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Around a week ago, I did a thread in reddit about the gameplay intricacies Three Houses has + how CF’s identity is defined by those, and one person commented I neglected the distribution of all the movies present through all routes. In spite of the point brought up there not having any connection to the topic at hand, it did leave me thinking on something. While the idea itself - overall movie distribution - has potential for a breakdown, it would be also criminal to not factor in as well how the game also uses fullscreen CGs (short for computer graphics) to supplement its movies. So in the end, I ended up accounting both for my analysis. Truth be told, I wasn’t expecting to find much with it compared to my previous efforts (that, and sorting everything was kind of a pain). In spite of it, I do think what I noticed after comparing all the data has some merit worth sharing, which is why I ended up making this post and the titular theorem in the end. (Also, happy 4th 3H Anniversary everyone!) A Three Houses Animated Movie/Fullscreen CG Breakdown. (Click above to check the spreadsheet). Like always, context is king: Why are Animated Movies/Fullscreen CGs a Big Deal? Because they’re cool! They’re effective means for displaying important scenes and moments when used well. Those are also often used to argue just how much production values a game has (after all, hiring dedicated animation studios can’t be cheap), which in Three Houses’ case is a contentious topic due to their distribution and presence not being even. At all. Before moving on, please check first the movie/full screen CGs breakdown spreadsheet, as I’ll be talking about some notes listed in it explaining the Silver Snow Theorem. What IS The Silver Snow Theorem? As I was taking notes from how 3H spreads its animated movies and fullscreen CGs across the game, I began noticing that the game, intentionally or not, follows highly specific criteria to decide not only when specific movies/GCs would be used, but also which scenes would get them, and that’s highly relevant because Three Houses loves to recycle its own content whenever possible. It got so specific, as a matter of fact, that it reminded me of this quote the developers once made about the routes’ development, back in May’s 2020 Nintendo Dream issue: It was at that precise point that everything clicked to me. Thus, you can think of the Silver Snow Theorem as the unwritten rules Three Houses follows to a tee which determines how… cinematic, each of the four branching stories are by Part 2: If a story beat present in Silver Snow is shared with another route, then any animated movie used in SS, when possible, will also be present in it. If another route adds more content over the template Silver Snow provides, then it’s likely it will be able to secure an animated cutscene if required. If another route decides to deviate from Silver Snow and do its own thing however, then it won’t be able to get any animated movies for its unique moments unless those happen to be the route’s ending and the animated epilogue mural, thus forcing the path to rely on CGs instead. Thus, on broad terms, the Silver Snow Theorem consists on the following: The amount of movies and fullscreen CGs present in a route’s main story by Part 2, is directly and inversely proportional respectively, to how much the narrative follows Silver Snow’s story beats. Just so we’re all on the same page, let’s take a look at what Silver Snow - the base from which the other three stories spawned - does. Besides Part 1/White Clouds, from Chapter 12 onward, the key story beats which get their own animated movies, in sequential order, are the following: Ch. 12: The Empire invades Garreg Mach and Byleth protects it. Rhea turns into a dragon to help Byleth, gets overwhelmed, and Byleth is pushed down into a cliff. (Descent) Ch. 13: Byleth’s “reunion” with Edelgard. Both fight up until they reach a stalemate, and part their own ways (Reunion: Silver Snow). Ch. 17: Death Knight lures Byleth out of Fort Merceus after fleeing or being defeated. Then TWSITD blows up the fort with missiles (Javelins of Light). Ch. 19: Edelgard is defeated in her palace and Byleth gives her the coup de grâce (Death of the Flame Emperor). Ch. 20: After invading Shambhala and defeating Thales, dude blows up the base with missiles as a last-ditch effort to kill Byleth before debris crushes him. Rhea protects everyone, but gets lethally wounded in the process. (Courage and Tragedy). Besides these, there’s also the interesting case of the intro for the 2nd Gronder Field Battle (Rematch). While in Silver Snow, the battle does canonically happen but is skipped for story reasons, evidence points out the cutscene meant for it was conceived very early in development (to the point all 3 House Leaders used their endgame classes in its beta version), likely for the sake of having it used by the other routes in the future. Incidentally, the Chapter 13 Reunion scene (Reunion: Silver Snow) by concept can be tweaked/altered based on the fact Dimitri and Claude will be on it instead, so it was flexible enough for the 3H devs to do whatever they want with it. A relatively similar case can also be applied for Part 1‘s Flame Emperor reveal, mainly due to the mystery surrounding it needing slight changes in execution because either Dimitri and Claude will be your House Leader instead of Edelgard. Finally, the only CGs Silver Snow uses for Part 2, besides the Introduction Mural for each month in the War Arc, is the one where Rhea’s rescued (Event - Ambitions in the Dark), which is very fitting given the theorem. Thus, things for the Church route end up looking like this: Final animated movie count: 20 (+12, used for Ch. 1 - Ch. 12 intro murals). Exclusive animated movie count: 3 (Reunion Cutscene; Ending; and SS Epilogue Mural). Full screen CGs used: 8 (+ 8, used for Ch. 13 - Ch. 21 intro murals, as the route skips a month) Unique CGs used: Potentially 1, if the player assists to Edelgard’s coronation in Ch.11. Now it’s time to go over how things turned out for the other three routes. The winner of the theorem goes first: The Verdant Wind at Dawn As much flack Claude’s route gets in 3H over being “Silver Snow +”, the hilarious part of all is that building over its foundation paid dividends thanks to the theorem. Following Silver Snow’s template up until the second to last chapter meant that Verdant Wind: Could reuse every animated movie mentioned previously in Silver Snow (i.e: Descent; Javelins of Light; Death of the Flame Emperor; and Courage and Tragedy). In the case of “Courage and Tragedy”, this movie was also slightly tweaked for this route by having its name changed and the soundtrack used in it altered, both now going by the unifying name of “The Curse”. Could add its exclusive animated movies over SS’ story beats, namely*: one for Fort Merceus’ infiltration* (Citizens of the East); and another used after the “Shambhala + Thales go boom with Rhea getting wounded” scene (Resurrection). Add up Claude can also access the movie “Rematch” due to Gronder 2’s battle being visited for story reasons, and also