him, but he also has a pile of thousands of monsters in front of him you need melee units to defend against). For his first attack every week, use Miki by herself and have her auto-attack Redeye every turn and pray that she nukes away a bunch of his troops. For the second battle in the first week, send two high body count defenders in the melee slots (I used Cecil and Kinkaid) and put one of the more powerful mages in the back (Hanty, Gandhi, Shizuka) and have them chip away at Redeye's troops. Put Freak in the fourth slot and have him attack Redeye twice to get two conversations between them; in the second one Freak should say something like "Do I need to become a Toushin?" Then have him defend the next two turns and pray Redeye doesn't keep attacking him because he'll probably die. Freak's side quest is the fastest way to get rid of him, but if you don't have him you'll have another option to shortcut him eventually (albeit a more brutal one). For all future defenses against Redeye, make sure the cannon in North is pointed at Helman B, use Miki in the first turn to try to whittle down whoever needs it most, then I just kept using Cecil and re-hiring her for the second turn. After two or three turns, you'll get a BOT in which Freak goes off to Siberia to unearth a Toushin. Two turns after that, during a Redeye fight he'll automatically fly in and a cutscene will ensue that seriously weakens and runs off Redeye for that turn. Unfortunately, Freak's sacrifice doesn't kill him or even get Rona away from him. But now if you manually kill him with your demon-killing unit, he'll stay dead (before he would run off with Rona, now Rance will show up and stab his little eye core thing to death). This saves Rona and gives her happy end. If you don't have Freak, the other option is to just keep waiting for a few turns. Eventually Kanami will try and fail to abduct Rona, a few more turns pass, then you have the option of having a ninja of your choice just assassinate her which automatically kills off Redeye. It takes longer to wait for this to unfold than it does to sic Freak on him right away, though.

Let's go back to the offensive front for now. Next up is the Blue House, which is weakly defended by the dog apostle. You can use weaker attack-focused units like Rick and the backup mage units to handle this one. After the battle the dog girl will turn into a stuffed animal to hide. The only purpose to finding her is an optional H scene, you can march on from here for now. If you want to do it later you have to take Blue House first, spend a city turn searching it, then go into the connected dungeon down to the 50th floor to get the password and return.

By now, Kite should be attacking. All you can do is field some good defensive units to defend against him for three turns. After each turn you'll see him visit Green Village, the third time he'll tell his personal story of turning into a demon. After that, you can visit Green Village and have Rance H Calorie. Somehow Rance discovers the cure for greening disease through his natural lust, so Kite will leave the battle.

On the offensive front, now we're at Kayblis Castle finally. It will probably take two or three turns to wear Medusa down. Her units aren't tough but she has a good amount of personal HP to whittle off. At this point you'll be entering the zone where she can do kidnappings, and fighting her doesn't stop it from happening, so you might have to reload at some point.

After killing Medusa, use a city turn to enter the dungeon in Kayblis Castle. You'll rescue La Hawzel. Next opportunity with a dungeon turn, go to the mountain dungeon along the path near Log A (the specific location moves a little in each game so click around just off the path on both sides until you find it - you'll also see the location when La Seizel first enters it in a cutscene if you're paying attention). You need to get to 30F, then send Rance in. This recruits the Seizel Sisters as a unit, and keeps them from turning into an annoying enemy unit.

The final demon attacker, Galtia, should soon show up. While you want to hold the other three at their respective walls, Galtia is different. When he attacks, immediately abandon the wall. You need him to take two territories to learn he's a glutton and have Maris come up with the plan to leave poisoned food. Galtia will path up from the Wall to Magic's Tower and then turn east past the towers. After you leave poisoned food in his path twice, you learn he can't be poisoned. At this point, you need to have completed the Sakura & Pasta side quest for Martina to show up and offer to cook for him. On the next turn, abandon whatever he attacks, and Martina will show up and cook him ramen so good he switches sides for it. His food expense per turn is almost what you were paying the AL Church, but it's worth it to stop his attacks and he also doesn't cost any money to deploy and will be useful as a defensive unit in a little bit.

From Kayblis Castle it's best to take Red House next (exact same thing as Blue House except with cat girl). This will motivate Kesselring to start attacking, but you need him to go on the offense to beat him. Kesselring is a vampire and can't be permanently killed in battle, but you'll need to beat him once to learn this. Then talk to Meglass or Satella to learn the secret to beating him is destroying his coffin (you might need to invade his home once to trigger this). After learning his secret, invade his home and Rance will learn that he has to wait for Kesselring to physically get far enough away before attacking. You'll have to surrender five territories to him, starting with Papaya's Tower. He'll always take the same path that eventually leads him to South (next turn he'll attack Leazas Castle if you let him). Let him get to South and conquer it, then have Rance choose to sneak in (make sure not to use him during that turn). You'll find his coffin, smash it and end him in a cutscene. He fights a brief duel with Rance but you just have to attack once to end him.

Pi-R will probably go on the offensive around this point. Never use Miki to fight him, or he automatically kidnaps her with his spaceship. That doesn't end the game, but it beefs up Kayblis to an insane level, he immediately starts attacking your territories 6x per turn, and you can't get into the final phase of the game. The trick to beating Pi-R is to first beat his two female generals, which will take a few turns to unfold. They are not demons, so any unit can take them out (not very hard either). H them both on the spot, like greening disease Rance's lust somehow ends up curing them. The second one tells you how to get aboard his ship, which is that suspicious thing just north of Tearing Forest that we couldn't click on until now. Send Rance in to H the cryogenically frozen girl he finds, which makes Pi-R faint and Rance kills him on the spot.

