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Onmi posted:
Well that's just because of the anime artstyle generally making people look younger than they are unless you make them old as gently caress like Niime or Athos. Even Douglas and Murdock look quite a bit younger than they are. Just comparing to the rest of the cast, I definitely think Juno, Brunya, Cecilia, Gale and Percival wouldn't be remotely out of place as 30-something year olds with their normal portraits, which would fit their positions better as well. E: Also how are Dieck or Echidna 'big shots' compared to anyone I listed for example? And Hector/Eliwood are non-entities in FE6, though you're right that they're suitable age. Also, most of the older big-shots got there through inheritance/nobility, and it's fair that younger characters are strong in combat or the like, but specifically high-rank military positions aren't generally easy to get at young age. You can't just walk through bootcamp, crit the drill-sergeant with your Silver Axe, and get promoted to General immediately. Insurrectionist fucked around with this message at 01:13 on May 4, 2015 |
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May 4, 2015 01:09
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Endorph posted:I can buy most of the ones in FE7. Lloyd and Linus have nepotism on their side, Isadora is Eleanora's personal bodyguard and so was probably handpicked, Elbert probably picked the men for his trip based on ability so Harken being young works fine, Pent is a bit of an upstart, etc. Everyone older suffered from the mysterious rash of deaths that occured to talented, experienced warriors that would now be entering their late 30s and 40s -- oh, sure, they seemed disconnected, but the best and brightest of the last generation all suddenly vanished
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May 4, 2015 01:20
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Insurrectionist posted:You can't just walk through bootcamp, crit the drill-sergeant with your Silver Axe, and get promoted to General immediately. Well no of course not. Don't be stupid. You have to crit him with your Silver Lance. Armor Knights can't use axes. D3m3 posted:Everyone older suffered from the mysterious rash of deaths that occured to talented, experienced warriors that would now be entering their late 30s and 40s -- oh, sure, they seemed disconnected, but the best and brightest of the last generation all fixed that for you. Not to mention the 'best and brightest' from FE7 would be well into their forties. [notseriouspost]Look I know goons have an aversion to actually having success and thus feel inadequate when measured up to fictional characters their own age or younger than them who've managed to go on to over achieve. But we really need to just stop projecting.[/notseriouspost]
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May 4, 2015 02:02
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honestly the ones i was mostly confused by in fe6 are brunya and juno. i figured they were in their early 30s. im not gonna use  though because that emote sucks
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May 4, 2015 02:39
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also i like that the later games just have like, 3-4 characters with confirmed ages
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May 4, 2015 02:40
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Hector being around 17 in Blazing Sword is kinda baffling. I mean, logically yes he should be around the same age as Eliwood, who could possibly pass for 17 (though I would still have pegged him for early 20s) but the guy must have some impressive genealogy going on to be that built before his twenties.
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May 4, 2015 02:48
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When I was in high school, one of the guys in my AP statistics class worked out for the football team by tying air conditioner units (and I don't mean the window variety) to his back and taking them on drags through a field. Some guys are just born to be insanely built. See also: 
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May 4, 2015 02:57
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I would also like to point out that some of the greatest generals in history were hella young. Example A would probably be Alexander, but there are plenty of others. Its not really so much as it is the entire nobility system.
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May 4, 2015 03:01
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18 being adulthood is a super, super, super recent thing in human history.
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May 4, 2015 03:08
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Tae posted:18 being adulthood is a super, super, super recent thing in human history. Yes but shut up. Endorph posted:honestly the ones i was mostly confused by in fe6 are brunya and juno. i figured they were in their early 30s. Well see I was the same way for Farina, Fiora and Florina, who are all in their teens in FE7. I guess that the assumption is that Pegasus Knights are sent out young since Ilia makes their money from them, and there'd be a big push to get Peg Knights out into the world. Juno being young in that case makes sense, especially if she was getting married to what is essentially Ilia's king. Brunya I see more as being 29. Like just a few years younger than Zephiel who's around the 35-37 range himself.
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May 4, 2015 03:33
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 This is… possibly the most infamous chapter in the game. Maybe the second most. It has a reputation like HHM Battle Before Dawn or worse and is often described as the hardest chapter in hard mode. Just like BBD, a fair number of people actually believe it can’t be beaten (or at least Treck can’t be recruited) without luck. As usual, such people are completely wrong and a good approach to the chapter makes it possible to win with no luck at all. At first glance, this is a really important chapter in the story with the group finally arriving in Ostia and liberating it. But at best it’s the prelude to the actually important chapter 8. Nothing of much consequence really happens here. Chapter Summary: At long last Roy arrives in Ostia. They find the town under rebel control and Lilina a captive. Fortunately, there are some Ilian mercenaries ready to join them. Hector was their last employer and Ilian mercenaries never betray their employers- apparently even when the employer is dead and the job they were probably hired to do is no longer relevant. Together they retake the town and prepare to storm the castle.  The villains of this two-chapter arc are at last introduced. General Leygance was one of Hector’s advisors and… apparently he joined forces with a lowly lieutenant to rebel and join Bern.  They have Lilina hostage. They don’t ever use her as one.  Here we see the two of them conferring about whether the town is under control (It mostly is).  It’s 3 guys. It is literally 3 guys. You have them surrounded with dozens of better guys. Why are they still alive?  And that’s interesting news. Has he been tearing his way across Lycia to get here? We actually have no indication whatsoever that he has. It reads more like he just got across the entire country unchallenged with his troops.  Or you could kill them. You want to just kill them?  Why? Why is using the hostage they probably went to great trouble to get the last resort? They NEVER use her.  In other words, do all the work. Meanwhile, Leygance will take half the army to… sit around in the castle apparently. Even though Devias was just assigned to guard the gate. These are some dumb villains.  Meanwhile, Roy and Merlinus are arriving.  Unless over half or so rebelled, how did the rebels seize control to begin with? The most logical explanation is that they convinced the rest to stand down by using Lilina as a hostage, but that’s contradicted by the fact that Leygance still isn’t doing that and that in the previous chapter we were told he took her captive thinking he might be able to find some use for her later. Apparently he hadn’t thought of the whole hostage thing.   Oh wow, it’s great news that there are 3 mercenaries in the middle of the enemy who might join us.  I’m glad you asked! Let’s hear the same answer to that question that we’ve already heard whenever some other character asked it!  Merlinus explains once again that Ilian mercenaries never betray their employers. In case you forgot Devias and Leygance discussing that 30 seconds ago. Pretty much any time Ilia is mentioned in either game in fact, someone will pop up and go “HEY GUISE DID YOU KNOW ILIAN MERCENARIES NEVER BETRAY THEIR EMPLOYERS?!”  And now the important bit. Roy now knows Narshen is coming with an elite group of wyvern riders.  I would hope so. Bern disrupting the “balance of power” mentioned at the beginning would obviously be a problem for them.  But no one points that out. Instead Roy relies on his personal friendship with one influential Etrurian he knows.  Excellent, now we know it’s a good idea!   … pretty sure you already are, man. A lot of Etrurians we see totally look down on Lycians and even a lot of Lycian noblemen and women talk and act like Etrurians are just better than them.  Plus there’s that argument. The war is totally lost already without their help. Or it would be if Bern was doing anything at all.  