get a proper reunion + ending movies for his final boss, and you get the most movie-tastic experience Three Houses offers. Lastly, Verdant Wind ends up not really having any need for fullscreen CGs besides the one where Rhea’s rescued. So… Final animated movie count: 23 (+12, used for Ch. 1 - Ch. 12 intro murals). Exclusive animated movie count: 5 (Reunion Cutscene; Almyran Reinforcements; Final Boss Awakens; Ending; and VW Epilogue Mural). Full screen CGs used: 7 (+ 9, used for Ch. 13 - Ch. 22 intro murals) Unique CGs used: 0 The negative is that Verdant Wind ends up coming across as too Silver Snow-eske, but as mentioned previously, that’s a big positive when accounting for the theorem. And since we’re done with the winner, it’s only natural to move towards the underdog: A Path of Crimson Flowers If there’s any proof of how much the Silver Snow Theorem can screw you over, it’s Crimson Flower. The source of the problems Edelgard’s route fares, as far the theorem's concerned, start with how it deviates from Silver Snow as early as Chapter 11, meaning: It can’t use “Descent” due to the story mandating the complete opposite scenario (Rhea’s the enemy now). It can’t use “Reunion: Silver Snow” because Edelgard isn’t the enemy. It can’t use “Rematch” due to story reasons. It can’t use “Javelins of Light” because the Death Knight isn’t an enemy, and due to story reasons. …You get the drill by now. Where does that leave it then? Well, besides having previously used a fullscreen CG for the Coronation scene (whose story event also has the same name), plus an unique ending and epilogue mural as movies, any other scene past Ch. 11 whose counterpart from other routes is an animated movie, end up using fullscreen CGs instead, meaning it goes by 5~ chapters without any animated movies. Not to mention, the route is also 18 Chapters long compared to the others paths, so any potential CF has for multiple story scenes worth having CGs is very much limited (case in point; the Edelgard’s route misses 4 fullscreen CGs the other routes get to introduce the months CF doesn’t use). As a result, its final count is the following: Final animated movie count: 15 (+12, used for Ch. 1 - Ch. 12 intro murals). Exclusive animated movie count: 2 (Ending; and CF Epilogue Mural). Full screen CGs used: 10 (+5, used for Ch. 13 - Ch. 18 intro murals, misses 4 months) Unique CGs used: 5 And with it done, only one path remains: Beneath the Azure Moon Azure Moon is by far our most fascinating case, as under the Silver Snow Theorem, Dimitri’s story does both right and wrong. Here’s what it does right: It built over Ch 11’s Flame Emperor’s reveal with its own animated movie: “Loathing”. It can use “Descent” for Chapter 12. It can get its own reunion movie. It can use “Rematch” due to story reasons. And here’s where it erred; It diverges from Silver Snow as soon Gronder 2 ends in late Chapter 17: It can’t use “Javelins of Light” because of story reasons. It can’t use “Death of the Flame Emperor” due to story reasons. It can’t use “Courage and Tragedy” because going to Shambhala isn’t part of the main story. As a result, the theorem impacts Dimitri’s path the following way: besides having 2 exclusive fullscreen CG which elaborate more on his past around Part 1, the route eventually goes 4~ chapters without any animated movies after Ch. 17’s main story mission, the second longest besides Crimson Flower’s. To fill this void, more fullscreen CGs were called upon, and this route stands from the others in how it uses slight variations of its illustrations twice to form a sequence of events, namely, during Rodrigue’s sacrifice (Event - Revenge), and the “Dimitri’s in the rain” scene (Event - A Reason to Live). So overall, for Azure Moon we have: Final animated movie count: 19 (+12, used for Ch. 1 - Ch. 12 intro murals). Exclusive animated movie count: 4 (Flame Emperor Reveal; Reunion; Ending; and AM Epilogue Mural). Fullscreen CGs used: 13 (+ 9, used for Ch. 13 - Ch. 22 intro murals, and excludes 2 slightly tweaked CGs used for sequences). Unique CGs used: 7 (see above for the multiple frames thing). And counting all four routes, their overall amount of movies and CGs look like this: It's intriguing how the theorem shows Silver Snow casts a lingering shadow over Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude’s stories, with some routes clearly benefiting more from its foundation than others. It’s highlighted as well just how narrative-driven Three Houses is overall, and how it will go above and beyond to have important scenes happen one way or another, regardless if turning them into animated movies is not an option for one reason or another, as seen with Crimson Flower and Azure Moon. And while jury’s up as for how intentional Silver Snow’s effects on the other routes were during the planning stages, I do believe KT learned something from 3H development given that for Warriors: Three Hopes, they wasted no time it getting rid of the Silver Snow foundation by swapping Byleth for Shez and using the pre-timeskip phase as just the prologue for all three routes (a genius move IMO, since it meant the stories wouldn’t need to be bound to any sort of structure established by a template, not unlike one certain route from 3H does). Before closing things up, I wanna briefly go into why skipping some animated movies in a route would be a big deal for the theorem, as I was admittedly a bit vague when stating omissions happen “because of story reasons”. Feel free to stop reading now if you don’t really care about it (many thanks for reading up until this point tho!), but if you wanna stick around, then… Let’s go!: Rematch: The Plot Reaper The Second Gronder Field Battle between all 3 factions as a plot point is vital to the Silver Snow theorem and the routes which benefit from it. The main reason is due the battle’s losers determining who will go and fight the Empire in the second half of Part 2: If the Alliance loses during the fight, then Dimitri & the Kingdom will get this responsibility (Azure Moon). if the Kingdom loses, then it’s all up to Claude and the Alliance to get the job done (Verdant Wind). If both the Alliance and the Kingdom lose, then Byleth’s Resistance Army is the only hope left (Silver Snow). In spite of the movie used for this scene being set in a way Byleth could support any of the three factions like it's Part 1 counterpart, as a plot point, the Empire winning doesn’t serve any purpose to the narrative. So in hindsight, it's not surprising the battle straight up never happens in Crimson Flower. Javelins of Light: The Ticket to Shambhala Long story short, in Silver Snow & Verdant Wind, the Death Knight - and by proxy, Hubert - being aware that TWISTD it will blow up Fort Merceus to smithereens serves as a way to have Byleth/Claude’s gang go to Shambhala after Edelgard’s death, thanks to Hubert’s foresight and unexplained futuristic-missile-detecting abilities. As a result, if going to Shambhala doesn’t have any narrative purpose in the story the route is trying to tell, then the movie just isn't gonna be reused. Faeghast went a bit more in-depth about how 3H uses the missiles in the plot for those