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Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

Onmi posted:

And the last of them is the firsts Great Grand Nephew (Possible), whom she has taken a shine to and is passing upon her secrets of dark magic.

So her lines of Shamans will continue onwards, and... said GGN is also working in conjunction with the Half-Dragon Archadian Woman and...

Ray – Child of Darkness

Ray traveled around the world, honing his dark magic skills. Although dark magic had been all but forgotten, Ray’s efforts brought it back to people’s awareness again. He was known for being hard on both himself and others, but for some reason he was generous towards deprived children.


So in short you're not incorrect in that it's dying out even further in FE6, but by the end, not so much.

Ah, I forgot all about that character's ending, good point. I think we should generally not assume any particular support conversation happening is actually canonical though.

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Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Melth posted:

Ah, I forgot all about that character's ending, good point. I think we should generally not assume any particular support conversation happening is actually canonical though.

That's true enough, FE10 assumed all of FE9's happened, which is... pretty impossible, but it's not the first time they've said "This impossible thing between games happened" Like FE11 to 12 "All of the Gaiden people were recruited... which is impossible."

Rigged Death Trap
Feb 13, 2012

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

You could just use lpix.org/sslptest then share the link.
Otherwise you can mirror it on your forum of choice.


Failing that tell them to pony up :10bux:

Nihilarian
Oct 2, 2013


quote:

2) I have several FE playing friends who aren't members of this forum but would be interested in this LP. Is there a good way to share it with them?

3) If possible, I think I'd like to add a table of contents to the introductory post so that people could easily jump around to the different chapters (I'd also like to make it possible to jump directly to the War Room sections on various topics to help people who want to know about that stuff in particular). Is there a way to do something like that?
2) You should probably put it up on lpix.org. Also, if you have it put up on LPArchive once it's finished, it'll be viewable by anyone.

3) Hit the # at the bottom left of the post you want to jump to, copy the url.

Ryushikaze
Mar 5, 2013

Onmi posted:

That's true enough, FE10 assumed all of FE9's happened, which is... pretty impossible, but it's not the first time they've said "This impossible thing between games happened" Like FE11 to 12 "All of the Gaiden people were recruited... which is impossible."

Gameplay and story segregation, Onmi. Plus, while it's mechanically impossible for all the supports to happen, nothing narratively prevents all the characters from having chats in camp.

Also, earlier, you argued FE6 was the first FE1 remake... which makes me wonder what the hell you think FE3 Book 1 is.

And Melth, you keep calling Florina mysandrist. She's phobic, not mysic. There's a difference.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

Ryushikaze posted:

And Melth, you keep calling Florina mysandrist. She's phobic, not mysic. There's a difference.

I'm aware of the difference. Notice that Florina is afraid to talk to men but she evidently has no problem skewering them at all. In fact, she decided to go into a line of work which consists largely of killing men for money and the only thing that made that difficult for her was that she would also have to work alongside men to do it in most mercenary companies.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

Nihilarian posted:

2) You should probably put it up on lpix.org. Also, if you have it put up on LPArchive once it's finished, it'll be viewable by anyone.

3) Hit the # at the bottom left of the post you want to jump to, copy the url.

2) I've been using LPix to host my pictures I believe, but I'm not sure how to actually put the LP itself there

Ryushikaze
Mar 5, 2013

Melth posted:

I'm aware of the difference. Notice that Florina is afraid to talk to men but she evidently has no problem skewering them at all. In fact, she decided to go into a line of work which consists largely of killing men for money and the only thing that made that difficult for her was that she would also have to work alongside men to do it in most mercenary companies.

She went into the same business as her elder sisters out of a desire to be more like them and do her country proud. Yes, she's a merc who kills a lot of men, but that doesn't make her any more of a mysandrist than Raven, or hell, Hector, who will almost certainly be getting more kills than her over your HHM run.
If you were doing a comedy character LP, that'd be a good hook for her character, but you're definitely reading way to deep into poo poo that isn't there.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

Ryushikaze posted:

She went into the same business as her elder sisters out of a desire to be more like them and do her country proud. Yes, she's a merc who kills a lot of men, but that doesn't make her any more of a mysandrist than Raven, or hell, Hector, who will almost certainly be getting more kills than her over your HHM run.
If you were doing a comedy character LP, that'd be a good hook for her character, but you're definitely reading way to deep into poo poo that isn't there.

I think I will stand by my point that being willing to kill a category of people but not to talk to them can be reasonably described as hateful.

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Ryushikaze posted:


Also, earlier, you argued FE6 was the first FE1 remake... which makes me wonder what the hell you think FE3 Book 1 is.


An abrdiged retelling okay I forgot Book 1 existed...

Okay FE6 is the second remake of FE1, right down to the drat introduction credits basically being FE1s story and not necessarily lining up with Elibes lore.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

Onmi posted:

An abrdiged retelling okay I forgot Book 1 existed...

Okay FE6 is the second remake of FE1, right down to the drat introduction credits basically being FE1s story and not necessarily lining up with Elibes lore.

I wouldn't call FE6 a remake so much as one of many, many allegedly different FEs that actually recycle more or less the same story. You could put together a Fire Emblem mad lib filling in the blanks of the name of the evil country with wyverns that suddenly attacks after a 1000 year peace and the innocent good country they conquer and the name of the lord who fights his way through every other country to defeat the evil country and then the name of the dragon behind the evil king who he fights at the end. There are a few minor differences here and there. Like in 8 there's a demon instead of a dragon who you fight at the end. Or in 9 the guy doesn't start off as a lord, he just becomes one. Or in 13 there's a pointless filler arc in the middle. But really, waaaaay too many games in the series use more or less the same plot.

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Melth posted:

I wouldn't call FE6 a remake so much as one of many, many allegedly different FEs that actually recycle more or less the same story. You could put together a Fire Emblem mad lib filling in the blanks of the name of the evil country with wyverns that suddenly attacks after a 1000 year peace and the innocent good country they conquer and the name of the lord who fights his way through every other country to defeat the evil country and then the name of the dragon behind the evil king who he fights at the end. There are a few minor differences here and there. Like in 8 there's a demon instead of a dragon who you fight at the end. Or in 9 the guy doesn't start off as a lord, he just becomes one. Or in 13 there's a pointless filler arc in the middle. But really, waaaaay too many games in the series use more or less the same plot.

No no, there's using the same story, and then there's FE6 in comparison to FE1. Where the intro credits are the same, and the characters are pretty much 1 for 1 comparisons



And you know the intent in the design of the game was pretty much "We want to remind people of FE1"

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

Onmi posted:

No no, there's using the same story, and then there's FE6 in comparison to FE1. Where the intro credits are the same, and the characters are pretty much 1 for 1 comparisons



And you know the intent in the design of the game was pretty much "We want to remind people of FE1"

I mean, yeah FE6 is very similar to FE1. But so are FE 3, FE 11, and FE12 which are all actual remakes of it.

I'm just saying I think you're being too charitable with them by calling it a remake when I would characterize it more as a lazy repackaging.

Dr. Buttass
Aug 12, 2013

AWFUL SOMETHING

Melth posted:

I think I will stand by my point that being willing to kill a category of people but not to talk to them can be reasonably described as hateful.

I am so glad Gamergate doesn't appear to have heard of this game 'cuz you just know they're gonna latch onto Florina as a representation of why wimminz is bad for gamez.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

Dr. Buttass posted:

I am so glad Gamergate doesn't appear to have heard of this game 'cuz you just know they're gonna latch onto Florina as a representation of why wimminz is bad for gamez.

Can someone explain what Gamergate actually is to me? Like just the facts, impartially, and without starting a fight. People keep talking about it elsewhere but I wasn't paying attention when it began so I have no idea what even happened or what the sides actually are.

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Dr. Buttass posted:

I am so glad Gamergate doesn't appear to have heard of this game 'cuz you just know they're gonna latch onto Florina as a representation of why wimminz is bad for gamez.

I think you would find that they love the fire emblem series a lot. Considering their origins on /v/ and /v/ loving the Fire Emblem games with glowing passion. But you know, perpetuate an incorrect stereotype, whatever floats your boat.

In fact one of the men responisble for the majority of the new tools in hacking Fire Emblem is a pretty big supporter of Gamergate simply going by the skype logs. In fact the majority of the hackers behind releasing the updated tools are pretty much are in favor of it.

Now with that out of the way, lets talk about Fire Emblem, I'm sure there's somewhere else on the site you can go to sperge about that malarky.

Florina isn't a misandrist, she's just super shy. Yes she'll kill men while not being able to speak to them, but that's not out of hate that's out of nerves, also out of all generics being men. Given that she has several supports with male characters and never shows any 'Hatred or Dislike' except for her own fear... yeah. This argument collapses into a pile of lies and pudding.

I mean you might be able to claim Androphobia. But you and I and everyone else knows what the true cause is.

Anime

Editing out my edit for the sake of the thread.

