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20 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Which game do you think is the most unfriendly to ironman runs? 

I may have to re-assess this based on playing future games on the list, but from what I've played since really thinking about game design... probably Three Houses. It's got the nastiest combination of "low honor" game mechanics and insufficient means to replace your fallen units.

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6 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I may have to re-assess this based on playing future games on the list, but from what I've played since really thinking about game design... probably Three Houses. It's got the nastiest combination of "low honor" game mechanics and insufficient means to replace your fallen units.

Personally, I would say Radiant Dawn instead, because the already prominent early game hell becomes so much worse if you lose one of the few reliable units you have for part 1 (Nolan, Aran, Zihark)... in fact, it ain't until part 3 where you have a wide selection of units, and even then, that's only for the mercenaries (which goes into my other point, lack of replacements for fallen units, which is ironic considering that it's got one of the biggest casts in the Fire Emblem franchise). It doesn't help matters that boosted crit enemies are very common later on...

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19 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Personally, I would say Radiant Dawn instead, because the already prominent early game hell becomes so much worse if you lose one of the few reliable units you have for part 1 (Nolan, Aran, Zihark)... in fact, it ain't until part 3 where you have a wide selection of units, and even then, that's only for the mercenaries (which goes into my other point, lack of replacements for fallen units, which is ironic considering that it's got one of the biggest casts in the Fire Emblem franchise). It doesn't help matters that boosted crit enemies are very common later on...

True, RD's definitely up there, for that exact reason, which I experienced personally. Lose someone on the Dawn Brigade and you're basically fucked. But I consider Three Houses to be worse due to the fact that late game reinforcements in that game literally do not exist, and it also pulls such a wide variety of dirty tricks that you literally can't trust anything the game tells you if you're playing blind. It also has its fair share of high crit enemies too. Three Houses hard is easier than Radiant Dawn hard, to be sure, but in terms of ironmannability itself, Three Houses is easily the worst from what I've played.

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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

True, RD's definitely up there, for that exact reason, which I experienced personally. Lose someone on the Dawn Brigade and you're basically fucked. But I consider Three Houses to be worse due to the fact that late game reinforcements in that game literally do not exist, and it also pulls such a wide variety of dirty tricks that you literally can't trust anything the game tells you if you're playing blind. It also has its fair share of high crit enemies too. Three Houses hard is easier than Radiant Dawn hard, to be sure, but in terms of ironmannability itself, Three Houses is easily the worst from what I've played.

I don't want to launch into a big Three Houses discussion with you because you have some pretty deep issues with the game, but you do get Jeritza now (free) in Crimson Flower and you also get a handful of units in the non-CF routes (Seteth and Gilbert in AM, Seteth in VW and SS). You get a kind of new unit when Dedue returns in AM, too. It's not so bad.

I still think you exaggerate when you say "can't trust what the game says," but that's not a discussion for here anyway.

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14 minutes ago, De Geso said:

I don't want to launch into a big Three Houses discussion with you because you have some pretty deep issues with the game, but you do get Jeritza now (free) in Crimson Flower and you also get a handful of units in the non-CF routes (Seteth and Gilbert in AM, Seteth in VW and SS). You get a kind of new unit when Dedue returns in AM, too. It's not so bad.

Yeah, halfway through, right? At the timeskip? I'm well aware of that, I don't consider it good enough.

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2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

True, RD's definitely up there, for that exact reason, which I experienced personally. Lose someone on the Dawn Brigade and you're basically fucked. But I consider Three Houses to be worse due to the fact that late game reinforcements in that game literally do not exist, and it also pulls such a wide variety of dirty tricks that you literally can't trust anything the game tells you if you're playing blind. It also has its fair share of high crit enemies too. Three Houses hard is easier than Radiant Dawn hard, to be sure, but in terms of ironmannability itself, Three Houses is easily the worst from what I've played.

I don't know about that - I often don't see that much high crit enemies in 3H. Compare to Radiant Dawn where Swordmasters, Snipers, Thunder Sages, and Halberdiers all have boosted crit. It gets even worse in part 4, where you face SP class units with the crit boost bonuses of third tier units...