That mops up everyone but Kayblis. Take the most direct path to him, and attack once. You'll lose since he has too much HP for one turn, but that's good because it's needed to get Warg to join your side. She doesn't do anything now, but is critical to the true ending of the game.

While you have Kayblis hemmed up in his castle, use this time to pick up the remaining territories you lost and the rest of the stuff in the demon world. You need to possess every location on the map before beating Kayblis to enter the final game phase and get the true ending. If you don't care about that, just keep throwing your demon-killing unit at him until he wears out. Once his troops are gone, he won't ever replenish them. He will replenish 3 HP per turn, but on his own his attacks aren't enough to kill off a unit in one turn.

Otherwise, just defend against his attacks while mopping up territories, finishing side quests and improving your troops (pump them primarily into defensive fighting units, also Patton and Gandhi are good choices). Once the generals are gone, he gradually sends out up to four of his personal attack units which will attack the closest territory to his castle (the sandy area) every time. These are regular monster units so anyone can fight them, but they cannot damage any of your demons. Turn the North cannon on that spot, then just use Miki and one demon unit per battle (Galtia, Meglass, Satella, Seizel Sisters) to defend without them being able to hurt you.

Also, if you plan to go to Creator Phase, you need to speak to Warg in the harem at least once. There's no way to H, but you need to see her ability to create dreams (pick any option) then play a word game with her. You can go back to see the other dreams if you want. Scary dream is hilarious.

Ideally have some good defensive melee units with around 1500 troops each before you move on. Killing Kayblis is just a matter of wearing him down. Since the field size is 500, it's best to have Rance and Kentarou with less than 500 troops so they can attack directly. If they are over 500, have them focus and use Rance Attack twice per battle. Satella and the Seizels should be no more than 500 maximum so they can always attack directly, but for some reason they barely scratch him and will only take off 1 HP once in a while. Still, better than nothing.

CREATOR PHASE

Once Kayblis is killed, the turn proceeds as normal if you made it to the Creator Phase (own all territories, H Kou four times beforehand, Sill is rescued and alive and not a cow, Warg joined you after the first attack on Kayblis, Kentarou still alive).

Do whatever you need to with the rest of the turn, ending it immediately starts the angel attacks. They will attack 5x per turn, each time targeting a random city. Then they will level two cities with earthquakes, which doesn't remove their menus but does reduce their economy to 0 (like Adam's Fortress after it was Flashed).

The programming in this section is sloppy and terrible, there are so many ways to lose through random events and no fault of your own. Save a separate save file for every week of this phase.

It is possible for the angels to target Leazas Castle and you are screwed if they do. You can fight them off, but once you rebuff them from a territory they will keep attacking it forever (also both of the earthquakes will go there). Also, you can't attack and re-take something you give up. If they take Sabasaba, you lose access to the mountain and are stuck. If they take Siberia, you lose access to Ho-Raga and are stuck. If they take Archgrad, you lose access to Ancient Ruins and are stuck.

Also, if they take Hanna, you are cut off from recruiting a new character and have to be mean to her (though can still proceed to the ending). And you will need Lady Caravan, but it can still "appear" in cities that the angels have taken, and if it does you just have to wait for next week. This is all completely random luck, but you can reload to get a new draw of cities.

It will take at least five turns to get through this phase, and that's if everything goes as well as possible. Here's how they go:

1) Visit Ho-Raga with Kentarou, you just need the opening cutscene where he talks to Nikkou, you don't need to ask a Q and get ass blasted

2) Visit British first (next to Leazas), then first visit to Lady Caravan

3) Visit KD (scale the mountain dungeon to 30th floor) and answer three quiz questions correctly in a row. Answers are Pyramid in Rance 2, Kurupitonians, Imaamu, Pink Unyuun and Yodel. Visit Lady again to recruit her (can skip by H on the first visit)

4) Visit Ho-Raga again with Rance

5) Visit Ancient Ruins, visit Gods Room, place all four statues, enter final fight

The final battle is indirect and Rance doesn't participate. You will need at least four strong defensive units, but ideally you'll use 17 total (not all have to be buff though, but you want at least four great defenders to head up fights).

You have to leave five teams at doorways to fight off giant monsters while Rance and co. first descend to the bottom floor, then ascend and escape. The strongest defensive units should be placed first, as they will have to fight the most. Just auto-defend everyone every turn unless a range fighter (like Gandhi) is safe in the back row and can chip off some enemy troops. You can't kill the monsters but you can reduce their attack greatly by chopping their troops down.

Always use Miki first since she's invincible. She can fight by herself, the kaiju won't do enough damage to kill her.

Send Cecil and Louis (with max troops) in the second group.

Further units kind of depend whose troops you've built up. For my third I had Cordoba and Cafe in front. Fourth was Patton (pumped up to 900 and equipped with Doping Drug) and Kinkaid. Fifth was Barres and Haurein. All backed up with two other units who had decent HP and defense (Menad, Gandhi, Rick, Leila, Ex, Lelyukov, Milli).

When interacting with the final boss, choose Think twice, then Let Warg Handle It when that appears. You have some more fights as Rance and co. escape, then that's it!

That brings us to the end of this basic walkthrough, but not the game's content. There are many more things to discover such as hidden generals, hidden harem members, good and bad endings for each character, alternate game endings, hidden CGIs, character death CGIs and more. You can get leads on some of the generals and harem members below, but that's hardly the end of the secrets ...

