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Alastor15243
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You know, there would be less issues with Elise being shippable if Fates had just cut the stupid children out. Nino is canonically 14 but doesn't have kids until she's older. The younger parents in Awakening didn't have their kids immediately either. Genealogy takes over a year to finish its part 1. Only Fates wants to be dumb and say the kids happened immediately.

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Yeah, that's sadly the result of them wanting to add children units to Fates, but not reusing the Time Skip of Genealogy or the Time Travel of Awakening. Considering the success of the latter, they wanted to replicate many things in Fates, child units included. But they also wanted the whole "older/younger siblings" angle and include them into this and... well...

As a note, Genealogy's Part 1 takes over three years. So even if his portrait doesn't change, you can at least argue someone like Dew has already become of age (regardless of who's standards) by Chapter 5.

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18 hours ago, Jotari said:

Hoshido can still be the clear morally superior choice while still making them not the 100% good guys. You just need to make them less evil than Nohr (who set the bar pretty high). In addition, Hoshidon dissidents (which per this chapter do canonically exist, they're just never mentioned at all in Birthright or Revalation and never crop up again at all in Conquest) can make Hoshido as a whole less uniformly in the right while not compromising the actual playable Hoshidon cast. And lastly, you could still have the choice be presented as is, wherein Hoshido is the morally right choice, at the time, but secret conspiracies learned later muddle that choice somewhat.

I mean sure, I guess more or less pulling the old "haha the side you thought was good was actually bad or at least a bunch of pricks" trick could've worked. The problem is that I doubt the writers would've been able to pull it off well without being too clownish/hamfisted. The whole "Azura was chased out" is silly enough as it is.

Looking back at the pre-release stuff, no one official talked about the plot being "grey." It was about choosing between blood in the peace-loving kingdom led by a motherly woman or loyalty in the glory-seeking kingdom led by an undead old man. And the final version didn't even make it about blood for Hoshido since Corrin's not their birth sibling anyway. If anything, much of the plot's problems root in them not committing to the premise and not just making Hoshido defenders who have teeth while Nohr are imperialist but their family too.

(also nohr needs to have no ties to anankos in anyway whatsover whether garon is a kitten eating supervillain or not)

Edited by Kalken
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On 3/15/2021 at 6:10 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, Malig Camilla's turned out pretty great when I've actually put the effort into making her magic work.

Speaking of, one look at Camilla's base stats (21 str vs 11 magic, with axes being stronger than tomes) is enough for me to decide "fuck it, I'm sealing her to Wyvern Lord ASAP". It doesn't much help that tomes and physical weapons are both used for the same thing - attacking - which means this point comes to the fore:

On 2/8/2018 at 10:31 AM, Interdimensional Observer said:

Tomes and physical weaponry are both used to attack- the same job, and I can only equip one or the other at a given time; never outside of Ignis do the two stats combine for attacking. You need a high stat in either for dealing good damage in the first place as well, so you need the stats to be comparable and strong for true hybrid offensive potential, or for one of enemy Def/Res to be lower than the other without it being overpoweringly so in the favor of one of the two weapon choices. And the weapon types themselves need to be about equal in relevant statistics. Balancing all these things just so is much harder.

 

Edited by Shadow Mir
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On 3/18/2021 at 12:06 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Ah yes, so there was massive opposition to her being in Hoshido after Nohr declared war, and she got kidnapped by dissidents. Gee, wouldn't it have been nice to see the other side of this plot point in Birthright? Maybe a defend map where we fight off this same rogue branch of the Hoshidan army and see some dark side to the Hoshidan people?

Step 1. Kidnap Azura, against the wishes of the royal family

Step 2. Bring her with us into the country we're at war with, our mortal enemy, and sieze a fort while keeping her hostage

Step 3. ???

Step 4. Profit

I can only imagine that Haitaka was attemoting a speedrun of "how to make as many enemies as possible, and wholly fuck my life up".

10 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Now, and this is likely not going to be liked, but... people really need to accept FE games as a whole, barring Tokyo Mirage Sessions, don't take place in worlds with the same standards as our own. Medieval Fantasy is as much medieval as it is fantasy, and in our medieval times, 15 was not a strange age to begin a family. The concept of teenagerhood didn't exist back then. You were a child, then an adult. What marked this transition tended to vary depending on the place and culture, but ultimately, adulthood was something largely taken for granted as low as mid-teens. As such, in a place that is meant to emulate/inspired by Earth's Middle Ages, more so in a country meant to emulate the European Middle Ages, Elise being 15 means that yes, she would be considered an adult already. "adult that you technically are" in localization is as much a handwaving to make it palatable for us 21st Century Earth Occidental dwellers, as much as it could be a reference to the fact that in the times FE is meant to emulate, Elise would indeed be an adult already, but not in ours. Hence technically.

Elise getting married, and having kids, is weird - but I could understand it as different cultural norms. Of course, the optimal way to play is to intentionally set her up with someone else - which feels bad, right? Like, I'm building these supports to get a 15-year-old pregnant? And my avatar is also capable of impregnating this girl, who has been raised as my little sister?!? Ultimately, there's acknowledging different cultural norms, and then there's participating in them. The latter can be a lot harder to deal with, than the former.

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Fire Emblem has long been only "Medieval" (and Early Modern considering something like Three Houses) when it comes to aesthetics and symbols. It is otherwise a modern world. Not only from the point that women like Camilla and Hinoka aren't already in arranged marriages, but the very presence of modern nationalism/"nation-states" (that is, places like Nohr are treated as countries in the modern term not just property managed by select men).

3 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Step 1. Kidnap Azura, against the wishes of the royal family

Step 2. Bring her with us into the country we're at war with, our mortal enemy, and sieze a fort while keeping her hostage

Step 3. ???

Step 4. Profit

I can only imagine that Haitaka was attemoting a speedrun of "how to make as many enemies as possible, and wholly fuck my life up".

Like I said, it's just lazy writing so that you can play with Azura in CQ. That's a moment radically out-of-character with how Hoshido is otherwise characterized since they aren't shown as discriminating towards or hostile to foreigners regardless of said foreigner's behavior and we aren't shown that there Ryoma has problems with how he runs his country.