Also, I think Binding Blade is down there too - the cast is one of the lowest quality ones overall, and not unlike Mystery, there's conditions to access the true ending. There's also same turn reinforcements, for added "fun".

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1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

I don't know about that - I often don't see that much high crit enemies in 3H. Compare to Radiant Dawn where Swordmasters, Snipers, Thunder Sages, and Halberdiers all have boosted crit. It gets even worse in part 4, where you face SP class units with the crit boost bonuses of third tier units...

Also, I think Binding Blade is down there too - the cast is one of the lowest quality ones overall, and not unlike Mystery, there's conditions to access the true ending. There's also same turn reinforcements, for added "fun".

In total fairness, I wasn't ironmanning on hard for RD, but I wasn't ironmanning on Maddening for 3H either, which has ambush spawns on top of its existing problems.

As for Binding Blade, I haven't played it in ages, and when I did I save scummed to hell and back because that was how I played back then when I could... but given that Mangs played rather buffoonishly and lost every single unit in the entire game except for Fae and still managed to very nearly get the incomplete ending... that suggests to me as an observer that I might be pleasantly surprised when I play it, despite the ambush spawns.

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Genealogy Day 17: FUCKING CUVUIL

Well. This is a rather nasty predicament. It's not exactly hard to deal with, but it is time consuming, and that's making it hard to get all of the villages.

So, Cuvuil is an enemy bishop with three leadership stars (+20% to hit and evade), a fortify and sleep staff (both infinite, by the by), 16 magic, and an army of accurate, 25-attack-power wind mages that Raquesis is just barely shy of one-rounding with her magic stat. If I send anyone shy of 16 resistance within 10 spaces of Cuvuil, they get put to sleep. I have literally 1 unit who can do that naturally (Claude), and 3 units who could do it with the barrier ring (Lewyn, Aideen, and Raquesis), and only one barrier ring to give them. His bulk is such that, when doubling, it takes 34 physical attack or 43 magical attack to one-round him, and keep in mind that this unit then has to reliably tank the attacks of somewhere around eight 25-might mages after killing him if you're just diving in. All while you generally only have two units who can get within 10 spaces of him.

I'm not saying there ISN'T a way to 100% reliably kill Cuvuil and his army of wind mages in time to save all of the villages without ever once putting someone at risk of getting killed, but if there is one... it kind of escapes me at the moment.

Alright, this got pretty nasty. Cuvuil moved forward unexpectedly literally just as the pegasus knight squad arrived, forcing me to advance to kill Cuvuil so he wouldn't put anyone to sleep. Unfortunately, Raquesis failed to hit on her second strike, forcing me to move in Azel to kill him, and I'm pretty sure, if the odds aren't in my favor, either Azel or Sigurd could die. I've done my best to minimize the odds, but...

We'll just have to see.

Now this is BEYOND curious. So, three wind mages attacked Raquesis. Two in melee (where she could kill them but they had a slightly better hit rate for some reason I can't quite figure out because I can't replicate the scenario) and one at range (where she couldn't kill them but they had a worse hit rate). I would love to know what the exact priority formula is in this game, because I'm getting massively conflicting data here about whether or not their own survival is important. Hell, what I wonder is why it wasn't CONSISTENT. Why did they make different decisions despite having the same stats?

I'm assuming that there is data on this shit that I haven't read, because everyone says that the clever AI actually makes the game easier because it's more predictable, and I can't imagine anyone would have the audacity to say that if the actual priority formula weren't understood by ranked runners.

But other than that, everything went completely fine! Nobody died and my plan to bait some of the pegasi with Dew to take the pressure off of Azel and Sigurd... apparently worked! All that remained to do was to rout all of the enemies, and thankfully I brought up enough of my own units in anticipation of this (once Cuvuil was killed) that I managed to do that on player phase with ease.

Also, I just noticed the Thunder Sword is called the “Bolt Sword”, and I'm wondering... okay, I get that at some point the naming convention became “Bolt X” for these weapons, but one, that never applied to the swords, and two, that was in Fates, before then only the axes were called “Bolt”. If the “Levin” in “Levin Sword” really had literally nothing whatsoever to do with Lewyn, then why didn't the localizers call the sword the “Levin Sword”? Or maybe just keep it as the Thunder Sword to match the Wind and Fire Swords? I just don't get the logic behind this at all.