Onmi fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Feb 19, 2015

vilkacis
Feb 16, 2011

Jesus gently caress, people, can we please drop the subject, it is more likely to get the thread gassed than to go anywhere productive.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

vilkacis posted:

Jesus gently caress, people, can we please drop the subject, it is more likely to get the thread gassed than to go anywhere productive.

I didn't know it was that contentious. Nvm explaining it to me then, let's get back on topic. I'll be posting two Chapter 11-related sections in a bit here.

FPzero
Oct 20, 2008

Game Over
Return of Mido

I really like this LP so far. The update frequency was a bit much but as you've mentioned, it's better to just get it out of the way as fast as you can because the real LP hasn't even begun. It's a very different kind of playthrough to witness, especially for me, someone who is pretty much just "ok" at the series and also super-cautious when I play. Plus I'm enjoying your little insights into the plot and characterization.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!
Interlude 1

So I've completed Chapter 11 several times today using different strategies and attempted several others that I stopped partway through when I realized they weren't going to work. I believe I have discovered the best one feasible and I'll post that later on today. For now I want to draw attention to someone else's strategy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YOjcmO7jBw

Ultimately, I think my own approach is superior in that it depends less on good luck or a tough Matthew, but it was this guy's video that got me to completely rethink what I'd done in previous runs and come up with my new strategy.

And that's a big part of what I'm trying to do here: give anyone else interested in doing a max ranking run the tools and advice they need to formulate their own great tactics on each level. That's why even though I said I wanted this LP to be part guide, I don't intend to post what I did move by move: instead I want to show an outline of what I did and tell you what strategic considerations made me think that was a good idea.

Besides crediting this guy for a strategy that inspired me, I'd also like to try to explain to you what I think HE was thinking. If you want to be good at this game, it's not enough to read or watch what other people did. You have to think about why they did that and whether you can see a better way to handle things.


So enough rambling, here goes my analysis of why he did what he did:

0:10 - The big choice is top route or bottom route. Top route is faster, bottom route is safer and more XP. He goes top because his goal is maximum speed. And to do that efficiently, you need to break the wall on turn 1, so Hector must use the hand-axe from range.

0:23 - That soldier needs to die and only Hector can do it. He wants to conserve his precious Wolf Beil. He could pull Matthew back and have Hector attack with the handaxe with impunity, but his main concern is speed so he charges in.

0:30 - There's the big twist! That's a hard move to explain because you'd think he'd either have Matthew attack the archer or open the door. What he's doing is manipulating the AI. Move Matthew into literally any other space in that room, and the archer will move to block either Hector or Matthew. But if you put Matthew in the top middle, the archer gets nicely out of the way. Again, he's thinking only of speed rather than survival chance or anything.

0:40 - Hector needs to be gunning for Wire at this point, so he moves full speed. Conveniently, this will also block the archer so the archer will be forced to eat a handaxe to the face if Matthew moves past Hector.

0:43 -Matthew is safely out of the way and can unlock the door for Hector next turn. Critically, he has enough HP to take one more hit from the archer if need be.

0:55 - He leaves Matthew in harms's way and charges Hector again. It is crucial that Hector did not stay behind and attack the archer. The instant the door is opened, the bottom enemies come running. If Hector does not run through the door immediately they will either block him in and waste his time, or gang up on him as he fights the boss and kill him. So Matthew must be abandoned.

1:10 - The archer must die or Matthew will be killed. More importantly, Matthew MUST attack from the top of the archer, not the left. This way he will be close enough to the currently locked door that he can run into its space next turn. This guy understands the thief AI and knows that the thief will stupidly open that door instead of making its getaway with the jewel. This gives him the chance he needs to steal it.

1:20 - I've thought about this a lot and it looks like a huge blunder. Putting Hector 1 south, 1 east of that position would be far superior. Why? One fewer archer can shoot him. Furthermore, the soldier cannot block him. If Hector missed that soldier, he would have been prevented from reaching Wire. You can see that even though he lucked out, he's horribly injured. A single hit from Wire will kill him and Wire gets 2 shots with 60% odds. There is one possible advantage to this space though: if he hit both archers (about 36% chance) he would immediately level up and be that much stronger vs Wire

1:46 - Red Gem is worth more than lockpick so of course he steals that. A sufficiently strong Matthew could attack instead and get the Red Gem + more XP, but his Matthew is not leveled much.

1: 54 - Note his Matthew, it has +1 Def and +1 HP over baseline. This is critical. This means the archer kills him in 3 shots, not 2. He relies on that heavily.

1:59 - Wolf Beil will kill Wire in 2 hits (1 on this turn and then 1 on Wire's turn), allowing him to win the chapter now. Handaxe would be safer but take forever. However, he's relying entirely on luck here since Wire gets 2 chance to kill him. He's also relying on the fact that the boss goes earlier than the archer does, so the archer will not get a shot at Hector before Wire dies next turn and the level ends. Again, AI manipulation. Bosses typically go before everyone else and you can sometimes use that.

2:05 - He REALLY lucked out. That was like 5% chance of success in the fight with Wire alone I think.


So looking at the video, he had the following advantages that one can't always have:

1) Best possible outcome of fight vs first soldier. He needed to hit twice and be missed and that's what happened. With true hit the odds were about 38% of that outcome.

2) Matthew is tough enough to take 3 arrows. Generally speaking, any Matthew who has gained a single point of HP, let alone defense, can do this. A baseline Matthew cannot, so it's a good thing he used Matthew in Lyn's story. If Matthew isn't tough enough, Matthew needs to dodge one of the two attacks. Each has a better than 80% chance to hit.

3) Hector's handaxe attack on the archer MUST work or Matthew is doomed regardless. The odds of that are about 68%

4) Matthew must hit both times vs the archer. The odds are close to 99%. (Annoying one of my strats failed because Matthew missed. That bungler!)

5) Again, Hector had to double hit vs the second soldier. This time it didn't matter if the soldier hit or not. True odds about 90%

6) Hector must hit Wire twice and Wire must never hit Hector. Odds? 4%.

There were really pretty much no cases where bad luck hampered him. The chance of one more soldier hitting him is much higher than one more archer missing him. So multiplying out those numbers: the probability of success I calculate is <1% with this strategy. Assuming Matthew has leveled up and gained HP or Def already. Otherwise it will be <.5%

Some might argue that a strategy with a roughly 1% success rate is terrible, but in fact this was very clever- just not well executed. I kinda suspect some RNG manipulation to make it work too. In any case, the strategy involves several notably good choices: 1) take the top route. Time is the most importance thing here. 2) Do not open the door to the treasure room. This is very counterintuitive but very smart. He knew the thief would stupidly open that for him during the end of turn 5, so that freed Matthew to forge ahead. 3) Have Hector ready to charge once Matthew opens the locked door. If Hector does not go out full throttle immediately after that door is opened, he will probably be blocked in or killed. 4) ignore the remaining archer when choosing to attack Wire . This archer is a non-factor because either Wire or Hector will die before the AI considers using the archer.


Anyway, I'll show you what I did once I finish baking some cookies. What I really hope is to encourage you guys to think about what I do in the same kind of fashion I think about what this guy did. Notice when I screw up or when I rely on luck and think about what could be done differently. But also think about what things we did were smart and consider how you can use that thinking yourself. For example, I would never have ignored that archer on the last turn before watching this video. I would have assumed the AI would play smart and have Wire fight last. Realizing that the AI moves bosses first could come in handy elsewhere.

Melth fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Jun 7, 2015

marshmallow creep
Dec 10, 2008

I've been sitting here for 5 mins trying to think of a joke to make but I just realised the animators of Mass Effect already did it for me

Cookies are good. What kind are they?

Artix
Apr 26, 2010

He's finally back,
to kick some tail!
And this time,
he's goin' to jail!

Melth posted:

I would have assumed the AI would play smart and have Wire fight last. Realizing that the AI moves bosses first could come in handy elsewhere.

Almost, but not quite. The way it actually works is that the AI moves units in the order that they're loaded in. It just so happens that IntSys always loads in the boss first, so they end up first in the movement queue. You can actually check this at any time, open up the boss's stat screen and hit down, and it'll move to the unit that was loaded in next (and subsequently will move next).

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

Artix posted:

Almost, but not quite. The way it actually works is that the AI moves units in the order that they're loaded in. It just so happens that IntSys always loads in the boss first, so they end up first in the movement queue. You can actually check this at any time, open up the boss's stat screen and hit down, and it'll move to the unit that was loaded in next (and subsequently will move next).

Am I'm correct that bosses always go first though?

Thanks for that tip by the way; I hadn't noticed that the order of the status screens was the order of movement. That's a really easy way to keep track of it. At least on non-fog of war levels.

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Melth posted:

Am I'm correct that bosses always go first though?

Thanks for that tip by the way; I hadn't noticed that the order of the status screens was the order of movement. That's a really easy way to keep track of it. At least on non-fog of war levels.

