Russia hard route.

[Apollo]

Is there any strategy for beating this one before the EU? They got 3 units of over 4000 troops in the first fight, and our units got their troops halved before the fight even began. Or I should go to Macedonia first? I'm trying to get all the Difficulty Bonuses.

So far the game is ridiculously easy so it was quite a shock, lol.

[Apollo]

Firehawk a écrit :

Sengoku Rance is better all around, so there's little you can do short of playing it again.
And you don't need the USA heroes for Russia, India, China and Mongolia provide enough revenue t build up your armies if you skip enough turns. As for conquering Irkutsk and further, you need to play what you have strategically. Gunners are vulnerable but deal insane damage so if you don't take them out first then you can't possibly win. In the first place, using axe units there is a huge mistake since they have the shortest range while gunners the longest bar artillery. Having swordfighters on the frontline is a must there if you don't want to waste two turns getting close enough to them.

Dealing with Russia pre-Irkutsk is easy especially because they have gunners and cannons in their ranks. I won those fights without much difficulty with 3 spears on the front and 3 gunners at the back.

The problem with Irkutsk is that they have NO gunner. There are 3 swords on the front, 2 spears in middle, and 1 spear at back. The only long range type matchup against spear at that point is Magellan. Her SP and AT are still too low to be of any use against 3 spears.

If I focus the damage on the swords, by the time 1 of them is down, the enemy will have enough brave to spam Needle Rush, wiping out my frontline in a few turns. The best I could do at that point was taking down the 3 swords before my own frontline fell and the gunner got gutted by their spears :P.

I can't focus the damage on the enemy spears either. Without type advantage there's no way for me to bring them down before my frontline falls and the same thing happens. Besides, the only gunners that can safely reach the spears in the middle are Nobunaga and Columbus. The latter has **** SP, so yeah... not enough damage.

Is there anyway to deal with this without skipping turns to get more troops? That can't be the only viable "strategy" for this fight, right?

[Firehawk]

Not if you haven't conquered the EU yet. You can only get help against Russia from them, so either you accept having to waste turns to grind troop numbers or take the easy way out and go for the west first.
Nobunaga is the first gunner you get very early on, so you should have a fairly large unit with her. If you don't, beef her before anything else. A sufficiently strong rifle unit can wipe out the majority if any melee unit even without special skills, and if one takes a healer with them too, it should be enough to give an edge over the enemy. I don't know if Chihaya had his first skill by then, but if he does then putting him mid front lets him attack two enemies at once for good damage, so either he or Nobunaga can finish them fairly quickly.
Like I said, it's not that difficult in the way of strategy, it's simply a question of having enough troops to withstand the first assault. The moment you can, you have won.

[Apollo]

Welp... Thanks. Guess I'll just load an older save and go for EU instead. I don't consider skipping turn to grind troops a "strategy". Had I wanted to do that I would have just turned on Cheat Engine and avoid a lot of time wasted on pressing the End turn button.

My Nobunaga is the third largest unit with 6000 troops now. There are also around 10 other frequently used units with 5500-5800 troops. The rest has 3500-4500 troops each. I don't think it can get much better than that without grinding.

[Firehawk]

That's just it. Grind if east, no grind if west. It's either of those two choices. Since this is a VN with gameplay elements expecting higher levels of challenge would be more what this game can offer.

[nikkuEXE]

It's near impossible to defeat Russia when it first opens up. You should take out everything except the EU. Due to the cold you'll need all your troops at least at 5000. I would recommend investing in two characters and get them into the 7000-8000 range, a tank and a damage inflictor. Equip the tank with multiple damage negating items (I used Benkei).

[Apollo]

nintenic a écrit :

It's near impossible to defeat Russia when it first opens up. You should take out everything except the EU. Due to the cold you'll need all your troops at least at 5000. I would recommend investing in two characters and get them into the 7000-8000 range, a tank and a damage inflictor. Equip the tank with multiple damage negating items (I used Benkei).