I thought you said you have to move quickly? The War Room, Part 40 So, now that I have both a nomad and a pegasus knight, this is a good time to talk about the alternate routes in this game. Much like how FE7 had completely different alternate versions of several chapters unlocked depending on various characters’ levels, this game actually has 2 branch points leading to several alternative chapters in a row. Firstly, if one visits the top rightmost village in Chapter 9, one goes to Caught in the Middle (Chapter 10B) then to Escape to Freedom (Chapter 11B) and then on to The True Enemy (Chapter 12). However, if you instead go to the village next to that one or no village at all, you go to The Resistance Forces (Chapter 10A) then to The Hero of the Western Isles (Chapter 11A) and then to The True Enemy (Chapter 12). I’m going to call the A route the Echidna Route and the B route the Bartre Route to be marginally easier to remember. Later in the game there’s a more dramatic route split. If Sue and Shin (the Sacaean nomads) gained more XP than Thany and Thite (the Ilian pegasus knights) by the end of 16x, then you go to Sacae for the next 5 chapters and then on to The Sword of Seals (Chapter 21). Otherwise you go to Ilia and then on to The Sword of Seals (Chapter 21). (Slightly) different stories, different available characters, etc. occur based on which routes you take. These do not affect the ending though. So, just like in FE7, the question is which routes are best for a max ranking run. First of all, unlike 7, 6’s less sophisticated ranking system does not provide different funds, tactics, or XP requirements depending on which routes you take. So, unlike 7, if one route gives more valuable treasure then the other, then it’s simply better for your funds. And if one route can be more easily completed in fewer turns, that’s better for your tactics. So Echidna or Bartre? Almost everyone says Echidna. However, I just crunched the funds numbers (including character join gear and everything) and Bartre’s route is better by a significant 7325 in capital. Mostly because Elphin is loaded. That’s one whole extra promotion allowed plus some change. Which is better for XP? Well that’s hard to figure out. Checking every non-boss enemy that could ever spawn on each map (ignoring ones you must not kill; promoteds count as 2; clerics count as 1/2), I counted 92 enemies in the Echidna Route and 99 for Bartre. So edge goes to Bartre there too. What about tactics? Honestly, I’m not sure which is better there. They look comparable, with Echidna perhaps slightly faster. Now the X factor here is that (for no good reason) Gonzalez joins 6 levels lower in Echidna’s route with the same stats. That means he’s basically 4.8 HP, 3.6 Str, .9 Skill, 3 Speed, 2.1 Luck, 1.5 Def, and .3 Res better in Echidna’s route. The HP and Str bonuses are meaningless since he caps those stats in 3 seconds regardless, but the other bonuses can be noticeable. Perhaps more importantly, that’s 600 more XP you can gain using him before he hits 20/20 and must be retired. Assume a moderately bad case scenario where each dead enemy gives you 20 XP and assume that Gonzalez will be taken to 20/20 regardless of route. Then if you take Bartre’ route, you get 140 more XP and 7000 more capital but lose a few turns. That’s good trade. The real downside is a weaker Gonzalez and one you can’t use as often before he hits 20/20. Still, Bartre’s route looks better unless you’re so far ahead on funds that you don’t care about them. Now Sacae or Ilia? Well most people say Ilia because it’s easier. Max ranking runs are not about easiness, so that’s totally irrelevant- except that easy chapters let you feed XP to weak characters much more efficiently. Ilia’s pegasi are easy prey to anyone, while Sacae’s myrmidons and nomads are actually a pretty huge threat to weak characters. That’s going to lend a significant XP ranking edge to Ilia. Further, Ilia has something like 10000 more in capital available, and that capital is often easier to obtain. The Ilian route may also be easier on the tactics score, for all that’s worth. In conclusion: if funds are an issue then Bartre > Echnidna, otherwise they might be roughly equal. And Ilia > Sacae. Map & Battle Preparations  Secondary Objective: Recruit Zealot (Spawns turn 2) with Roy or Noah Secondary Objective: Recruit Treck (Spawns turn 2) with Roy or Zealot Secondary Objective: Recruit Noah (Spawns turn 3) with Roy or Zealot Secondary Objective: Steal the Red Gem rom the middle wyvern rider Secondary Objective: Get the Torch Staff from the bottom left village Secondary Objective: Get the Longbow from the mid left village Secondary Objective: Get the Killing Rdge from the right side bottom row village Secondary Objective: Get the Physic from the right side second row left village Secondary Objective: Get the Hero Crest from the right side second row right village Secondary Objective: Get the Red Gem from the right side third row village Secondary Objective: Get the Elixir from the right side top row left village Secondary Objective: Get the Horseslayer from the right side top row right village Secondary Objective: Get the Rapier from the left top right chest Secondary Objective: Get the Barrier Staff from the right top right chest Secondary Objective: Do some shopping Secondary Objective: Build supports Reinforcements: After an announcement, 4 cavaliers with assorted lances will come from the south on turns 10, 15, and 20. Amazingly, they don’t move on the turn they spawn. Additionally, a moderately powerful wave of 8 soldiers, mages, and archer will come from both sides of the boss when one of your units crosses the purple line on the map Turn Limit: 20. The map is won on turn 5 with a good approach. Then it’s just a scramble to get all the villages and chests and actually walk to the boss. No way should it take anything close to 20 turns. Units Allowed: 12 + Roy + Noah + Zealot + Treck. An enormous army. That’s nearly everyone. A complicated map at first glance but actually remarkably easy beyond the first few turns. In fact, the game is more friendly here on this allegedly awful chapter than on most others. No brigands and thieves threaten the treasure, the reinforcements are either warned of in advance, spawn nowhere near you, or don’t even move on the enemy turn, and you have a massive army dealing with enemies that barely outnumber you. Note, however, that though the enemy force is fairly small and will not be reinforced for a long time, it’s elite and dangerous. Cavaliers, mercenaries, and especially wyvern riders are not to be trifled with. Fortunately, they’re scattered and not all of them move if not provoked. However, the many forests- particularly those placed around the starting area- and buildings and alleys make it hard to deploy properly. The game is shoveling treasure into your lap with no less than 8 villages and 2 chests full of useful and valuable gear. There were like 8 chests last level and 8 more next level. It’s part of some kind of nefarious plot to drown Roy in money. The most difficult part of the chapter is recruiting the 3 mercenaries- all of whom must be talked to individually. Zealot and Treck spawn on turn 2 deep in enemy territory. Noah spawns near Roy on turn 3. Roy can recruit any of them, Zealot can recruit the other two, and Noah can recruit Zealot. This is where most players go wrong. Not only many players but many guides and even the game’s dialogue assumes that one will recruit Noah first and then send him to get Zealot. That’s an awful idea. Zealot and Treck are idiots and really weak and will both charge into the enemy at random. Not only will Treck (and possibly Zealot) die quickly, but Noah will be exposed to danger chasing after them and there’s no telling how long it will take to get to them as they run around. But apparently, instead of not using a strategy that clearly doesn’t work and thinking of something better instead, this chapter’s detractors just try the same thing over and over until Treck miraculously survives or just give up and let him die. As I’ll demonstrate, there’s no chance whatsoever of Treck dying if you approach the chapter right. Besides recruiting both of them immediately after they spawn so they don’t do anything stupid, the key is to do something unexpected and move 100% of your force up and right together, rather than splitting them around the arena. This decreases the number of enemies moving after you for a while and also gives you maximum force with which to smash those who do approach. That’s particularly important for killing wyverns. Do that and the map is over by turn 5. From there you can just pile up treasure, go shopping, build some supports, and effortlessly crush the boss and his guard. Speaking of shopping, I’m going to need to go a while before I can buy what I want again, so I prepared a proper shopping list and made sure I had what I needed. I used the War Room part 26 (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3701153&pagenumber=18#post442684349) method as usual:  I was surprised to learn this store also sold chest keys, so of course I bought one of those too. They’re not nearly as important as in HHM max ranking where time mattered, but it’s still good to have the option. Remember that buying things hurts your funds ranking in this game. Still, it’s always wise to stay well stocked with gear. Now for the formation, which is absolutely critical to get right:  Units Brought: 1) Roy. Required plus needed for recruiting people. As usual, he’s a sucky fighter. However, there are a lot of enemies vulnerable to his rapier here at least. 2) Zealot. Required. Marcus but slightly better. That’s not impressive. Still, he’s helpful for protecting Treck and softening a few enemies and rescue dropping. 3) Treck. Required and horrible here, he can barely fight anything on the level. Make him do the village visiting or shopping. 4) Noah. Required and barely usable here. This is just not a cavalier map. Still, he’s high enough level to not die immediately and that’s something. 5) Lot. Lot is great here with all the knights, lance-wielding cavaliers, and wyvern riders he can help with. He’s probably the best man to intercept the south reinforcements with too. 6) Dieck. Often at a weapon triangle advantage, but has enough damage to scratch wyverns and can fight knights effectively with his armorslayer. 7) Thany. Continues to not be very good at fighting but VERY handy for rescue-dropping or maneuvering to finish weakened enemies in this tangled up map. Plus I need to use her more than Sue to get the Ilian route. 8) Rutger. Continues to be at a weapon triangle disadvantage but useful nonetheless. 9) Lance. Stationed further back than Alan because he’s less useful as usual. 10) Alan. Despite cavaliers being none too impressive here, he remains one of my better units. He’s got some much needed maneuverability and can go toe to toe with even wyvern riders as long as he has his support bonuses. 11) Clarine. Good for rescue dropping and decent for healing, as well as still building support with Rutger and Dieck. 12) Marcus. I need an 8 move unit and he’s the only one available. He’s become terrible at this point, he can’t even double enemies to weaken them anymore. At least he can carry people. 13) Chad. Can’t really fight here against all these heavily armored lances, but needed to steal a red gem and get the top right chests. 14) Sue. Surprisingly useful even at level 1 against these horrendously powerful wyverns. Plus she can rescue people and is good for one’s XP ranking. 15) Saul. A second healer is necessary and he’s way better than Ellen. 