Yes, because Bosses are always loaded in first, but bosses who join mid-chapter like in the Port chapter, don't move first, but will move first for that group.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!
Interlude 2:

Eliwood’s story opens with a brief outline of the history of Elibe and its countries, but Hector’s story skips over this entirely since you’ll already have seen it. For the benefit of any of you who haven’t played FE7 or FE6 before I’ll start up a file of Eliwood’s story quickly here and show you the aforementioned introduction to the setting:




The continent of Elibe. Are there other continents? Maybe. But I don’t think they’re ever mentioned, so the whole setting is just called Elibe. You can see the names of the various countries if you really look closely, plus a few other words labelling seas and stuff I think.




And a history lesson!




That pretty much concludes history! A more or less calm 1000 years follows as several of these 8 Generals/8 Legends found their own countries. The whole story of “1000 years ago, a group of X heroes defeated the great enemy with their super weapons and then retired to found all the countries that now exist” is very common in FE. Sacred Stones shakes it up by having it be 800 years ago.




There’s the 8 Legends pictured together in the title sequence. Athos is at the bottom, Barigan in the bottom-right wielding Maltet, St. Elimine is doing a silly pose between those two, Durban is in the top-right with Armads, Bramimond is in the top-left, Roland is in the middle-left with Durandal, Hanon is in the bottom-left with Miurgre, and Hartmut is in the middle, apparently without his weapon, Eckesachs, and using the Sword of Seals instead. The names of their awesome capes sadly went unrecorded by history.




Although it’s easy to start to think of Lycia as the center of the universe while playing FE6 or FE7, that’s basically just because the protagonists happen to be from there. Bern and Etruria are probably more important and were founded by a more important pair of the 8 legends. Hartmut seems to have been the leader of the legends.




And St. Elimine is maybe a goddess or something. Really her status is unclear, but the principle religion of nearly the whole world seems to revolve around her in some capacity.




Of the places that are actually countries, Ilia is almost unarguably the least important. Prepare to never hear this name again.




Not a country. Just a region inhabited entirely by weird, bald twin bandits. Who they rob when our heroes aren’t in the area is anyone’s guess.




Also not really a country. Just a loose confederation of tribes that aren’t even really capable of putting aside their differences to fight invaders.




Pretty much just part of Etruria. But one doesn’t expect a man so crazy that he thinks of himself and his axe as one being to be a good leader of a country, so no surprise there.




Lycia is pretty much a country in name only, as was implied throughout Lyn’s story. There’s dozens of largely independent tiny realms in Lycia with Ostia as seemingly the first among equals. And they have no compunctions against going to war with each other or anything.

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.
Elimine is Jesus basically. The church itself worships an otherwise unnamed 'God' and Elimine is a saint.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

Onmi posted:

Elimine is Jesus basically. The church itself worships an otherwise unnamed 'God' and Elimine is a saint.

Sorta, but we also have Hector mention a "Father Sky" when dealing with Bramimond and there are Goddess Icons around and other confusing issues. Honestly, I don't think we know enough about the religions of Elibe for sure to comment upon them other than that Elimine is really important in the main one and that there is at least one other one practiced in some parts of Sacae which puts some level of emphasis on the importance of 'spirits'.

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Melth posted:

Sorta, but we also have Hector mention a "Father Sky" when dealing with Bramimond and there are Goddess Icons around and other confusing issues. Honestly, I don't think we know enough about the religions of Elibe for sure to comment upon them other than that Elimine is really important in the main one and that there is at least one other one practiced in some parts of Sacae which puts some level of emphasis on the importance of 'spirits'.

Father Sky is in reference to the Sacaen Religion. Which worships nature. Elimine's religion only positions her as a saint, and members of the church refer to 'God'. (Read: Jodel, Saul, Ellen, Oro.) as simply 'God'

Jodel and Dayan further have a support that has them wax philosophical about religion, also the nature of 'Supports'

http://serenesforest.net/binding-blade/scripts/supports/dayan-yodel/

If you want my explanation. The original script had Hector refer to 'God' but since it's Nintendo and they generally don't like 'God' being referenced in their video games, Treehouse made the decision to have him refer to Father Sky.

Either that or he's a filthy heretic.

the FS/ME names are also brought up by... a later recruitable character in this game, in his support with Rutger. Dayan further brings it up when supporting with Sue and Shin. The one benefit of a fan translation over a localized translation is getting a chance to look at the original script (not that the original translated script for Fe6 was any good) but the direct changes in how the church refers to their deity (as God) and how the Sacaens do.

http://serenesforest.net/binding-blade/scripts/supports/rutger-karel/

I'm sort of leaving most of that unspoiled because I doesn't spoil FE7. But if you want I can drop it under tags.

Can Of Worms
Sep 4, 2011

That's not how the Triangle Attack works...
The Sacaean religion is itself based off nomadic mythology.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

Onmi posted:

Father Sky is in reference to the Sacaen Religion. Which worships nature. Elimine's religion only positions her as a saint, and members of the church refer to 'God'. (Read: Jodel, Saul, Ellen, Oro.) as simply 'God'

Jodel and Dayan further have a support that has them wax philosophical about religion, also the nature of 'Supports'

http://serenesforest.net/binding-blade/scripts/supports/dayan-yodel/

If you want my explanation. The original script had Hector refer to 'God' but since it's Nintendo and they generally don't like 'God' being referenced in their video games, Treehouse made the decision to have him refer to Father Sky.

Either that or he's a filthy heretic.

the FS/ME names are also brought up by... a later recruitable character in this game, in his support with Rutger. Dayan further brings it up when supporting with Sue and Shin. The one benefit of a fan translation over a localized translation is getting a chance to look at the original script (not that the original translated script for Fe6 was any good) but the direct changes in how the church refers to their deity (as God) and how the Sacaens do.

http://serenesforest.net/binding-blade/scripts/supports/rutger-karel/

I'm sort of leaving most of that unspoiled because I doesn't spoil FE7. But if you want I can drop it under tags.

That still leaves the goddess icons a mystery though. Not to mention how the Mani Katti and its associated spirits relate to Father Sky, Mother Earth, etc. Or the precise relationship of the various magic types to these beliefs. Anima magic seems to be nature magic, and yet it's dark magic which seems to be most closely associated with the Sacaeans who venerate the natural world.

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Melth posted:

That still leaves the goddess icons a mystery though. Not to mention how the Mani Katti and its associated spirits relate to Father Sky, Mother Earth, etc. Or the precise relationship of the various magic types to these beliefs. Anima magic seems to be nature magic, and yet it's dark magic which seems to be most closely associated with the Sacaeans who venerate the natural world.

Dark Magic is the magic of Knowledge, as a later recruit brings up. It's just more associated with the Sacaen because of the Druid/Shaman name connection... Also because IntSys sucks at naming things. As for the Goddess Icon, going out of the game, it's named the Goddess Icon because it's the Goddess Icon in every game, and the Ashera icon in 9/10's localization. A similar question is raised in FE6's opening when it mentions "when the gods walked closer to man" Which was fine in... well Akaneia and Jugdral and the like because that's actually apart of those games lores. But Elibe never mentions that kind of lore.

My best explanation is that it's just a trinket, more of an artistic 'Goddess' than a literal idol of worship. I mean they're also in Magvel and I don't remember any mention of a Goddess there.

The Mani Katti however is simple, Sacaens worship the elements, they can 'hear' the sky and earth talk to them, the Mani Katti's spirits just relate to that. the spirits of nature. Nature worship usually involves believing in those sorts of spirits.

you know the bigger question, the one neither game answers that drives me batty. Elibe's name is "Elibe, the Dark Continent" Why the gently caress do they never go into that? That seems like it should be Magvels title, but no it's right there on the world map in FE6 (Well 'Ereb') They don't even have a throw away line pushing it away, it's just this overwhelming interesting idea that they never use.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!


Here we go, the beginning of Hector’s story! As the title suggests, they assume that you’re already familiar with Eliwood’s story. This means they don’t tell you a fair amount of stuff that they do at the beginning of Eliwood’s mode, but I’ll splice some of the two intros together so those of you who’ve never played FE7 know what’s going on.

Chapter Summary:
11 months after Lyn's story concludes, Marquess Pherae (Eliwood's father) suddenly disappeared with most of his knights while traveling through Lycia. Eliwood is sure his father is still alive and sets out to find him a month later. Hector, Eliwood's best friend, fails to persuade Uther (his older brother) to use Ostia's military and spies to help Eliwood. Frustrated, he decides to leave on his own and try to meet up with Eliwood. On the way out of castle Ostia, he and Matthew (actually an Ostian spy) are attacked by Black Fang assassins.



Things look largely unchanged on the surface, but in fact a lot has happened in the year since Lyn defeated Lundgren. First of all, remember Eliwood? He was the son of the Marquess Elbert of Pherae in Lycia and helped Lyn out diplomatically.




His father the Marquess and most of his father’s knights- perhaps the most renowned fighting force in Lycia- have disappeared without a trace. Many people presume Elbert is dead, but Eliwood hasn’t given up hope




Eliwood now leaves home to try to find his father on his own.




Back in Ostia, Eliwood’s best friend Hector has been trying to convince his brother (the Marquess) to use their armies and spies to find Marquess Pherae. Uther insists on not getting involved, so Hector resolves to go help his friend on his own.
Hector may be pretty reckless, but he was at least clever enough to make his preparations to secretly leave BEFORE waiting for his brother to refuse to help Eliwood.