interested, but this is more or less the gist of it. And finally: Death of the Flame Emperor: But Dimitri…? This one’s more easy to tell, but regardless: The main reason the movie isn’t reused thrice with Azure Moon is due to the heavy focus the Dimitri & Edelgard relationship gets in its main narrative. Plus, Dimitri vs Edelgard being set up as the very final fight of the story would require a different (and most importantly, “ending-like”) movie to take place instead, more so if Edelgard isn’t gonna be in her Emperor Class… And while there’s an enough solid argument to say the cutscene has no place in Verdant Wind (which I 100% support btw), the reality of the situation is that, as far the Theorem’s concerned, Claude’s route is not different enough to justify not using it. Like always, many thanks to everyone who reached the end of this post! Let me know if you think the Silver Snow Theorem might actually be onto something, if it’s just something I imagined one day, or if you have some feedback or anything to add to the topic. BONUS (since it doesn’t really have a place in the theorem post) Gonna mention this here since I couldn’t find a way to make it fit into the Theorem, but oh man Part 1 has so many animated cutscenes it's insane. There are 47 movie files in total, and from those, 27 are used only in White Clouds (with one being exclusive to Blue Lions).

A few weeks ago, I did a keen analysis on how Three Houses manages difficulty for every one of its four routes which I’ve been slowly improving thanks to the feedback I’ve received on it (many thanks to those who helped btw!). From all the notes I’ve gathered, something very interesting stood out about how the game handles challenges with each path, which reminded me of a certain possibility I raised a past post I did in reddit surrounding Black Eagles’ development and the hidden intentions lurking within. And you know what? I think it’s time I make it into an actual theorem because it’s really bugging me out that much. After all the stuff I’ve seen about 3H’s gameplay and how it handles challenges per route, I am convinced that “fixing” Crimson Flower isn’t as straightforward as people make it up to be. Before getting into why gameplay evidence of all things has convinced me of such, I wanna cover all my bases first just in case someone (and somehow, ‘cause a part of me finds it unlikely) has no clue what I’ll be talking about. So… Here's context: Why “Fix” the Odd One? ...Also known as Crimson Flower. Three Houses has four routes overall. From those, Crimson Flower is the only one which has 18 story chapters while the others get 22 (or 21, in Silver Snow case). Saying this made people mad back when the game was new would honestly be an understatement given there’s a youtube video called “Edelgard deserved better” done sometime after its launch which has over 250k views as of this post. Incidentally, the idea of “fixing” CF is far from new, and the go-to direction most attempts I’ve seen, do it by crafting a small 4 chapter arc after the main plot (so it can reach the 22 Chapter quota Dimitri and Claude’s routes follow, which the idea inherently assumes it was the original goal of the route), eventually leading Edelgard and co. fighting “those who slither in the dark” in their headquarters, something which is mentioned it will happen a few times during the route, but as a very distant… thing, due to Edelgard’s n°1 enemy being not them in the main plot. This gets to the point that an S-Support and even a few solo endings touch upon it in a way that might or might not be mean spirited from the devs’ POV???. Anyways, now that’s out of the way, it’s time to jump into the actual meat of the theorem: No House Stands Equal - Three Houses' Difficulty from a Design Perspective The key findings of my exhaustive attempt at analyzing 3H’s difficulty (which you can check by clicking on the title above) is that Three Houses, from a gameplay perspective, handles difficulty by messing with factors like: Average Enemy Level between Chapters (+ their Suggested Level, which is directly related to the AEL). Available resources, and the timing in which new ones are unlocked and/or lost. When the game stops using Intermediate Classes for enemies (in a more conventional Fire Emblem context, this would be like saying “when the game stops throwing Unpromoted Enemies at you). And more. Thus, at a macro/superficial level and, according to the info at hand, Three Houses does the following: The Average Enemy Level almost always increases by 2 per Chapter, regardless of the chosen difficulty. The Armory/Vendor/Battalion Guild stock is updated 3 times; first in Ch. 3, then in Ch. 8, and last in Ch. 14. Part 1 ends in Ch. 12 with a Suggested Level of 23. Your chosen House Leader gets their unique battalion in Chapter 13. The most number of bosses you’re forced to take down to clear main story missions is 4 in Ch. 16 once (3 if you play carefully), and then 2 for other maps that do this. The game stops throwing Intermediate Class enemies around Ch. 18~ for main story maps (17 for Silver Snow, 16 for Azure Moon, and 18 for Verdant Wind, for those curious). Your chosen House Leader’s paralogue is unlocked around the second half of Part 2 (Ch. 19 for Dimitri, and Ch. 17 for Claude). The difference in enemy levels between the successive Enbarr invasion missions is always 1. And finally, the route ends in Ch. 22 (or 21 if you’re in Silver Snow) with a final Suggested Level of 42. This pattern is followed religiously in all the routes which happen to share a lot of content up until Chapter 17 (or 16, in Silver Snow’s case) due to story reasons, yet despite this, there’s still many quirks exclusive to certain routes which make one experience different from the other. Silver Snow, for example, is meant to be really hard according to the devs, and as the spreadsheet reveals, it does this by handicapping the heck out of the player (very squishy starting cast with no Relics besides Byleth’s; one deployment slot less, far less resources; losing your House Leader + N°2 midway through the game; etc). Due to this, Azure Moon and Verdant Wind by design are more beginner friendly by simply having none of that (AKA more balanced casts that stays with you; more Hero Relics; more resources, etc), while still deviating in other areas. Azure Moon for one, gets the most resources between all routes to play with, still gets their exclusive units handicapped in other ways, and in the late game, it has a “turret & mage infestation problem”, for a lack of a proper term. Conversely, Verdant Wind gets just a pretty decent amount of tools, has no actual handicaps for their cast, and their late game isn’t so overly specific in enemy variety as Azure Moon’s. Fairly straightforward stuff so far. But as you might have noticed, I haven’t mentioned Crimson Flower once, and that's for a reason. Crimson Flower, by design, is not built like the other three routes. ♫ One of these is not like the others ♫ To explain what makes CF challenging, I need to go back again into into how 3H manages its difficulty, because unlike the other three paths, this one follows its own set of rules: The