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15 hours ago, Maof06 said:

Or maybe Azura was lying to make Elise feel better. Don't ruin the trolling I wasted some effort to write, dammit. Anyway, the table also works by changing the intervals from 2 to 4. It would look like this:

  • Xander/Ryoma ~26~
  • Camilla/Hinoka ~22~
  • Corrin ~18~
  • Leo/Takumi ~18~
  • Elise/Sakura ~14~

Sakura must be older than Elise, as Sumeragi was already married to Mikoto when Corrin was born and Sakura is the first wife's (Ikona I think her name is, I could look it up, but she's so minor I'm surprised they bothered to name her at all) daughter. I'd really prefer if Sakura was Mikoto's daughter so she'd be a more integrated part of the royal family rather than someone who showed up like a month before the king was killed and just took control of the kingdom. Of course this is only if polygamy is off the table, which we hear no explicit mentions of.

5 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Step 1. Kidnap Azura, against the wishes of the royal family

Step 2. Bring her with us into the country we're at war with, our mortal enemy, and sieze a fort while keeping her hostage

Step 3. ???

Step 4. Profit

I can only imagine that Haitaka was attemoting a speedrun of "how to make as many enemies as possible, and wholly fuck my life up".

 

Criticize his methods if you must, but he manages to win out in the end by virtue of having Rally Defense.

15 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

No, doesn't work. From the Azura-Elise supports:

Elise was born shortly before Azura got kidnapped (taken into account the time it took for the rumor to reach her), which was not long after Corrin was. So Elise is at the most only 15.

Now, and this is likely not going to be liked, but... people really need to accept FE games as a whole, barring Tokyo Mirage Sessions, don't take place in worlds with the same standards as our own. Medieval Fantasy is as much medieval as it is fantasy, and in our medieval times, 15 was not a strange age to begin a family. The concept of teenagerhood didn't exist back then. You were a child, then an adult. What marked this transition tended to vary depending on the place and culture, but ultimately, adulthood was something largely taken for granted as low as mid-teens. As such, in a place that is meant to emulate/inspired by Earth's Middle Ages, more so in a country meant to emulate the European Middle Ages, Elise being 15 means that yes, she would be considered an adult already. "adult that you technically are" in localization is as much a handwaving to make it palatable for us 21st Century Earth Occidental dwellers, as much as it could be a reference to the fact that in the times FE is meant to emulate, Elise would indeed be an adult already, but not in ours. Hence technically.

As far as I've heard, while women did get married young in the premoden era, typically they didn't actually have kids as a teenager. Records of noble families show first (successful) births being in the early 20s. Child birth was super dangerous before modern medicine, they knew the woman had to be physically matured to stand the best chance (and on set of puberty would typically be lower back then compared to now due to the quality of food).

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2 hours ago, Jotari said:

Sakura must be older than Elise, as Sumeragi was already married to Mikoto when Corrin was born

Not so. Sumeragi says Mikoto had Corrin in her arms when she came to Hoshido.

@Shanty Pete's 1st Mate Also, with regards to Haitaka, what I wound up doing in Dakota's War Journal was have it turn out he's a Nohrian wyvern lord named Landon who had to leave the armed forces due to a crippling injury to the tendons of his right wrist, became a mercenary to make ends meet but wasn't nearly as good wielding a weapon in his left hand, and then was hired by Garon to pretend to be Hoshidan for a suicide mission for propaganda purposes and accepted so he could save his wife and child from starvation.

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9 hours ago, Kalken said:

Like I said, it's just lazy writing so that you can play with Azura in CQ. That's a moment radically out-of-character with how Hoshido is otherwise characterized since they aren't shown as discriminating towards or hostile to foreigners regardless of said foreigner's behavior and we aren't shown that there Ryoma has problems with how he runs his country.

...One of Hinoka's default dialogues is "Nihrian scum!". And Oboro's personal gives her a combat boost against Nohrian enemies. And Takumi distrusts not only Corrin, but also Azura, owing to their connection to Nohr. There's clearly a prejudice, at least among some Hoshidans, against Nohr and its people. In most cases, it's justified, but it's there.

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Also, with regards to Haitaka, what I wound up doing in Dakota's War Journal was have it turn out he's a Nohrian wyvern lord named Landon who had to leave the armed forces due to a crippling injury to the tendons of his right wrist, became a mercenary to make ends meet but wasn't nearly as good wielding a weapon in his left hand, and then was hired by Garon to pretend to be Hoshidan for a suicide mission for propaganda purposes and accepted so he could save his wife and child from starvation.

That simultaneously sounds just convoluted enough, but also far too clever, for Fates' writing.

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5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Not so. Sumeragi says Mikoto had Corrin in her arms when she came to Hoshido.

Well Corrin is obviously older than Sakura, that has no relevance at all. Sumeragi just ostensibly sired Corrin out of wedlock and had a kid (or kids) with his actual wife afterwards.

Sumeragi: That's good. Though I loved her dearly, my time with her was so brief... I'll never forget the day we first met. She'd traveled alone to Hoshido from Valla. When I saw her, standing by the lake... I knew immediately that I was in love. Sometime later, after Anankos had taken over Valla, Mikoto fled to Hoshido. She brought with her a newborn child. That child was you, Corrin. Ugh... What a disgrace. I'm nothing more than a Vallite puppet now. At least I can spend my last moments with all of you. All of my children, all grown up... I'm so glad we could meet again.

Emphasis mine. Mikoto came to Hoshido twice.

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

Sakura must be older than Elise, as Sumeragi was already married to Mikoto when Corrin was born and Sakura is the first wife's (Ikona I think her name is, I could look it up, but she's so minor I'm surprised they bothered to name her at all) daughter. I'd really prefer if Sakura was Mikoto's daughter so she'd be a more integrated part of the royal family rather than someone who showed up like a month before the king was killed and just took control of the kingdom. Of course this is only if polygamy is off the table, which we hear no explicit mentions of.

Oh whoops. I just read my quote again. Sorry, I didn't mean to say Sumeragi was married to Mikoto when Corrin was born. I meant when Corrin was kidnapped. In other words the chain of events must be like this.

*First two or three Hoshidon siblings born

*Corrin conceived (out of wedlock)

*Sakura born

*Corrin and Mikoto find asylum in Hoshido.

*Corrin kidnapped and Sumeragi killed.

