VoilaNota

I think it’s a pretty light punishment actually, anything less would encourage kamikaze-ing units as a valid strategy for any given chapter (which is the core gameplay issue of casual mode). Storywise, the injury system would make actual deaths so rare that I don’t see why they would need to be accommodated as vastly different pieces of dialogue. I think adding a little remembrance scene post-death for a given unit would be a sufficient, and wouldn’t be that hard to implement.

I think a potentially interesting middle ground would be an injury system, which I'm sure is used in plenty of games but I'm just coming up with a version off the top of my head. Say a character falls in Chapter 1. For Chapter 2, they are now considered heavily injured and cannot be deployed (and maybe you'd have to sideline an additional character to be their caretaker, which would build some support). In Chapter 3, the fallen unit would be considered "recovering" and can be used again, but with stat debuffs and the caveat that they will die permanently if they fall in this chapter. By Chapter 4, they would be back to normal. Perhaps certain bosses or weapons could still cause death rather than injury to raise stakes on certain chapters, idk. This would also avoid the necessity of a game over if the main lord or avatar dies, since they could still technically command their army from the sidelines while injured.

For me the natural branch points are: Black Eagles: Like in the game, go with Edelgard or default to Church. If you stick with Edelgard, late game you get the choice to team up with TWSITD or reform and team up with Claude (maybe even Dimitri?) against them. Blue Lions: Have pre-skip support conversation with Dimitri that leads him to meet you at monastery after timeskip. If not, default to Church at this point. If you stuck with Dimitri you get an option lategame to either save and recruit Claude (potentially leading to reconciliation with Edelgard), or join Rhea to fight the Empire. Golden Deer: A few chapters after timeskip, choose to ally with Empire or Kingdom. Somehow get them both to ally against TWSITD if you meet requirements. So maybe if you meet certain markers in each route (learning about Duscur, Death Knight identity, true history, etc.) you could get a golden ending with all 3 lords or something.

I thought about something to solve this too. My version would be that only half the students are in a house to begin with. So for example: Black Eagles: Edelgard, Hubert, Linhardt, Petra Blue Lions: Dimitri, Dedue, Felix, Mercedes Golden Deer: Claude, Lorenz, Hilda, Lysithea In Chapter 1, you are assigned as an assistant professor who gets to choose 4 out of the remaining 12 students. Then for Ch 2, Edelgard and Hubert join your party for a mission, Ch 3 you join Claude, Lorenz, and Hilda for a mission, and Ch 4 you join the Blue Lions for a mission. Chapter 5 is the mock battle in which you choose your house, and the other 8 students you didn't pick in Ch 1 are split between the other two houses. This could be done by given every student a first and second choice for house (these are just examples): Dorothea BE, GD ; Caspar BE, BL ; Ferdinand BE, GD ; Bernadetta BE, BL ; Ingrid BL, BE ; Ashe BL, GD ; Annette BL, GD ; Sylvain BL, BE ; Ignatz GD, BE ; Marianne GD, BE ; Leonie GD, BL ; Raphael GD, BL. From Chapter 5 on you can support with the other students and eventually recruit them minus the retainers like in the actual game.