Armory/Vendor/Battalion Guild stock is updated one third and last time in Ch. 12. Part 1 ends in Ch. 12 with a Suggested Level of 25. Edelgard & Hubert get their unique battalions in Chapter 12 (is Hubert a lord too…?). The most number of bosses you’re forced to take down to clear story missions is 4 in Ch. 15 once (3 if you play carefully), and then 5 for both Ch. 16 and Ch. 17. The game stops throwing Intermediate Class enemies in Ch. 14 for main story missions. Edelgard’s paralogue is unlocked in Ch. 15, midway through Part 2. The difference in enemy levels between successive story missions goes as follows: Ch. 11 to Ch. 12: 4 in Normal & Hard, and 3 in Maddening. Ch. 17 to Ch. 18: 2 in Normal & Hard, and 3 in Maddening. And finally, the game ends in Ch. 18 with a final Suggested Level of 37. And this isn’t even considering how every story mission from Ch. 12 onwards is exclusive to it for story reasons, or even factoring the other tweaks exclusive to CF, such as: having one Chapter less to receive funds and recruit students/teachers; having 2 units that join in Part 2 with innate access to Mastermind; its second half of the game being full of enemy pegasi/wyvern riders; its last chapters having a high number of monsters with anti-magic barriers, and with weapons used in no other route; and more stuff which I won’t cover here for brevity’s sake. Dedue's Monster form is legit the strongest Giant Demonic Beast in the game in both raw stats and weapon. Everything mentioned so far about Edelgard’s route highlights that, compared to the other three paths: it scales up the difficulty earlier; makes its resources available earlier as well; and raises the challenge of its last two chapters considerably. Incidentally, this in turn explains why the path is a viable option to obtain the “Yellow Title Screen” after finishing it on Maddening difficulty despite having fewer Chapters; it's because its difficulty was optimized to work with that specific length in mind. Here is where the crux at hand lies. Why “fixing” Crimson Flower isn’t just adding more chapters to it and calling it a day. Edelgard’s route, structure-wise, does not feel it was meant to be as long as the other three paths. This is important because, as well-intentioned the idea of “fixing” the route is, adding more chapters over what’s already there would completely throw off its balancing and potentially and unintentionally make it the hardest route of the four by numbers alone (and this is is still accounting that you would have to fight even more bosses later on…). To illustrate what exactly I mean by this- I'm going to propose 2 experiments. First, let’s imagine an hypothetical scenario where KT and Intelligent Systems listen to the fan uproar over Crimson Flower’s shortness and add more chapters to it. The catch? There won’t be any other changes done to the base game. As a result, CF’s unique scaling stays due to the assumption it's presence is unrelated to its short length, meaning: There's still 4/3 levels of difference between Chapter 11 and 12, for Normal & Hard/Maddening). The level scaling remains consistent with no alterations unlike the other routes, up until the Last Chapter in Maddening Difficulty where the Average Enemy Level increases by 3. This is how the route’ Suggested Levels' would look like for its chapters, compared to Dimitri and Claude’s stories, as well the Church's. Now everyone's finally- Wait a second... (Click here if you wanna check it on the spreadsheet) (Note: Suggested Level is the value shown when you're about to start a mission. In-game, it's used as an indicator of the map's difficulty and the level the game expects you to be in order to beat it) From my understanding, the whole point of the idea of “fixing” CF comes from the desire of making it a proper equal to Azure Moon and Verdant Wind, not unlike how in Warriors: Three Hopes, Scarlet Blaze, Azure Gleam and Golden Wildfire are equal in length and difficulty scaling (at least by the time the game ends). From the get go, we can see how this experiment has failed, because now Crimson Flower has the highest average enemy levels for its late game. To properly “fix” Crimson Flower in this instance, we would need to either redo its difficulty scaling from scratch to make it match the other routes, or just simply give it one Chapter less like Silver Snow, in which case, it still fails the experiment's purpose. As a result, we now move to our Second Experiment: We will make Edelgard’s route unfinished. To do this, we will assume CF was meant to always have 22 Chapters, and as logic dictates, it's unique difficulty scaling would serve no purpose. This means that, as far difficulty parameters go, there's now a 1 level difference for enemies between Chapters whose missions are played back to back, impacting now both Ch.11 to Ch. 12, and Ch.17 to Ch. 18. Here’s how the Suggested Levels' would look like in this case: (Scaling it for Maddening wasn't easy...). (Click here if you wanna check it on the spreadsheet) These numbers look far more harmonious, yeah? Not only that, in this one you can clearly tell by the sequence the numbers follow that something is very off with Edelgard’s path- Not only it's somehow easier in Normal and Hard, something which is meant to come after Ch. 18 clearly isn’t there. Will it come around later as free DLC, as the rumors say? The evidence says it’s likely, though we dunno if it will happen yet. This isn’t our reality though, and I have a big hunch on why it was never on the cards in our case. Both interviews which speak about the route’s development always coincide on one vital area: ——————————————————————————————————————————————— From all four routes, CF was the only one which was meant to be a secret. Picture this: you’re developing a video game with four routes that happens to love recycling its own content a lot, and you even have solid in-universe reasons for it too! And yet, you decide to hide one of the four just because. The reasoning here isn’t important. What is, however, is its secrecy. You want people to play the game, and have some of them stumble across it by accident and be surprised. Under this train of logic, I ask the following question: Would it work to its benefit, if it was very similar to the other three routes regardless? The answer to this question would be probably not. From then on, it becomes important to have that one route be different. Not follow the same rules the others do. Otherwise, what is the point of having it be a secret? Edelgard’s route, as the theorem, proposes is the odd one out on purpose. Its identity stems from how it was conceived as the route which would be super hard to access, before the plan changed because Silver Snow was received poorly by KT’s testing team + devs. And because it’s the odd one out, trying to make it fit a very different mold isn’t gonna be an easy job, to the point you have to wonder if it would be best to just redo the whole thing from scratch instead. In my humble opinion, this very well explains why the route is so different in both gameplay and outside of it, but I'll digress on the latter since that one's not the point of this post...