But at any rate, the coast is clear, and looks like I overestimated how hard it'll be to save all of the villages! Thanks to having Erin fly ahead, hugging the mountains to avoid the mages and fliers, she managed to reach the pirates in time. Speaking of... one thing I find interesting is that the pirates are allied with Thove. Either this is a gameplay limitation of them not wanting to add another pirate castle, or... Thove's ruler has actually cut a deal with a separate band of pirates in the region. Which would be interesting to learn more about, honestly.

But yeah, with that threat disposed of and nothing left but the stationary enemies, I think I'm gonna have to call it a night, as it's getting late. Take care, guys!

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5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

If the “Levin” in “Levin Sword” really had literally nothing whatsoever to do with Lewyn, then why didn't the localizers call the sword the “Levin Sword”? Or maybe just keep it as the Thunder Sword to match the Wind and Fire Swords? I just don't get the logic behind this at all.

"Levin" is an archaic word for lightning.

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5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

I'm assuming that there is data on this shit that I haven't read, because everyone says that the clever AI actually makes the game easier because it's more predictable, and I can't imagine anyone would have the audacity to say that if the actual priority formula weren't understood by ranked runners

I wish I could tell you the formula, but clever mode AI is still one of those esoteric recondite. Despite playing through this game as many times as I have, I havn't messed with it much. Most of the knowledge I have seen about it comes from experimentation with turning the option off and on. As far as I can tell, the idea of consistency more comes from the noticeable random behavior of the normal mode ai, and the way that can ruin otherwise reliable strats. One example I have seen described involved a strat that uses a strategically arena damaged Finn to convince Elliot's troops to waste their attacks trying to hit through prayer instead of killing Raquesis's green units, which consistently works against clever ai, but normal ai might randomly attack the green units anyway. I seem to remember clever AI described as suicidal, so I don't think survival is a big part of it, but I am beginning to suspect accuracy might be a noticeable factor.

 

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

where she could kill them but they had a slightly better hit rate for some reason I can't quite figure out because I can't replicate the scenario

My guess is the difference in hit rate comes from the magic swords using the magic weapon triangle from range, and the physical weapon triangle in melee.

 

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Either this is a gameplay limitation of them not wanting to add another pirate castle, or... Thove's ruler has actually cut a deal with a separate band of pirates in the region. Which would be interesting to learn more about, honestly.

I don't think they mention anything, but Thove certainly has a lot of mercenary money to throw around...

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6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

My guess is the difference in hit rate comes from the magic swords using the magic weapon triangle from range, and the physical weapon triangle in melee.

I thought of that, but they were both using wind. Do magic swords spontaneously change weight to their respective tome stats when used at range?

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8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Do magic swords spontaneously change weight to their respective tome stats when used at range?

I vaguely remember that being the case, and I was going to double check that before commenting, but got distracted and forgot. I kinda remember it taking on all of the tomes stats at range.

Edit: I just went back and confirmed it, when at range magic swords use all of the stats for the Tome it casts at range instead of the sword's stats (meaning might, weight, and accuracy)

Edited by Eltosian Kadath
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Genealogy Day 18: Rescuing Silesse

This is a surprisingly short chapter, honestly. Just two castles to rescue. Of course, it's still just as large, but...

...Oh shit. Wait.

Silesse gets captured, doesn't it? And then put under control of the enemy and thus has to be seized. Right. I kinda forgot about that. For some reason I remembered having to defend it, not reclaim it. Oh well. We'll figure out what happens in a bit.

The guards around Thove look pretty nasty. The river is very close to the enemies, meaning nearly all of them with their 1-2 range can reach nearly every space on the other side of it, forcing you to tank a massive enemy phase assault almost no matter what. I might be able to plop Dew on the bridge area to unlock it, and he might be safe due to his evasion if I aura him up, but I'm gonna look for some weak points to chip away at first before I do anything that drastic.

Turns out there was a far easier solution. Raquesis could easily handle the attacks, as usual. Jeez, she's easily the MVP of gen 1, by far. She's turned into my solution for literally everything it feels like. I'm gonna miss her, and I'm hoping Leif turns out to be just as good if not better since he'll have better growths.