GENERALS

Sill

Recruitment: Rescue from Volgo Z before end of 1st month of year 4, then H her in the harem

Use: As the game tells you, Sill is an awful combat unit. Her weak defense and 100 troops means you have to keep her away from enemy range units. The only real use is to pair her with Rance when you don't have a better unit to throw in the back row, as they will sometimes both get a powerful boost randomly in combat when together. Still, it's very important to rescue her and activate her as a general as her presence is needed to protect several other generals and Rance from instant deaths in events, and she's also needed to get into the final phase of the game leading to the true ending.

Soul

Recruitment: Rescue from Volgo Z before 8th month, 3rd week of 1st year, then H her in the harem

Use: Soul has good dungeon bonuses but otherwise sucks. But you already start with Leila for dungeons, who is stronger. Soul's low troop count means she'll get killed quickly in anything but the easiest dungeons in the Leazas / Free States area unless you spend a lot on pumping her up. There's no real point to building or using her unless you're planning to trade Leila to JAPAN and not allying with Patton, then maybe it's worth building her to be your dungeon specialist, otherwise you'll probably never use her.

Bound

Recruitment: See Soul's Harem quest

Use: By the time you get Bound back later in the game, he's virtually useless. His stats are bad and he only has 200 troops. You'll have to pump a lot of level-grinding and money into him to make him useful. I did find one use for him, though - give him the Fog Card (see dungeons section) to keep on hand as an emergency "get out of battle free" card.

Rick

Recruitment: Automatic at start of Leazas Phase

Use: Rick has very good offense, but his defense is actually pretty bad and it's not helped by his low starting troop count. People sometimes assume he's a super-unit based on his appearance and his role in the previous games, then are surprised when they throw him up against strong enemy commanders and their attacks shred his troops. Rick's best role is to pair him with Leila on "mop-up duty", chopping down large groups of weak enemies (especially those holed up in cities) to save the better commanders for tougher battles. If you want him to do more than that you'll need to pay a lot to pump his troops up to 1200+.

Leila

Recruitment: Automatic at start of Leazas Phase

Use: As mentioned with Rick, Leila is a little on the weak side and is best for mop-up detail in battles. She has some bonuses in dungeons, however, so she is your best choice for those in the early going. She will get stomped in battles in the later stages of the game if you don't go to great lengths to power her up.

Menad

Recruitment: Automatic at start of Leazas Phase

Use: With OK all-around stats and 1200 troops, Menad is a good general purpose fighter who can hang in most battles. Just be careful about sending her up against strong demon commanders as she'll often get shredded fast. She's good to throw out for emergency defense in strong cities.

Cordoba

Recruitment: Automatic at start of Leazas Phase. Talk to him three times to get his wife's happy ending. There is an indirect H-scene with her if he dies in battle.

Use: Cordoba is one of the best defensive units in the game, and easily your best for the first half or so. Put him in a city and he can single-handedly hold it against pretty much everyone except for some of the late-game demon units. If you want to get to Volgo Z ASAP to save Sill and Soul but don't want to go straight into an invasion of Helman, you can plop him in Volgo Z by himself and have him rebuff all attacks just by doing auto-defense until you're ready to launch from there. Or sit him in Portugal and rebuff all of JAPAN's attacks until you're ready to deal with them. He's still one of the better choices for defense in the late game but will need a little supporting cast assistance.

Kinkaid

Recruitment: Automatic at start of Leazas Phase.

Use: The very definition of "average", Kinkaid's best quality is his 1500 starting troops. He can overwhelm weaker enemies just with size, and hang in defensively and absorb blows (but not give much back) for stronger enemies.

Menad

Recruitment: Automatic at start of Leazas Phase.

Use: She's pretty much Kinkaid with 250 fewer starting troops. Solid in the beginning but then just kind of goes on the shelf.

Asuka

Recruitment: Automatic at start of Leazas Phase. To get an extra charge attack for her, have her fight with Mill and have Mill attack at least once. She gets infatuated with the summon beasts and this kicks off a string of BOT events where Mill teaches her to summon. Asuka will be out of your army for four or five weeks during this, but Mill will still be available.

Use: Asuka is a fairly weak mage, but will be useful in the early game when you're short on troops. Usually when you conquer Custom and get Shizuka and Maria, you'll have so many better range troops that she's pointless even with her extra charge attack. Low defense and troops make her a danger to get killed quickly in any battle with range enemies.

Barres

Recruitment: Automatic at start of Leazas Phase.

Use: Barres is your best starting general and continues to be a good option throughout the game. He's good on both attack and defense and powers up when paired with his daughter, and will pull off a small strategy bonus. They're a good front line tandem for many situations.

Huarein

Recruitment: Beat her during the Leazas Rebellion phase to auto-recruit her.

Use: Huarein has good stats and 1400 troops to start; she's one of the best early units and continues to be a solid unit even late in the game as long as you level her up here and there. I tended to use her and Barres together in the front lines as a city attack team, but they can also defend pretty well too.

Melfeis

Recruitment: Beat her during the Leazas Rebellion phase to auto-recruit her.

Use: Melfeis is a good magic user and the best range unit for the early stages of the game. She'll get a bit overshadowed later once other range units start flooding in but she still has her uses.

Ex

Recruitment: Choose to let him go after defeating him in the rebellion. Wait for an attack on Leazas Castle that doesn't have a cutscene attached to it (don't use the first two demon attacks right after the rebellion for example or the game will end) and then choose to abandon the castle. Ex will step in and defend it then join.

Use: Ex has good all-around stats and also gets a good strategic advantage. He's not the best in the game at any one thing but he's a solid multi-purpose tool. I often paired him with Cordoba for a strategic boost in city defenses.