POOF!




It’s Matthew! Surprise! Looks like he wasn’t just a petty criminal in Araphen afterall. He and Hector have a fun relationship- really Hector and his retainers are a bit more interesting than Eliwood and his in my opinion. Complicating matters is that all of Hector’s men are actually his brother’s men and Hector and his brother don’t get along, so he doesn’t really trust them to do what he wants. Having told Matthew to stay behind, Hector is immediately ambushed by like 12 assassins. One of the few consistencies between FE6 and 7 is that Ostia’s defenses are as porous as a sponge.




An FE7 action sequence ensues. I’ve got to say, this is one thing the game does not do very well. Hector just kind of runs into the red blob with the spear and the red blob disappears with a flash of light. Then Matthew appears and Hector runs at him but misses. All too fast to make out much of it clearly. Only when Hector and Matthew start talking to each other does it become clear that what happened is that Hector suddenly spotted Matthew, assumed he was another assassin, took a swing at him, and barely missed. This game and FE8 are actually surprisingly good at conveying action with portraits moving back and forth across the dialogue screen and flashes of light but not so much with sprites on the map.

The War Room, Part 10

Here we go, the first War Room meeting of Hector’s story! When reading about max ranking runs of this game, you will often hear a lot of talk about “Zero chapters” or “Zero requirement chapters” or the like.

You may recall my explanation of the various ranking categories in The War Room part 6. In particular, remember that every chapter has a number of turns you’re supposed to beat it in. If your total number of turns spent over the whole story is less than the total allowed number of turns for every chapter you played, you get a max ranking for Tactics. Each chapter also has a number of assets you’re supposed to gain from it and if your total assets gained over the whole story is 80% or more of the total of those asset numbers for every chapter you played, you get max ranking for Funds. And similarly every chapter has an amount of XP you’re required to get.

There are many chapters that are unique to Hector’s Story. Their numbers in Hector’s Story are: 11, 15, 19xx, 25, 30, and 32x. Each of these chapters has “Zero requirements”. This means that the amount of XP you’re required to gain is 0, the amount of funds you’re required to gain is 0, and the number of turns you’re allowed to complete it in is 0.

Obviously, finishing a chapter in 0 turns is completely impossible so you need to make up for lost time by finishing other levels faster than required. For this reason, a lot of people doing ranked runs try to avoid some of these chapters: particularly 19xx and 32x.

As I’ve said, I’m going to do every single chapter though, so I’ll need to work hard to save lots of turns.

On a zero chapter you want to win in as few turns as possible, get as much loot as possible, and get as much XP as possible.
So essentially they’re exactly the same as any other chapter. I don’t really understand why people make a big deal out of them; they’re not fundamentally different from chapters like normal mode Night of Farewells (26x) which has an insanely low turn requirement of 10. Speaking of such things, Hard Mode actually has more generous turn requirements in general, which is nice.
Really, the key is just to look at these charts and know thine enemy: http://serenesforest.net/blazing-sword/miscellaneous/rankings/tables/

Once you know what your turn budget is, it’s easy to see where you can start making savings.
This chapter I’m doing now is a 0 chapter, and I want to beat it as fast as possible. I can do it riskily in 6 turns or safely in 7 and I’m going to go for 6.

Preparations & The Map:
Actually, you can’t do any preparations on this chapter or any chapter up till 14. This is a significant part of what makes these chapters hard: you can’t trade items around or switch people’s places to make your strategy work.



Objective: Kill Wire
Secondary Objective: Acquire the Red Gem
Secondary Objective: Steal the thief’s Lockpick
Reinforcements: None
Turn Limit: 0

My opinion of this map gets lower every time I play it. It’s just too luck-based because Hector can’t hit worth a darn. But before I talk about its design quality, let me point out a few notable features.

First, everyone except the boss and the thief will charge at you as soon as a door is opened or a wall is broken that allows them through. However, they won’t break down walls by themselves.

The thief will actually open every door on the level (grabbing the red gem on the way) and then fight you rather than flee (I did say every thief AI is different).

Second, you start with no vulneraries and therefore no healing capacity of any kind. Several enemies have stealable vulneraries and a couple have droppable ones, but staying alive long enough to kill these people and then start healing is non-trivial. Even pitiful archers and soldiers do serious damage on HHM before Hector starts getting some levels.

Third, the randomness of HHM enemy stat bonuses means Wire could die in either 2 or 3 Wolf Beil hits. If 3, there is absolutely no way to end the map in 6 turns without praying for a critical. 3 also means he’ll probably kill you unless you drink a vulnerary during the battle.
What does this mean you should do?

In a non-ranking run of HHM, it means you should open the southern door, put Hector on the pillar, and have Matthew steal the first vulnerary that gets close but otherwise keep him back. Turtle up and chug your vulnerary and flail away from your pillar until the hordes have been thinned. The enemy thief will stupidly walk back to you and try to fight, at which point you can steal his lockpick and red gem with impunity. Then just march through the empty level and kill the boss. Boring. And trying anything else is too risky to be wise because Hector’s accuracy is terrible and the enemies are far too damaging. A couple of improbable enemy hits or even a single miss from Hector can be a catastrophe.

In every subsequent chapter, you will always have at least one character who is better than Matthew at not dying and can hit accurately (Marcus for one). That means if you need to hit an enemy to win, you CAN hit the enemy. This makes a huge difference toward making things feel a lot less like betting your life on a coin flip. After this level if you lose, it generally means you applied your tools poorly. On this level if you lose, it’s probably because the game didn’t give you the right tools for the job and you had to make do with duct tape and prayers.

So this is possibly the most luck-based chapter in the whole game and I’m not too fond of that. However, I think it’s fairly interesting as a thought exercise on a max ranking run. Certainly I had fun figuring out all the different strategies I could attempt to end the game in 6 turns or 7 turns and what their odds of success were. On a non-ranking run the solution is to play in a boring fashion. On a ranking run, the level becomes a puzzle with only a few solutions, some much better than others. You still need luck to pull any of them off, but at least you need to think.

So the first ranked level. As always, I have 3 major concerns: winning fast, getting lots of XP, and acquiring lots of loot. Winning fast is especially important because I have to complete more chapters in the same number of turns as most max ranking runs.

On a zero chapter like this, it’s often unclear what fast actually means. One way to figure that out is to imagine how fast I could get to the boss and kill him if there were no obstacles or enemies in the way. The answer is 5 turns. Obviously, that’s just as impossible as 0 turns since there ARE enemies and closed doors and such in the way. But can I do it in 6? If not, how about 7? The answer, actually, is yes I can do it in 6. What’s more, I can do it in 6 while still getting the red gem. In 7 turns I could also swipe the lockpick (worth about 1000 since 3 charges will be gone) and kill 1-2 more enemies with Hector. However, that is not necessarily that good a trade. A turn spent here is a turn I must save elsewhere and on many other levels one more extra turn will let me kill like 5 other enemies or acquire much more valuable treasure. Maybe I made the right choice ending it at 6, maybe not. But if your goal is to end things at 6 turns, I believe what I’m about to show you is the approach with the best possible chance of success and I’m pretty proud of having developed it. But first…

The Characters:




“…I don’t care. I will help my friend. That’s why I’ve come this far.” –Hector, Chapter 30

The phrase “Hector’s Story” is something of a misnomer. Although this version of the tale is told from Hector’s perspective, he remains very definitely a supporting character in a story that revolves around Eliwood. It is Eliwood’s quest to find his father that drives the plot and Eliwood who typically speaks for the group. But Eliwood is Hector’s friend, and Hector believes above all else in sticking by your friends- even if that means fighting dragons. His leitmotif is entitled “loyalty” and it’s his dogged determination to stand by Eliwood no matter what happens that really defines him and his role in the plot.

That doesn’t mean that Eliwood is the only interesting one though. Hector is a well-developed and rounded individual and he deals with his own problems and has his own interesting relationships with his retainers as the story goes along.

Hector lost his parents at a young age and his older brother Uther has ruled Ostia ever since. He’s never been one for his studies or diplomacy or maintaining the family honor, instead amusing himself by sneaking off to local arenas and pit fights to hone his combat skills and generally behaving rudely and loutishly at all times. Several characters comment that it’s hard to believe he’s really a nobleman.

Hector is brash, confident, blunt, at least as violent as Lyn, and displays a steely stoicism no matter what happens to him. Lyn and Eliwood both have numerous different portraits showing them joyful, anguished, furious, and really displaying quite a well-depicted range of emotions. Although I might be forgetting something, I don’t think Hector has any portraits other than slightly smiling, slightly frowning, and slightly enraged.

At first glance, he’s more similar to Lyn than to the gentle and polite Eliwood, but unlike Lyn he was raised as a noble and believes his own violent and rude behavior to be a character flaw he should outgrow. Eliwood starts mature and clever but lacking the emotional strength to cope with loss and tragedy and the physical strength to deal with the enemies he will surely face as Marquess someday. Conversely, Hector needs to grow up and learn to be a responsible ruler, not just a strong one.