Also, I got the “Shield Sword”! I kind of like “Defender” better, but oh well. I'll be giving this either to Ayra or Dew. Probably to Dew since Ulster will have the better defense stat by a slight degree, so he's probably going to be the one with more business tanking. But who knows? They can trade items freely with bargain, so if I change my mind, no big deal!

Now that's curious. I beat Maios and got to the end of phase dialogue, and... there's a line that's completely different between translations. In the both translations, Sigurd says that the village elders will be put in charge until they get word from Queen Rahna. In the original, however, Sigurd says something along the lines of believing that the people should have a turn at governing themselves in the meantime, while in this translation, Sigurd just says he's confident the village elder he's talking to will do a good job being a just ruler. I wonder whether the “I think the people should have a hand at governing themselves” line was made up whole cloth, or a mistranslation. Either way, I liked it, and I'm kind of sad it's gone. I'm not sure why. I guess it just felt like something he'd say.

It just occurs to me that the music of this chapter, specifically the enemy phase theme, reminds me of Runescape. Something about the instruments used.

Anyway, now comes the part where I'm forced to watch helplessly while Silesse's army gets routed, kept from interfering by... Silesse soldiers.

...I get the idea of wanting the player to be helpless to stop something, but I wish they came up with a better idea than “the army that I'm trying to help is blocking my path to save them for no in-story reason”. I seem to remember Chapter 5 doing this “bloodbath that you're helpless to stop” thing much better.

Anyway, for those of you who don't know, the reason why this battle of pegasi vs pegasi is a slaughter isn't because all of the enemy pegasi are armed with javelins and thus will be doing more damage over time. No, it's because Aideen and Bridget's asshat of a brother André just arrived, with his army of BOW KNIGHTS.

Yeah. That's not gonna be fun to watch.

...Wait...

...Oh thank goodness. For a second there I thought this translation had renamed the Beige Ritter to the “Bow Knight Legion”, which would be... several hundred fathoms beyond paste-eatingly retarded. But no, thankfully André dropped this translation's real new name a few sentences later: Beigenritter. I don't mind this change. I think I might like it a tiny bit better actually.

Actually, André's mention of “winged ponies” reminds me of something. This is one of several FE worlds where the pegasus knights are native to a region known for its cold climate, the other being Elibe and Ilia. And this struck me as odd enough to do some research about how horses and birds handle cold weather, because neither of them are exactly FAMOUS for thriving in cold weather. As it turns out though, horses are fine in the cold as long as they can get grass, and while lots of birds fly south for the winter and all that, plenty are capable of functioning in winter due to adaptations for it. Still though, when you're a vegetarian species that can FLY, it seems utterly bizarre for them to remain native to a country which has to have worse grazing than nearly all of its neighbors due to the poor climate. Why the hell isn't lush Verdane or green Augustria where these winged ponies decided to set up their native home? WHY AREN'T THE BANDITS THE ONES RIDING FLYING PONIES, HUH? THAT WOULD BE AMAZING!

The only explanation for this I can think of is that maybe it ISN'T winter all the time here, that it's just as green as every other country, and this chapter just happens to take place in winter. I'll have to pay attention to whether or not there's a time gap between chapter 4 and chapter 5 to explain the sudden change of temperature.

Actually, for that matter, if it is in fact true that Silesse is just an icy region, then that brings up something even more bizarre.

hrx4QHq.jpg

Here's a handy-dandy topographical map of Jugdral I found online. I added those two colored squares myself.

The blue square represents the horizontal and vertical boundaries of a perpetually icy region.

The red square represents the horizontal and vertical boundaries of a scorching desert.

Notice anything?

THE TWO FUCKING OVERLAP.

HOW DOES THE REGIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE THIS FUCKING RAPIDLY AND ARBITRARILY?

Is the entire mostly-seabound nation a giant plateau high enough to affect the climate, like snowcapped mountains?

...Is that why the pegasi like it? Because while the grass isn't super, it's high enough to deter most of their natural predators?

...How did grass get up there if predators can't? And if that's why it's so cold, why does it look so close to sea level on the in-game sprite map?

Questions for later, I suppose. Gotta keep moving.