So I can't stop thinking about the Maddening Iron Man I am about to do on Crimson Flower. I'm so excited for it for some reason and I been preparing notes and stuff to take this as seriously as possible to get it done successfully on stream!! If you guys have any tips or suggestions to help make the Iron Man more doable let me know!! (This will be streamed after I finish my Maddening Blue Lions NG+ 3 DP Run). This will be my very first maddening iron man for Three Houses so I am beyond excited and nervous. I practiced Maddening for GD & BL routes, so hopefully the knowledge from those playthroughs help!! The rules are going to be: - No resets, & no retreating. If a green unit dies in a paralogue that causes a defeat condition and gameover (Rodrigue, Rhea, etc.) Run can still continue, but paralogue must be ended right there and I unable to retry it again. Any units lost prior to the defeat can't be used again. If it is one of my units and their death is apart of the defeat condition, if they die, then the run ends. - No Divine Pulse AT ALL. This is a TRUE Iron Man run so I don't want to use these like I did in my current BL Maddening run. - No DLC items (Chalice of Beginnings, Start game stat boosters, etc.) However, Vajra- Mushti & Fetters of Dromi are allowed to use for Yuri & Balthus. - Ashen Wolves, Anna, & Jeritza are allowed - No New Game+. However I will be playing on NG+ for the Edelgard hairstyle but I won't be using any of the renown. So it will be played as if it WAS a non-NG+ file. Renown statues will not be touched if they carry over some of the perks from a previous run. (I will check and try to select a file that doesn't have the statues maxed) - No Abyss Renown items. - DLC classes are allowed. - Endgame classes for team can't have more than 2 units in the same class. (No full wyvern team, full dark flier team allowed, etc.) - I am allowed to look at map/enemy data on stream to check ambush reinforcement placements & triggers. - Iron Man officially begins after the mock battle, as it's easy to get RNG screwed in that battle and lose a unit/game over. So anyone who dies stays alive. And if I game over, since nothing is really affected since the only map prior to that is the tutorial map, we are allowed to retry the map if something goes wrong (to save time from unecessarily playing the long tutorial and starting monastery section again and again) To compensate for this, the battle of the eagle and lion will be treated as an iron man map. If someone dies, I can't use them again. If there are any fun rules you want to suggest (may or may not be added) or things I am forgetting to make the Iron Man run as fair as possible, let me know!! 😄 But yeah any tips or suggestions to help me complete the run, give me your wisdom!! 😁 This is my planned team:

Here's a video I wrote and put together giving Flayn more unique battle quotes and also a recruit conversation in Crimson Flower. Voice credits are in the description. Hope you enjoy! (Sorry if this isn't the right subforum, I don't know if this counts as "fanart" or not)

So my brother and I are playing Three Houses together, and we've already played Verdant Wind and Azure Moon, but we're debating over whether to go for Crimson Flower or Silver Snow next. We'd like to finish on the most canonical ending, which I think is Crimson Flower based on the promotional material and Edelgard being the featured Lord of the game and stuff, but my brother thinks Silver Snow is the more canon ending since it's sort of a "secret ending." Any input from those of you who have played both CF and SS? Which one seemed more final?

Hellooooo! I have 6 chapters until i'm finished with VW, so this won't happen for up to a month, but i'm planning on starting a CF NG+ run, i think i know who i am going to use on my roster of buddies, but if there are any tips exclusive to crimson flower (please no/very little spoilers) Roster: Byleth - Assassin | Assasin stuff Edelgard - Emperor | Reason, Axe, Heavy Armor Lysithea - Gremory | Reason, faith so i can make her a gremory. Petra - ??? | Lance, Flying Dorothea - Dancer | Sword, Reason Mercedes - Bishop | ??? Yuri - Trickster | ??? Constance - Dark Flier? | ??? Hapi - Valkyrie? |??? Anna - War Cleric | Axe, Faith Hubert - Dark something | ??? Bernadetta - Bow Knight | ??? Leonie - Horse something | ??? Character End Relationships Byleth + Edelgard Lysithea + Lynhardt Petra + Dorothea Yuri + Bernadetta Hapi + Constance Ferdinand + Hubert Leonie Jeritza + Mercedes Anyhow, any tips?

This video really goes out to express the stuff that I love about Edelgard and how she's very much like Lelouch. And overall asks the big question about Edelgard's actions, of starting a war to attain freedom from the system, and whether it was actually the right thing or not. The answer is best understood if you actually watch the video from beginning to end. It isn't long, but it really tackles so many important things that makes you aware of how the struggle is.

A couple days ago, I completed my first playthrough of Three Houses. I had chosen Crimson Flower as my first playthrough, and I thought I'd share my thoughts on it now that I have completed it. I previously made a thread sharing my thoughts on Part 1 up until the moment of choice. Overall, I really enjoyed it, but I had three main issues with the story: For the last chapter of Part 1 and for part 2, it's a similar story: I really enjoyed it, and I really liked it, but I could not help but feel that there was something missing. This time, I'm going to try to also share the good; not just the criticisms, and I'm wondering what people who have also played the Crimson Flower route think of them: So, what do you all think? As for me, now that I'm finished Crimson Flower, I'm moving on to my second playthrough: Verdant WInd (I'm currently on chapter 6).