Hector’s tremendous power in battle has been praised ad nauseam since this game was released. Yes, everything they say about him is true. Hector is a fantastic character and there’s not much else to say that hasn’t been said a thousand times. His defenses are quite possibly the hardest in the game. His offensive power is nearly matchless and backed up by excellent skill and even solid speed and luck. His only real weaknesses are that as a promoted unit he still only moves 5 squares and that he promotes very late.
There’s one character nearly as good as Hector though:




“I am power. Power without peer. I am the dragonhunter. I am the fleshbiter, the bonecrusher, the skullbreaker, the doombringer.” –ArmadsThe Wolf Beil

You may remember Matthew mentioning that he brought “Hector’s beloved axe.” Well here it is. It’s only 5 less accurate than Lyn’s Mani Katti and this is an axe being compared to a sword. It’s super effective against knights and mounted units and (unlike the Mani Katti) it has enough power that that usually results in an instant kill on normal mode. It’s light enough to be no problem and it even has a minor crit bonus. Oh and about 70% of the bosses for the next 10 chapters are vulnerable to it. Hector barely needs to look at them with this monster in his hands to make many of them fall over dead.




And here’s its first victim. You will notice that this is a mere level 7 knight, but he’s nearly as good as Lundgren. HHM pulls no punches with its bosses. If you’re lucky with Wire’s HHM stat bonuses, you can kill him in 2 hits with Wolf Beil. If not, it’s 3. In that case, there’s absolutely no way to end this before turn 7 without hoping for a 4% critical on turn 6. So the map is luck based before you even get to make your first move! Either way, Wire will kill Hector in 2 hits- or 3 if Hector is at max HP, so you’re in for a rough and luck based fight if you don’t want to just sit there chugging vulneraries for several turns.

Now who is this mysterious black fang member? And… what is he doing here? At first glance, this kind of looks like a bit of a plot hole. Why would the Black Fang want to kill Hector before he’s even begun to interfere with them? Did someone just contract them to kill him? This seems unlikely given that Wire clearly knows Lord Nergal, suggesting a certain level of status in the organization.

But actually, if you think about what he says, it’s clear that Uther isn’t the only one who knew Hector was planning on sneaking out of Ostia.




“A fool like you, sneaking out of the country alone... You'll go missing, never to return.” –Wire, Chapter 11

Wire reveals that he knew just what Hector planned to do and points out that this will make it quite easy to get away with murdering him- it’s the perfect opportunity for them. Looking back with the benefit of having played through the game, it’s clear that the Black Fang is a lot more dangerous than people give them credit for. True, they lose in knock-down, drag-out fights like this. But they’re assassins, of course they’re not much good in a fair fight. And it’s clear they have a truly extraordinary spy network and they know their targets well. I mean, they knew Hector was going to leave almost before he did and were lying in wait for him.

No doubt they’ve been watching Eliwood since he single-handedly rescued Ninian from their clutches. Remember, Hector was right there waiting to meet him. The Black Fang learned of their friendship and studied them carefully. They knew when Eliwood planned to set out and they correctly predicted when Hector would leave on his own to join his friend and set a trap for him.

Playing through the game for the first time, the Black Fang looks like they lose every single battle- typically it’s not even close- and the whole group collapses into a pile of delicious, delicious XP. But looking back and putting the pieces together, it’s clear that not only were they several steps ahead of the heroes nearly the whole time, they only failed due to the blunders of one man who wasn’t even one of them. Plus they do win on several occasions. One of those was Heintz’s bid to prevent Lyn from rescuing Ninian. He succeeded, the only problem was that unbeknownst to anyone, Eliwood involved himself while Heintz was fighting Lyn. Another was every darned time Zoldam gets a critical with his Luna.




“My guise as a common thief was but a ruse. I’ve served House Ostia for some time as a spy of sorts!” –Matthew, Chapter 12

Same great character, same lousy stats. Matthew will prove his worth many times on this level though and Hector would surely have died without him- only his scheming flushed out the assassins so that Hector didn’t walk right into the middle of their ambush. He’s one of very few people to actually outsmart rather than just outfight the Black Fang and is perhaps the only character who consistently gets the better of Hector, manipulating him into doing the smart thing again and again.

His dialog with Wire is one of my favorites in the game as Matthew explains how he systematically figured out and countered the Black Fang plan. Unperturbed, Wire points out that he can totally just kill Matthew now and all the latter’s cleverness will have been for nothing. Unfortunately, I can’t actually get Matthew to Wire- let alone fight him- with the strategy I’ll be using.

Playing Through




Hector is quite well equipped and ready to deal with any situation. Except, you know, taking damage. Not so well prepared for that.




As I’ve said, my goal is speed- and also to get the Red Gem. For either purpose, I need to take the top route. To maximize speed, Hector and Matthew both work on tearing it down in 1 turn.




Immediately the soldier and archer advanced, as expected, so Hector stepped up and killed the soldier. Now unlike that video I showed you before, I’m going to try to take down this archer ASAP. This is partly because my Matthew can’t actually take 2 hits from him and partly because I figured out my movements for the next few turns and realized I could do exactly as well as that other video by just taking the archer down directly.

On the enemy turn, the archer will step back and shoot Matthew. So then I kill him with Hector and have Matthew open the door, right? No. Doing that ensures failure because it means Hector is too far away from the door when it opens, so he’ll be blocked in by the troops who come running.




Instead I kill the archer with Matthew and net an excellent level for everyone’s favorite lousy fighter.




The archer drops a vulnerary, so Hector runs up past Matthew to take it. This puts him in perfect position to move through the door once it’s opened and it gives him the ability to heal himself. Being able to heal removes most luck from this strategy: it doesn’t matter who hit Hector up till now, I can have him at full power as he engages Wire, so I can win. It’s only a question of whether I want to possibly win in 6 turns, probably win in 7 turns, or definitely win in 8 turns.




I think you experienced players out there can see the level is now in the bag except for Wire. On turn 4 Matthew opens the door and Hector just moves here. This puts him exactly 2 moves from being able to hit Wire and means the southern soldier and archer can’t block him- just inflict some minor damage at worst.
Meanwhile, you can see that on this turn the enemy will steal the red gem. While Hector advances, Matthew retreats to be near the remaining door to the treasury room.




Hector has healed himself and can now trounce Wire in a one on one fight. The trouble is that if either of those other guys hit him (and they will), I’ll still need to make a tricky choice: either attack Wire anyway and risk death but maintain the possibility of a turn 6 win or instead move next to Wire and chug a vulnerary and then finish Wire on turn 7.
Meanwhile, the foolish enemy thief is about to open the door and let Matthew swipe his red gem.




Hector got hit pretty badly, but I’ve decided to run the risk of attacking Wire anyway. Every approach to this chapter that’s viable for max ranking has a serious chance of failure and there’s not much I can do about that. Worst comes to worst, I restart and go with that 7 turn version I mentioned and grab the lockpick and some extra XP.



Say hello to the nice assassin, Wolf




Bam! Great level there. I would gladly trade all of that but the speed for some Def at this point, but it’s still great.




It sure was. There are thankfully few chapters in this game that you have to play with fingers crossed like that.




Hector has finally realized that Matthew just tricked him into telling Matthew to stay behind so that the assassins would come out and has been playing everyone masterfully from the start. Even Hector’s not stubborn enough to pass up an ally like that.




And of course, Uther knew all about it too and let Hector go. He just sends Oswin after Hector to make sure Hector has a much needed ally capable of fighting with him in the future. And a cleric. I’ve never been so happy to see Serra.



Total Restarts: 0 once I decided what my strategy was going to be. I lucked out there.
Current Turn Surplus: -6
Things I Regret Missing: The lockpick, that darned archer

Melth fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Jun 8, 2015

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.
I will disagree that Hector and Uther do not get along. They go about things in different ways but Uther to me very clearly knew Hector was going to set out on his own, He just put the show on in the best way to make it clear that publicly he didn't endorse a thing he was doing... And Hector himself shows a lot of love and loyalty to his brother, as you said, his entire theme is centered around how loyal he is. By undertaking the actions himself and without the official endorsement of Ostia, he spares Ostia from any political backlash since Uther can just disown him. Uther also sends Oswin out not to stop Hector but to aid him. So he makes it avaliable to disconnect himself from his brothers actions while giving his brother the aid he will need to follow his mission.


After all he's making his preparations to leave with Matthew, who would likely have already told Uther as he's loyal to Uther. Not to mention getting a drop on the Fangs plot. On the surface it looks like the brothers dislike one another and only come to their appreciation when events happen later, but I've always seen it that they've always cared for one another. But aren't necessarily the best at expressing it in such a time. Hector also comes across to me as really scared about his brother, seeing as he's all he has left (Which puts him in a position for a later moment of comparison with another character) And his decision to want to march into Laus isn't just to aid Eliwood, but to protect Uther.

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!