The yellow team AI was surprisingly smart and, even though it wouldn't help much in the end, focused its energy on the bow knights, having the yellow pegs kill as many as they could. Maybe the clever AI is affecting them too? I remember them not being this coordinated before.

Anyway, I remembered as I was bringing Raquesis, Dew and Azel back that after she routs the yellow units, Pamela's going to head off to take back Thove. So I'm gonna have to be ready to warp someone over there to intervene. Probably someone with a weapon I need to get kills on for gen 2. So actually I think I'll send Raquesis back to do it. Might as well!

I will say though, if their plan was, as I suspect, to give André as douchey of an introduction as they possibly could... they succeeded. Watching a bow knight just mow down an army of pegasus knights who were in the middle of an epic duel while mocking them for being weak to bows... jesus fuck. Even if it's super dumb that we couldn't intervene, I am definitely looking forward to killing this fucker. He didn't come across as this much of a douchebag in the original. He came across as a bit more of a badass villain as I remember it, but here... he clearly enjoys picking on people he's situationally got the advantage over.

Okay, the dialogue for Lamia's introduction was one of the as-you-know-iest things I've ever read. It was so fucking unnatural how the evil uncle introduced her as an amoral mercenary. I wish I had the whole thing still up to quote back to you, it was so dumb. Checking back at the original translation, while it was still a little awkward, it was way less so.

Anyway, the civilians are starting to run away... right into the siege tome users who spawned out of nowhere upon seizing the castle. Despite the villagers having a head start on the enemy army. But thankfully Sylvia was just barely in range to help give Erin enough range to kill the closer one and then the second one in just two turns so no harm no foul.

Bizarrely, and unsettlingly, all of the pegasus knights EXCEPT for Pamela spontaneously decided to chase after Azel instead of Castle Thove. Thankfully Azel's good enough in terms of power, defense and evasion that the odds of this ending poorly are exceedingly low. Especially since he has the Renewal Ring.

And it looks like since Pamela's troops abandoned her and decreased in numbers below a certain threshold... she's going back for more. Shoot. I have no intention of doing this on purpose, but it looks like it can't be helped here, I reinforcement-abused Pamela by accident.

More AI decision weirdness. Thunder wasn't quite enough to take out any of these pegs, but that meant that I could have him equip the Bolt Sword and thus guarantee one-hit kills to boost the kill count on all of the wounded pegasus knights.

So I'm utterly, UTTERLY baffled why they aren't attacking him in melee.

If they attack in melee, Azel does less damage (not that it matters), has worse accuracy, and due to weapon triangle disadvantage, has worse evade. There's literally no advantage whatsoever to attacking at range, and yet there they are, all doing it, every last one of them.

Unfortunately I screwed up slightly and one of the villagers died. Thankfully the rest of them are safe and ready to be rescued for 100 points of exp each! Which I immediately use to get Erin promoted, since I won't really get a better opportunity before chapter 5, and I don't want to do any more backtracking in Chapter 5 than I have to. She's going to be crucial to chapter 5 at any rate, what with all the sand, and I want her at peak fighting condition by then.

Anyway, I clear the Silesse guards, and by this point we're nearing turn 50. Lexidget and Tailltewyn are officially canon, leaving only Clauderin to go, which should only take a few turns into chapter 5. But less happily, it's become painfully obvious that last time wasn't a fluke. Pamela has absolutely no desire whatsoever to capture Thove, and her platoon is going AWOL to do who the fuck knows what, but it probably doesn't bode well for the stray factions of my army not currently working on dealing with Silesse (Claude, Erin, Azel and Dew). I'll have to think of something.

I manage to bait her out by having Raquesis leave the castle for a bit, but I'm not sure if that's really gonna give me an opening to kill her. Might as well try though!

Looks like it did. And after they got close, they ceased to care that only Pamela could hurt Raquesis. It was a pretty tricky fight though. That evasion bonus was pretty nasty. Raquesis only had a 50% hit rate with her wind sword in melee... and I forgot until I was literally just writing this sentence that I could have attacked her at range consequence-free with the wind magic.

HOW THE FUCK DO I HAVE THESE BRAIN FARTS?

But anyway...