*Azura kidnapped

*Elise born

The only way Sakura is not even a little bit older than Elise is if Sumeragi was married to Ikona and Mikoto simultaneously and Sakura was born after Corrin and Mikoto seek asylum in Hoshido. But then Mikoto taking over instead of Ikona is really sketchy. I mean far more sketchy than it is already. It is possible Sakura was born after Corrin and Mikoto found asylum in Hoshido, but she must have been born before Sumeragi died as he was married to Mikoto for at least a little time. The closest we could put them together would be if Ikona died giving birth to Sakura and Sumeragi married Mikoto the day before he died. In other words, without polygamy involved, the closer in age Sakura and Elise are, the shorter the time frame in which Sumeragi and Mikoto are married, which is already on the "this is way to short a time frame for her to become the entire country's ruler" side of the scale.

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5 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

...One of Hinoka's default dialogues is "Nihrian scum!". And Oboro's personal gives her a combat boost against Nohrian enemies. And Takumi distrusts not only Corrin, but also Azura, owing to their connection to Nohr. There's clearly a prejudice, at least among some Hoshidans, against Nohr and its people. In most cases, it's justified, but it's there.

1. woolseyism since there are no nohrian scum lines in jp text

2. oboro admits her attitude is wrong in supports

3. takumi is the only one among the siblings who expresses a less than family attitude towards azura and he comes around anyway in supports

Saying they suffer "prejudice" is like saying Japan suffers prejudice for raping Nanking.

Hoshido does not have power and privilege over Nohr, there are no societal assaults on Nohrians (being barred from jobs, being segregated, being forbidden from courting Hoshidan women). When Hoshido fights Nohr, we are not shown the former going out of their way to target the latter's civilians such as marching them to murder camps (indeed, one pro-Hoshido boss even says that he's only targeting Garon). And more importantly we are never shown that Nohrians are persecuted and discriminated against when Hoshido wins or helps kill Anankos (as reflected by every Nohrians being able to marry Hoshidans with no one saying that there opposed).

 

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4 hours ago, Kalken said:

1. woolseyism since there are no nohrian scum lines in jp text

2. oboro admits her attitude is wrong in supports

3. takumi is the only one among the siblings who expresses a less than family attitude towards azura and he comes around anyway in supports

Saying they suffer "prejudice" is like saying Japan suffers prejudice for raping Nanking.

Hoshido does not have power and privilege over Nohr, there are no societal assaults on Nohrians (being barred from jobs, being segregated, being forbidden from courting Hoshidan women). When Hoshido fights Nohr, we are not shown the former going out of their way to target the latter's civilians such as marching them to murder camps (indeed, one pro-Hoshido boss even says that he's only targeting Garon). And more importantly we are never shown that Nohrians are persecuted and discriminated against when Hoshido wins or helps kill Anankos (as reflected by every Nohrians being able to marry Hoshidans with no one saying that there opposed).

You said that Hoshido isn't "shown as discriminatory or hostile to foreigners". I pointed out instances where Hoshidan characters insult Nohrians (foreigners) on the basis of their national allegiance, and/or place of birth. I.e. hostile discrimination against foreigners. Your attempt to characterize Hoshido as a whole is contradicted by what the game shows of them.

Some of them get better, yes, but that's part of character growth. It's like saying "Daein isn't prejudiced against laguz, because even though Jill grew up regarding them as sub-humans, she learns the error of her ways and comes to accept them." You can't interpret characters purely based on where they end up, while ignoring where they come from.

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For the record, Sakura is definitely older than Elise. Sakura "remembers" Corrin being kidnapped (Corrin's support conversation with Hana mentions that Corrin getting kidnapped made Sakura cry) while Elise was born sometime after Azura was kidnapped, and Azura was taken to Hoshido after Corrin was taken to Nohr.

Edited by Sunwoo
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3 hours ago, Kalken said:

 

Hoshido does not have power and privilege over Nohr, there are no societal assaults on Nohrians (being barred from jobs, being segregated, being forbidden from courting Hoshidan women). When Hoshido fights Nohr, we are not shown the former going out of their way to target the latter's civilians such as marching them to murder camps (indeed, one pro-Hoshido boss even says that he's only targeting Garon). And more importantly we are never shown that Nohrians are persecuted and discriminated against when Hoshido wins or helps kill Anankos (as reflected by every Nohrians being able to marry Hoshidans with no one saying that there opposed).

You are basing a lot of this on things that we simply are not shown, one way or the other, whether they are occurring, and basing the behavior of Hoshidans during war on how they behave in peacetime. Plus what we do see of Hoshido isn't as perfect as you seem to think. Azura is literally the only character we as the audience see who is a Nohrian living in Hoshido, and right in this chapter we see she has been dragged away against her will to a war camp, with soldiers that will kill even while she is unarmed. If we can't take her experience into account, how else are we to know how the Nohrians are being treated? Saizo is explicit in his supports that he doesn't trust either of Azura or Corrin simply due to their Nohrian past. Takumi and Oboro are both fairly explicit about their hate of the Nohrians as well. I will also note that Birthright is the only route where Corrin's party doesn't explicitly go out of their way to non-lethally fight their enemies, and its kinda striking when compared to the other two routes.

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On 3/19/2021 at 4:36 PM, Maof06 said:
  • Xander/Ryoma ~24~
  • Camilla/Hinoka ~22~
  • Corrin ~20 to 22~
  • Leo/Takumi ~20~
  • Elise/Sakura ~18~

I really doubt Leo and Takumi would be in their 20's. They(especially Takumi) look and act like teenage boys. I'd say even putting them at 18 would be a stretch. 

18 seems the best possible age for Corrin. Its a very neutral age for an avatar but it also is old enough to ensure that most pairings with Corrin are entirely legal while not so old that pairing him up with the child characters would be considered grotesque. For pairings like Corrin x Sakura to work its almost required to have Corrin not be too old himself. The general appearance and personality of Corrins also doesn't really suggest adulthood either. If Corrin is an adult then its only barely so.

And if Corrin ideally can't be any older then 18 it means Leo and Takumi must be noticeably below that. They are his younger brothers. Its not really presented as with Chad and Lugh where they are the same age but Chad is vaguely older. Its really Corrin as the older brother, and Leo and Takumi as the younger brothers. So I'd put a solid two years between them and Corrin. Of the two Takumi seems the younger one. When standing next to each other he's significantly shorter and the whole edgy tsundere routine can be considered a sign of immaturity. Takumi is likely 16 or even 15 while Leo strikes me as a 16 year old, maybe a 17 year old one if we're stretching it. Kiragi being a good bit younger than Forrest might reinforce the idea that Takumi is younger than Leo.