16) Lugh. Great against everything on the level, and even solid against those wyvern riders. Notable Units Rejected: 1) Ellen. A third healer is unnecessary because the army will mostly be in one place and because there’s almost no fighting after turn 5, allowing the other healers to grind maximum XP gain anyway. Meanwhile, a very large number of fighting units are needed. 2) Dorothy. Would be decent against the wyverns but that’s it. And Sue moves faster, which is critical now. 3) That’s pretty much everyone except for the terrible units. The group is positioned for maximum rescue-dropping (even by some of the infantry). That’s essential. There is no time to slog through those forests or wait for slow people to catch up; I need 100% of my forces in one place and ready to fight by turn 3 at the latest. Everyone has fairly standard gear at this point. The Characters:  Treck is a bland Ilian mercenary. And another of the ridiculous “ So laid-back he falls asleep on the battlefield” archetype of FE characters. There’s basically nothing else to him. Boring and stupid. His stats are actually quite good, other than his speed. He leads in HP, Def, and Luck over the other cavaliers and does well in Str too. But he’s the slowest and that hurts. Even more importantly, he doesn’t have a great support list. In fact, he has a terrible one other than Gonzalez. Gonzalez, admittedly, could use his support bonus though. All in all, if you can get him fast enough to get going he could be a really good cavalier, but he can’t match the supports of Lance and Alan or their level lead.  A pretty generic guy in personality, Noah is a much less stupid and lazy member of the Ilian mercenary group than Treck. He’s not terribly well disciplined and ran off in the middle of a war zone to train some random swordswoman (Fir) he saw at the arena in town because he thought she was cute. That’s… about all there is to him. Noah is the statistically blandest and most mediocre cavalier. He’s the best at nothing and the worst only at Def, but is pretty bad in speed and str. In other words, he’s the worst. However, he joins strong enough to at least be capable of not dying immediately on this chapter and that’s something.  The leader of the mercenary band, Zealot is actually a big deal back in his homeland of He’s Marcus with +2 in the stats that matter. Marcus stopped being useful several chapters ago. The game lets you bring so many people that sometimes you might as well haul him along, but he’s not very good even for helping other people get kills at this point since other units like Lance and Alan are now better at that job than him too.  Though only a lieutenant, he was apparently one of the higher ups in the rebellion and seems to rank just below General Leygance. There’s not much to him other than being Leygance’s generic henchman.  And this amusingly wrong description. Yet another knight boss. He’s a bit stronger than his predecessors but not enough to matter. Same as them, he has garbage resistance even with the secret +5 throne bonus, and this time I have a mage who can capitalize on that.  Now this thing is actually a bit of a problem. It’s not nearly as formidable as in Blazing Sword, but even here in the prequel^(-1) it packs a punch this early in the game. Still, even with it he doesn’t have much of a crit chance and he’ll still be fighting all alone against potentially your whole army. Playing Through: The first thing to do is move the three infantrymen in. There’s no need to fight that left knight now, so I’ll be ignoring him. And (as always) if you aren’t fighting, then you should probably be rescue-dropping for free bonus movement.  Here goes.  And Dieck drops him. Even this simple little maneuver is really valuable. Rutger is a whole 5 squares of movement ahead of where he could have gotten to without slowing the others at all. If you aren’t rescue-dropping whenever possible, you’re just throwing away free movement and positioning.  Now looking ahead, I know Zealot spawns in this square and doesn’t move on his first turn. That’s my chance to have Roy talk to him.  In order to move and talk to him, Roy needs to be here (or along the diagonal up and left from here). So I have to get Roy here this turn. He can’t move that far of course- not without being rescued. But before I can have other people carry him, I want him to help carry someone else. That’s just efficient.  Lugh moves in so Sue can grab him.  Then Roy takes and drops Lugh, simultaneously moving to a good square for Lance to pick him up from.  Which he does.  Now Marcus is actually able to drop Roy one square ahead of where he needs to be.  Then, with his support bonuses all set up, Alan moves in to shred this knight. I checked the numbers, and if the Knight is left with 6 HP, then Roy can actually counter and kill him with his iron sword.  Or that could happen. Works for me. It’s actually a minor inconvenience since now a mercenary could move in to block Roy whereas otherwise he’d have gone before the knight and thus had to attack Alan and been out of the way. Pretty good background there. I don’t think they used that one in FE7.  Time for yet another rescue drop, this time of Saul. I need both him and Clarine ready to heal anyone injured at any point next turn.  There’s a guy with a javelin offscreen to the right there. He’s juuuuuust out of range of Lugh, Sue, and now Saul, so he won’t move.. That’s the turn. 4 rescue drops got me into a great position and the enemy can’t do much.  Zealot and Treck pop up but don’t do anything.  He really should get in some serious trouble for just running off with some girl to train her at the arena.  This chapter is full of people talking about arenas. Noah gives Fir a complete explanation of why you should be ready to press B at any time while using one. I won’t be using it of course, since that would defeat the purpose of the run.  For some reason Zealot just says this is odd, not unacceptable and inappropriate while they’re surrounded by enemy forces. He does have to deal with Treck all day. Maybe it seems like a small indiscretion compared to dozing off mid-battle.  My turn. First thing to do is have Lugh weaken the mercenary in the way. He also blocks off this troubleseome javelin soldier at the same time.  Just enough damage for Thany to finish him. There aren’t many soft targets around.  Roy needs to be at full health to tank the kind of hit I want him to.  He goes to talk to Zealot as planned.  Respecting may not be the best translation word choice.  Zealot apparently knew Hector and thought he was pretty awesome. This might also explain why they’re staying loyal even though he’s dead and the mission they were hired for is no longer relevant.  Is someone going to jump up and say that Ilian mercenaries never betray their employers? It’s been two minutes since anyone mentioned that. I might forget.  He readies his javelin as he moves to talk to Treck and then block the multiple ranged enemies on the right.  Weren’t you already?  He’ll be able to soften these guys for someone else in a few turns.  So now here’s the situation with the enemy. There’s quite a few of them but only one wyvern rider since I didn’t advance anyone on the left part of the map. The wyvern and the mage are the big problems.  And here’s my position now that I can actually choose who to use for the second half of the turn. I need those cavaliers dead and a defensive line in place. And I’ve got 10 guys to do that with. Not a problem.  They’re pretty darned tough.  The terrain makes them hard to attack too.  If my Roy was weaker, I’d need to move Alan up 1 instead to prevent ranged attacks against Roy.  Now here I made a mistake actually, having Rutger make Thany equip her javelin. I thought that meant the soldier would be forced to attack one of them and get countered and injured. What I overlooked for a moment was that the solider could now move 1 up onto the village, attacking Rutger from there.  If your Roy isn’t tough, have Treck rescue him and run. My Roy is pretty high level and strong, so he can stay right there and Treck can instead visit this village.  So here’s the final turn 2 setup.  Alan scores a critical against the attacking mage. That’s nice, the mage could have been a threat if it dodged.  Well lucky me! Roy crits the attacking wyvern and barely damages it.  Solid level though. And that’s the enemy turn.  Noah and Fir are chatting at the arena. Noah is really not fast on the uptake here.  I’m really not sure what the point of this whole scene is. I mean, it sets up that Noah recruits her on chapter 9 I guess, but does that itself really add anything to the game?  There’s a whole battle going on now I could use the two of you in. It’s happening right next to the arena. You can hear the blood splattering from where you’re standing.  Darn.  She’s… assuming that because miners are strong, the miners in the western isles will be good opponents to practice swordfighting with.  And here’s a less stupid reason. Actually, this arena right here might be the second place they met. And it might also be the one Hector often sneaked out to as a boy.  Noah now spends a while trying to tell us that she’s actually a deep and developed character. Unlike both her parents.  And then he finally appears on the map. I can’t recruit him immediately, but who cares? He’s in no danger at all.  So things are a bit of a mess at the start of turn 3 at first glance. But as long as I can kill that wyvern, it’s really no trouble at all.  Dieck easily kills a knight.  Lot takes down the other.  Since he’s not as strong as Alan, Lance kills the soldier to open the space near the wyvern.  Not bad I guess. He’s really slow.  Even Alan, fully supported, has trouble damaging these monsters, but this should weaken it enough for someone else to-  Darn, it dodged. Here are the stats on the thing. It has as much Def as knights, more HP, more str, no weakness but bows, and amazing speed. As you can see, it’s every bit as strong as the ones fought on New Resolve, which were a serious problem there for a much stronger party (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3701153&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=13#post442494526). Fortunately there are only 3 of these and they don’t work together well. Still, each one of them fights better than a moving boss at this point in the game and the terrain favors them.  So Sue has a use! Her triple damage iron bow allows her to land respectable hits on wyverns.  Wow! Keep this up and I might actually make you part of the team!  The Rapier is useful taking out a cavalier from full. While supported of course.  That final mercenary on a forest may be impossible to kill, but it’s not a problem since the rest of the enemy wave was wiped out. The chapter is in the bag except for one final fight with 2 wyverns.  