Gandhi

Recruitment: See his three BOT events in the Free Cities during the beginning of the game. Levy in Zeo, then Red, then Lazeal. There will be an uprising in Poor as a BOT event, choose the "Suppress" option to get Gandhi.

Use: One of the best mage units and also has a high starting troop count and a charge attack. Will be a top range unit pick all game long.

Satella

Recruitment: Joins automatically after Leazas Rebellion is put down

Use: Not a great attacker, she's best as a defensive unit as non-demon units can't damage her. She can damage other demons but she does a crap job of it for some reason.

Meglass

Recruitment: Joins automatically after Leazas Rebellion is put down

Use: Crap defense and offense, but non-demons can't kill him. Most of his use will be charging High Speed and hitting La Seizel and Camilla with it to make them retreat when they attack in the early half of the game. He isn't much use beyond that.

Kentarou

Recruitment: Joins shortly after you obtain Chaos from Seig

Use: One of the few units that can damage demons, Kentarou is best reserved for that purpose. He's decent in dungeons in a pinch though. Talk to him at every opportunity until he learns Rance Attack.

Miki

Recruitment: Joins shortly after you obtain Chaos from Seig

Use: Miki is basically invincible, so she is the game's premium meat shield. She can't attack for anything, but there is a small random chance any of her attacks will perform a super-attack that wipes out the targeted units troops (even if they have thousands) and halve their HP. She needs to stay equipped with a Hirari Lemon, you can either get them from the obvious lemon tree in Helman (once she's eaten the first one she starts with in a cutscene) or buy from Pluepet at that point.

Julia

Recruitment: Takes over Leila's slot automatically if she dies or is traded to JAPAN during initial negotiations, no other way to get her

Use: Julia is a kind of useless unit, but having her opens the path to get the really useful Hanny King (see below).

Shinoda

Recruitment: Take over Hanna and visit his house. At M Land, opt to put Sayori in your harem through negotiation. Return to his house to learn of his desire for her, possibly return one more time to actually give her to him.

Use: Not much of a fighter, but he has a 100% chance of a considerable strategy bonus. The best use of that is in helping to even the field when attacking a fortified enemy position, and sliding him into spots where a range unit in the back row doesn't make sense for some reason.

Patton

Recruitment: Attack his first territory in Helman once he takes over and you get the BOT in which he visits Leazas and talks to Rick about an alliance.

Use: With 500 troops and just OK stats, Patton isn't really a first choice combatant unless the foes are weak. However, he has the best dungeon bonuses of any unit so should be your primary unit for that once you get him. You may want to pump his troops up a bit, however, as he'll still get worn down pretty fast in the tougher dungeons.

Hanty

Recruitment: Joins with Patton

Use: The strongest mage that is easy to get, she is one of your first-choice range units all the way to the end of the game. Only issue is that her troops are very expensive, so she's a good choice for the Popularity Staff to add around 20 more for free with each level up.

Freak

Recruitment: Joins with Patton

Use: A not-great mage who can't take hits, Freak's best use is a sacrifice to more quickly get rid of one of the most annoying demons later in the game as part of a plot event.

Hubert

Recruitment: Joins with Patton

Use: A pretty good fighter, the biggest problem is that he only has 650 troops when joining. Once you get Freya, she will do a support attack for him. After five of those he gets 100 bonus experience points in a screen where she off-screen Hs him.

Lelyukov

Recruitment: Defeat him without having taken advantage of his vulnerability at his daughter's wedding. Choose to imprison then levy at Archgrad to add his daughter to the harem. Talk to him in the dungeon to press him into service.

Use: A very strong defensive unit, at least as good as Cordoba. The issue is he only starts with 600 troops and additions are very expensive.

Cream

Recruitment: Either defeat her in battle before the end of your third battle with Nero's 4th Army, or kill Nero by that time and then get her at your leisure

Use: A good strategist, but a bit high maintenance. She has to be deployed once every two months or she leaves.

Aristoles

Recruitment: You must not ally with Patton. Take over Helman without talking to Patton. He'll join in a BOT after a few turns.

Use: A decent strategic general with decent stats, but kind of middle-of-the-road and starting with 800 troops doesn't help.

Rolex

Recruitment: You must not ally with Patton. First capture his two ladies in battle, keep managing to repel him without killing him until you conquer Helman. Recruit Aristoles then levy in Sudori 10 to get him.

Use: Very good melee unit that is great for crushing large isolated enemy units with his special attack. You have to give up a lot to get him though.

Milli

Recruitment: Take over Custom

Use: She's comparable to Rick, but starts with 200 more troops. Good attacker, not-great defender. Synergizes with the other gals from Custom as well as the mercenary Cecil.

Mill

Recruitment: Take over Custom

Use: Mill is unique in that you can't pay to add troops to her, but she gets about 50 with every level up. Once she's leveled and returned to her adult form (get Merim, wait for a BOT event where they discuss a growth spring, bring Merim and Mill to floor 27 of Uncurse Dungeon) she becomes one of the better magic users in the game. Good choice for the Happiness Ring so she levels faster and thus gains troops faster.

Maria

Recruitment: Take over Custom

Use: A strong range unit that is most useful in the mid-game. Once you get a number of good mages, her use is more limited.

Shizuka

Recruitment: Take over Custom

Use: A strong magic user, she doesn't have the best overall stats but she does have a good charge attack.

Eleanor

Recruitment: Take over Custom

Use: Middle-of-the road mage, her best feature is starting with 500 troops. She doesn't end up having much specific use though.