With Xander and Camilla I always get the impression that they are supposed to be the clear senior to their counterpart. Given his design I'd actually put Xander as the oldest of any of them with him possibly being as old as 28. Aside from Arthur he seems the only character in the cast who actually could be a real father, albeit a very young one. If I were to guess I'd put Xander and Camilla at 27 and 24, as opposed to Ryoma and Hinoka's 25 and 22. 

Of the little sisters we know for sure that Elise is the youngest one. She's born after Azura got kidnapped and I think Sakura is stated to have been born before that point. Sakura also just looks older, and seems to be the only Hoshidan sibling who's older than her counterpart. 

Quote

 

Step 1. Kidnap Azura, against the wishes of the royal family

Step 2. Bring her with us into the country we're at war with, our mortal enemy, and sieze a fort while keeping her hostage

Step 3. ???

Step 4. Profit

 

One way it could have worked is that it was Haitaka's plan to haul Azura to Nohr to use her as a hostage against the Nohrian armies he planned to fight. 
Haitaka: ''King Garon! Lower your arms or I'll kill your daughter!''
Garon: ''Go ahead. I don't care''
Haitaka: ''Oh-oh. This isn't going as I planned...''

But I don't think there was any thought put into that scenario just like there's not any thought put into most of Fates scenarios. Azura is just taken to Nohr so Corrin can recruit her there. They didn't even care enough about the details to give Haitaka any lines about what he thinks he's doing. 

Edited by Etrurian emperor
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On 3/19/2021 at 2:38 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Silas gets a +1 bronze lance called the Deshi Deshi (a joke from when I made a forged bronze lance to train Dakota as a basara, and I mean it still fits, given Silas is a knight with dark armor)

This joke has lived in me for how many years?

And then you add to it by doing the thing I should have done.

Meanwhile, Fates's plot once again causes me to blue screen. It's amazing just how much of a mess the plot has due to the ages of the royals. I am just going to not argue points because I can't add anything to it. Of all the things to ruin it..... Game of Thrones's age raising may have raised an eyebrow, but there was nothing so directly damaged by it because it wasn't a tweaking of ages that threw consistency off a cliff. (I bring that up because it too raised the ages of children partly for making their having sex less icky and also because the writers ended up making a mess of everything)

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Conquest Day 6: Invasion 1

Sweet! Arthur and Mozu got a support boost! That almost never happens with the pairs I actually want to make!

Oh man, pity we don't have anyone at the prison, I was hoping to see Elise's reaction to prison duty. The game is practically screaming at the absurdity of anyone expecting her to guard prisoners.

But yeah, we're just gonna have a quick update today. We'll be doing Invasion 1 and saving Chapter 10 for tomorrow. Number one priority: getting Mozu the 58 experience she needs to get to level 10 and get quick draw. I've checked Chapter 10. You need 29 attack power to one-shot the ninja without the help of a dual strike, and by the looks of it, I just might have the budget to get both Effie and Mozu there, but only if I get Mozu quick draw.

Oh, and Jakob and Dakota S-ranked with the treehouse bonus today! Sweet! That boosts my options a good deal! I'll have to check my budget for Chapter 10 and see if I can afford to do the partner seal on Jakob, because I intend to spend every last piece of gold I have making sure I do as good a job on Chapter 10 as possible.

Jakob and Dakota's S support is standard fare generic cheese, but at least it mostly feels like a natural progression from the previous supports.

Oh god, and now we have child paralogues. Already. So. I'm going to make Jakob a malig knight, because that way he can get trample at an offensively low level, and then we can get trample on more units ridiculously early. Still though, these paralogues are great training opportunities, so I'll see how early I need them.

...This is me later proofreading, it occurs to me that I don't think I ever explained what makes Jakob so interesting. Okay, so, the thing is he's a prepromote, but... he doesn't level like normal prepromotes. He has stats roughly comparable to the rest of your army, save for promotion gains, but he also levels up like the rest of your army, despite being promoted. That means that by the time your army's hitting level 15... which isn't even halfway through the game...

...he's already got endgame skills.

And he can pass them on to his children. Who he can get two of, with the avatar, ridiculously early.

Yeah. His growths aren't the best, and I've never seen him stay good the whole game through, but the stuff you can do with him is still insane amounts of fun.

Oh yeah, another big priority with this chapter: get Arthur to level 10. Not because I want his skill, but because I don't want his skill, and I don't want him to get it in the middle of Chapter 10. Gamble is a skill that would really be better in the late game. Getting -10 hit and 10 crit in the early game when fighters haven't had a chance to either make their hit rate or their crit rate reliable just makes the skill borderline useless for the time being. Especially since I gave Arthur a forged bronze.

Alright, I just reclassed Jakob to malig knight. Might as well get him started on that now. I also took the fire tome on Nyx and the fire tome we got from random events and made a +1 fire forge called Hot Tea for him. He's one level higher than ideal for starting to learn malig knight skills, but it's what we've got to work with. Now then, let's see what we're up against...

Right, we'll have to move some buildings around. If you didn't know, your starting deployment locations are determined by where your building entrances are. I'll have to move them to a slightly uglier arrangement so I can player-phase all of these fliers on the east side.

Also, I just remembered I have two disrobing gales, so I forged them together to create the StripperTwister. With that and the speed surge he got today, Odin can double the cavs on the west side of the map. That's good, because it means he'll be able to take out that entire side and just barely survive if he attacks one of them at range on player phase. Effie's “spotting” him to the north just in case the enemies decide to rush for the throne instead. She'll hold them off and help him take them out.

Jakob, in turn, will tackle the enemies in the rear with his 18 defense between Dakota's support and the records hall bonus. He'll be fine, and if things get too dicey, he can heal or fly away.

I've calculated that everyone can make their kills even if the dusk dragon statue doesn't do its global HP damage to anyone on the first turn. Which I think it does.

Alright, let's do this. Honestly, I think I spent more time prepping for this map than I'm actually going to spend playing it.

Everything went according to plan, and Silas got a nearly perfect level up! Everything but magic and res! Wooo!

Alright. So. I'll want to thin the enemies with Jakob, but I don't want all of them dead. I still want to get Mozu and Arthur a kill or two.