Onmi posted:

I will disagree that Hector and Uther do not get along. They go about things in different ways but Uther to me very clearly knew Hector was going to set out on his own, He just put the show on in the best way to make it clear that publicly he didn't endorse a thing he was doing... And Hector himself shows a lot of love and loyalty to his brother, as you said, his entire theme is centered around how loyal he is. By undertaking the actions himself and without the official endorsement of Ostia, he spares Ostia from any political backlash since Uther can just disown him. Uther also sends Oswin out not to stop Hector but to aid him. So he makes it avaliable to disconnect himself from his brothers actions while giving his brother the aid he will need to follow his mission.


After all he's making his preparations to leave with Matthew, who would likely have already told Uther as he's loyal to Uther. Not to mention getting a drop on the Fangs plot. On the surface it looks like the brothers dislike one another and only come to their appreciation when events happen later, but I've always seen it that they've always cared for one another. But aren't necessarily the best at expressing it in such a time. Hector also comes across to me as really scared about his brother, seeing as he's all he has left (Which puts him in a position for a later moment of comparison with another character) And his decision to want to march into Laus isn't just to aid Eliwood, but to protect Uther.

I didn't say they don't love each other, I said they don't get along. They argue almost every time they're on screen together- the story opens with Hector bursting into the room demanding to see him and shouting that they need to go attack Laus and Uther yelling at him to pipe down and that that's crazy. Then Hector storms out and leaves. Yes, it's explicit that Uther knew Hector was leaving and let him go, and I pointed that out twice.

And when Oswin catches up, Hector realizes that Uther knew that Hector was going to leave and grumbles that his brother always has to have the last word. Oswin feels the need to tell him that his brother is doing this out of love, and Hector begrudgingly admits that he knows.

Hector said that Ostia should just out and out attack Laus to find out the truth. Joining Eliwood alone was his plan B. The claim that he has the diplomatic tact and political understanding to grasp that leaving on his own lets Ostia avoid official culpability is dubious in light of that.

So yes, it's clear to the player that they love each other and I didn't deny that, but they definitely do not get along. And they do not get along to such a degree that people like Oswin don't actually think Hector understands that his brother loves him and feel the need to inform him of that.


Oh and I walloped chapter 12 earlier, so I'll post that tomorrow.

fade5
May 31, 2012

by exmarx
I love that Fire Emblem Appreciation Season never truly dies.:v:

I'm really looking forward to this playthrough, I've never actually seen an S-ranking of FE7, especially not HHM. I've beaten HHM twice, but I went with the "usual" Fire Emblem approach, aka:

RBA Starblade posted:

e: Also I've pretty much always had one star in speed/turns taken. Gotta get those supports!

Lotish posted:

This is what always got me. Max stars in everything but turn counts.
1 Star in Turns, perfect everything else, aka exactly how fire Emblem is meant to be played. Hey, it's not my fault supports take so long.:colbert:

For both HHM runs I got Matthew and up to level 15ish via boss abuse, and I had Paladin Sain one run like you do, Paladin Kent the next run (he got really good level ups), and Serra also became a dodgebot both times thanks to all the healing that boss abuse requires. I also had an amazingly speed-blessed Dorcas on the second run, with something like 15 speed at level 16. He doubled a loving Mercenary in one chapter, it was hilarious.:pwn:

The early-game isn't so hard when you've got multiple competent (overleveled) fighters. And yes, I'm considering Matthew a competent fighter.:v:

fade5 fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Feb 19, 2015

theshim
May 1, 2012

You think you can defeat ME, Ephraimcopter?!?

You couldn't even beat Assassincopter!!!
Aw hells yes. I missed this. That Sain is disgusting, I hope you appreciate that.

Add me to the pile of people who loves FE but doesn't play for rank. It feels blasphemous to me to not recruit everyone, get everything, save everyone. :v: Watching with interest!

Melth
Feb 16, 2015

Victory and/or death!


The first chapter Hector and Eliwood’s story have in common. Not surprisingly, it’s the one where the two meet up. Ultimately, it’s quite similar in both stories. If anything, Hector’s mode is easier because you have 4 more characters present at the start and 2 more total


Chapter Summary:
Hector survives the assassination attempt and presses on, now joined by Oswin the knight and Serra the cleric, a pair of his brother's retainers. In the realm of Santaruz he finds Eliwood under attack by a large force of hired thugs while the soldiers of the realm look on and do nothing. Hector rushes to Eliwood's aid and the two are reunited. But is Marquess Helman of Santaruz their enemy or another victim of the assassins at work?




Hector is particularly concerned for Eliwood because he himself was ambushed immediately after trying to leave home. Just as he suspected, the same group wants Eliwood dead. Fortunately, they subcontracted the job of killing him to some much less competent thugs.




Once again, Matthew proves that no one is as good at sniffing around for information as he is.




But even he didn’t see this coming.




Oswin, bringing Serra along with him, has caught up to Hector. Uther ordered him to make sure Hector makes it through the coming trials alive.




Just as Hector suspected, Eliwood is in this part of the realm of Santaruz. Just as he suspected, he’s under attack. And the soldiers of Santaruz are standing by and letting it happen.


The War Room, Part 11

Since this is the first Hector's story chapter with a store, It's time to talk about managing one's limited early-game money in HHM.

As I've said before, buying things in this game doesn't hurt your funds ranking. Selling things does. That's because your funds ranking includes not only your cash, but also the value of everything you own. You buy items for a price equal to their value but sell for a price equal to half of it. So it's almost always a bad idea to sell items.

However, Hector’s story is much less generous with cash than Eliwood’s. In Eliwood’s story you start with 5,000, get 5,000 more on 13x, get 10,000 on chapter 21, and then get 30,000 on 29x. Getting from 13x to 21 without more cash can be a bit of a stretch (particularly because you can't actually do any shopping with the money till 23), but is manageable. After 23 you're usually fine.

In Hector's story, you don't get that initial 5,000. And then there are several new chapters crammed in between 13x and 23 which means you need to stretch those reduced funds out longer. Not being able to buy anything at all until after 13x is also painful since it means you need to play quite a few chapters with bad gear.

So you will probably run out of cheap weapons and be forced to use much pricier ones. Furthermore, you'll be forced to play less efficiently as your characters miss repeatedly with steel weapons or can’t return fire against archers because they have no javelins.

Thus, the total loss of 2500 assets from selling the Red Gem will more than pay for itself through a combination of saved turns, saved combat ranking, and saved funds from not needing to kill enemy brigands with a horseslayer. It's arguably GOOD for your funds ranking to sell that one gem- and definitely good for your other rankings.


After the 13x- 23 drought, HHM players should never need to worry about money again- same as ENM but for different reasons. See, Hard Mode players can get access to the Silver Card on chapter 18/19x which lets you buy objects at half price. Think about that for a moment. That means that you give up less in cash than you gain in assets when you buy something. You essentially create free money when you buy things with the silver card. And alternately, you can sell whatever you want and then buy things at half price with that cash for no net loss. So feel free to sell numerous worthless items and buy a few expensive ones to save storage space in Merlinus- but don't do it until you have the Silver Card.

Oh and another thing: many people will tell you not to use Eliwood’s Rapier or Hector’s Wolf Beil because (unlike the Mani Katti) they have a huge price of 6000 each (that’s 150 and 200 per use respectively). Don’t listen to them. If you play right, both of those weapons actually only cost 600, and they’re well worth that price with their great stats and super-effective damage.

See, there’s this great staff called the Hammerne which for 600 a pop can restore a weapon’s durability (and its value) from 1 to the maximum. And there’s really nothing better to use the Hammerne on because no other weapon in the game has such a huge price and such huge utility. So use both of those weapons all the time until your Lords are leveled and ready to go, and just save 1 use of each until you get the Hammerne. Then Hammerne them and THEN toss the weapons in storage and never use them again.


Preparations & the Map

Again, no preparations allowed, but at least the starting formation is pretty good on this chapter.



Objective: Kill all enemies
Secondary Objective: Get the Secret Book from the village
Secondary Objective: Sell the red gem and do some shopping
Reinforcements: None
Turn Limit: 8

Wow, my army just increased in size by 400% in 1 chapter! Now I've got options.

Other than all the new possibilities brought about by having enough people to start using real tactics, this map is quite straightforward. If anything, it’s even easier than the Eliwood version because you’re allowed to use Serra and Matthew, which makes clearing the top front easier.

Plus Pegasus Knights are a joke as enemies- particularly for Hector himself. On Normal Mode he can typically instant kill them with his Wolf Beil at level 1. On Hector’s mode they’re too tough for that till he gains some strength. This slows progress down and it also means it’s necessary to use the handaxe instead of the Wolf Beil so as to conserve the latter. That’s pretty much the only serious hindrance of this being hard mode though.


The Characters:




“I will guard him with my very life’s blood” –Oswin, Chapter 11

A trusted and battle-scarred Ostian knight, Oswin is evidently either prominent enough at court or assigned to guard Hector often enough that he and Eliwood know each other. Other than that, we don’t know much of what his usual duties entail.