Lugh finishes off the soldier. He’ll be fighting many of the enemies in the village cluster. Pretty nice level.  Clarine took a javelin hit before, time to do something about that.  For every level Sue gets, I need to make sure Thany gets one too.  It worked! Now to heal her too. Noah is a loose cannon at this point, but at least he can’t hurt himself immediately.  Well isn’t that nice of him; he moved on in where I can recruit him.  Treck can’t recruit him because no one likes Treck, so he heads off to start snagging the left villages and then go to the vendor  Here come the other wyverns. For now I just need to clear all these other enemies out so I can focus on them alone.  Lugh continues to fight the right enemies, as does Zealot, who’s careful not to kill any.  Roy recruits Noah.   And now some nonsense begins. See, the game assumes you’d play foolishly and recruit him before Zealot. So he talks like he’s joining up without Zealot knowing what’s going on.  So we get this absurdity when Roy already talked to Zealot and Zealot joined up.   You know what else prevents you from acting quickly in trouble? Running off on your own to teach some random girl how to fight in the arena while the battle begins.  Well he’s as useless as Treck right now, so he’s going to start snagging villages.  These things are so hard to kill…  Marcus has to join in on this one…  … so that Dieck doesn’t need to use 2 armorslayer charges, just one.  Thany is here as bait. See the gem wyvern rider doesn’t move unless someone goes in his range, which Thany is now in.  This was not unforeseen, but is a problem. She can’t use an iron lance without being slowed by 4. Oh well, it did its job while it lasted.  My turn, Lugh keeps fighting. Sue has joined in against the few remaining enemies, which means neither she nor Lugh can help with the wyverns. Surely the other 15 or whatever units can take on just 2 wyvern riders in the open, right?  Could be handy. I’ve been saving Rutger’s first one pretty carefully.  So here’s the situation. It’s 11 vs 2 on the left, but that’s barely an even fight against wyvern riders. On the right I want to train Sue but she can’t take another hit.  Thany kills this archer instead.  Well the Def is nice.  Chad steals the red gem.  Marcus is totally ineffective and gets a terrible level.  Everyone else keeps attacking.  Nice! This is actually a really good Dieck all in all. Significant plusses to speed and Def.  The chapter was so easy that I decide to just take a risk here in hopes of getting some XP for Sue. It’s only turn 5 or something.  Wow, that paid off great. Sue is starting to look really good with those Str plusses.  Ultimately it comes down to this, Lot vs the wyvern rider (with an iron axe, not this handaxe).  And he double misses. Darn. Better get healing so no one dies to the wyvern’s javelin.  Well that’s a terrible level.  So as turn 5 ends, you can see the enemy army is gone. Of those 5, one is the boss and two are priests.  The last wyvern went before the priests, so it suicided before they could use their Physic staves on it.  Excellent! That sure makes up for Saul.  More village visits.  Chad runs up and kills one of the Physic priests.  Nice.  Lugh needs to rejoin the group.  With the fighting done, Zealot joins in on visiting villages.   Wrong. It’s not effective against nomads. Still a darned good weapon. Waaay better than in FE7  Treck gets the Torch from his first village.  Now every single coming cavalier has a lance, so Lot can handle them alone. But he’ll need Marcus’s less damaged iron axe.  Time to part ways.  Roy can’t keep up, so the others start hauling him around. I’ll be doing the same for several other infantry units on and off whenever they fall behind.  Now this is treasure! I don’t have anyone who can use it effectively yet, but Physic is a very handy tool to use later. Those 2 priests on this chapter can really be a nuisance with theirs.  Speaking of which, Chad kills the next one.  He missed, so Sue finishes it.  And the rest of the group just pushes through. Now we’re over the line so the reinforcements should appear soon.  Sure enough.  Chad opens the door.  A very handy item in this game.  Meanwhile Noah gets the first promotion item.  So as turn 8 finishes, the group is in position to take down the reinforcements.  Alan gets a nice level while being attacked by one of them  Chad gets another fun item. They give you all the cool stuff on this chapter.  And that’s the last village at last.  This is the ideal spot for Lot to fight the cavaliers from.  And Treck goes to the store for tomes, vulneraries, and the like.  The enemy is poorly positioned and we’re ready to crush most of them.   Lance and Alan wall out the remaining enemies while Zealot weakens this one.  And Thany weakens this one. Now Lugh and Sue can finish them.  Well that’s pretty bad. Oh well.  That makes up for it. Wow she’s packing a lot of Str now.  Even lance finally gets a good level!  This chapter is really nice. They warn you about reinforcements coming from the south and everything.  You’ll be shocked to find we could kill you before they even arrive if we wanted.  Chad gets the last chest. If rapiers weren't bad in this game, this would be pretty great treasure.  I need Dieck for this job, so Zealot carries him to the front.  The rest of the enemy are easily dispatched.  Rutger stands by Clarine for more support.  And it’s unlocked at last.  Well that’s unexpe-  And then of course she immediately turns it into a string of remarks about how of course she and her brother are better than him in every way but she, with her tremendous skills, could make even a lowly commoner like him good looking and so on. Ugh.  Rutger is very good at dealing with her.  The southern reinforcements appear!  And they don’t even get to move on the enemy turn! The game really plays nice this chapter and is unimpeachably fair. If you lose this map, it’s because your strategy wasn’t good enough.  With his throne, even Devias can be hard to kill.  Dieck actually managed to double hit, so Lugh can now finish Devias off.   Too late!  Meh.  This is a bad Clarine. And that’s saying a lot.  Dieck is dropped to continue building supports. I’m not going to finish the level for one more turn since I want to finish shopping and have Lot kill the last enemies.  He attacks and gets another great level.  They’re all weakened, so one more turn will suffice.  Marcus and the rest finish shopping.  On the enemy turn, Lot gets a horrible level.  And on my turn he kills the lucky last one.  So that’s that, I win on turn 13.  Now on to the chapter where important stuff happens for the first time since maybe 3.   You… do realize that has nothing to do with Lilina, right?  Why in the world would anyone have thought they were myth? There’s got to be so much evidence all over.  I guess we’ll have to take your word for it.  QED dragons.  Whoah. Either Merlinus is right about something or the writers thought wyvern riders were extremely weak.  Actually… not that much worse. I mean they hit harder but they don’t fly around and aren’t anywhere near as fast.  Why is Roy so ignorant? Well that’s that. I hope I’ve demonstrated that far from what people say about this chapter, it’s actually really easy if you take a good approach. Heck it’s like a bonus level full of dozens of great items and all the time you could want to buy absolutely anything. Total Restarts: 2 Turn Surplus: -12 (Scored 7 turns there. Could have had more, but this let me finish shopping and kill a few reinforcements) Things I Regret missing: A couple of uses of Marcus’s silver lance on Rude, a Chapter 5 nomad Marcus had to kill Melth fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Jul 29, 2015 |
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May 4, 2015 03:43
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I think Sue wants to stay on the team. She's getting outclassed in three chapters, but if she keeps up those growths I don't see why having her and Shin around is a bad idea (at least to level 20). You have the worst luck with healer level ups. I don't think I've ever seen a Clarine that bad to start off.
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May 4, 2015 04:00
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So, this map. Melth, I'm so loving glad you know how to get Zealot and Treck, my strategy is basically the same except sometimes I move Roy higher, which is a bit more dangerous. But I remember having to make a screen shot guide of this in the past. and yeah, it's pretty fair in all regards, a little complex but not hard. That being said, my changes are... fairly minor   and Noah slips into the role of the third mercenary. Not that cavaliers aren't kickass to have but there's a pretty big glut of them, now I've reduced it to 4. Alance, Percy and Marcus. Treck comes in as a soldier (the second soldier) and zealot comes in as a Halberdier (the first). This diversifies the party portfolio and gives the player more reason to try out these guys. The other changes made are more things like items (the Horseslayer actually does hit Nomads and Valkyries) and other fixes. Oh and the arena's are FE4 style now. Which means that there's no Arena Abuse to go around. Addressing something brought up in your notes though, route splits. There aren't any. The former Western Isle split is now 11A and 11B in that succession, with Lalum joining there and Elphin joining on 11B. Also, the unique villages for Ward and Lot have been move to 11A. and Gonzales has been moved to 11B for recruitment, and given a starting level of 10. Ilia and Sacae instead take place one after the other, since if one goes to Ilia, they'd have to pass through Sacae to get to Bern anyway. This is where new recruits Lyn and Nino are picked up. Now have a gif 
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May 4, 2015 04:17
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Very nice Melth! I never could quite figure out how to safely secure all the recruitables on this chapter. Also Omni, you're giving the player 2 dancers?
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May 4, 2015 04:21
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Cat Army 
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The Iron Rose posted:Very nice Melth! I never could quite figure out how to safely secure all the recruitables on this chapter. No. Elphin is a light magic user who promotes to Light/Axes I was however thinking of leaving him with buffing powers, think of him like Nekki Basara. Which had a not-zero amount of influence on some things, like his promotion.
