Entering Turn 14, I've really been pushing my guys. Fighting three wars at the same time is the sort of thing that would instantly game-over somebody playing blind... of course, fighting less than two wars at a time will eventually game-over somebody when the *PLOT* catches up to them much later. One war is always safest, but always be at war, and
if you can handle more, all the better.
I refill Rance's troops and head to prison...
MY POWER IS CAPPED OUT.
AGH.
MY HUBRIS.
Fine let's do other... non battle things.
We can improve the former Ashikaga land with Construction 12 vs Construction 15 for Oda, so we ask our four generics to grant us a mighty +1 National Power. Low value, sure, but it's permanent and it all adds up.
The second thing I'll do is toss 5 more lame prisoners and Pokkuru Rance to 43.
And the third thing... hmm. This won't help our national power but I want to blow a turn and get enough gold to full heal my troops for what I do next. Let's... go dungeon fighting instead!
Dungeon and Map actions are separated, somewhat. The guys I Exhausted with the Construction job can detach from their units and fight alone, and Dungeon Battles are like a party of people fighting monsters instead of army fights. Commanders KO'd in the dungeon become Exhausted, even if they have not done any actions on the map or entered Army Battle, so there is some risk. I throw in my best and start off.
Each spawn is random based on how difficult the dungeon you're in is. Units generally have sameish stats compared to their armies. Heavy hitters deal good damage, etc. Foot Soldiers can even use their Guard Functions, but most other units have changed or reduced functions. Fuuka can heal, but can't Miko Storm. Almost every character has a 1 Flag Normal Attack and an All Flags Strong Attack for 1.5x damage.
Flag use in dungeons is different. It's like a monster gauntlet. This is a 6 floor dungeon, my flags will not replenish between floors, so I need to defeat 6 waves of monsters with the flags I have across all my characters.
: Alright, so you'd see this command and think "Oh, they can switch places?" Useful if you had like 6 melee guys, right? WRONG! Switch will swap the unit out with a random unit you didn't put into your initial party and they'll fly into action with full Action Flags and shit, unless you've already swapped them out and they swap back in again.
This is incredibly important, it vastly increases how far you can go in any dungeon and it's completely non-obvious. If you have all six of your current characters run out of Action Flags, you automatically lose and retreat from the dungeon... even with fresh characters off-screen! Agh!
Rance is inspired in a between-floors scene.
After each wave, you can keep going or retreat. Retreating eats your Action Fan all the same. So why retreat? First off, if you retreat you can come back to the Dungeon at +1/X... or in this case, we'd start at Floor 2/6 instead of Floor 1. This lets you whittle down even the toughest dungeons! Second off, Dungeons randomly give loot at a good rate so it can be useful to farm them for stat books or something. Tragically, you will not be given your 1 Floor Starting Bonus if you go too far and wipe out, so it's dangerous to over-extend.
Much like Army fights, order of units is important. We don't have a turn limit, but take out stuff before it attacks!
After a vicious squid-mauling we come across the final floor and a mini-boss encounter. Freedoms melee, Nyos prepare spells, and the big goofy thing shoots lasers.
A little cut-scene where a Hanniwa explains the benefits. Every dungeon you clear is +1 level to all units, even the slackers off-screen. So with everybody but Rance having reduced level caps, you can see how easy it is for them to cap out and thus not need Pokkurus.
We also get either a set item depending on the dungeon, or a bonus item from a higher class of strong equipable.
Random loot! Very rare, very useful. I'll use it later.
My semi-random dungeon clear bonus! Very practical, I'll drop it on Katsuie for now. Thus ends Turn 14.