Somita

Recruitment: Visit Kalar Forest

Use: Decent range unit, but not really needed. Her happy end is to not use her in battle, which turns her into an angel. Use her five times and she turns into a devil (unhappy end). She'll transform into an angel pretty fast if you don't touch her, maybe 10-15 turns after you get her.

Kaiju Prince

Recruitment: Do the Shangri-La subquest before you attack any Zeth or Helman territories. When you visit Shangri-La, opt to free Housenurse. He then stands a small random chance of joining you in a BOT event, but be aware this can take a very long time to happen. If you get him you cannot get Hanny King and vice versa.

Use: An overpowered fighter, there is not much that threatens him until the very end of the game. Since you have to cut off the Shangri-La shortcuts to get him, his first use is in busting through the mountains into Helman to get a foothold there.

Hanny King

Recruitment: Leila has to either die or be traded to JAPAN to get Julia in your army first. Levy in Lazeal and you'll get an Aluminum Axe. Go to the lake north of Lazeal and select the axe. Go through the (tough) Hanny Dungeon to the 66th floor. Send Julia in and she gets a stat boost. Send Rance in on another turn and you can trade Julia for Hanny King. This prevents you from recruiting Kaiju Prince as well.

Use: He's a virtually indestructible magic user who will shred enemy forces, but the very expensive cost to field him makes you think about where to use him

Mars the Great

Recruitment: Attack Mars in the Free States, then negotiate and agree to his terms to make him a general.

Use: Mars is a time bomb. A few turns after you recruit him, he'll pick one of your female generals and start gradually seducing her. Eventually, he kidnaps her and she's gone forever. If you leave him unchecked, he'll do this to five total before leaving your army. So why even recruit him? Well, if you reject him, he keeps throwing himself at your castle with a huge zombie army every turn and is hard to kill. Recruiting him and then killing him off as fast as possible is basically the best way to handle him. You can just send him into battle alone and let him get killed naturally over time, but the fastest way is to save him until you start a war with Zeth then use him to trigger the Flash bomb. See the Zeth section for full details.

Isoroku

Recruitment: Defeat her while fighting JAPAN

Use: Solid range unit that starts with 1200 troops, yet there isn't much specific use for her.

Arlcoate

Recruitment: Build military academy and choose her after the final exam. Don't H her until you've talked to her four times or her stats will be awful.

Use: Even with her enhanced stats, her 500 troops pretty much limit her to defending cities unless you want to spend on pumping her troops. Her 80% strategy is a very nice perk though, making it worth thinking about pumping money into her.

Rafaelia

Recruitment: Build military academy and draft her into service at some point. Ideally after Arlcoate as drafting Rafealia early locks her out.

Use: Rafaelia is kinda like Rick but with fewer starting troops. Very high attack power, but don't let hard hitters get shots at her. She's another one for mook cleanup detail unless you want to spend a lot getting her over 1000 troops.

Aviator

Recruitment: She only joins if you lose both Leila and Julia, slotting into their former commander position. She will never join the harem.

Use: Pretty much a mediocre unit. Getting her closes the military academy so you'll lose Arlcoate and Rafaelia if you haven't got them already.

Magic

Recruitment: Gandhi must be alive for all this and in your army. Take over Old Zeth before attacking her tower. Attack her tower and fail once. There will be an EOT where she summons a demon and sics it on Leazas, likely killing one of your mage units in the process. Take over her tower then visit it with a city turn. Visit Ho Raga with an attractive male character (Rick, Kentarou, Hubert, Ex) to get the Contract Canceler. Next turn visit her tower again.

Use: Not good enough to be worth eating at least one loss of another unit, and possibly two or three depending on how things go.

Nagi

Recruitment: Topple her tower in Zeth with Shizuka in your battle unit

Use: If you recruit her she replaces Shizuka, and is pretty similar.

Chizuka

Recruitment: Topple her tower in Zeth with Gandhi in your battle unit

Use: She's a subpar mage and you'll probably get her late in the game, never really a point to using her.

Galtia

Recruitment: First complete the Sakura & Pasta side quest (challenge with three different women, then with Rance). When he first attacks, cede two territories to him. Put poison in his path twice and cede those two territories as well. On his next attack, abandon the city and he will automatically be recruited.

Use: You're mostly paying him to not attack you, but he has some use. The best use is in defending from Kayblis monster troop attacks, as they can't harm him. He can also damage other demons, though be careful about him getting killed as he can never use troops and only has 12 HP.

Seizel Sisters

Recruitment: Progress in the game until La Hawzel is captured by Medusa and La Seizel retreats into the mountain dungeon. Kill Medusa and use a city turn to enter the dungeon at Kayblis Castle to rescue La Hawzel. Enter the mountain dungeon (near the path to Log A, though the location can change a little from game to game so click around on both sides) and go down to 30F with Rance. This cannot be done if the two sisters merge and begin attacking (small chance of this happening each turn once La Seizel enters the dungeon).

Use: You'll likely get them very late with the demon war already half-won. They can be used to fight demons but their attacks tend to be weak against them. Best use is to intercept Kayblis monster groups at no risk.

Gerwin

Recruitment: Visit the AL Church until Elizabeth is recruited, then visit again until you get Gerwin

Use: Pretty good offensively and defensively, but only 300 troops and it's expensive to add more. He'll be in trouble against good mages. Not really worth the trouble to get.