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May 4, 2015 04:28
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Onmi posted:No. Elphin is a light magic user who promotes to Light/Axes I was however thinking of leaving him with buffing powers, think of him like Nekki Basara. Which had a not-zero amount of influence on some things, like his promotion. So he's A bard who gets axes? Sounds pretty metal.
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May 4, 2015 04:31
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Onmi posted:Light/Axes Well that's an interesting combination.
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May 4, 2015 04:31
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So, who do you think will get that first Hero's Crest? Dieck or Rutger?
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May 4, 2015 04:39
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MightyPretenders posted:So, who do you think will get that first Hero's Crest? Dieck or Rutger? Rutger is typically the best in an efficiency playthrough, as by this point in time he'll be able to double and get good hit rates on Henning who is otherwise a massive stumbling block of a dickhead.
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May 4, 2015 04:53
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 Katie Tiedrich posted:A stationary Fire Emblem boss with no ranged weapons is always a delightful treat; I appreciate their willingness to stand completely still and be barraged by javelins and hand axes until death. For some reason I thought this was relevant.
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May 4, 2015 04:54
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I've only played FE6 once before but when I did I had a really fun Clarine:   Nothing could hit her and it was fantastic. Shame about that HP and Mag though, wish she'd gotten a little bit more. 24 HP at level 1 Valkyrie was laughable in that "this is so not funny that it's become funny again" way.
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May 4, 2015 05:22
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Noah and Treck don't top my list of Characters I Would Cut Because FE6 Has Way Too Many Boring Characters, but only because Ward and Garret exist.
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May 4, 2015 05:23
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FPzero posted:I've only played FE6 once before but when I did I had a really fun Clarine: That's already fantastic HP for her and above average mag too. Having her cap Speed and Luck is completely normal though.
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May 4, 2015 05:44
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Wow that's 3 STR level up in a row. Good job Sue. Lot's doing great too.
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May 4, 2015 05:51
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Onmi posted:Oh good, that should finally squash all the stupid people who think that Dorothy is Dorcas's daughter or Wendy is Serra's daughter. Funny thing is, the book's been out over a decade, I think. So it should.... but didn't.  This is a lovely photo of the page, but the only thing obscured is that Pent and Louise are Klein and Clarine's biological parents. The bottom of the page is about folks who were in both games.
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May 4, 2015 06:57
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Is it just me, or does Devias look... familiar?  I guess getting benched after getting four poo poo levels didn't sit too well with him.
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May 4, 2015 11:51
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That's some impressive HP gain though. Maybe he stole some Angelic Robes.
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May 4, 2015 12:03
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Naw, I'm pretty sure that's just from getting fat. Fatness has always been correlated with HP.
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May 4, 2015 12:06
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This was the strategy I ended up on after a good bit of trial and error on this map. However, I had a lot harder time with it than you. See, I had quite a few poor characters at this point - particularly Luch and Alan were terrible and Roy had no speed or defensive stats worth talking about. As a result, the turn 1 Roy-drop wasn't nearly as comfortable given that nearly every non-Knight enemy could double Roy and also kill him in 2 hits, so I could never let him be in range of anything without being susceptible to the mercy of the RNG - and except the fact that some enemies would need three hits instead of two, the same was true of Alan. Might still be doable without luck, but in my case definitely not quickly. In addition to Roy with his Rapier and Alan with his Strength being too slow and fragile to put in harm's way and also losing half their damage from no doubling, my Lugh also had ZERO Speed-gains in 8 or 9 levels at this point and actually couldn't double the Knights at all. So he was less than half as useful as yours who could almost solo the right side. It was a huge pain in the rear end.
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May 4, 2015 12:54
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Insurrectionist posted:This was the strategy I ended up on after a good bit of trial and error on this map. However, I had a lot harder time with it than you. See, I had quite a few poor characters at this point - particularly Luch and Alan were terrible and Roy had no speed or defensive stats worth talking about. As a result, the turn 1 Roy-drop wasn't nearly as comfortable given that nearly every non-Knight enemy could double Roy and also kill him in 2 hits, so I could never let him be in range of anything without being susceptible to the mercy of the RNG - and except the fact that some enemies would need three hits instead of two, the same was true of Alan. Might still be doable without luck, but in my case definitely not quickly. In addition to Roy with his Rapier and Alan with his Strength being too slow and fragile to put in harm's way and also losing half their damage from no doubling, my Lugh also had ZERO Speed-gains in 8 or 9 levels at this point and actually couldn't double the Knights at all. So he was less than half as useful as yours who could almost solo the right side. It was a huge pain in the rear end. it's still entirely possible, you just have to resign yourself to using Marcus, while not an optimal situation in terms of EXP, the map is still perfectly viable and doable due to Marcus existence. In fact, here's the 0% growth run of the chapter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbpTnhunaVY Even if you're entirely screwed, entirely possible.
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May 4, 2015 13:03
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I still love that that chapter is just the Escape chapter from FE5 in reverse. I was actually really hoping you'd say you didn't change it much, Omni, in order to leave that intact.
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May 4, 2015 18:00
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Kajeesus posted:Is it just me, or does Devias look... familiar? I'd been thinking about commenting on that armor. Worse than getting benched was probably getting brought out and trained clear to 20 fighting the reinforcements on Night of Farewells only for me to stop using that save and train Bartre instead after people demanded Karla.
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May 5, 2015 04:51
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 Now here’s a chapter that really is (partly) luck based. The boss is just too hard to kill on his throne. The story finally begins to advance once again with Roy at last being reunited with Lilina and liberating Ostia. Unfortunately, a ton of filler is coming. In terms of level design it’s almost a cool chapter- along the lines of Whereabouts Unknown in particular- but instead is just annoyingly long and a huge nuisance. Chapter Summary: Roy and his army break into the castle to defeat the rebels and save Lilina. Fortunately, Leygance still has no idea what a hostage is, so he just puts up a really lousily organized defense. After killing him, Roy informs Lilina of Hector’s death. Together they decide to travel to the resting place of Durandal, as Hector had advised with his final words.  You mean armor? I think it’s called armor.  *Snicker*  HAHAHAHAHAHA! Man, that’s a good one.  Maybe you should have actually had some men trying to stop this.  I don’t know, but he could have done it better if you didn’t have like 100 people in here doing nothing instead of helping him.  Wow, that joke just never gets old.  Also you’ll be dead. There’s that too. Weirdly actually, everything he says from this point on seems to be predicated on the unspoken assumption that we won’t actually try to fight him and his men.  You’re really starting to give Narshen a run for his money.  Smart! Maybe you could do that now. To stop us. Now is the time really. You have 5 minutes till all your men are dead.  Wait by rebels does he mean his group or the loyalist forces he’s fighting?  I guess he must mean his group? So the reason he isn’t using her as a hostage is that some of his men actually like Lilina? Why did they approve of rebelling against her and locking her up then?  Why is this random grunt the smart one?  That’s never going to work! Her cell is like 20 turns from the door. The only way we’d reach anywhere near her if he we slaughtered 90% of his men and were heading right for him already. In that case, he’s probably lost anyway. If we don’t get that far, then there’s no way anyone would have been shooting arrows anywhere near her, so it would clearly be an assassination by him. Not to mention it’s kind of implausible one would fire arrows accidentally into a completely closed and locked cell. Also how does this benefit him in any way? We already killed half his forces and got into his castle. He’s about to have to fight for his life and it’s not looking good. Why does killing Lilina make anything better whether he wins or loses? The smart thing is definitely to use her as a hostage now and make us stand down.  Entering with his army, Roy is greeted by this mystery man.  Guess who’s going to be suspicious of him?  Alright, Merlinus doesn’t trust you, you’re in the clear.  He sure is.  Astol explains that he’s a spy.  