Hello everyone! Let me know if this is in the right place, and if it isn't please direct me to where it ought to be. SO. I'm in the midst of planning my final (we'll see, lol) run of the Crimson Flower route, and I want to do it on Maddening/Classic mode. I've done it on Maddening/Casual once, and it hurt because I was unprepared. Like, really unprepared. I don't want to make the same mistake twice, so I've been trying to plan my last run. To save on space, I'm going to put the character and build in a spoiler tag, and write my reasons for that build within the spoiler tag as well. The structure is going to be NAME -- CLASS (CLASS PROFICIENCY) -- CLASS ABILITIES, followed by bullet points that go ITEMS, ABILITIES, COMBAT ARTS, BATTALIONS, CLASS PROGRESSION, TOTAL SKILL REQUIREMENTS, and then an estimate from a calculator of their growths. Just a heads up, this is using Ashen Wolves clear data and NG+ data. I will be using AW characters, and their names will be used both in the spoiler tags and out. I'm leaving their names out of the spoiler tag because they were already announced, but if anyone would like me to put their names in the spoiler tags, I will make the edit. I already did Maddening without NG+ and it hurt my soul--you can't make me do it again, I refuse and will cry--and I'll also be using the prize from clearing the AW route, so if you haven't played AW yet, there's spoilers for that in here. When something is Italicized, I'm marking it as NG+ dependent and I will spend renown to get it. UPDATES WILL BE BOLDED AND IN THIS COLOR PURPLE. If I have decided between two options, the option itself will be bolded and recolored. Alrighty, here we go! We shall start with Byleth (we chug respect women juice in this house). Next is Edelgard! Next is the man who may not have actual eyebrows, Hubert! Next is Ferdinand Von Aegir! No longer in main party. I've removed his data (keeping it in a document in case the mods need me to keep it) and added his replacement, Ingrid. Snoozeman Linhardt is next! Since he's going to be a "switch" character (you'll see further down), I'm also adding another character's info. HYDA- I mean, Caspar. BERNIE BEAR Next up is Dorothea! ............................ I'm sorry, it's not Petra. I'm sorry. I love her a lot, it's just not Petra. She dies way too fast for my liking, so she's an Adjacent Unit. Instead, we have Constance taking this spot. Final main party member is the Secret Boy. AND THAT'S IT. For reserve units/adjuncts, I have Petra as a Pegasus Knight, Yuri as a Trickster and Hapi as a Valkyrie Ferdinand as a Fortress/Great Knight, and Mercedes as a Bishop (I can easily switch between Mercie & Lin depending on what I need from them, and since healers level very easily, I don't have to worry about either of them falling behind). I am exchanging Yuri & Hapi for Ferdinand & Mercedes so that they are reliably activated Guard & Heal Adjutants. Adjutants activation rate increases with support rank, and few Black Eagles have supports that become successful Guard & Heal classes, so I can settle my Ferdie indecision by switching him off the main party and use Mercedes to get better use out of their Adjutant roles. If I ever need to switch between Mercie & Lin, would be for utility -- Fortify vs. Warp. If I find that Mercie is more useful, then I'll probably upgrade her to Gremory and put her in the main role. Please let me know your thoughts, what I should patch up, etc. I know that DEF & RES are a little low, but I'm hoping that I can use the Holy Tomb to farm for stat boosters for an edge (My soft-reset technique is 3 Boosters, if there's a Seraph Robe or Black Pearl, make it 4. If I don't get 3/4+SR/BP, I reset until I do. It takes a while, but nothing else down in the tomb is really worth it when you can literally buy everything else from the Ashen Wolves or Anna). I also don't use stat boosts until everyone is in their final class, that way I don't miss out on free bonuses. THANK YOU EVERYONE, YOU'RE AMAZING ❤️ EDIT: Edited for clarity. My goodness, I have not yet mastered the spoiler tag. EDIT #2: Updated information.

Before you read further we should understand the rules by which this Tier-List was made and the restrictions/considerations that went into it. They are as follows: 1) The game is played on New Game, not New Game+ 2) No paid DLC items/benefits/characters can be used. 3) Efficient, but not LTC level play is assumed. 4) The Tier List represents my evaluation of unit performance on Maddening Mode throughout Crimson Flower after 6 playthroughs of the route. My fastest run is 19:57 with a healthy amount of messing around/testing/unnecessary exploration/doing unnecessary paralogues. I'm still mapping out a lot of the details but It's more than possible to shave 4-6 hours off of this time. S+ Tier: Edelgard: Not too much to say about this one, it should be fairly uncontroversial. She hits like a train, has access to the Peg-Knight Class, has Monster Breaker for big-hits, near-perfect availability, decent growths, and easy access to the Wyvern class line for flying and a Class-fare. Amyr is also hilariously broken, to add. Too bad her personal classes are garbage. F!Byleth: In my opinion, easy access to the Lance of Ruin (LOR) from her ability to recruit Slyvain with no requirements other than being female (lol) is the main thing that makes F!Byleth better than M!Byleth. She also can become a Peg-Knight, which is amazing for the ability to fly and access to Darting Blow. Sylvain is also an amazing guard-adjutant; recruit him before the Miklan chapter, get him a single level during said chapter and promote him to armour-knight when you're able to. On another note, She and Edlegard are among a select few who can reliably survive being exposed on enemy-phase without the use of Impenetrable Wall/Blessing, especially in the early/mid-game where it matters most. The Sword of the Creator is meh in the early game due to its weight but its 1-2 range and special Combat Art are nice. Though if you're attacking at range you're better off using an Iron Bow+ for the accuracy/lighter weight/lower cost and Curved Shot access unless you are also are exposing her on enemy phase without any means to switch her weapon. I generally focus on lances/axes on F!Byleth because of promotion requirements. The Sublime Creator Sword is fairly decent when you get it, though I rarely find myself using it. F!Byleth is solid all around, it's hard to go wrong here unless you make her a mage. Bernadetta: Probably the most controversial placement on this list. She is carried almost entirely by her early access to the Vengeance Combat Art, Pass Skill, and high-average Dexterity. Bernie's Vengeance has a C+ Lance rank requirement and synergizes well with her personal skill; this is easy to get before