Shrines from - Warmonger (warmongr@pacbell.net)
This is who goes to each shrine. The characters stay constant, no matter which warlord you play.
Forest Shrine - Gongos, Reinhart, Teiris
Cape Shrine - Leon, Junon, Mikhal
Snow Shrine - Goldark, Wein
General Tips:
1) Get Gigg and Uryll from Reinhart's army early. They both can use dragons, and can make most of the game a breeze. If your general has no samurai, capture and persuade one of the numerous ninja/samurai generals in Legendra. Unfortunately, they both get unhappy easily. Load them up each with 10 awards on dragons, plus any item, and try to have them fight semi-frequently, or they will become hostile and leave.

2) Try dispersing your troops when fighting mages/archers, pulling off a stone pedestal/quagmire, then meleeing...

3) Give a mage/cleric with the spell Holy Shield some close-range units (i.e. NOT mage/archers), and have them disperse at the beginning of the battle. Let the enemy surround you with troops. Pull off a holy shield, and immediately melee.

4) During domestic affairs, have all your generals search, not fortify. Fortifying occurs automatically in the overhead map, and having items that boost your general's stats/MPs permanently as well as crests (samurai & dragon) really helps later in the game.

5) Zanon (Lightan Castle) is worthless. He is REALLY annoying to kill (your troops take off 1 hp on him, and spells around 5-10 if you're lucky). If you capture him, you get nothing for it (he doesn't join), and in other storylines, he gets killed. (PLEASE NOTE: While playing Reinhart, Zanon will join you. What happens is that Reinhart absorbs the power Eclisis thus freeing Zanon from Eclisis.

6) The only way for holy blast/dark vortex to work (consistantly) is to have your troops special/protect advance, standby close to the middle of the map (hit A to toggle), then pulling the spell off. You have to have your troops standby at the exact place, otherwise either spell will totally miss, and you'll be 3 MPs the loser.
Another Dragon Force Tip
Troops fight more effectively when they are in standby, especially cavalry and samurai. Move them into the desired position and let the enemy's troops come to you. More often than not, your forces will do considerably more damage than his/hers.
New character: Vangal
he is a dragonman who escaped the evil Madruk. You can find him to a town at the east of Fiends Tower. When you stop on the town, the army leader will tell you there is a hidden passage here... so you just have to go with your lord and you will find Vangal (it works with Gongos)... Later, you will have to fight other Dragonmen who comes to beat Vangal.
History of Legendra
For a very lengthy, but enjoyable, story about the history of Legendra, put the Dragon Force cd into your computer's cd drive and open the 2nd notepad file (there are a bunch of others but I can't get any of them except the notepads to work)
Mages Bad Against Dragons?
I know that the manual says mages are poor against dragons, but don't believe it! Just have them standby in a defense form. When the remaining dragons attack, they'll be caught in a cross fire. Just be sure to never let your mages scramble, because then they really are worthless.
Skip Intro Animation
When you reset the game (A+B+C+Start) during the main game, you will see the symbol of Harsgalt. Hold down the Start button, and continue holding it down, even after the symbol leaves the screen. The game should skip going back to the introduction animation, and go directly to the Main select screen. This is useful for saving time if you're looking for the "perfect" item under search (Muramasa Sword, Dragon Crest), and you keep getting garbage.
Another Tip
A way to get experience and awards for everyone defending a castle without lowering the level of the castles:

Dispatch one less general than the army attacking you (and make sure that they can WIN). Defeat all but one general, then retreat back into the castle and deploy the same number of generals. This way you can register an a award, a win, and experience for all the generals in the castle, without lowering the level, either.

