Kichikuou Rance:Walkthrough

All game dates are in the format of Y/MM/W.

Plot constraints
You should keep in mind that there are a few forced phases in the game that constrain what you can do:
 * The Bandit phase: You start the game in a very small tutorial like phase. You will be forced to leave it on 3/06/3, moving to the Leazas phase.
 * Before putting down the Ex Rebellion, the player cannot attack any other faction.
 * You cannot start the war with the Monster Realm unless either the human realm is unified, the Monster Realm is unified,or you delay until 4/11/1.
 * The monster army won't attack immediately once the human realm is unified, unless it is near the end of LP4. They will only attack when the designated date is reached.
 * The game will only enter the creator phase if Kayblis is defeated and the player has conquered every territory (except Shangri-La, which can remain independent).

Important decisions
Kichikuou Rance is a game of decisions. No playthrough needs to be the same, and the best example of this is the branching destinies of each girl.

The following are the most impactful decisions on your game.

Time limits
There are certain time limited objectives. Choosing to do these late will make certain characters inaccessible:
 * To rescue Soul, you must conquer Volga Z by 3/08/3
 * Soul, in turn, is required to recruit Bound.
 * To rescue Sill, you must conquer Volga Z by 4/01/3
 * Sill, in turn, is required for other events, such as keeping Shizuka or recruiting Nagi
 * To rescue Fuuka, you must defeat Orochi by 4/01/4
 * Additional event availabilty can be affected by progressing too fast or too slow.

Buildings
As soon as you enter the Leazas phase, you will gain the ability to build a building. These buildings cost a fair amount and take a while to complete.

Eventually you can build them all, but the order can have an impact on your game:
 * Hospital is often recommended to go first, since it is required to save Merim Tser and Milli Yorks.
 * Maria Research Building is a good option to do early on. It can upgrade Maria's unit stats, and later give you a turret to weaken enemy cities
 * Girl Officer Academy is another good choice, since it is related to 3 other recruitable units
 * Magic Research Building will have options to power up Shizuka, Asuka and Melfeis.
 * The Library will unlock Bound's recruitment as well as an H scene.
 * S&M Tower is required for a number of events, but these aren't particularly urgent, so it's better to build later on.

AL Church offerings
After defeating the rebellion, you will be given the option to keep paying 6500 every month to the AL Church, or make them an enemy (bottom choice).

Refuse to pay
 * Player's maximum troop sizes will decrease
 * The AL Church will attack almost every week with Temple Knights and regular peasant followers
 * Unable to get the happy endings for Sel Catchgolf and Elizabeth Des
 * Cannot recruit Gurwin/Kichikuou Rance

Pay up
 * Can visit the AL Headquarters as a city event if you have conquered the neighbouring Shifteria
 * Can get Elizabeth Des's HCG and happy end
 * Can recruit Gurwin/Kichikuou Rance

Either way, you may attack the AL Church. However, if you cannot take them out in a single week, you will suffer the same defect penalty as when you reject paying them tribute. After the church is defeated, choosing the top option to pretend to be Selbaneot will enable additional events. Picking the bottom option will cause AL followers to attack you randomly.

Housenurse in Shangri-La
Shangri-La can be conquered as soon as you defeat the Ex Rebellion.

After conquering Shangri-La, talk to Shariela and you will be able to visit a hidden dungeon and meet Housenurse. After an event you will be given the option to release Housenurse or keep her captive:

Keep Housenurse captive:
 * Recommended for your first playthrough, because you can use the desert paths to easily attack Helman
 * Sill and Soul are much easier to save this way
 * Even though you can't recruit Kaijuu Prince, since he is mutually exclusive with Hanny King, it's not a big deal

Release Housenurse:
 * You are forced to attack Helman through the mountains
 * Required to recruit Kaiju Prince. This will occur as a very low priority start of turn event
 * Note that you must do this early in the game. You can choose to release Housenurse after you conquer Zeth and Helman but the Kaijuu Prince won't join.