And he knows Lilina’s location. The War Room, Part 41 Although in the War Room Part 21 (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3701153&pagenumber=9#post442132013) I talked about the basic mechanics of rescuing, I still haven’t gotten into the strategy of it directly. It’s a very big topic and there’s so much to say that I’m not sure where to begin. Rescuing is the only big difference between a novice and an expert at the GBA fire emblem games. Rescuing is why many players say chapters like Battle Before Dawn or chapter 7 of this game are impossible without luck, but I can complete them easily. And at least in FE7 where tactics was a difficult ranking category, max ranking the game would probably be outright impossible without making good use of rescuing. It would not, in fact, be much of an exaggeration to say that any unit which is not fighting or healing on a turn should be either rescuing or being rescued by someone else. To explain why, I’ll talk about the tactical benefits of rescuing here and get into more detail in the future. Here are just a few of the unique advantages rescuing can give you: 1) Most obviously, it lets you protect vulnerable units. Sometimes one of your units is left in a very dangerous position (perhaps an attack that should have killed an enemy missed). If you can’t block the enemies from getting to them, you could instead use rescuing to get them out of danger. Of course, the rescuer unit might then be in danger itself due to its halved speed. You can solve that problem by having a third unit take and drop the rescued one (assuming the drop spot is out of the original danger). Here’s an example of a time I could have done this: Roy is in range of both several troops with ranged weapons and an offscreen, hard-hitting wyvern rider. I checked the numbers and mine can survive both attacks. One person responded to say my strategy seemed to depend on a Roy who could take hits, but as I pointed out, that’s not true. At this moment, instead of having Rutger trade with Thany and Treck visit a village, I could have Treck rescue Roy and move to the space 1 right of Marcus. Then Rutger could take and drop Roy south of Marcus. Problem solved; Roy could no longer be attacked by anything. 2) Moving slow units more quickly. Mounted units or others with high movement can rescue slow troops and carry them along until it’s time to fight. I’ll be making extensive use of that in this chapter. Here’s an example from FE7’s chapter 13 though:     So Marcus and Oswin were both far from the action and had no fighting to do for a while. Thus I rescued Oswin and carried him for several turns until he could be dropped on this fort to do an important job. Any time there isn’t much fighting for a couple of turns, you should ALWAYS be doing this. Oswin got to move at a speed of 8 squares for several turns here and that’s pretty amazing. 3) Moving units vast distances in a single turn. Often called “Rescue Chaining”, this involves using several mounted units (often with one extra non-mounted unit at the end) with positions set up beforehand to rescue a unit, move with it next to the next rescuer, have that next rescuer take the rescued unit, move next to the next rescuer, and so on.       In that giant chain, I looted a chest and then moved Matthew more than 37 spaces in one turn so he could loot the other set of chests promptly. It’s most often thieves who need transport like that, but sometimes a lord or other person who needs to reach a particular spot soon does too. To do one of these with more than 2 mounted units is typically a huge investment since a sizable number of troops must do nothing but sit around and wait for the others to be in position. But shorter ones can be done all the time. Here's a fairly impromptu rescue chain from chapter 6 of this game:   The troops weren’t in good position so this one didn’t go far, but it was quite effective for an impromptu rescue chain and got Sue exactly where she needed to be.    Just a few turns later they did it again, better executed this time. 4) Besides letting slow units be moved farther by fast units, rescuing can outright create bonus movement out of thin air. See, the rescued party basically moves for free into the square of the rescuer and then into the square they’re dropped into. Every additional person in a chain carrying the rescued person adds another square of free movement. And since units can be picked up into or dropped into any kind of terrain they can cross, these bonus squares could conceivably be worth many points of movement:  All of these guys have 5 movement, but rescuing allowed them to go a total of 20 points worth of move instead of 15 that turn. Extra points of movement were simply created ex nihilo by the magic of rescuing. In another case, something similar saved me many turns:    Rivers normally cost Hector a full 5 move to get into- and most people can’t traverse them at all. But Oswin was able to drop him into the river as easily as into that house next to him, essentially saving an extra 4 squares. That trick saved me MANY turns on this chapter. 5) Offensive rescuing. Sometimes you want to kill an enemy but can’t get enough people into attack range to do so. Depending on the circumstances, rescuing one person out after he attacks could allow an extra person to step up and kill the otherwise unkillable enemy.  In this picture, I want that mage on the left dead but only one person can attack it and I’ll need at least 2 attacks to finish it. One solution would be to have Sue shoot it, have Lot rescue Sue, then have Lance step into Sue’s spot an throw a javelin for the finisher. 6) Benefitting from different movement types. The most obvious example of this is having air units carry ground units over impassable or difficult terrain, as in this example (which also demonstrates clever use of 4) to surround and thereby disable some enemies):     Canas was carried to an island he could never reach at all otherwise. Air units are only the most obvious case though. You could move someone next to a river, then have a pirate standing on the river pick them up, then anyone on the other side take and drop them. Or have a mage carry someone through a desert. Or any number of other such uses. There are, of course, other unique benefits you can reap from rescuing. Really the power of rescues is limited mainly by your tactical imagination, which might well exceed mine. In the future, I’ll talk about the best ways to set up and execute rescues once you know what you want. Battle Preparations & the Map:  Secondary Objective: Talk to Roy with Lilina for a free Thunder Tome Secondary Objective: Talk to Cath with Roy to recruit her later Secondary Objective: Steal Cath’s lockpick Secondary Objective: Steal the other thief’s lockpick Secondary Objective: Steal the north middle knight’s chest key Secondary Objective: Steal the south middle knight’s chest key Secondary Objective: Build some supports Secondary Objective: Kill all reinforcements Secondary Objective: Get the Light Brand from the chest Secondary Objective: Get the Killer Bow from the chest Secondary Objective: Get the Elfire from the chest Secondary Objective: Get the Guiding Ring from the chest Secondary Objective: Get the Secret Book from the chest Secondary Objective: Get the Silver Axe from the chest Secondary Objective: Get the Elysian Whip from the chest Reinforcements: A thief and Cath from the southern stairs on turn 10. A mixed group in the top left from 15-18. Archers and mercenaries from the southern stairs from 16-19. Soldiers and knights from the bottom left area from 16-19. Turn Limit: 25. Believe it or not, this is actually really, really hard to make. It’s just too far to go with too many fights on the way. And the boss is too hard to kill. The map is too huge! If there were no enemies to fight and you took the most efficient possible route, it would take Roy nineteen turns just to walk to the throne, nevermind fighting the boss on it. That’s crazy! Victory or Death would take only 12 turns for Hector to walk across! Whereabouts Unknown would take 10. I don’t think there’s a more time-consuming map in the GBA titles. Heck, I’m not sure there’s one that takes longer to walk across in FE4 because most maps there are wide open. Furthermore, the enemies are really spread out, so you never have a real fight but can never stop fighting either. The result is a chapter with no real challenge to it but so much stuff to do spread over such a long slog that you can never relax and have to use all your skills just to not take 30 turns to reach the end. Playing it is about as fast-paced and fun as wading through waist-deep mud. Anyway there's tons of stuff to do. There are 8 chests- 4 of them another 3-4 turns or so beyond the throne area, 5 new characters, 2 lockpicks to steal, 2 chest keys to steal, about 10 turns of reins in three places, and generally just a lot to take care of. It’s a giant, messy, tricky map. Not because the fighting is remotely hard but just because you have to move a giant group efficiently through narrow hallways Kind of like Whereabouts Unknown but more so, this is a cavalry map. If most of your troops aren’t mounted, you’ll never get anywhere. Plus cavaliers are pretty effective or very effective against almost all the enemies. And much like Whereabouts Unknown, lots of rescuing and carrying are in order.  Units Allowed: 11 + Roy + Astol + Lilina + Wendy + Barth + Oujay. That’s 17. Many of them useless. And having so many is more of a nuisance than an asset at times. Units Brought: 1) Roy. Required and mostly useless. Too many enemies with lances and he’s too slow. Just here to provide support bonuses and talk to people. 2) Astol. Required. As a second thief, he’s completely indispensable here. There’s so much stuff to steal and loot. 3) Lilina. Required, mediocre, and can’t actually be used till the chapter is basically over. 4) Wendy. Required and useless. 5) Barth. Required and only slightly less useless. This map is not good for people with 4 move. 6) Oujay. Required and trainable, if not good. 7) Alan. My best mounted unit. He’ll do a lot of the fighting and a lot of rescuing. 8) Lance. Not as good as Alan, but comparable. 9) Treck. A low level, usable cavalryman. Of course he’s coming. 10) Zealot. Better than Marcus and I need more cavalrymen. Plus I want more people capable of using armorslayers and hammers and he can do both. 11) Thany. There are a bunch of archers, but usually in the open where she can wreck them. And she’s a low level cavalrywoman. 12) Sue. A low level cavalrywoman. 13) Clarine. A healer and a cavalrywoman. 14) Chad. A second thief is desperately needed. 15) Lugh. Extremely effective against all enemies on the chapter. 16) Lot. Extremely effective against all enemies on the chapter. 17) Saul. A second healer is necessary. Notable Units Rejected: 1) Marcus. Too weak to be any help at all. 2) Noah. Not as good or as low level as most of the other cavaliers or mounted units. 3) Dieck. I can’t bring many infantry units and he’s sword-locked on a level where almost every enemy has a lance or a ranged weapon. 4) Rutger. I can’t bring many infantry units and he’s sword-locked on a level where almost every enemy has a lance or a ranged weapon. 