Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

How to break the game

1. Advance to the point in the plot where you get full control of your guild. (two story missions in IIRC).

2. Fire all but five of your members.

3. Note that this is below the party size of six, and that the game makes up for it by giving you a dispatch mission which automatically succeeds and is guaranteed to give you a recruit (also, some negotiation guild points).

4. Notice that as long as you have less than six people, by refusing the recruit or taking them and firing one of your previous guys, the game will infinitely spawn two of these missions every month.

5. Realize that this is effectively a source of infinite negotiation points, and that the reward for reaching level 30 Negotiation is the Cinquedea, the dagger that teaches Steal: Ability.

6. GRIND.

7. Teach Steal: Ability to your entire clan, enjoy never having to worry about AP again.

8: Note some of the very rare things enemies in non-story missions sometimes have - "Wanted: Dragihlev Godeye" has both Steal: Weapon and Steal: Armor, and "Lutia Mop-up" has an enemy with an Angel Ring (gives Auto-Revive).

9: Note that if you run from a side mission, it will eventually respawn so you can try it again.

10: Repeatedly loot and then flee these missions, have fun giving your entire team even more skills and items they really shouldn't have.

General Tips

- The primary effect of land placement is that a land that's fully surrounded spawns a treasure based on what's around it. Some of these are very rare and otherwise unique, so it may be a good idea to check GameFAQs and follow a building plan.

- Never, ever, ever discard a mission item unless you have physically seen that the mission that gave it is repeatable. Yes, you will get three separate Black Threads from three separate missions. That is because it's needed for three separate missions, and as none of the missions that give it are repeatable you will be fucked if you discard one.

- Stats are determined by the class you level up as. Speed is the single most important stat. Other stats are important as well, but frankly all the defense in the world won't help the Paladin when he's fighting an Assassin who gains 2-3 speed a level while he only gets 0-1 speed a level, meaning maybe he's been unlucky and he's literally gained no speed ever and the Assassin is going four times as fast as him and whoops a sleep spell finally landed on him and Assassins can instant kill sleeping people so that's it for him. I may have learned that the hard way my first time through. Anyway, just try not to let your people stay in slow jobs too much, and if/when you do the recruiting loop try and keep a hold of anyone with a good base speed (people who join as Thieves/Ninjas/Assassins, basically).