Also, after two or three rounds of this, all but one of the enemy generals will have no troops and 1 HP, so here's a good chance to send one person in to wipe out up to 4 generals at once and gain some XP.
Get Dragon Crests
To get a bunch of dragon crests you have to go to the castle on the eastern part of the map, between Palemoon and Highland. I think the castle starts with a C, its something like crystal. Well anyway, you defeat whoever is in it and place a person who can search. You may not receive a dragon crest every week, but they're there.
Starting off Tip
When starting out you should be Tieris. She is the easiest of all the characters. But when you start out,Laine is a hard nut to crack so you just have to keep on cracking.
Make Zanon Useful
After you defeat Zanon (at least when playing Junon), he will keep coming back to try to take Lightan castle. As long as you don't send your main character to engage him again, Zanon will not get captured. This help in increasing your weak generals' level to about level 10 quickly. First, make sure you have at least 6 generals in the Lightan castle. Then deploy 5 of them toward Zanon's army (which should be already weaken and has no troop/you had already killed them), defeat them till they have no MP left. Then you end up with Zanon with all HP but no MP and his 3 generals with no MP and only 1 HP!. After this just send any group of 5 generals and beat the 3 generals for easy level up and use one general in the group to standby when fighting Zanon to end up in a draw. After this you will automatically win since Zanon does not have any more general to fight you and he will run away with his three 1HP/0MP generals to keep going and going and going... for you to defeat and your weak generals to rise in levels.
More Tips...
1) Leave Reinhart alone until only you, him, and Goldark are left. Reinhart will keep Goldark from expanding, as long as you leave Reinhart's generals alone.

2) Remember, if you pull off hyper-storm/mega tornado off on an enemy general, their troops come back at the end of the battle if you do not defeat him/her. This works the same for you ;).

3) Build up Samurai generals instead of Soldier generals because of the massive dragonmen attacks at the end of the game.

4) Mages/Archers still attack while a spell/skill is being "cast". Use this to your advantage by pulling off spells that last for a long time (i.e. dark vortex, meteor storm) when playing with them.

5) XP is determined from a battle (this is what I found):
Mostly: How many troops you kill
Middle: The lv difference between you and the general
Least: The general himself/herself/itself
Keep your generals from deserting:
Give any general enough awards so that they will have 100 in any troop. This will keep even the most disloyal general from leaving your command. Items don't hurt as well.
Requirements to have a General Fortify/Search
Any general can search or fortify as long as they have an intelligence of 70 minimum. If the general has an intelligence lower than that, simply giving him/her/it Strategy Runes, Virtuous Runes, or Ancient Runes (one use, +6 intelligence) up to 70 will allow them to fortify or search.
Getting Hayate and Shirox w/Reinhart
In one of the tips above, it says that you can't get Hayate or Shirox with Reinhart. I happened to get them by accident. Early in the game I met up with Shirox (without Reinhart) who ran after I beat him. What happened was I forgot all about him and I didn't remember until very late in the game. I went back with Reinhart and lost a one on one battle with Hayate and he joined me after. I did this almost near the end of the game. I'm guessing you can do this earlier in the game.
More Tips
If you are tired to listen to all your generals in the domestic mode of the game (especially when there are more than 100) to see if they may desert in the next round, try this:

Leave yourself some awards, save the game, select DONE in the Domestic Mode. Your cancellor will tell you who left your troops. Now simply remember these names and restart the game by pressing A+B+C and Start simultaneously. Start the saved game, promote the 'illoyal' characters and they won't desert. If you have no awards left, you might donate a Faith Coin to them. This will help also. So you can save your awards (and soldiers) for the main fighting characters in the game instead of spoiling them to these 'troublemakers'.

Mercenaries and thiefes normally get unhappy if they were used in combat and get no awards afterwards. So the best way from preventing them from desertion is: deploy them to castles far away from the frontier line for potatoe planting, but don't let them fight. They will not make troubles any more.
Capture Bastion
Here is a tip on how to capture Bastion. You can only doo this if you are Gongos,though. If you are Gongos,and you run into Bastion,fight with him. Usually,he will fight to the end. After the fight is done,most likely,you will have captured him. This way,he can't betray you and run off.
Use Mages more Effectively
The best way to use mages (one of the best troop type in my opinion) is to keep them away from the opponent's troops. I am assuming that the opponent's troops are NOT archers/mages (in that case you should use hand-to-hand troops such as Cavalry/Dragons). I am also assuming you are in a pretty big battle, with you having around 20 or more mages and the opponent with 20 or more troops.

What I mean by "keeping them away" is fairly easy. At the beginning of a fight, form your mages into the "Special" formation. Then IMMEDIATELY select the troop movement for "Retreat" so your mages will run behind your general. Once the mages are safe (that is they are about three character-lengths behind your general) then select the troop movement "Standby."