Cafe

Recruitment: Can only be recruited in Creator Phase. Visit once to learn about the Lady Caravan (can be done before Creator Phase). Learn about the gold statues from Ho-Raga in the first turn of Creator Phase by visiting. Visit Lady Caravan twice after this.

Use: A strong unit, but by the time you get her the only use is as a tank in the final dungeon. She's good for that though.

HAREM

Sill

Recruitment: After the bandit phase, Sill is held in Volgo Z in Helman. You have to rescue her before the end of the first month in year 4 or she'll be executed. After rescuing her, H her once to get her back as a general.

Quests: It's best not to H Sill in the harem at all after that, or at least not until you've conquered Helman. There's no in-game benefit to it and it stands a high chance of kicking off an annoying side-quest that can take Sill out of your army indefinitely when you need her to keep Shizuka alive during the early stages of the Zeth war, and the only solution to it is deep in Helman territory.

Sill's main harem event is the "pink cow" incident. The Alicesoft guide says this happens if you H her more than Lia, but this wasn't my experience. Lia was ahead by a 5-2 count for me when it kicked off. It seems to just have a random chance of happening any time you H her past the first time needed to get her back as a unit. You may also lose the ability to do this if you attack Portugal with force, as Pluepet is part of it.

You'll get a BOT event in which Lia is scheming to get rid of Sill with some mysterious mail-order item. Sometime in the next three turns or so, another BOT event occurs where Maris tells you Sill is missing. At this point, going in and out of the various right-click menus (harem, treasury, commanders etc.) gives you a random chance of an event where you see a pink cow wandering around. After seeing three of these, go to Merchant and there should be an event where Pluepet sees the cow, tells you its an enchanted person and offers you money for it. Reject the offer (or Sill becomes beef stew and is lost forever) and Rance finally figures out the cow is Sill and it appears in the harem. The next turn, there should be a BOT event in which Maris tells you that Ho-Raga might know how to cure her. Ho-Raga is in the tower at the far north of the map, so you'll need to have cleared a path of conquered cities to it in Helman to get there. You have to send an attractive young male for Ho-Raga to perv on (Rance and Rick work, guessing Kentarou might also), and the unit will lose all its troops on the way there unless you have the Snow Charm from the nearby Snow Dungeon (12F). Talk to him until the Cure Sill option pops up and he'll give you the medicine. You can then restore Sill by calling the pink cow in the harem. Your reward for all this is a fat lot of nothing, but you'll likely need to do it anyway if you want to save Shizuka or access the game's "true end."

The only other thing you can do with Sill is buy her a new outfit, which changes her portrait appearance. This appears in the Merchant menu after you've rescued her and H'd her once. After buying it, talk to her to give it.

Soul

Recruitment: Rescue from Volgo Z before week 3 of month 8 in first year, she is automatically added

Quests: She has an easy but kind of long and complicated quest that leads to recruiting Bound and her happy end. H her once and talk to her, wait a while, then H her again after the library is built. It might take a couple tries but she eventually gets a letter that she insists on learning to read herself. Visit the library a couple of times (this can take a long time because the library has lots of other events that can push this out) to see her gradually learn to read from Maria. Eventually she figures out the letter is from Bound. You can then return to the old Bandit Cave in Helman to recruit him. For her happy end, don't H her for a long time and eventually she gets a soldier boyfriend in a couple of BOT scenes.

Lia

Recruitment: Automatic

Quests: No real quests. If you go too long without calling her, you get a different scene in which she brings some random castle girl into the fun.

Maris

Recruitment: Automatic

Quests: No quests, and no need to ever call her if you don't want, though there is no negative to doing so.

Suzume

Recruitment: Pop in and out of the harem screen until she's recruited.

Quests: H her twice and you'll eventually get a BOT scene with her and her father. After that, talk to Barres. H her at least once more to give her her happy ending.

Wendy

Recruitment: Pop in and out of the harem screen until she's recruited.

Quests: She'll refuse Hing at first. To get it, you need the Demon Pot from the Dangerous Hole dungeon. After you get that and have tried Hing her once, you'll eventually get a BOT event where she breaks it by accident. You're then free to H her. To get her happy ending, you need to build the S&M Tower and it will become an option next time you H her.

Menad

Recruitment: Like Leila, talk to her once to get her in the harem but she'll reject your Hing at first ...

Quests: After trying to H her and getting rebuffed, talk to her twice for a couple of training scenes. You then need to get her troops down to around 400 or less at the end of two battles; each time it triggers a scene with her soldier boyfriend complaining. At some point after the second event, you'll get a BOT where Maris mentions the missing treasury funds. Talk to Menad again to conclude the quest and make her available for Hing.

Leila

Recruitment: Talk to her once and she'll show up in harem. She'll refuse to do it at first though. Try it once anyway to make Royal Guard show up in harem. H the Royal Guard, talk to Leila again, then you can H her.

Quests: For her happy end, do all the recruitment stuff and also have her fight with Rick in the same battle four times. It triggers a chain of scenes that ends with her confessing her feelings.

Julia

Recruitment: You only get her if Leila is killed in battle or you let Lia handle the initial negotiations with JAPAN. She takes over Leila's harem and commander slot.

Quests: You can trade Julia for the very powerful Hanny King if you want. Levy in Lazeal until you get the Gold Axe. Equip Julia with it and send her to the lake just north that normally has nothing in it. Don't use the axe. Visit again on another turn with Rance and you can give Julia to Hanny King as a plaything, he then joins you. However, be aware this also shuts down the Military Academy so you lose those two units if you don't have them already (but you also get a unique unit you can't get any other way).