5) Ellen. I can’t bring many infantry units and this many healers should be just enough. The thieves are keeping some inventory space open for stealing. Zealot has the armorslayer, Lot has the hammer. Everyone else has fairly standard gear. In this formation, the infantry can move up past or to the cavalry, who can then rescue them and carry them and drop them with maximum speed. I’ll need to keep something like that up all chapter long. The Characters:  Roy’s quasi-official love interest is Hector’s daughter. She was seen briefly at the end of FE7 where we learn she and Roy have been friends since they were very young. Like her father, she tries to be stoic and emotionally strong for others, but (also like him) her retainers try to shelter her from unpleasant truths and deaths in the family. She’s a good deal smarter and more knowledgeable than either Hector or Roy from what we see and is extremely kind and accepting of others. A bit bland, but still more developed than most people in this game. Lilina is one of the worst mages I’ve seen, but that still makes her pretty good. She starts off completely sucky but will grow into a solid unit if trained, courtesy of massive Mag and ultimately solid speed and luck. Her low starting speed is her greatest disadvantage and the main obstacle in training her. Generally Lugh is better, but she’s still good if she gets going.  Though he is an Ostian thief and spy, Astol is no Matthew. He’s characterized almost entirely differently in each of his supports from serious and hardworking to lazy and from polite to rather rude among other things. Not consistent at all. Still, each of them individually are unusually good supports. He can’t fight nearly as well as Chad, but he takes hits a lot better and can wield bigger weapons. Ultimately, he does his job of opening chests and stealing things well but that’s about it.  Bors’s sister, Wendy is a young knight still in training. She doesn’t get much respect from the other Ostians, but she works hard. Knight is and remains a terrible class. And Wendy isn’t even good at being one of those. Her growths are actually pretty darned good, but her bases so awful that that barely matters. If you can somehow take her to 20/20 she’s a solid all-rounder, but not good enough to be worth the trouble. And again, knights have only one real job and she’s not good at it.  A serious, blunt, and respected Ostian knight. That’s about it. If you want to use a knight, he’s probably your man actually. He joins at the same level as Oswin and with only slightly worse stats all in all. He’ll never be even acceptably fast, but he hits hard and has very respectable Def. Like most knights, his promotion gains are amazing.  A young Ostian knight who is not, in fact, a knight. This pretty much automatically makes him better than the rest of his squad, but they don’t see it that way since he’s still the newest member. He became a warrior to help his very poor family back home and… that’s about it. He doesn’t get much respect from the others, but he’s working hard and proud of his skills. Oujay is actually quite a solid unit, but he’s no Raven. He’s not even a Dieck really. Probably he’s the third best sword user in the game overall after Dieck and Rutger. His bases are decent and his growths are quite good, but he’s not really amazing at anything and he doesn’t have Dieck’s con.  The generic rebel general, Leygance is an arrogant idiot like most villains in this game. However, he’s WAY harder to kill than most bosses up till now despite his mediocre gear:  That’s because you can't scratch him without armorslayers and hammers, but those are inaccurate. With his solid speed and luck and his throne, you're unlikely to break 40% hit. He can't be killed without luck and that's really annoying. Playing Through:  Lilina is threatened by this archer, but there’s always one safe spot available. Just don’t forget about her.  Now it’s time for some rescuing.  I want to establish a front line of nothing but 1-2 range attackers to deal with the ranged enemies as fast as possible. So both these guys have javelins.  I also want ranged attackers along the left wall to deal with the archer there.  Just got to drop every important infantry unit up.   I’ve realized I actually can’t quite get an all 1-2 attacker front line that’s also safe and stable, so I’ll compromise and put Roy here. That gives me a safe space for the others to move in.  Even Astol gets in on the rescuing, helping with Saul.  Other than Roy, who the enemy won’t like targeting due to his solid defenses, everyone in range has a javelin or handaxe.  This line again. This isn’t the last time we’ll see it either.  Chad was the furthest back, so he runs up first to attack. This is typically good policy. In this case it’s particularly important since it will enable me to rescue and carry him along more efficiently.  So of course Astol weakens the next one.  A freshly healed Lugh is immediately hit again, but at least he finishes the soldier.  And Lot finishes the archer. The infantry wiped out the enemies. Now the cavalry can focus on keeping the group moving and establishing a new front line.  Again I want 1-2 ranged attackers only in the front and along the left wall. Lance stopped 1 short so that after this Alan can move 1 left and complete the line.  So thieves and others are dropped back where it’s safe.  You can see that the price of fighting while continuing to move is that my formation is breaking down into a mess. This will continue.  Turn 3 begins. This guy here is important to pay attention to.  He has both a very dangerous weapon and a chest key to take, so caution is required.  Once again, the people in back are the ones who get the first kills while moving up as far as possible.  Or as far as possible while still attacking anyway.  A pretty standard Sue level. Well I’m not going to complain after the Str blessing she got early.  Zealot weakens this knight...  ... so that it only takes one hammer blow to kill.  Got to keep tabs on this archer since it didn’t die.  The difficulty of killing the knight means my formation is going to be a complete mess from now on, but I’ve got to keep everyone moving as well as possible.  This random pile of units is all that’s left of my careful battle preparations. If it was just one big fight to deal with, I could fight it and then maintain good organization. But needing to fight every turn and then try to grab everyone up to continue just makes it impossible to keep things running smoothly.  Here’s the enemy troops disposition now. 4 people between the treasure rooms and everyone south of the boss are stationary, so there’s really only a handful of people left but they’re spread out.  Lugh is just short of enough mag to kill this knight, which works for me.  Lance easily downs this soldier with his support boosts.  Then this thief switches him to his javelin and takes the chest key.  Sue finishes the knight off as everyone piles in. I can’t even attempt mass rescues this time, but there’s nowhere to go anyway with that archer coming.  This is one rescue I can do at least.  Notice that Alan stops just short of his max range. There are two reasons for that. One is to maintain support bonuses.  The other is so that after taking and dropping Astol, Zealot can still move 1 more space- and therefore can block the path for the archer.  Now it can’t avoid javelin damage.  There’s always a safe spot. And that’s the turn.  Any time you have a chance to steal something, you might as well- even if it’s something as cheap as a vulnerary.  It seems like I’m always one damage short of killing things conveniently.  These guys would be too if they didn’t have their support bonues.  Roy is dropped along. I’ve been having trouble keeping people healed since Clarine is needed for carrying people and Saul can’t keep up. Fortunately the fighting has been light.  Lilina moves to avoid danger again.  Ah our reinforcements have arrived. What are they doing here? I have no idea. At all. Apparently the three of them- two in giant armor- either sneaked into or were just hanging around in castle Osia under the rebels' noses.   Pretty sure those are just the lines of mortar between the bricks, man. This is the first in-character acknowledgment of cracked walls in this game. And it makes no sense. Apparently a wall having a crack means that if you hit it with a spear it will just explode and turn into a hallway.  Well his items are welcome to join the party; I need more armorslayers.  This is a particularly fragile wall. Even Wendy here can break it easily.  Oujay’s first move is to help Zealot drop Roy along.  Treck gets a kill that should give him his first level.  Good start! Speed is what he really needs most right now.  Thany finishes the archer for a fantastic level. She’s pretty much above average across the board.  There’s no fighting to be done, so most of the party is just carrying people at this point.  And then I explode an army out of nowhere to fill that hallway. This isn’t as dangerous as it looks because the enemy can’t choose their turn order. In fact, it’s almost perfectly safe (Lot could die if he’s very unlucky and everyone focuses on him).  To nobody’s surprise, he gains more speed as he fights. So as turn 9 dawns, there’s quite a jam here.  First I need movement room. Lance opens a space near Alan.  Alan moves and weakens a knight so that a thief can open the door. To get this giant group moving efficiently, I should probably use both hallways.  Oujay finishes the freshly exposed mage.  Lot kills a knight and the enemy formation begins to crumple.  Thany joins in from max movement range.  Roy gets a kill and a terrible level.  So does Treck. I’m making sure to leave no one without a javelin in range of that mage.  And Lugh finishes up.  Sweet!  Next turn, that pesky mage is still alive! Alan moves here where he can aggro 2 mages at once.  The useless Wendy takes the chest keys from Thany (I’ve been trading them around).  And Chad and Astol move into the treasure room.  The enemy thieves are coming soon. I must leave at least one chest in here unopened for a while to make sure they go the right direction.  Ready to kill some mages.  Cath beat us here and is once again trying to loot the place.  Wendy opens another chest.  And the others run out of the treasure room to intercept the thieves.  The last mage is down thanks to Lot; Thany carries him onward.  And Clarine heals him for a pretty bad level.  So here it is, turn 11, and I’m still trying to get out of those darned hallways.  Lockpick 1 stolen.  Now that Cath is under control, Wendy steals the last chest in that room.  Lance and Alan start running back. I’m going to use them + Barth to deal with the top left reinforcements.  Roy moves to bait the knight down there. It has a chest key I need to steal.  Thany kills the thief.  Amazing!  Lance and Alan continue up with Barth.  Cath’s lockpick is mine (I surrounded her and she doesn’t fight so it was easy to take).  