Ah, so the dusk dragon activates on enemy phase. Good thing I wasn't counting on it.

I was gonna give Effie the final cav kill, but if she missed that 88%, the cav would seize and we'd lose, so, uh... I didn't do that, I had Odin transfer himself over to Effie so he could get the kill himself with his far better odds. Sadly this netted him a terrible HP and skill level up.

Mozu, however, happily got her 10th level up with no issue thanks to a boss kill, and now she has quick draw, boosting her player-phase attack power by a whopping four. Not only that, but Arthur got to level 10 without issue as well.

Jakob's really close to level 13, so he'll get strength+2 pretty early on next map. Awesome.

Alright, back at My Castle, and...

...Elise... thinks the arena is a playground. Wow.

Arthur and Niles apparently have a support. Let's check this out, I guess.

...Wow, that was amazingly awkward. I felt really bad for Arthur there. Arthur avoided talking to Niles at the castle because of his reputation, which Niles shames him for... solely to make him uncomfortable, because that's what he has a bad reputation for: making people uncomfortable.

Woo! Arthur has a surge of strength and luck now! That's gonna be awesome for tomorrow. Actually it means with a meal and a tonic/forge, Arthur can one-shot the ninja! Awesome, because the more units I have who can do that, the better, because I do not want to have to deal with their debuffs, and relying on dual strikes to kill has some limitations at this stage in the game.

Alright. Well, that's all for today. I'd do more, but uh... yeah no. I'm not in the mood to do the child paralogues right now, and I'd be insane to try Chapter 10 on anything but a fresh day. See you tomorrow.

Stay safe, everyone.

Edited by Alastor15243
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Do you think that your extensive knowledge of the game and especially all of the prep work that you are currently doing is going to impede your ability to rank it objectively? Obviously, complete objectivity is a platonic ideal that none of us can ever actually reach since we are all coloured by our own experiences, but it does seem as if your experience here is going to be pretty far from that of an average player. This isn't your fault, of course; it's not as if you can just suddenly un-know everything that you know about the game. But even so. How do you think all of this is going to influence your ratings, particularly for difficulty and ironmanability?

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6 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Do you think that your extensive knowledge of the game and especially all of the prep work that you are currently doing is going to impede your ability to rank it objectively? Obviously, complete objectivity is a platonic ideal that none of us can ever actually reach since we are all coloured by our own experiences, but it does seem as if your experience here is going to be pretty far from that of an average player. This isn't your fault, of course; it's not as if you can just suddenly un-know everything that you know about the game. But even so. How do you think all of this is going to influence your ratings, particularly for difficulty and ironmanability?

Thankfully, I don't have to un-know it, because I already know how I reacted to the game when I didn't know much about it. I did it completely blind on hard and is was probably the best experience I ever had playing a Fire Emblem game. Hard was already a good challenge of skill when doing it blind, moving up to lunatic is just a challenge for the people already familiar with the systems.

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48 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

..he's already got endgame kills.

I know this is a typo, but I choose to read this as Jakob showing up to the Endgame before anyone else, assassinating a few mooks, and then returning to fight in the chapter at hand.

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh man, pity we don't have anyone at the prison, I was hoping to see Elise's reaction to prison duty. The game is practically screaming at the absurdity of anyone expecting her to guard prisoners.

If she weren't a noble princess, she would beat the prisoners senseless!

17 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

One way it could have worked is that it was Haitaka's plan to haul Azura to Nohr to use her as a hostage against the Nohrian armies he planned to fight. 
Haitaka: ''King Garon! Lower your arms or I'll kill your daughter!''
Garon: ''Go ahead. I don't care''
Haitaka: ''Oh-oh. This isn't going as I planned...''

Potentially. Still, it would make far more sense to keep Azura tied up in a back room somewhere, than to let her roam, and then try to kill her for roaming. She's not worth anything as a dead hostage. So if that was the plan, they bungled it entirely.

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Conquest Day 7: Chapter 10

Holy shit.

Holy. Shit.

It's time, boys and girls.

It's time for one of the best chapters in Conquest.

And also one of the most fucking terrifying.

This is the finale of the early game, and fittingly, it's the last mainline chapter that will use the song Dark Wastes as its map theme. It's a defense map where you have to stop all the enemies rushing the port down's exit. It's got a wide variety of enemies each heading to your defense point from different locations, and you have to be very aggressive, because the game will punish you brutally for trying to wall them off. It's probably my favorite early-game map in Fire Emblem history, and yet... I'm also scared shitless of it despite never having lost it before.

Thankfully, I got some pretty crazy My Castle luck that's gonna make this a bit easier. Not only did Arthur get a strength surge yesterday, but Effie just got one too. Which means that with some strength tonics for Arthur and Mozu, and 1K each to bring all of their weapons up a tier (Effie's iron lance is now a forged +1 called the Trunchbull), they now all hit that precious 29 attack benchmark. And I can still afford some more stuff!

...But before I do any more preps... let's take another good, long, proper look at that map, and also before that, actually check out the “story”.

So now Silas is playing the role of a Greek chorus, telling us about a scene we could have easily personally seen, in this case Elise's interactions with Azura. This won't be the last time we hear secondhand about an Elise scene with a main character that I very much would have liked to see.

...Yeah, there's very little to say. After that scene with Silas, Jakob rushes in and tells Dakota that Hoshidan forces are invading the port town, meaning they have to fight them off before they can get a ferry to Notre Sagesse.

Yep, and now we get the infamous cutscene with Takumi. Memes aside, it's pretty damned badass...

...except who the fuck is Takumi talking to? Dakota is definitively on the other side of the map and didn't even clearly hear him, given that her next line is “Is that... Takumi? Wow, he's not just fighting, he's leading the whole army!”

Weird how Takumi simultaneously says Nohrians are freaks who “live for the thrill of battle” and calls us “cowards”. But yeah. Now it's battle prep time.

So, I've got most of the flanks pretty well covered. Jakob and Dakota can handle the southeast; Effie, Mozu, Arthur and Niles can handle the southwest; and Odin and Elise can handle the west. The front I'm most worried about is the east, with the archers gunning for the ballista on the east side. There was a strategy I could use if Azura were still alive involving insta-promoting Selena to bow knight when she gets here and giving her a bronze bow and a Beruka pair-up, but that's not an option anymore because I need Selena to actually be a good fighter for my purposes and can't insta-promote her. Laslow is the one getting insta-promoted. I'll have to cobble something together between Silas and...