Thanks. I just tried this using cheat engine to avoid skipping turns and it kinda worked after 5 tries. It was a very lucky battle since the enemy rarely landed a crit. during the first four they 1 shot my nobunaga with Needle Rush crit :P.

Anyway, that's just to try it out. I'm back to fighting EU atm. I didn't invest that much in tankers and wouldn't be able to reach that number (7000-8000) without skipping turns or cheat engine in my current game, and I don't want to do either of them, so I'll just accept the loss and give up on the last difficulty item :D.

[Murasaki]

Dont know if this topic is still actual, but you don't have to capture russia before lower part of map which called "eu" cause it's not realy eu (left part) and by the time you get the chance to battle real eu you would be able to counquer russia easily (just get smth like 100k for restocking troops). Diff heroes would help you, but my stars were: Nobunaga and Billy the kid

[Apollo]

Shiki a écrit :

Dont know if this topic is still actual, but you don't have to capture russia before lower part of map which called "eu" cause it's not realy eu (left part) and by the time you get the chance to battle real eu you would be able to counquer russia easily (just get smth like 100k for restocking troops). Diff heroes would help you, but my stars were: Nobunaga and Billy the kid

Yeah thanks :D. I actually went on a beat the game awhile ago. Still valid advices for other players though :D.

[Matryoshka]

I got my copy of the game through JAST, but I just did this. It was a nightmare, and I had to abuse a very specific strategy to accomplish it. I made the idiotic mistake of assuming that I'd be able to conquer my way to St. Petersburg through the EU without actually conquering the EU, and I declared war on Russia like 10 turns before I even started fighting them, so they were kind of beefy: almost every unit had 6000-7000 troops, and the country was at Level 3. I just couldn't fathom that they actually expected us to do it this way for the hard route. Anyway, my strategy for almost every battle was this:

Bors in the very middle with the Tamatebako equipped, Himiko (with Love unlocked) behind her. Tutankhamun with Rosetta Stone and Crystal Skull (with Embrace unlocked) also in back row. Oda Nobunaga out in front equipped with both the Imperial Seal and Book of the Dead (+5 brave total when she dies). These four are the essential part of the strategy. I also used Ashoka and Lu Bu for with their hero skills, and even Chihaya for the added attack from Ambition when no one else seemed to fit.

Basically, you immediately let Nobunaga die to earn enough Brave to use Bors' hero skill; this really could be any hero with those two items equipped, but she has poor defense to ensure she dies. The Rosetta Stone amplifies the amount of Brave you earn passively each turn, and that's usually enough to pop a heal off on Bors to get her back up to about 4K troops to maximize her damage output and still have enough to use the skill. I had to retry a few times to get turn order right, but when it worked properly, I was able to severely cripple the enemy before they started going wild on me with their skills. I would occasionally have to move out of the way of high-level cannon skills, but this did it, eventually. When Bors didn't need healing, I would have Tutankhamun swap with Himiko to bring her defense to 10 via Embrace. Then, I would just spam her hero skill to wipe out as many enemy units as possible. You earn Brave so quickly this way that you can sometimes throw in Ashoka's hero skill, which hits all squares that Bors' hero skill doesn't. Also, using Ashoka's usually builds up enough Brave to use Bors', whereas Bors' usually gets an attribute bonus (no brave gain).

It worked, that's all I can say. I didn't skip any turns, and across my entire playthrough, I've only had to waste 3 or 4 action points. Typically, my playstyle is to invade one city per turn, always, and use the rest of my action points for character events and the gold/item events. I usually spend all my money each turn to recruit more troops.

And that's that. It's extremely specific, but the expectations of overcoming armies with more than four times your troops is ridiculous and that's what it took. Considering the item you get is one of the most useful difficulty items, it was probably worth it. That is, if hate actually functions the way it's purported to.*

* It doesn't.

[The Knight of Buquicious]

Matryoshka a écrit :

That is, if hate actually functions the way it's purported to.*

* It doesn't.

Sorry to once again revive this topic but I am just interested in how it does work because I've basically just been avoiding the hate items completely because I don't know how the mechanic works exactly, so since you seem to know how it works, I'd appreciate it if you could explain it.