Chapter 5 with her boon in Lances. Bernie has easy access to the Cavalier and Peg-Knight classes early on, as well. She's one of the few units on your squad in the early game that can dish out heavy single attack damage, all she needs is a steel lance/bow and her personal skill activated for her to deal 20+ damage with Tempest Lance in the first few chapters The damage formula for Vengeance is as follows: (Missing HP + 2). This seems unassuming at first but is incredibly powerful. This means her attack value, when using this combat art, scales off her HP and STR, so her mediocre growths in those areas are almost entirely offset by their combined value and ability to boost to a class' stat bases. That said, she'll be able to use Training Lances and One-Hit-Kill (OHK) nearly every enemy generic throughout the game with 100% accuracy from the moment she unlocks Vengeance. Toss her the accuracy ring and a +hit battalion and you'll seldom need to think about accuracy. Continuing, the Paladin class has a base STR of 17 and a class modifier of +2 for a minimum physical attack value of 19. This boost, in conjunction with other modifiers like the HP +5 skill (the early game skill most people switch out) that effectively acts as a Fare-skill, battalions, strong weapons, HP boosters (Seraph robes also give her what is effectively +5 attack) and you can get to some insane numbers. Why is this important? Because every CF post-time skip map is defeat boss(es) and can be cleared quickly with warp/stride setups. She just so happens to be one of the few units who can reliably OHK even the most dangerous enemies in the game. Bernie also has access to the Pass skill via her Budding Talent. You can use this to ride/fly right through enemy formations that would otherwise hinder other potential boss killers. She also gets an insane attack bonus from the Paladin promotion due to the minimum strength stat adjustment in addition to the Class' HP boost and Lance-fare. Let's assume that you did Alois' easily one-turnable paralogue and gave Bernie the Seraph Robe you get from it. We're now at C12 and Bernie is a level 23 Paladin with roughly 41+5 HP, 20 STR and has a D-Rank battalion (Lv. 5 Empire Pegasus Co. ) that gives her +4 attack and +15 hit. Let's give her the LOR (22mt weapon) and the Str + 2 skill as well. After factoring in a STR rally, her personal skill, and other variables, this Bernie has, when using Vengeance, an attack value of 109. What does this mean in practice? !Maddening C12 Seteth has a maximum physical endurance of 97. Bernie can easily OHK him. !Maddening C12 Rhea has a maximum physical endurance of 90. Bernie can easily OHK her. Pass is useful to reach her easily. !Maddening C14 Claude has a maximum physical endurance of 92. Bernie can easily OHK him for a two-turn clear. !Maddening C15 Seteth has a maximum physical endurance of 114. Bernie is the only unit in the game who can reliably reach this value by this point in the game without grinding levels and/or stat boosters and/or getting RNG blessed. Use the +3 HP meals (which stack) to boost yourself to that number if you need to. Pass is useful to reach him easily and clear the chapter in 5-6 turns with a stride/warp setup. !Maddening C17 Rhea has a maximum physical endurance of ‭118‬. Use a +3 meal if you need to. Bernie, again, can easily OHK her by the time you reach this point assuming she gets average level-ups as a Paladin/Flier. !Maddening C17 Dimitri has a maximum physical endurance of 117. Bernie can easily OHK him by time you reach this chapter. This map can also be cleared reliably in 5-6 turns by setting up stride and warp; it can be cleared in 1-3 turns if you're willing to do some Amyr RNG abusing with an above-average strength Edelgard. This methods also ensures you don't need to survive a round against his 85 physical attack and 39 attack speed. There is a multitude of bosses that are far less durable than those listed above; Bernie easily slaps them and almost every generic you'll come across. Those that don't such as bosses with extreme physical durability like Gwendal and Gilbert are easily dispatched with effective weapons and magic. The main downside to using her in this way is that she has no enemy phase presence, restricts the use of fortify (if you're even using it) and cannot ever take a counter. However, this is almost a non-issue in an efficient playthrough as everyone except your dedicated combat units will get ORKO'd by Maddening mode enemies without the use of Impenetrable Wall/Blessing; you will need to find a way to keep people safe regardless. Thankfully FETH Maddening is among, if not the most player-phase oriented game in the franchise. She's best off of course as a Cav/Paladin/Flier, all of which have Canto and good movement; these traits in conjunction with the Pass Skill help in making sure she's safe after assassinating a target of your choice. TL:DR Contrary to the opinions of many, especially those of more prominent figures in the community, Bernie starts OHK'ing the vast majority enemies from the moment she gets Vengeance (which she can have as early as Chapter 4) and has myriad ways to reach OHK thresholds for many of every route's most dangerous bosses. She enables fast clears of CF Maddening (and Maddening in general) with minimal grinding/setup/thinking involved. She doesn't require any additional skills to function, unlike most other combat units which all pine for Death Blow and Darting Blow. The only skills she benefits strongly from is Hit+20 which is overkill in most cases if you're setting up linked-attacks for boss kills. Most units in my runs don't even promote to an advanced class before it's over. Bernie is 10/10 on CF and 9.5/10 on the other three routes. Two other units (Dedue and Cyril) also have Vengeance (both units need A-rank lances) but do not have the other traits that allow Bernie to make such excellent use of the Combat Art. PS: You can use guard-adjutants, shields, enemy bow users with poison strikes, rusted weapons (so that Bernie gets doubled), battalions and/or devil weapons to ensure Bernie gets dropped to 1HP with minimal difficulty. S Tier: M!Byleth: Mostly the same as F!Byleth, just without early flying access (which hurts) and early access to the LOR and a decent guard-adjutant in Sylvain. He does have access to Quick-Reposite but isn't that useful as he will usually be strong enough to not need it by the time you get it (which is late in the game as War-Master is a Master Class). Dorothea: Heal, physic and 1-3 range magic damage in the early game is useful. She doesn't require any special treatment if you're planning on using her as a dancer. Arguably, she's probably the best dancer option because of her high natural charm (don't have to worry about failing the dance contest/getting charm