...No, actually, I have a better idea. It'll be wiser to have Niles and Mozu at different parts of the map regardless for the sake of spreading out my sky knight defense strategies, so... I'll have Niles fight off the archers. I'll have him take an HP and defense tonic like I'm giving Odin, and then have him weaken the archers by ballista-ing them before fighting them off on enemy phase. Then Selena can come in to pair up with him to improve his odds further by giving him dual guard bonuses and more healing items, and everyone else will be free to defend the rest of the map.

Awesome. Sounds like a plan. So then Silas will replace Niles at the southwestern front. I'll have to give him a strength tonic to help him one-shot the spear fighters with attack stance support, but thankfully I still have enough money for a tonic or two.

Like I said, Odin will handle the oni savages to the west. He can nostank pretty well judging by the abundance of videos I've seen, and I've given him a vulnerary just in case. Elise will be coming with him to ferry him across the waterfront and give him mixed support, whether in attack stance or guard stance.

Jakob and Dakota can handle themselves against the enemies to the south, due to the insane support boosts they give each other. I've also given them some healing supplies since the only healer is going with the southwestern group. Ah yes, on the topic of Jakob: since it seemed fitting, I gave Jakob a forged bronze axe called, wait for it... the Trashtaker. Ringing any bells for long-time readers?

The southwestern front is where most of the player-phase action will happen, since that's where I've sent the most units to: four. And it'll probably be getting more later with the reinforcements. Of them, Mozu, Arthur and Effie can all one-shot the ninja unassisted, and all four of them can take out the spear fighters with dual strike help.

Aside from my bond units, the units I'm leaving on the bench are Haitaka and Nyx. I have no plans to use Nyx, and I just have no space for Haitaka at the moment. Rally Defense just isn't that handy on this defend map, ironically enough, thanks to the enemy AI.

Alright.

Enough stalling.

Begin.

...Okay, everything's going according to plan so far. I managed to soften up the spear fighters in the first western group just in case something went wrong by having Silas ride past the freshly-broken wall Arthur and Effie destroyed. Oboro, who I always remembered being a titanic menace, wound up being easy to dispatch with Jakob once he paired up with Dakota.

Ah yes. This scene.

The one where Camilla shows up.

The one that, when ProJared posted his video of the demo he got to play, I watched while repeatedly pausing the video because Jared was rushing through it.

The first full scene of Fates' writing I ever saw. And the one that made me very, very concerned for the final product. Concerns that were eventually proved justified.

It's nothing outrageously offensive by Fates standards, but you must step back for a second and take stock of the massive fucking valley that Fates' standards live in. And this was the first glimpse I got of that valley from the outside. It made it clear, first and foremost, that this game was not, in fact, even slightly stepping back from the “anime bullshit” of its predecessor. That alone was all I really appreciated at the time, but it was more than enough.

But yeah, Camilla, Beruka and Selena show up. And holy shit is their help appreciated. I totally forgot that the spear fighters by the archers would move right away. I've gotta take them out before Niles can handle the eastern front.

Oh wow. Cute bandana villager is apparently a mom in this chapter. Unless “the little ones” she mentions are her younger siblings or something.

...Shit. I totally miscalculated the movement of these spear fighters somehow. They'll be supplying the archers dual strikes, which could get outrageously nasty. Thankfully Niles has really good avoid and every attack needs to land in order for Niles to die, but still, that was a mistake on my part. I should've had Camilla or maybe Beruka (Can't remember if she was in range) fly in to pair up with him rather than standing by out of the archers' ranges.

Alright, Niles lives. He dodged both of the first archer's attacks. Lesson learned. That could've made my job a whole lot harder and locked me out of a paralogue I really want to see.

While you can apparently pretty easily take Hinata out by this point with Azura, I don't have her, so the fact that these enemies are now all covered by Hinata's attack range means I need to beat a hasty retreat.

But since Beruka, Selena and Niles were able to team up to take out the spear fighters because Niles wounded them with the ballista last turn, Camilla is free to fly in and help out with the southern fronts, which have... kinda fused together unfortunately. We'll be fixing that promptly, don't worry, but for now, we've gotta take a step back, and Camilla's more than equipped to help us out, namely by blocking off these oni savages so Silas can retreat and drop Suzume off without issue.

Yeah, Camilla is... she's insane. Her base stats for this point in the game are nothing short of madness, and this is the perfect chapter to introduce her. She's nigh indestructible save for against archers, she can destroy basically anything you throw her at, she can fly all over the map to put her wherever you need a little extra muscle... but being a flier, she's also useless for taking out the optional boss Takumi, so if you wanna do that, you're gonna have to come up with a cool strategy of your own.

Speaking of cool strategies... there aren't nearly as many enemies on the earlygame west side as I expected, so I decided to take advantage of this opportunity to try and take out Hinata with Odin. If it goes wrong, Elise can fly him away. No prob. And if things go really sour with bad reinforcements, I'll have Camilla on standby to help.

...Things went really sour with reinforcements. Odin is now sandwiched between Hinata (who he can easily kill next turn with one hit, healing back all the damage he'll take from Hinata in the process), three spear fighters, one with seal defense (no dice, not fighting any of those), and four oni savages, two of them paired together. Thankfully, Elise is right next to him and can fly around the assorted barrels, so it looks like Odin will be retreating a bit to get away from those WTD enemies and nostanking Hinata and the assorted oni savages while paired up with Elise.

Sky knights keep coming to rush the exit, but I've got Jakob and Camilla flying around, and all of the units I mentioned who can one-shot ninja can one-shot pegasus knights too, so it's no problem. I also just got all of the treasure. Beruka just secured the dracoshield, which was the last house to visit.

Weirdly enough, Hinata decides to retreat despite no healers being around and Odin being in his range. Which is hilarious, because I know for a fact next turn he's gonna aggro right the hell back.