Royal Guards

Recruitment: Talk to Leila once, then try to H her once

Quests: None, but Hing them once is part of getting Leila to H you

Kanami

Recruitment: Automatic at start of Leazas Phase.

Quests: She doesn't really have quests, but does have a string of events that can lead to a non-standard game over. Talking to her gives you opportunities to either abuse her or take it easy on her. Abuse her / don't forgive her at least a couple of times when prompted, H her twice and choose the "rape" option the second time, then send her on a couple missions in Zeth to prompt an event where a ninja named Code comes to kill Rance. Normally Kanami would stop this, but if you pissed her off enough she'll team up with Code to kill Rance!

Haurein

Recruitment: Beat her in battle during the Leazas Rebellion

Quests: There's a little sideline if you go back and forth talking to her and Barres about her getting married that looks like a quest at first, but I don't think it ever actually goes anywhere. Her happy ending is acheived if she hits level 4 while fighting with Barres.

Don't take her to the S&M Tower once built or she'll leave the army and switch to unhappy end.

Melfeis

Recruitment: Beat her in battle during the Leazas Rebellion

Quests: She will have to be H'd once every eight weeks or she goes crazy and leaves the army. It's not really a problem to do this, but to end it send her to the 28F of the Uncurse Dungeon. The game says she loses power from this but I didn't notice a significant drop.

Mokomoko

Recruitment: Levy at South until she joins

Quests: H her twice, then she reveals she just came because her dad kicked her out for bad grades, so Rance kicks her out. Somewhere in the next few turns she'll come back in a BOT event and Rance will take her back. It's all kind of pointless, but if you wait too long to find her in South and the DX Organization is still around they will eventually kidnap her and she's gone from the game.

Kaoru

Recruitment: Joins with Gandhi

Quests: You must H her once to make her available as a ninja

Wichita

Recruitment: Joins with Gandhi

Quests: You must H her twice to make her available as a ninja

Shariela

Recruitment: Joins automatically after you complete the Shangri-La takeover

Quests: No real quests, but you need to H her once to learn about Housenurse in Shangri-La. She needs to be H'd roughly once every three months or she'll turn back into a doll (you get a warning scene the turn before).

Satella

Recruitment: After she joins as a unit, talk to her twice and she'll challenge Rance to a duel. Beat her and she appears in the harem.

Quests: No real quests but she does have a non-standard ending if you H her enough. Eventually she will ask you to become the Demon King, agree and you'll kill Miki and get a short CG and ending.

Aoi

Recruitment: Negotiate to get Rockearth, then come back and visit the DX Association

Quests: After Hing once, you can opt to rehabilitate her. This removes her from harem but gets her happy end.

Sayori

Recruitment: Negotiate to conquer M Land

Quests: No quests of her own, but can be used as a bargaining chip to recruit Shinoda.

Raylee

Recruitment: Negotiate to conquer Lazeal, then agree to their month waiting period. Come back after four turns.

Quests: H her twice, then visit the library once built. The library ghost quest and/or Soul's scenes might need to be finished first. You eventually get a scene of her Hing four guards. Opt to banish her and she gets her happy end.

Elizabeth Dea

Recruitment: Visit the AL Church until she's given to you, can randomly happen anytime after your first visit. Contrary to what another guide says, she will get killed if you conquer AL Church before she is given to you.

Quests: No quests

Amiran

Recruitment: Don't capture Leylukov until you have seen the scene of him defending her wedding. Don't attack him during that turn. Afterwards, capture Lelyukov and opt to imprison him. Then levy in Archgrad.

Quests: No quests, but she is used as a bargaining chip to get Lelyukov to fight for you.

Cream

Recruitment: From the first time you fight Nero's 4th Army, either kill Nero by the end of the third battle or capture Cream by then. If Nero is killed first, you have more time to capture Cream.

Quests: None, but she must be deployed in battle once every two months or she leaves.

Katyusha and Saulina

Recruitment: Capture each in battle before Rolex is killed

Quests: No quests, but if you have both in the harem and try to H one and Sill was not alive / present to warn you about them when they were captured, they will kill Rance.

Ruberan

Recruitment: Save Sill from Volgo Z. Conquer the Ancient Ruins in Helman before you conquer Lang Bau. Visit her in your dungeon three times and she's added to the harem.

Quests: None, but her happy end is if Merim is taken to explore the Ancient Ruins.

Sheila

Recruitment: Automatic when you conquer Lang Bau.

Quests: None, but can be used for a "brutal tactic" to conquer the Helman rebel cities in one fell swoop. This puts her in unhappy end.

Elena

Recruitment: You have to see four events with her in Helman. These can happen randomly any time you defend a Helman territory you captured successfully. This can happen after Helman is conquered, when you're defending from the demons.

Quests: None, but she gives the most exp of any harem girl

Eleanor

Recruitment: Automatic after taking Custom

Quests: No quests, but she will become suicidal after you H her. You have to talk to her afterwards or eventually she kills herself.

Maria

Recruitment: Automatic after taking Custom, but will refuse to H the first time

Quests: No quests relating to H, but you have to try it once to get the plans for her research facility. Trying a second time makes it happen.

Shizuka

Recruitment: Automatic after taking Custom, but will refuse to H at first

Quests: You have to take over Nagi's tower in Zeth and keep her in the party to H. You can then H up to four times. On the fifth attempt she'll leave, but this is actually one path to her happy ending.

Milli

Recruitment: Automatic after taking Custom

Quests: No real quests relating to H, but you'll get a different scene depending on whether Sill is there or not. You can win the Orgasmic Men item in the bunny paradise to get yet another scene with her.

