Here is a rundown of how the game works. If you're interested at all in this game read this, if you're not you'll be interested after you read this.
You create multiple "units" before battle. Each unit can consist of 5 characters, or less if you use "large" monster characters that count as two people (so you could have two octopus characters and a knight for instance). Each character is widely customizable. Their are a ton of classes, weapons, armor, ect for characters to use. Classes can be changed based on your characters stats and alignment (leading to good and evil classes). Classes have aside from the obvious difference in stat development different preferences in terrain. Some units move well in mountains, some move well through forests, some hate mountains ect ect. You will have an abundance of characters to tweak and units to create. You will have waaaay more than just a handful of units if you're playing it right. If you love menus and customization you will be in heaven. A ton of time can be spent out of battles just messing with your army.
Once inside a battle you start with one castle and one unit (your main one) deployed. You can instantly start deploying more units to send out into the world. Once deployed you simply select a destination from the map for the unit and it's on it's way. The goal is usually to take the enemy castle which will be guarded by a sort of "boss" unit, or at least a tougher than average unit. There will be numerous towns scattered about the map, along with different terrains to traverse (classes will be very important for getting an advantage in terrain). You can "capture" or "liberate" towns (more on that in a sec) and use them as bases, units heal automatically when inside a friendly town and can get stat bonuses (if I remember correctly). They also tend to have shops for buying equipment, and places to recruit new characters, and also lots of story elements hidden within. Furthermore every day (time passes from day to night in each battle) you get "tribute" from each town, that is to say you receive money for each town in your possession. Depending on your units alignment and the alignment of the town you will either "capture" it or "liberate" it. A "good' unit with capture a wicked town but liberate a righteous town. Capturing towns lowers the alignment of your overall army/nation, where as liberating towns raises your alignment which gives different endings, different storyline branches entirely and the ability to get different story characters and hidden characters.
On the map when your unit gets close to an enemy unit a skirmish breaks out. It is entirely out of your hands, and has everything to do with your preparation of the unit. Units act based on their class, and their position within the unit. Each character gets a certain number of attacks based on their class/weapons/ position in the unit. A knight will attack twice in the front row, but only once in the back row and archer does the opposite for instance. Characters can give stat boosts to one another if they get along well (wicked and good characters don't get along well), or interact in certain ways (certain monster classes for instance get bonuses from being with certain "tamer" classes of humans"). Wizards use different spells depending on how you equip them and the terrain also plays a part. So it's all about the tactics and strategy before the battle begins. You can flank or come up behind an enemy too in order to mess up the arrangement of their characters. A surprise attack from behind will leave their knights in the back row and their vulnerable wizards up front for example. After every character expends all of their attacks (or everybody on one side is dead) the skirmish ends. Whoever did the most damage wins the skirmish. The loser's unit is sent into the distance in the opposite direction of the winning unit losing precious ground being driven backwards. The winning unit proceeds onward.
The amount of depth in the game is staggering. There is waay more stuff I didn't even go into. Such as how you fight units can affect your character's alignments that are in the unit doing the fighting (slaughtering everyone will make them evil, allowing them to retreat gives points for righteousness), or how if two units are moving the fight will take place in the terrain between the two, but if one unit is standing still it will be fought on their terrain (which can be very important). Sooo many tactics, strategies, customizations, thought to be put into every action and decision. Their are an abundance of classes, countless unit combinations, so many different ways to play the game. The story can branch out in different ways depending on the choices you make and their are numerous endings. Any strategy RPG fan MUST play this game, and the N64 one if you can find it anywhere. It is a true classic.
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