Because Takumi just activated the dragon vein. And yet again you can see the consideration for decency in level design. They always, always give you a bare minimum of a whole player phase to respond to any shit they throw at you. And that is so absolutely crucial because, unlike ambush spawns, the surprises in Conquest (reinforcements, unknown dragon veins, etc) are surprises that expect you to react to them. You're supposed to do something about the surprises. The appropriate way to survive getting screwed over by them is to react to them, to make the best of that one turn of actions you have, and in the worst case scenario, minimize losses. It is not to either know it's coming in advance by replaying it, or to flail around the map in perpetual paranoia of what might be here, sapping all of the fun out of your own experience because you're playing a game you don't trust not to be a complete and total asshole.

The dragon vein just got rid of all water on the map. The waterfront floor can now be walked on, and nearly all of our bottlenecks are gone. But since Takumi did this at the end of his turn rather than the beginning, we actually have time to adjust our strategy before there are any consequences.

Yet again, the problem seems to be with the eastern front. I grossly underestimated the enemies here because I forgot the reinforcements later would have better weapons and skills. Thankfully I can modify my strategy, and thank goodness I gave Niles the concoction, correctly anticipating he'd be the one most in need of very quick healing. And thanks to Beruka's personal skill, she was able to one-shot the remaining archer with a dual strike from Niles. Just barely.

A ninja annoyingly showed up with the last batch of oni savages to the west, but thankfully Odin has a full dual guard gauge, so he'll completely shrug it off, and honestly, his nostanking has him so far away from death it's kind of hilarious.

One of the best things about using Elise as a proper fighter is I get to hear her dual guard quotes when she pairs up with Odin. Something about the way she says “Thank goodness!” is adorable.

The ninja didn't go the way I wanted, and wound up attacking Odin right after he took out all of the remaining western oni savages because I fucked up my range highlighting. I wound up using a use of the freeze staff to stop a ninja from interfering with taking out his paired-up partners... before I forgot that Elise was paired up and couldn't get dual strike assistance from Mozu, meaning only one of the ninja died. And I had to pair Suzume the turncoat shrine maiden up with Effie in order to keep the ninja from killing Suzume in retaliation. Thankfully the ninja had a steel shuriken and thus barely couldn't double her. I know she's a disposable generic, but she's also the only healer I have, and I don't want to fight next map without a staff user. That would eat into my funds so much.

...Wow, nice! I wasn't keeping track of the turn counter, and apparently I'm on the last turn already, and all of the remaining enemies will die on enemy phase, with the exception of Takumi, obviously. Awesome.

...Which means we've won! Wow, I was doing better with this map than I thought! I could've sworn there was going to be a final wave beyond the one I already got. Guess the final wave didn't feel so “final” this time.

Still, make no mistake, that was intense the whole way through. Holy shit. What an awesome map. And now that it's over... I'm pretty happy with myself. Especially since I did it without Azura this time.

So yeah, now we confront Takumi, and he's... yeah, remember that thing that Azura was supposed to get out of him? Well... she didn't. And now it's going to grow and fester and get... pretty damned nasty by the end of the game.

...Which makes it all the more annoying that, like with the lethality of Azura's song, Revelation just completely sidesteps this issue.

I love how Elise says the ferries are up and running again...

...while the map still clearly shows that the waters in the port town are still receded into the sea.

But yeah. Story's over now. And woo! I got both of Mozu's important supports, Elise supported with Odin, and Selena supported with Niles due to all that guard stancing!

Let's start with Niles and Selena.

Selena is... uncharacteristically polite to Niles at the start of this conversation given how weirdly she implies Niles is acting.

And Niles acts all suspicious of Selena's lack of a remotely concrete background check as if this is the modern fucking day and not having a paper trail is beyond mind-rendingly suspicious instead of... y'know... fucking par for the course for damned near everyone. He almost seems to immediately have caught on to the fact that Selena isn't of this world, and I call bullshit. This is the middle fucking ages! There are no drivers licenses, or birth certificates, or social security numbers, or social media accounts, or much of anything the absence of which could justifiably make Niles this goddamned suspicious.

Alright, on to Elise and Odin's A support.

Brace yourselves, people. It's almost here.

Oh my god, this would be so adorable and wholesome if it weren't about to culminate in them fucking. This makes me so uncomfortable in that light. Wow. But yeah, she just finds Odin's weirdness so much fun, and it's really sweet and funny seeing her talk like him.

Alright, now for Mozu and Arthur. Arthur's basically resolved to help her with the crops because vegetables are important to stay strong and thus decides it's a worthy cause, so he's offered to help with the manual labor. And they have a little talk where she educates him about how to properly use a plow, and he picks it up pretty quickly.

Now for Mozu and Effie.

...Of course.

It's about a farmer and a glutton.

...How could I possibly have deluded myself into hoping this could have been about anything but food?

...Well, at any rate, that's it for today then. I've just completed the climax of the early game. So begins... I suppose the start of the midgame. And unfortunately the next two maps are probably my least favorite in the game. Still though, Conquest is Conquest, and two days from now I'll have the rest of the game to look forward to!

Stay safe, everyone!

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On 3/22/2021 at 3:22 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Thankfully, I don't have to un-know it, because I already know how I reacted to the game when I didn't know much about it. I did it completely blind on hard and is was probably the best experience I ever had playing a Fire Emblem game. Hard was already a good challenge of skill when doing it blind, moving up to lunatic is just a challenge for the people already familiar with the systems.

I thought that part of the point of this project was that playing back to back could give a better like-for-like comparison between games without having to rely on memory? It's your project, though, so you do you.

Regardless. Chapter 10. I like this chapter. It's fun. I also hate this chapter. Because...

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Because Takumi just activated the dragon vein. And yet again you can see the consideration for decency in level design. They always, always give you a bare minimum of a whole player phase to respond to any shit they throw at you. And that is so absolutely crucial because, unlike ambush spawns, the surprises in Conquest (reinforcements, unknown dragon veins, etc) are surprises that expect you to react to them. You're supposed to do something about the surprises. The appropriate way to survive getting screwed over by them is to react to them, to make the best of that one turn of actions you have, and in the worst case scenario, minimize losses. It is not to either know it's coming in advance by replaying it, or to flail around the map in perpetual paranoia of what might be here, sapping all of the fun out of your own experience because you're playing a game you don't trust not to be a complete and total asshole.