screwed) and access to the Meteor spell. She's able to equip Meteor to give an accuracy and evasion boost via supports to any of your units that enter combat in her range; it also helps with gambit damage/accuracy. She also has a boon in Black Magic which can help her hit A-Rank easier. She's fairly important in clearing maps quickly, setting up linked-attacks for boss kills, and just improving the reliability of any attack. Giving her the Thyrsus can also help with this (I don't use any combat mages so there isn't any competition for the item). A Tier: Linhart: Has warp, perfect availability, and a solid support spell list. He can also chip if you need him to. Can't really go wrong here. Manuela: She has Warp. That's enough for an A-Rank. Use her silence/ward spells to level up while other people do stuff. I suggest unlocking the magic +2 skill for slightly larger warp range, as well. Felix: I usually don't focus swords on Byleth but requirement Felix is usually worth it. You can get him fairly easily with a C or B support. He auto levels well and if recruited around C10-12 he'll be in a position to start scaling with a bit of favouritism/attention. Unlike other units, this favouritism translates into a fairly powerful unit. He also has supports with Sylvain (guard adjutant) and Ingrid (flying adjutant) that give him +1 attack per support level. Heavy Draw (+8) damage is also a decent combat art. I generally class change from Mercenary to archer then assassin then Wyvern rider or Sniper once he's gained enough skill ranks. He's among the few combat units worth using in a ground-locked class. B Tier: Ferdinand Von Aegir - team debuffer/buffer. I only use Byleth/Edelgard/Felix/Jeritiza as combat units so Ferdie doesn't get enough EXP to be combat viable. Swift-strikes is cool but requires A-Rank Lances, which sucks. I generally make him a Cavalier, give him a guard adjutant, and let him use Shatter Slash with Seal Speed to cripple select targets in the early/mid-game. This combination can make Golem/Monster-slaying really easy as well. His Crest also has a %30 chance to let him prevent a counter-attack, which is nice but never necessary. His Dex rally can help Bernie/Edel/F!Byleth reach 100% accuracy for boss kills, as well. Ingrid: She auto-levels like a beast and has generally goods stats all around. She usually has decent charm that synergizes well with her personal skill, making for a reliable offensive gambit user. She's arguably not worth training as a combat unit but she can definitely chip/finish off enemies. She has attack boosting supports with Felix and Sylvain, which can be useful. Her paralogue is also amazing as it gets you a flying B-rank battalion, the Luin (17 MT lance), and a devil weapon, along with some other less important items. This is one of the few paralogues worth doing. Jeritiza: By the time you get him you should have a team situated to clear the rest of the game. He's strong and has decent skill-ranks across the board. Lysithea: Don't recruit her pre-time skip. You can recruit her in C14 and deploy her in the month of C15 onward. She's level 29 when you recruit her post-time-skip and has excellent magic (29 at base). It is worth it to use a knowledge gem and do a single auxiliary battle to quickly get her access to Warp. It doesn't matter much if she's a Gremory or Bishop, she's only useful for the X2 Warp uses. You only get to use her for the last few chapters but she's far better than she otherwise would be compared to a pre-time skip recruitment due to not needing to feed her exp, not taking up a deployment slot, or risk her getting RNG-screwed. If you don't need the extra Warper then just bench her. Shamir: Decent option to fill a slot on your team if you need it. She has the earliest access to Hunter's Volley which can be nice. C Tier: Slyvain: Not worth using on his own in my opinion but he makes an excellent guard adjutant as he auto-levels in axes. Attach him to someone who needs a guard adjutant or someone like Felix to get the most mileage out of him. His paralogue also gives a stride battalion and the LOR if you didn't recruit him before the Miklan chapter and refuse to give the LOR to Rhea. Ashe: Auto levels in axes which means that he's a good option for a guard adjutant. He is recruited via Charm/Lances which is easy enough if you're playing F!Byleth. His paralogue can be cleared quickly with preparation, it also gives a consumable item that grants +1 move. It is debatable whether it's worth doing, though. Alois: Strength/luck rally. Use him as a guard adjutant when not rallying. Annette: Is kind of a pain to recruit, but her speed/str rally is useful. Though the speed boost is seldom relevant. She can be a backup gambit user as she auto-levels in authority. Petra: She usually ends up too frail and weak to fight efficiently on Maddening, she has no strong niches to compensate for this short-coming. Hubert: Huburt is super useful even at a low level. Mire can inflict -6 DEF on an enemy from 3-range. He can deal decent chip damage in the early game, debuff, and immobilize enemies; he has an easier time doing this with range boosting items like the Thrysus. You could have 1-6 range with the Valkryie Class but that's DLC so RIP. D Tier: Leonie: She can make a decent combat unit and auto-levels well. There are simply better combat units with more useful niches/traits. Hanneman: Meh. He's a decent mage with access to Meteor which I suppose lets him function as a dancer. I haven't found a good use for him, perhaps someone has a non-meme setup for him. Lorenz: Only useful for the Thyrsus. His paralogue can easily be cleared in 1-2 turns with stride and fliers. He can do some funny things with battalion vantage if you train him as a magic unit due to most magic users having high single attack damage. E Tier: Ignatz: He has what is probably the best personal skill in the game in Hit +20. I'm trying to find some uses for him but haven't had much success. Mercedes: You don't need another long-term healer. To be fair, she is hands down the best no-nonsense healer in the game (Fortify/Physic/Heal/Restore). I always ask her to assist with missions in the early game as her ability to deal decent chip damage and heal with physic is nice. She doesn't siphon exp away from your main squad like what would be the case with offense units you might ask for mission assistance. Marianne: Mostly the same as above, just slightly worse. Raph: You don't need a bulky male fighter-type character. He's good if you're playing casually but is mostly useless in a fast play-through. Casper: Male fighter with no redeeming traits. Among the worst units in the game along with Dedue and Raph. Flayn was excluded for what I hope are obvious reasons. Feel free to disagree/offer suggestions, just keep it civil.