It’s natural to compare him to Marcus: they’re both respected veteran soldiers entrusted with acting as their lord’s principle bodyguard on this dangerous journey. However, Eliwood and Marcus have a much better relationship. Hector accepts Oswin’s help only begrudgingly because Oswin is his brother’s sworn man, not his own, and he resents the fact that Oswin is only there to guard him- not out of any desire to help Eliwood. Oswin bears Hector’s occasional rudeness patiently and continues to put his sense of duty to Ostia above all else- including the often short-sighted wishes of his lord. The two of them have some pretty great conversations, though honestly I prefer those between Eliwood and Marcus.


Many people, both new players and experts, swear by Oswin, but I don’t have a terribly high opinion of him myself. True, he is the only person in the game whose toughness rivals Hector’s and his strength looks impressive at first glance. However, his strength is actually only very good, not great, and his terrible speed means he will never be able to double most enemies on HHM.

Much more problematically, he can only move 4 squares- less than anyone else in the game. This often means that he must either be left behind to accomplish nothing or carried as a burden by a faster soldier, because there is no time to wait for him on a max ranking run. His high starting stats make him very useful in the early maps, but I want him off the team to make room for someone who can keep up ASAP. Thus he's a crutch character to get through the tricky early chapters, but shouldn't be used beyond that. Again, like Marcus.




“Let me take point. There may be many of them, but numbers are meaningless! We are knights of Pherae. These mice of Laus will never defeat us!” –Marcus, Chapter 14

Speaking of crutch characters, it’s the big M himself. Marcus is one of the most skilled and trusted knights of Pherae and was left behind to guard the Marquess’s wife and child while the other knights rode off with their lord a month ago. He’s known Eliwood since he had just been knighted and the latter was a toddler following him everywhere. Besides acting as Eliwood’s bodyguard, servant, and adviser, he’s also one of the trainers for the younger knights- including Lowen. In this capacity he seems to be a harsh but good teacher and well-respected by his students.

Marcus is what a success looks like. He’s justly proud of himself and his accomplishments and his position, understands his skills and his limitations, and has achieved everything he wanted in life: true friends, a chance to serve three generations of heroic lords of Pherae, and to pass on his skills to future generations. It’s hard not to like a man who likes himself, let alone one who gets so much great screentime with Eliwood and the other knights of Pherae.


Love the character, hate the unit. When this game first came out, people railed about how bad Marcus is because of his terrible growths and tendency to siphon XP from your better, lower-level units.

Later on, people pointed out that he's actually a lot better than other Jeigans in earlier games and that he’s important for doing a couple of things early on in HHM ranking runs. From this came a false notion that he was actually a good character. This idea has grown out of control and has led to him being top or high tier on most people’s tier lists.

In fact, there’s this strange myth now that you can’t win without using him extensively and also that he isn’t terrible lategame. Both of those ideas are completely false. Marcus is useful as a rescue-dropper, a decoy for Guy to attack, and to visit some distant villages on 13x and 14. I sometimes also use him on Whereabouts Unknown to back up the better cavaliers, but that is the extent of his usefulness.

No one whose main function is avoiding combat on the way to visit 2 villages and taking a single hit from a low level guy you want to recruit should be considered a great character. The man’s growths are pretty much the worst in the game and he will kill your XP score if you let him.

What’s more, his "better" stats actually make him LESS useful than previous Jeigans. See, he can’t weaken enemies without killing them! In FE6 Marcus returns but with 5 less Strength. That makes him far, far more useful since he’s able to heavily damage enemies, but leaves them alive for your weaker units. That allows your other people to get the XP they need more easily.




“Yes sir! As per general’s orders, I do 1,000 lance thrusts a day!” –Lowen, support with Marcus

One of Marcus’s protégés, Lowen is a young squire of Pherae training to become a proper knight. Since almost all of the other knights of Pherae vanished with the Marquess, Lowen is brought out onto the battlefield prematurely.

Since he’s still in training and not yet a proper knight, Lowen is rather self-conscious about his relative lack of skill compared to Marcus. As a result, he works hard and very seriously at his job and improving himself. Unfortunately, there isn’t much else to say about him since he doesn’t do very much talking outside supports. Most of those revolve around other knights of Pherae telling he’s improving but needs to keep working at it.


Lowen is the only cavalier you’ll have access to in HHM until chapter 16. It’s sort of like a mini-Lyn’s story for him, and you’d better make use of it if you want him to be effective.

If I had to choose just 1 cavalier to use, Lowen would definitely not be it. His offense is just too bad for him to kill his way through the hordes of enemies I’ll need to face. Indeed, he’s weaker than Kent and slower than Sain at most levels! His main redeeming feature is that his defenses are excellent. No, he can’t tank like Oswin or Hector, but he can tank while moving 7 spaces per turn.

If I had to use exactly 2 cavaliers, I would probably dump Kent and use Sain and Lowen. Kent just can’t handle offense OR defense that well, whereas Sain and Lowen are good at their specialties. I’ll give Lowen a chance, but I expect to dump him partway through the game and he won't be promoted. A much, much better mobile tank joins the party on Kinship’s Bond anyway.




“Hard words make my head hurt!” –Bartre, Support with Canas.

A loudmouthed braggart obsessed with becoming the strongest warrior around and oblivious to how stupid he usually sounds, Bartre is introduced traveling with Dorcas and the pair of them join Eliwood because he’s fighting some bandits. His characterization is fairly inconsistent across his different supports and both games he appears in. His intellect ranges from slightly naïve to too stupid to follow a simple conversation. Too much of a joke character for my taste, but he does have his moments.


Remember magikarp? And how it was worthlessly bad at the start, but if you worked really hard at training it, it would somehow suddenly turn into a giant monster that was not quite worth the effort? That’s Bartre. His starting stats are just horrendous. Enemy brigands are so much faster that they double attack him. The shame of it! And he doesn’t have the HP or def to take hits like that. At the low levels, Dorcas’s greatly superior speed and skill pretty much just makes him better than Bartre. However, Bartre’s growths are far, far better than Dorcas’s in the stats that matter and this will let him overtake Dorcas by the end game if trained hard.

A carefully trained Bartre typically comes into his own somewhere around Chapter 29 and from then on becomes one of the best infantry. The trouble is that it’s incredibly hard to get him to a level of even basic functionality. So the payoff just isn’t worth it, particularly since he’s still only ONE of the best.

So I’m going to use Bartre here and there, but unless he happens to gain speed on every single level up, he is going to end up warming the bench. And challenging it to fights. “And you call yourself the toughest bench alive?!”




“We owe him our lives, and I want to repay him.” –Rebecca, Chapter 11 (Eliwood’s Story)

Eliwood saved Rebecca's village and she’s so impressed with his heroism that she decides to join him on his quest.

Remember how I mentioned Wil was Pheraean and left with his best friend to go make a name for himself, leaving behind his friend’s sister? That’s Rebecca. They lived nextdoor and although he was oblivious, it seems like she had something of a childhood crush on him. Either way, she was angry that he just took off with her brother without so much as a goodbye and then she never heard from either of them again until now.

While supports with her are key to uncovering the secrets of some other people’s pasts, she doesn’t get that much development herself. She pretty much just seems to be a somewhat foolish and rather volatile young woman who spends way too much time obsessing over the men in the group instead of being her own person and getting her own character development. Since she’s about 15 at the most, I find it more than a little creepy that she has romantic supports with them at all, let alone so many. Not quite as weird as Nino at least. What is it with Fire Emblem and child soldiers anyway?


Rebecca is an archer, archers are horrible, QED Rebecca is horrible. But how horrible is she exactly? Pretty darned horrible because her only real strength is her admittedly high speed. Wil is stronger by far and Rath is stronger than Wil and almost as fast as her with far better defenses and an uber horse. Under no circumstances should you try to train Rebecca. Just use her early on to soften up enemies for a real character to kill.




The third and final lord in the game, Eliwood is the main character and the hero of the story. Although he’s very young, his good upbringing in one of the more benevolent noble families in Elibe and training with great knights like Marcus have shaped him into a just, caring, and highly capable individual with a strong sense of noblesse oblige.

Unlike Lyn (who has flaws but doesn’t acknowledge them) and Hector (who does and wants to outgrow them), Eliwood is pretty unimpeachable and more or less always does the right thing no matter how hard it might be. And when people suffer because of something he had to do, he regrets it and tries to make amends. He’s empathetic, polite, kind, and honorable at all times, but not in a way that makes him seem superhuman. His relationships with his friends and family show him to be a profoundly normal sort of person. He’s not a hero because he’s an unstoppable warrior like Hector but because he’s a fundamentally decent everyman who’s good at leading people and doesn’t give up.


Statistically, Eliwood gets a lot of flak for not being as great as Hector. Although some people cruelly dub him ‘Failiwood’, he’s actually a rather good character with pretty solid growths across the board. It’s only his starting stats that are bad.