...I completely disagree with this. Being given a turn to react is better thannot being given that turn, but it can also be completely inadequate and irrelevant. Depending on where your units are, it's very easy to be in a position where one turn to react just isn't enough time to salvage the utter disaster that the game has dropped on top of you. Giving the player time to react can mitigate bullshit, but it isn't a get out of bullshit free card. In the specific case of this map, if you approach it very defensively, rely heavily on the choke points and don't care about thinning down enemy numbers -- which seems like a completely viable strategy -- then the surprise dragon vein will get you swarmed and I have no clue how it's possible to survive it without very heavy casualties, if at all.

It also doesn't help that the dragon vein is the second time that this map completely changes the rules on you mid-map. Before you even get to the dragon vein, you've already had to deal with the big game changer that is having Selena, Beruka and especially Camilla show up on turn 3. Knowing in advance that they're going to show up makes a big difference to how you deploy for and approach the whole map. I'd probably forgive that if it were the only surprise on the map, but it's not, so I don't.

Oh, and the other thing that bugs me is how completely nonsensical it is from a story standpoint for Takumi to just stand around for a few turns, just watching as his men get funneled into convenient choke points and slaughtered and not bothering to activate the dragon vein that he's standing on top of. That he might have complete reckless disregard for human life at this point is believable; that he would have equal disregard for actually completing the mission efficiently is not.

What I wish they did instead is have Takumi start on the other side of the map from the Dragon Vein, move towards it and then activate it when he reaches it. Not only would that get rid of the nasty surprise, but it would also make him seem less like a blithering idiot who should never be put in charge of a lemon, let alone other humans.

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18 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Why?

Well it's more 12 than 11. I'll see if I can remember why I didn't like 11 when I play it tomorrow though. But as for 12... it just annoys me. It's just kind of an overload of stuff to think about. I'd probably love it if it came later in the game, but at the current stage, where you don't really have much of your own unique army set up... it just frustrates me.

2 hours ago, lenticular said:

I thought that part of the point of this project was that playing back to back could give a better like-for-like comparison between games without having to rely on memory?

My point was more that I already know that I'm not giving the game unwarranted slack due to foreknowledge, because I already know that when I had no foreknowledge, the game didn't do anything ridiculous or unfair.

3 hours ago, lenticular said:

In the specific case of this map, if you approach it very defensively, rely heavily on the choke points and don't care about thinning down enemy numbers -- which seems like a completely viable strategy -- then the surprise dragon vein will get you swarmed and I have no clue how it's possible to survive it without very heavy casualties, if at all.

You sound like you speak from experience. What happened on your first playthrough?

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29 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

You sound like you speak from experience. What happened on your first playthrough?

More or less what I said. Now, somewhat in the games defence, I was trying to play on Lunatic for my first playthrough, which was almost certainly a bad idea and I probably would have had a less frustrating time if I'd stuck to hard and saved Lunatic for potential replays (hello hubris, my old friend...). Also, I wasn't ironmanning, but was doing reset-when-anyone-dies. So take everything here with those things in mind. Also, my memory is awful so this is all to the best of my recollection. Which means it probably has inaccuracies and holes. But it is the best I can manage.

Basically, I started the level, looked at the units I had, looked at how thinly they'd be spread trying to defend all the possible entrances to my position, and wasn't sure how the hell it was even going to be possible. But I split them up as best I could and set about doing the level. And I was basically right. My units wouldn' have beent enough to complete the level, except that Camilla and friends showed up on turn 3. So I started trying to reposition everyone to best make use of my reinforcements, but the way I'd deployed  initially meant I was always going to be screwed. I can't remember for sure, but I think that maybe I'd let the north east get overrun and the enemy had reached that balista. Regardless. Someone got killed, I reset, and I was left with the feeling that it wasn't my fault. (It probably was at least partially my fault. I'm sure my play wasn't perfect. But playing with incomplete knowledge was definitely a big contributing factor.)

So, I started again, formulated a new plan that I actually thought might work this time... and then died again. But that one was totally my fault. Which was fine. I expected that I'd have a fair few resets due to my own errors and wouldn't have picked Lunatic for my first time through if I wasn't OK with that.

So I started again. And my tactic was basically to Have Effie and Camilla stand in the two gaps in the barricade south of the starting position. They were tanking for me (each in guard stance with a pair-up partner though I forget who), and everyone else's job was to deal with the two flanks and with any fliers who could bypass the choke point. And it was working decently well up until the point when Takumi uses the Dragon Vein, all the units that had been piling up at the choke point had a path to come and swarm me, and that was reset number 3 and the second one that didn't feel as if it was my fault.

For attempt four, I had to completely change up my approach and be more aggressive, but again, I made some sort of mistake and got someone killed and I reset. And normally, I'd say, "that's fine, my fault, I don't mind resetting". Except that by that point, I had completely lost patience with the chapter, wasn't having fun any more, and changed difficulty down to hard. My logic was that if the game was going to throw unfair situations, then a. an easier difficulty level would mean I'd have more chance of dealing with them, and b. if I was having fewer fair deaths alongside them, it'd be easier to keep my patience with them.

I have a theory (which I might get around to writing up in full one day) about good deaths and bad deaths in Fire Emblem. Basically (in the context of a resetting run; an ironman run would obviously define things differently), a good death is one where, when it happens, you're excited to start the level over and try to do it again, to improve your strategy, to learn from your mistakes. A bad death is one that leaves you deflated at the prospect of having to do the level again. Unfair deaths are generally bad deaths, since there's nothing to improve or to learn from other than "this time I will expect the thing I couldn't possibly have expected". Deaths due to carelessness are also typically bad deaths, since they mostly lead to "I'll do exactly the same thing as I did before but then not make the one boneheaded blunder at the end". Deaths due to underlying errors of strategy and tactics are good deaths. They're the ones where you genuinely are encourage to try something new or to tighten up your play. And honestly, these sorts of death can be among the most rewarding experiences in Fire Emblem.

But the problem with good deaths is that they can be tainted by bad deaths. For me at least, if I'm frustrated by bad deaths, then I'm not going to be in the right mindset to appreciate the good deaths when they happen. Which is what frustrates me about this level. It's a good level that absolutely did not need the surprise element to be both interesting and challenging. As evidenced by your experience here when you knew exactly what was going to happen and prepared very heavily for it. All the surprise really does is risk screwing people over. Not everyone is going to be screwed over, of course. Some people will have chosen an initial strategy that can easily be adapted to the changing circumstances. But that's not going to apply to everyone.

So yeah. For me, it was a frustrating level. It should have been a fun level, but it wasn't.

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