Mill

Recruitment: Automatic after taking Custom, but can't H initially

Quests: You have to restore her adult body before you can H. This requires getting Merim by taking Toushin City by force. Eventually there will be a BOT scene between her and Merim talking about the spring of growth (can take a long time as it gets superceded by a lot of other events). Once that happens have Mill go to 27F of Uncurse Dungeon with Merim along.

Merim

Recruitment: Take Toushin City by force

Quests: No quests related to H

Nagi

Recruitment: Have Shizuka in the battle party when you take over her tower in Zeth, then choose her

Quests: None

Arlcoate

Recruitment: Build military academy and choose her after the final exam.

Quests: You need to build her confidence back up by talking to her four times before Hing her. Hing her early will ruin her stats and give her unhappy ending.

Rafaelia

Recruitment: Build military academy and draft her into service at some point.

Quests: No quests, she can be Hed right away and gets her happy ending by default. She only gets the unhappy ending if you never recruit her from the academy.

Rebecca

Recruitment: Attack Portugal with force to conquer it

Quests: No quests

Isoroku

Recruitment: After getting her as a unit in battle, talk to her once to appear in the harem.

Quests: She only joins the harem to get pregnant. For that to happen you need a hospital built. After you H her twice, there is a random chance each time she'll get pregnant (learn by talking to her). If nine months pass she'll have the baby and you get to pick the name.

Kou

Recruitment: In the cutscene after capturing Osaka, opt to go up the burning stairs to get her.

Quests: She must be H'd four times before defeating Kayblis to enter the final stage of the game. Hing her beyond this leads to a game over.

Makoto

Recruitment: Levy in Osaka after capturing it

Quests: No quests, but finding her is her unhappy ending and never levying in Osaka is her happy ending.

Magic

Recruitment: Complicated recruitment, see her Generals entry

Quests: No quests

Chizuko

Recruitment: Have Gandhi in the battle party when you capture her tower in Zeth

Quests: No quests, but more options will gradually be added to her H scene as you keep doing it.

Annis

Recruitment: Shizuka must have been captured and used to make the Flash. After recruiting Chizuko, levy at her tower.

Quests: No quests

Merci

Recruitment: Levy at Golak

Quests: No real quests, but finding her is her unhappy end and never finding her is her happy end.

Anasel

Recruitment: This is the girl you get sacking Golak during the bandit phase, but then lose. You can get her again later in the game by levying in Golak again after you build the S&M dungeon.

Quests: No real quests, but never finding her the 2nd time (doesn't matter what you do in bandit phase) is her happy end and finding her is the unhappy end.

BUILDINGS

Hospital

The main purpose of this is to keep some very useful characters alive during plot events (Merim and Milli). Once you recruit Milli, every turn she stands a small random chance of coming down with genfluenza, which is instantly fatal if you don't have the hospital (and you can't seem to save-scum out of this). Merim can be randomly bitten during battles in dungeons, and will also die instantly if there is no hospital.

You can't recruit the doctor Aya, but you can get an H scene with her. Talk to her two or three times to see a scene where she tells Rance she'll only have sex with men with Okaya Fever. Bring Rance to Natural Foe Dungeon 10F and there's an Okaya there, which he will kiss if you've seen the Aya scene. Rance can then go talk to her again to H her.

Military Academy

The purpose of this is to give you two new commanders who are decent, if a little limited in their uses. Once built, the pattern is basically to visit then wait a few weeks and visit again. You'll gradually be introduced to the two candidates, Arlcoate and Rafalia. Don't take either out of the academy early when prompted. You'll eventually be scheduled to observe their final exam on a certain week, make note of it as you don't get a reminder with the "think" command. Visit that week and choose Arlcoate (otherwise you'll never get her). Wait 20 turns to visit again and you can then get Rafalia. Refrain from Hing Arlcoate until you've talked to her four times, or her stats will become terrible (H her after the fourth time when Rance says he should call her to the harem).

Maria Research

You need to have recruited Maria, talked to her, tried to H her then talked to her again for this to become available (in the final event she gives Rance plans for the facility).

The first purpose is to increase Maria's attack power by 150% (worthwhile as she's very strong and adding new troops to her unit is cheap). Visit four times for this. If you visit five more times after this, Maria builds a cannon in North that you can use a city turn to fire at a location where the enemy is (or will be). The cannon wipes out 50% of the first front unit. If you keep visiting beyond this, eventually the facility explodes and Maria will die unless the hospital has been built. The only purpose of this seems to be to get an extra CG with her in the hospital.

Library

The only purpose of the library is for a few added H scenes, recruit Bound (if Soul lived) and it plays a role in a couple of happy endings. You need it for Raylee's added scenes and happy end, there's a sub-quest with a ghost for one bonus naughty scene, and it's part of the chain to recruit Bound and give Soul her happy ending.

For the ghost quest, visit until three people have seen it and then Rance should see it next. On the next visit, you can choose a new type of book to add - choose bishounen. The next visit after that, you'll catch the ghost for naughty time.

Magic Research

This will increase the magic power of Sill, Asuka, Melfeis or Shizuka after a certain number of weeks. The problem here is that the first three are kind of useless by the time this is built, and while Shizuka is powerful it also takes 16 weeks to work for her. Still, might as well build and do it as money is no real object in this game.

The only other purpose is for a non-player characters (Papaya) happy ending; you'll need it built by near the end of the Zeth campaign to do this.

SM Tower

No purpose to this other than added H scenes, it gives some of your harem women their unhappy ending when used but also gives Wendy her happy ending.