Kichikuou Rance:Game mechanics

Before this section is completed, you can also check out Kichikuou Rance:Tutorial/Raw for an old IRC chat log covering this topic.

Overview
This is a turn-based game. Each turn is one week in game time. The player make take several actions in one turn, with the ultimate goal of conquering the continent.

The actions avaiilable each week are:
 * 1 "City Event" (via clicking on a city)
 * 1 Harem action
 * 1 "Troop Management" action (replinish or addtroops)
 * 1 talk to a general
 * 1 visit to the merchant
 * 1 "build" action (if none is taking place)
 * 1 "expedition" (dungeon explorations)
 * Unlimited number of city battles, until you take over one city.
 * Treasures (equipping/de-equipping, no limit)

Battle Mode
At the beginning of battle, the player selects up to 4 generals. The first two troops are in the frontline, while the 3rd and 4th troops are backline. Backline troops can only use (and conversely hit by) arrows, magic, or special attacks. The general status screen shows whether each general's troops are frontline, backline, or are adapt at both.

When a frontline troop is defeated, the troops under it moves up. Because ranged troops tend to have weaker defenses, a common player strategy is to defeat one of the two melee groups first, so the ranged group 3 moves up to the frontline, then the player can easily pound on the weak ranged group.

Each battle consist of 5 rounds. If after 5 rounds neither side is eliminated, the defending side is considered the victor. During each round, when it's your general's time to make a move, the general's name will be in yellow. Select the enemy to have the active general's troops do the default attack. If you right click on the general, more options are available. The options are typically: Normal Attack (if the default attack is magical or ranged), Defend, Auto-Attack, Auto-Defend, and Retreat.

Every battle has a battle field size, the plains size is generally 5000, city field sizes differ. The field size is the maximum number of troops that can fight at once, E.G. A field size of 500 means that only 500 out of 1000 troops may attack. If the unit size is larger, the commander will not attack and will also not be displayed on the battlefield when the unit attacks. When defending a city, the field size will slowly increase (seems to be by 10%) after every battle (this does not apply to the enemy defending their cities against you). If the unit size is smaller than the field size, attacks will have a chance of hitting the commander in addition to the unit.

The damage numbers that appear during battle are as follows : Initial number (Number of attacking troops) followed by the top number (damage done to the unit), bottom number (Damage done by the commander) and the number over the commander potrait is the damage done to the commander, if any.

Generals may have special attacks. To use their special attacks, right click on the general when its his/her turn, select wait, and then at the next round when you right click on the general again the special attack option will be available. Rance and Rick have "snipe" style special attacks that deal damage to the commander directly, but this is generally only useful for killing commanders in battles where the battlefield size is extremely small (such as Adam's Fortress) or to attack Nobunaga directly in Osaka. "Bomb" style attacks typically do 2x or more damage if you wait and use the special attack.

If a general is set to auto-attack or auto-defend, the general will automically attack/defend for the next several rounds. To cancel the auto-mode, you have to wait until another active general's turn, then right-click on the auto general to pick the option that cancels automode. If all of your generals are on auto, there is no way to cancel it.

Generals who die are gone for good. So it's best to have them retreat when it's looking dangerous. Enemy generals who are captured will have a message that they have been injured and cannot move, enemy generals that have been defeated but not killed will have a message that they have been injured but was able to retreat.

Experience from battles is not reduced for sending additional troops, so always send 4 units if possible to gain the most experience. Experience gained seems to differ based on how many enemy units are defeated and how strong the enemies are. Winning battles vs Camilla gives much more xp than vs Lei for example.

Dungeons
Dungeons usually look like caves, holes or other unique features on the world map. Dungeons have a max field size similar to battles and you can ascend/descend floors as you like. Each floor has a random chance of encountering a random enemy (reduced by equipping the Safety Bonsai) and some floors have a set enemy. Treasures are located on set floors (tyically the bottom floor of a dungeon) and bringing Merim may cause her to give a random stat boost to the exploring unit.

Most commanders take penalties when exploring dungeons. The best dungeon explorers are typically Rance, Leila, Julia (improved), Patton, Arlcoate, both girls from the girl's officer academy, Kentarou and mercenaries hired from bluepet, Due to the small field size in dungeons, very strong unit commanders with small unit sizes also work well in dungeons, like the Kaijuu prince.

You cannot send Miki or demons into dungeons. You cannot retreat in dungeons, so make sure to retreat before a battle if the unit size drops too low.