Defeat Mars
Mars is a pretty special unit. If you conquer Mars by force he will attack the Leazas Castle with a bunch of zombies, if you take it via negotiation he will be recruited. However, if recruited, he randomly takes away female units and they are never seen again, so it's better to get rid of him as soon as possible.

Mars can be used in many way:
 * If you conquer by force, when Mars assaults you with his zombies, a quick way to beat him is sending Miki and one general, if Miki uses her nuke, all zombies are killed and the other general can kill mars with ease.
 * It's usually better to let Mars keep attacking each turn, however, as he does little damage in a city and you can farm exp for defensive characters. It's also an easy way to clear and get Haurien's good ending if placed with Barres.
 * Abandoning an attack to the Leazas castle can be used to recruit Ex. This is one of the few ways other than Camilla's attacks to recruit him.
 * Since the Flash Nuke in Zeth forces you to sacrifice at least one character (or two if you don't have Miki), you can recruit Mars shortly before the Flash Nuke events to then sacrifice him afterwards, thus getting rid of Mars before he abducts any characters.

Get Chaos
Rance can harm demons with Nikkou but it's highly recommended to get Chaos since he's needed for a few events and comes with Miki and Kentarou, who are very useful units (Miki is broken and Kentarou can harm demons with Nikkou).

To get Chaos you need to drive off Ray the lightning demon that attacks Leazas. After fighting Ray once there's a scene in which he visits his human lover in Rich. After that scene you can impose a levy once in Rich to get an event and you will get an option to go to her house. You will be given four choices that lead to pretty obvious outcomes. After killing Rei in one way or another(unless you run away) Kayblis will send Dark Lord Sieg to replace him. Visit Cell's church and Sieg will later transform into Rance and obtain Chaos himself. Visit Cell's church again and using Rance to defend against Sieg's attack next time he attacks will get you Chaos instantly.

Patton or Rolex
Shortly after going to war with Helman, if you still have Rick, you will have the option to ally with Patton's faction.

Allying with Patton will let you recruit Patton, Hunty, Freak and Hubert but is mutually exclusive with Rolex and Aristoles.

Minerva's Kalar Crystals
Defeating Micrograd will trigger an event if you haven't visited the Kalar forest beforehand. In the event Minerva will receive an upgrade as she gets Kalar crystals.

Minerva gets crystals
 * Minerva will be much stronger, both attack and defence, making her harder to fight
 * You will be able to get the crystals by levying Micrograd after conquering Helman

Minerva doesn't get crystals
 * Makes Helman an easier fight, but doesn't appear to have any other benefit

Gandhi and Zeth
Gandhi will become unrecruitable if you do not recruit him before the Flash Bomb event. This will, in turn, prevent you from getting Gandhi, Kaoru Quincy Kagura, Wichita Skate, Magic, Chizuko, Anise Sawatari.

Nagi or Shizuka
5 weeks after war with Zeth begins, Shizuka will receive a challenge to a duel as a start of turn event.

The duel, which Shizuka automatically loses, will occur on the 6th week.
 * If you have Sill when the challenge was issued on week 5, and Rance didn't participate in any battles or explorations in the 6th week, then Rance will rescue Shizuka. Otherwise Shizuka will be captured and get her unhappy end at the beginning of Zeth's turn on week 7.
 * If Shizuka was rescued and is in the last battle when capturing Nagi's Tower, Nagi will survive and you can recruit Nagi by dismissing Shizuka

In-depth walkthrough
The game can be generally divided into five main phases:
 * Bandit prologue
 * Rebellion introduction
 * Human realm free play, where the majority of the game takes place, and can be further divided into the general areas of, which can be completed in any order:
 * Leazas(starting point)
 * The City States (including the Free Cities Alliance, the AL Church, and JAPAN)
 * Helman
 * Zeth
 * Dark Lord showdown
 * Creator epilogue(optional, not needed to beat the game)