The other thing to consider is that Eliwood is essentially a cavalier- he just doesn’t start off with his horse. Cavaliers and paladins are not top notch combat units like Hector, but what they lack in raw power they make up for in mobility. Eliwood will end up with a nice 7 move compared to Hector's mere 5. He also REALLY benefits from getting lances upon promotion.

So how does he shape up against, say, Sain, the greatest other cavalier in the game? Lategame, Eliwood is pretty much just better. Because Sain will ram into his low strength cap early, Eliwood eventually catches up. Meanwhile Eliwood is better than him in every single other stat- much better in some. Sain's only advantages are 1 point more move and the ability to use axes. Those are serious, but less important than Eliwood's statistical superiority. So yeah, don’t knock Eliwood in the late game.

The trouble is that (like all lords) he promotes late. And he promotes for double price. Not even Hector is worth double price to promote. So unless he's amazingly good, I won’t be promoting Eliwood and he won’t see much use once he hits level 20 unpromoted.




That Eliwood’s Rapier is not good compared to Lyn’s Mani Katti- let alone the dreaded Wolf Beil- is another reason he gets a lot of disrespect. As I’ve said before, being super-effective is really only good if your weapon’s Might is high, and the rapier has the least Might of any of the special weapons. Further, most of the unit types it’s super-effective against will have weapon triangle advantage against it, a significant problem. On the other hand, having decent damage with nigh-perfect aim early on isn’t nothing.




“Heh heh heh… Noble sirs. Alms for a poor villager.” –Zagan, Chapter 12 (Eliwood’s Story)

Everyone’s favorite chubby murderer, Zagan was hired by the Black fang to hire some other guys to kill Eliwood. They probably should have sent Wire after Eliwood instead because Zagan immediately gives his ambush away and completely flubs the whole operation.
He’s the first boss in the whole game to move- deciding to do so several turns in when he sees you’ll kill all his men if he doesn’t help them. With a steel axe and 14 strength, he hits like a truck but has no accuracy or other notable abilities.
Hiring this worthless thug was Ephidel’s first fail. It will not be his last.

Playing Through:




Rebecca isn’t going to be much help, so she’s going to go get that secret book for me. But first she stops at a house and this villager talks about how he saw Marquess Pherae’s group go this way.




And he’s quite terrified that a group that powerful just vanished into thin air. I wonder what sorts of ‘something terrible”s exist or are imagined to exist in Elibe. It would have been interesting to hear this guy’s guesses about what happened.




Meanwhile, the useful guys are doing useful things. As I mentioned, Hector can’t 1-shot these guys with his Wolf Beil and they’re not worth 2 charges of it. So I’ve got to use my handaxe, even though I’d like to conserve that too. Oswin can’t fight alongside Hector the whole time because Matthew and Serra will need help, but I need him to let me take down this Pegasus knight immediately.




On the southern front, I want Eliwood in the front on that fortress, but he can’t reach it. Time for a rescue drop!




Woohoo!




Next turn, Eliwood and the rest of the southern company work on the remaining enemies. Notice that Eliwood v Brigand is way too close to an even fight. Eliwood kills definitely in 3 hits, Brigand kills in 2 if he doesn’t miss and his hit chance is solid despite the weapon triangle.




It took Lowen’s help to let Eliwood finish that guy, but Lowen can’t stand up to 2 brigands + an archer after taking a hit, so… time for a rescue drop!




This guy. This darned brigand and his handaxe. He’s got loads of good terrain available, weapon triangle vs Oswin, and Hector can’t hit at the best of times till he has more levels. One time I was trying to max rank but this guy just ran onto the central peaks and refused to come down- even to attack Serra. Other times he’s just dodged everyone for so many turns that I had to restart. This playthrough though he was only moderately challenging. Still, I consider him to be the true boss of the level. Zagan is much easier to kill.




As I mentioned, Matthew and Serra will need help. One thing Oswin is good for is blocking. Another is putting that great javelin he starts with to work immediately.




Matthew finishes that archer next turn and gets a great level. Strength is so useful for him right now.




You cannot grasp the true form of Oswin’s attack!
Seriously, can someone explain what knights are even doing in their criticals? Which way is he facing? Why is he standing like that? What the heck happened to his head? I’ve looked through it frame by frame and it never makes sense to me.




Remember, the bottom front has no healers to it, so what you’ve got to do is let everyone take some of the damage. As long as you don’t give the enemy a chance to counterattack your injured people, it doesn’t matter that they’re at 1 HP.




Bartre and Lowen are hurt, but they can take a hit from a Pegasus knight. Marcus is preparing to engage Zagan.




Rebecca has got the secret book, so I’m having her go to the vendor just to point out again that the selection always varies level by level. Notice that I have no gold. I need to get Matthew with his red gem to the armory to sell it. Where was this lady last level when I actually needed vulneraries though?




NICE!




Now Zagan is moving toward Marcus, but I don’t want to kill him with Marcus. Eliwood can do it, but he needs a rescue chain to get him there. So Lowen still stop here, then Marcus will move 1 left and take Eliwood and drop him right, and then Marcus can keep right on moving and stop on the mountain to fight Zagan.




Wheee! With that level up, Hector can now instant kill Pegasus knights with his Wolf Beil. Assuming he doesn’t impale himself on that lance he’s jumping into first.




Actually I’ll admit to making a newb mistake here and rewinding it. I sent Matthew in to do my shopping, but then I could only buy 3 things instead of 5 because I don’t have Merlinus yet and I forgot to have Serra walk up and take his lockpick and iron sword away to free up his inventory space. Final shopping list: 2 iron axes (for hector and for sain later on/ a spare for now), 2 iron swords (Eliwood and Guy), and 1 Iron Lance (Marcus and then Florina and then a spare once I can retire Oswin).




So my plan worked, Marcus heavily injured Zagan and left him killable by Eliwood from the safety of the mountain. My chance of death looks rather high, but remember True Hit. His real chance of killing Eliwood considering true hit and that he gets 2 tries is a low 6%




A good start on Eliwood. What I’d really like is Strength, Speed, and Defense as usual, but every stat is valuable at the moment.




It’s turn 5, Zagan is the last survivor. He’ll suicide to Eliwood before my next turn, so I win in 5. Sweet. I think 4 is juuuuuust possible, but only by feeding everything to Marcus + getting lucky on the top front. And 3 turns ahead of schedule is pretty great.




Reunions and introductions all around begin.




The exact relationship of Hector with Marcus and Oswin with Eliwood is something I’d like to learn more about.




This is actually Market’s idea, and it’s remarkably stupid for such a brilliant tactician. Soldiers of this realm were standing by and watching Eliwood get attacked if not outright participating. That their lord has also been targeted seems much less likely than that he’s an enemy.




Remember, Market wasn’t actually present for Hector’s previous battle- she was actually with Eliwood for Eliwood’s chapter 11. This is kind of weird and I’m not sure why they didn’t have Hector’s story involve Hector being with Market from the beginning since most things are from Market’s perspective.

In any case, Market’s age is obviously no concern since she’s a child progeny (just like Calvin)!

Total Restarts: 0
Turn Surplus: -3 (Makin’ progress!)
Things I Regret Missing: The lockpick and that darned archer on Chapter 11, this one brigand who suicided to Marcus on chapter 12.

Melth fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Jun 8, 2015

Manatee Cannon
Aug 26, 2010



Man, I disagree with almost all of your character assessments. I know ranked runs are different than a regular one where you can take your time, but still.

Also anyone that uses the term "Failiwood" to describe Eliwood should be thrown in some kind of joke prison.

theshim
May 1, 2012

You think you can defeat ME, Ephraimcopter?!?

You couldn't even beat Assassincopter!!!

Melth posted:

In any case, Market’s age is obviously no concern since she’s a child progeny!
I think the word you're looking for here is "prodigy".

And yes, it's really interesting to see the wildly different assessments of characters when playing for rank.

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Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.
It's nice to see Eliwood get some recognition. But it does hurt him that during localization they reduced the 3x Effective Damage multiplyer to x2. Now Granted this probably helped the final boss not feel like such a joke (You know ignoring one-shotting him with Luna)

In the end I really like Eliwood, I mean I like Hector don't get me wrong, but Hector doesn't work that well without Eliwood, his loyalty to his best friend humanizes him, because before that, Hectors just really violent and angry and you can only sustain that for so long.


Manatee Cannon posted:

Man, I disagree with almost all of your character assessments. I know ranked runs are different than a regular one where you can take your time, but still.

Also anyone that uses the term "Failiwood" to describe Eliwood should be thrown in some kind of joke prison.

Unfortunately it's the truth, Archers are horrible so all of the FE7 ones might as well go fling themselves off a pier, the fact that the game doesn't exactly have the Dracoknight spam of other games or the lowered Mt of Hand Axes OR the buffed defenses of Archers, means that they're trash.

Oswin is a Knight, and excluding defense maps, a Knight can never hold up when you have to go fast. Not to mention his coming at level 9 really hurts for Experience rank. And it's not like he has amazing growths, or that he's the games Dieck in that he can run around and Boss-Kill on the early game.

When you're playing slow and just trying to use who you want, they're all fine, but for Ranking they achieve very little.

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