And Lilina is freed. She starts off as a blue unit, so you can just have her run out and go where you want immediately. However, she doesn't start with a weapon (but will get one for free if Roy talks to her).  I THINK I talked to Cath but I don’t have a screenshot of it. Anyway, this is next turn and Lilina now talks to Roy.  The two are reunited.  Roy is the real mage here; he just created a spellbook out of thin air.  And it’s a pretty good one too.  The chest key is mine!  The knight is then easily dispatched and everyone just moves in as fast as they can. That whole rigmarole took too long  The first set of keys are passed to Chad who will use his superior movement to keep the trade chain going so they end up in worthy hands.  Turn 15, I’m mostly past the stairs. Reinforcements start next turn.  Alan and Lance get to work on the top left reinforcements.  Not bad.  Better!  It soon becomes apparent that I have not stationed enough people here.  But I still barely have enough on this side to down the reinforcements coming there too.  In order to not prevent any spawned reinforcements, I need to move back from the archer stairs.  Fighting up top continues.  Sue gets a Sue level from dodging an attack.  Sue has the chest keys and is moving in, as are the thieves. Meanwhile, Lugh moves to trap the next reinforcement (and Lot will intercept the bottom one).  Nice.  These mercenaries are just too good. But the archers are even more of a problem. They all have steel bows and those hurt.  Next turn, Thany uses a vulnerary because Saul is going to be busy.  Meanwhile, Sue gets another chest.  Zealot lands a hit on Leygance on turn 19 (I’ve been trying to hit him for a while, but it’s just too hard!)  Wendy and the others barely dispatch one archer and contain the next. These things can 1-hit or 2-hit kill any of my units except Treck, so this is a problem. Still there should only be one wave left.  Thany is Thany, though she’s actually a bit ahead of schedule capping her speed here.  More boring fighting in the top left gets Alan a nice level. More speed!  And, anticipating a win any turn now if I can just hit, I enact my plan to steal everything that remains.   Just as planned. I could totally win right now on turn 20! With every reinforcement dead except 1 soldier after these next few moves…  Lance finishes the last ever top reinforcement.  Nice! This is now a good Lance once again; his speed has returned to average.  Just 2 guys left; I can do this even with this weak crowd.  But the Throne is just too strong to beat. Lot and Zealot keep passing the hammer and still can’t hit.  Back in the rightish stair area, Oujay gets his first level from blocking the mercenary and it’s a great one. Way to go Oujay!  Clarine gets her first semi-decent level. Still no Mag in forever. Disgustingly, she’s only 1 point behind in that stat.  Still can’t hit the boss! He’s regened all the damage from that first blow.  Zealot gains a bad level after missing once again.  Treck does too as I continue to chip away at the sole remaining enemy.  Nice! Even a level of nothing but speed would be great for this young lady.  That finished the mercenary off so Saul gets with the healing. There are now no enemies but the boss left anywhere. But I’ve been hacking at him for 4 turns now with no progress.  Saul continues to get sucky levels. He’s behind on pretty much everything but HP.  It just goes on and on! Nothing that can hit Leygance can damage him. There’s nothing to do but wait to get lucky. This turn I hit him with the hammer but missed with the armorslayer. I hit him earlier too but he regened it all back before I did again.  At long last, I get my chance and rush in for the kill with anyone handy after Zealot lands a blow 1 turn after Lot did.  Bad level but I totally don’t care!  Yes, turn 23 win! Sure I could have won on 20 if the boss was hittable, but at least I came in under time.  We’ve finally found the plot again!  Uh oh.  Roy, after some dithering, reveals the bad news. I have absolutely no idea how Lilina wouldn’t have heard from SOMEONE by now. I mean, we really took our time getting here and surely Bern would have publicized their huge win.  And he tells the story of the battle of Araphen.  Like her father, she tries not to let people know when she’s sad or what she’s feeling.  And like her father, people don’t tell her things anyway.  Roy says he’s there for her and let’s her know he understands. Well, I’ve just realized that I might have somehow forgotten to talk to Cath, but I suppose that’s no big deal. I did get every single item on the level including all valuable stealables and even some vulneraries, completed it under time despite bad luck with the dodging boss, killed every single reinforcement, and did it using several low level characters. No way am I playing this wretchedly dull chapter again just to recruit a useless character a couple of chapters early. Total Restarts: 3. On my first run of this chapter it took me till turn 42 to win. Leygance had broken his javelin and I just couldn’t hit him with anything. It was ridiculous. I’ll be honest; if I couldn’t beat him within 10 turns of fighting this time, I was going to restart and RNG abuse to kill him on my third attempt just like I would against Kishuna on 19x. Oh and for the record, the longest I spent on ANY FE7 chapter was 19 for Pale Flower of Darkness. Just by being stupidly huge, this map took longer than any of those epic endgame chapters. Without being fun or interesting at all. Turn Surplus: -10 (Making progress even on an awful level) Things I Regret Missing: A couple of uses of Marcus’s silver lance on Rude, a Chapter 5 nomad Marcus had to kill Melth fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Jul 30, 2015 |
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May 5, 2015 05:59
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Leygance has a quick kill in my hack, but the flipside is it requires all three knights. All 3 Knights have the rank to use the Heavy Spear  And thus a Triangle Attack with any of them even at base stats will kill Leygance in one shot. This wasn't actually an intentional quick kill, it just sort of happened and I'm leaving it in because... well because gently caress Leygance man seriously. Also to continue the trend of "Onmi is bad at map making" this was originally the combination map for FE6-7  As you can see, it's a combination of the other map that takes place in the castle in FE7 and this one, but like many maps it's been scrapped. I'm still not sure what to do for this map, the Zig-zagging is annoying, but I sort of like it, but it IS a pain in the rear end. I'm not good at castle maps either so I'd have to rely on someone else for a new map. If people have suggestions I'd be willing to take them. So onto the recruits! Barth and Ogier are the only two Ostian recruits, because Wendy joined in Chapter 1 and Barth in Chapter 3. Cath (For now) can be recruited here, which kind of makes her feel a little invalidated joining on the same map as Asthol. Speaking of which, Asthol joins (for now) as a Rogue, the pre-promoted thief. And I think this is the best time to mention that I've changed to the single-promotion item system. There's some fun to be had with the various split types, but with so many recruitable characters, I feel like letting the player pick and choose promotions lets them experiment with their team more, instead of "Well I only get to promote 1 mage until Chapter 14 dolhol!" Oh yeah and Lilina, as another Lord, can Seize thrones.  Just makes for some better strategies. She of course, starts with Anima magic and promotes into Anima/Axes. Of course the funny thing for me was I had made that decision before Awakenings announcements and got buried in a deluge of complaints that a magic user would never gain axes. Then came War Cleric.
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May 5, 2015 07:05
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Melth posted:Well, I’ve just realized that I might have somehow forgotten to talk to Cath, but I suppose that’s no big deal. Nonsense! You clearly made a tactical choice that her lockpicks were more valuable to your funds rank than she was as a unit.
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May 5, 2015 13:28
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Onmi posted:Just makes for some better strategies. She of course, starts with Anima magic and promotes into Anima/Axes. Of course the funny thing for me was I had made that decision before Awakenings announcements and got buried in a deluge of complaints that a magic user would never gain axes. Then came War Cleric. Well, they use Staves, not Tomes. Dread Fighters though... (Now that I think about it, Staves is the deepest extreme of a magic user being able to use an axe...)
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May 5, 2015 14:29
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16 Con(!!) That's a lotta Barth. No one that is storyline recruitable is that big. At least that 20% speed growth isnt going to be hampered at all.
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May 5, 2015 15:30
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I think Lugh is sucking up all the magic energy from your support units. He's probably way above his average magic stat for level 20, let alone 13.Rigged Death Trap posted:16 Con(!!) That's a lotta Barth. He's the only person who can use the Devil Axe without a speed penalty once he's promoted. He shouldn't since his luck is godawful, but hey! Upside! Edit: Actually, according the wiki, the Devil Axe works on level rather than luck in FE6. So uh, go nuts with it Barth, that thing is made for you. Krumbsthumbs fucked around with this message at 16:06 on May 5, 2015 |
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May 5, 2015 16:04
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Oh yeah, Melth, personally I think you misunderstood Astohl a little, since he comes across as different in most of his supports... Except I always took that as him being a master of the mask, and being who he needs to be in order to get what he wants. Of course it doesn't work in regards to Igrene because she can see through his bullshit. But he's very much the 'Spy' even if he's become more of a Spymaster at this point in his life, someone who's very adapt and putting on the persona he needs to deal with everyone. Unfortunately I can't pull up his supports now, but I always felt him consistent because his character was the spy with many identities.
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May 5, 2015 17:04
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Man, that Lot is pretty much right on his averages except +5 speed and +3 luck. Shame he only has access to the worst weapon types.
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May 5, 2015 20:04
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