Lewyn promotes to sage, and the boosts are absolutely insane. 5 skill, 5 speed, 8 magic, 5 resistance. And that's before he gets Forseti. Lamia doesn't stand a fucking chance.

I don't like how the old man at the village who explains holy blood says that “intersecting the bloodline” (read: screwing your close relatives) reaps “almighty powers” instead of “the full power of their god” like the old translation did. The latter is not only more accurate, but also gives a better idea of what they're talking about gameplaywise. The way it's said in this translation makes it sound like incest makes children stronger than normal full-blooded descendants, like that's part of what's going to make the final boss so ungodly strong. Which isn't true. Marrying Holyn to Ayra doesn't make Larcei and Ulster uniquely insanely powerful.

Plus, the way they say it makes it sound like the practice is forbidden specifically for that unimaginable forbidden power, while the original makes it sound way more like “of course, that's forbidden, because it's INCEST.”

Moving on. I took Lewyn to castle Silesse, and got Lewyn Forseti. And for those of you who haven't played this game, well, ohohohoHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO MOTHERFUCKING HO.

Lemme tell you about FORSETI.

So, I really should have brought this up when I got Bridget her Yewfelle, but that's the legendary BOW. Even if I remembered, that's a rather anticlimactic way to discuss these things.

Okay. So. When you think of powerful legendary weapons in Fire Emblem, those who have only played the western-localized games probably think of something like Ragnell, Raijinto, Siegfried, Omega Yato, Armads, stuff like that. Powerful weapons, attack power in the low to high tens depending on the general number scale of the game, a stat that gets a nice +4 or +5 boost, maybe even a few stats in the case of the yato.

BITCH.

YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN'.

The tome of the wind god, Forseti, like every other legendary weapon in this entire goddamned game... has a might of THIRTY. Not only that, but it, like every other legendary weapon in the game that doesn't also grant a skill, has THIRTY FUCKING STAT POINTS WORTH OF BONUSES.

In this case, equipping Forseti increases your skill by 10, and your speed by TWENTY. After you take away the 5 weight, equipping Forseti boosts Lewyn's already impressive evade by a whopping THIRTY POINTS, and also makes it literally physically impossible for any enemy in the entire game to have more speed than him, EVEN IF YOU'RE GOING BY HIS BASE SPEED. Unless I am very much mistaken, an attack speed of 31, which is what Base level 6 Lewyn has with Forseti equipped, is a threshold that not a single enemy in the entire game is capable of reaching.

But Lewyn isn't base level. He's promoted. And he's capped magic, speed and skill.

The holy weapons in this game are game-shatteringly stonk bonkers, but there's an immature, power-hungry teenager inside of me that still loves the bastards.

...Now while all of what I just described is MORE than plenty to rip casual play to shreds, we're dealing with ironman, and 99 evade isn't quite going to be enough to let us dive straight into the Lamia's den. They've got some pretty nasty weapons. Some killer bows, brave swords, sleep edges... Actually with his new wife standing by him and Sigurd also providing an aura, he should be able to dodgetank all of them if he stands on a forest... but that's hard to reliably set up while also moving defensive positions to avoid having Taillte or Sigurd get attacked. But I think I'll be able to manage. They're tough on the offensive, but whatever I can't whittle away through repeated aura-boosted enemy phase retreat tactics, I should be able to take out on player phase.

Okay, so... apparently dracoknights get 9 move before and after promotion... and pegasus knights get 8 move before and after promotion.

WHY?

Oh right. Because Genealogy. Welcome to Genealogy, where nothing is fair, and nothing makes sense.

Oh my god this worked out perfectly. Looks like all of the reinforcements are going to reach this little patch of forest east of Silesse just in time to all be one-rounded on enemy phase by Lewyn, without being able to reach far enough to kill Taillte or attack Sigurd. One of the killer bow archers made it the turn before, and now just about everyone else is coming for blood at once. Unfortunately for them, Lewyn has 139 evade, with 20% of that from auras. Every one of them except the sleep edge users thinks they can hit Lewyn, but they really can't. Not without Lamia's leadership. Which she won't survive to give because she's going to whiff him and then promptly die. All that will be left are a few female swordfighters.