Your mages should now behind your general, firing away at the incoming enemy troops. Once the enemy troops get to your general, then use some kind of magic to delay time. The enemy troops will not be able to attack your general while the magic occurs, but your mages will be able to pick even more enemy troops off.

The point of this strategy is the enemy troops will always go after your general FIRST. So, if your mages are behind your general enough, the enemy troops won't "see" them and just attack your general.

One key point for success with this strategy is someone with magic that lasts a very long time. The best example I can give is Reinhart. His Meteor Storm has a long duration, and thus the mages can happily fire at the hapless enemy troops for quite a while. This strategy can also be applied to generals who have the Holy Shield spell. Usually those who have Holy Shield have mages, and so this technique will kill a significant amount of enemy troops. Although you may have to retreat (since clerics/magicians are usually physically weak), you should use the Holy Shield right when your general is surrounded by enemy troops. Hopefully you'll have decimated the enemy general's army and so another of your generals can pick him off easily.

Someone might ask why I said you should retreat the mages right at the beginning of the fight. I found that if you keep the mages in Special formation and try to retreat when the enemy troops close in, the enemy general will use his/her magic. It really sucks since while the magic is going on, your mages are running AWAY from the battle. By the time the spell has finished, your mages will probably be really far back!

Ok, I have told you the defensive capabilities of mages, but what about their offensive capabilities? Granted, they aren't very good against other troops, but against the enemy general, they are priceless. First off, you have to have killed all opposing enemy troops. In other words, the only people remaining are: your general, the enemy general, and your mages (yeah!).

Tell your mages to "Advance." NEVER tell them to "Melee"!! Let your mages reach the enemy general. I am assuming that you still have around 10 or more mages. Allow the mages to overrun the enemy general (they almost go BEHIND him). Right when they are about to run PAST him, tell the mages to "Regroup." When you see that one mage is one character-length away in front of him and another is the same distance away BEHIND him, then tell your mages to "Standby."

The enemy general will kill one or two mages, but the point is to have one mage just out of his reach in front, and another behind him. These two mages will fire at the enemy general relentlessly. And so, you hit him from both sides! You should use magic to wear the general down too.

Thus your mages can be very offensive. You will only lose two troops, but you will hurt the enemy general a lot. Plus, your cleric/magician will NOT have to fight in a duel (where he/she would die for sure). This is another example of the importance of Special formation. Only with Special can you do all of the things I talked about earlier: Retreat, Standby, Advance, Regroup, Standby.

Using generals who have Resurrect/Ensnare from Shin Hong The only two generals that I can remember right now who have both the spells Resurrect and Ensnare are Uryll (under Reinhart's command) and Sierra (refer to the tip about 4 secret generals).

These two are incredible generals, since their troops will always remain high, even after many battles. The trick is to use their spells correctly. Uryll, for example, has 100 dragons (you do NOT have to have 100 - I'm just using it to make my point).

Let's say she enters a battle. Put the dragons into Special formation (I will explain why later). The moment you can cast a spell, tell Uryll to use Ensnare on the enemy general. This will prevent him/her from retreating as well as limiting them to one spell for the fight! Okay, once you have ensnared the enemy general, just fight as usual. Once Uryll's dragons have wiped out the enemy general's troops, tell them to ADVANCE. The key here is NOT to tell them to Melee! Let's say Uryll now has 59 dragons left. It is definitely time for Resurrect. I think Uryll and Sierra both resurrect about 30 troops each time.

Let Uryll's dragons tear the enemy general apart while you resurrect. When the general's lifebar gets red, then tell the dragons to "Disperse" and then tell them to "Standby" (so they won't attack the enemy general anymore). Now wait until your POWER meter refills, and then do another Resurrect.

Now just tell your dragons to "Advance" again and kill off the enemy general. Hopefully the net loss of dragons will be around 1-5 dragons. So Uryll comes out of the fight with 95 or more dragons! If you were taking over a castle and your other generals win (which I hope!) then Uryll's magic points will replenish immediately and she is completely ready to fight again.

I found that Special formation isn't as bad as it seems, since you have a lot of control over your troops (unlike Defense or Raid, for example). Actually, you have control over ALL of your troops.