Okay, looking for guffins isn't the only thing to look for early in the game ... you need to be getting fish too. That might seem obvious to some, but if you follow only the in-game instructions, you don't get any fishing advice until suggestion #10 or so. Anyway, for all newbies out there (like me): using the mouse to kill fish will get you your daily operating cash.
Okay, got it -- read through some more of the "Best" comments, and just having a maximum damage over 500 will get the badge. Equipping "unholy" and "mysterious" items seems to do the trick.
Any advice on the medium badge (500-point hit)? I'm rolling through these cities without losing any troops, and have just the Far East Empire to go ... but my maximum hit is only 154 thus far. I'd like to figure out how to up this hitting before I wipe out all the armies ....
I had no problems with any of the badges except the 75-combo one for some reason. Just couldn't get beyond 40 or so. I promised myself one more time getting 30 or more and got it on that run.
Didn't have enough skill trees to max the elephant -- still need 10 more points for agility, 60 points for intelligence, and 30 more for charisma. I gots the credits .... I guess those mystery boxes ate up a few of those chances when they showed themselves to be health points.
Krazy Kat's advice on getting the 2000 score on arcade worked pretty well. One try. The only change I would suggest is buying "plank" for your sled as well. The 5-degree setting for the ramp -- I guessed a pretty low angle for that and it worked. Anyway, 2,300+ points (1,014 distance). Thanks!
Sorry for all the comments -- one final thing: I've completed 15 out of 18 challenges, but see only one more on the challenge screen (15 in a row). Where are the other two challenges?
When I held down "S" and then did "Alt-Tab" to switch to my e-mail, my character kept shooting fireballs. So I've just been letting it run in the background and letting him level up a few times. Went from Level 10 to Level 12 in about 20 minutes.