Oh shit. That reminds me. I seem to remember getting into a discussion earlier in this marathon about the dearth of clearly villainous women in the series. This map just introduced two more and I didn't even notice. Pamela, who judging by her conversation with Mahnya, was a total bitch, and Lamia, this heartless, sadistic mercenary (as the game very clumsily but clearly spelled out) who even uses (unless I'm misremembering horribly) the infamous Hilda's portrait. Whaddya know!

Anyway, Raquesis keeps hacking away at the remains of Pamela's pegasus knights, screaming “BLOOD FOR THE WIND SWORD” as she cuts them all down while standing right outside Thove's gates.

Unfortunately, not as many of Lamia's ladies attacked as I hoped, but that also means that just about every unit who could pose a threat to Lewyn without those auras got killed, so I had Taillte retreat, had Sigurd retreat after killing a thunder mage, and had Lewyn kill Lamia from his forest tile and wait for the one enemy who can hit him, the brave sword user, to attack him. The rest will easily be routed on player phase, especially after the second and final thunder mage attacks Bridget, who I left just at the limits of her range, and in no one else's.

Alright, so, I bought Erin some stuff. I got her the Return Band from the armory, since she and her daughter, being the only fliers (for a while at least), will spend a lot of time on potentially messy solo missions. A panic button will be useful. I also got her a wingclipper from the pawnbroker, since it stands to reason she'll be fighting a lot of fliers, as will her daughter. I also gave her the thief's sword because it was just lying around in the pawn shop, and she's got an expensive sword she's relying on, so why not?

And with that, all that remains is to have Lewyn storm Castle Zaxon and end this chapter.

...Done! And it was so ridiculously easy to kill those last four enemies that it barely warrants description. Forseti is insane. Time to seize!

...Huh. Okay, that's interesting. So apparently the castle to the east of here... is a part of Silesse? Langbalt apparently took it over? That makes the border situation I openly wondered about in the previous part a bit more understandable, but still, it's curious that this was only mentioned just now.

Ah well. Another time.

FOR TOMORROW WE COMMENCE THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE BEGINNING.

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36 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Notice anything?

THE TWO FUCKING OVERLAP.

HOW DOES THE REGIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE THIS FUCKING RAPIDLY AND ARBITRARILY?

Deserts don't have to be hot. Desert and not-desert is defined by precipitation- rain/snowfall- not temperature. Antarctica being called a cold desert is a big case of this. And, say hello to the Gobi:

db4ccac0c04e149c62ee5222d0b071db.jpg

Sand and snow! 

I'm not sure if anything is said of the Yied being explicitly hot. If nothing is said of heat, well we can pretend there is a reason the rivers don't flow in Yied, and a reason that the clouds run out of rain before they get there.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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Fun fact! In the Oosawa manga, Andre is a misogynist (yes I admittedly had to look up the spelling for that word).

I have a list of manga comparisons regarding chapter 3, but I'm tired and it's almost 10 PM where I live, so tomorrow.

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2 minutes ago, Espurrhoodie said:

Fun fact! In the Oosawa manga, Andre is a misogynist.

I have seen nothing to make me think this couldn't be true.

3 minutes ago, Espurrhoodie said:

I have a list of manga comparisons regarding chapter 3, but I'm tired and it's almost 10 PM where I live, so tomorrow.

Looking forward to it!

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Deserts don't have to be hot. Desert and not-desert is defined by precipitation- rain/snowfall- not temperature. Antarctica being called a cold desert is a big case of this. And, say hello to the Gobi:

db4ccac0c04e149c62ee5222d0b071db.jpg

Sand and snow! 

I'm not sure if anything is said of the Yied being explicitly hot. If nothing is said of heat, well we can pretend there is a reason the rivers don't flow in Yied, and a reason that the clouds run out of rain before they get there.

From what I've seen of the end of chapter 4 (stuff I'll have to post in the next entry)... I don't think this excuse is really going to hold up much.

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5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

The blue square represents the horizontal and vertical boundaries of a perpetually icy region.

The red square represents the horizontal and vertical boundaries of a scorching desert.

Notice anything?

THE TWO FUCKING OVERLAP.

HOW DOES THE REGIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE THIS FUCKING RAPIDLY AND ARBITRARILY?

Is the entire mostly-seabound nation a giant plateau high enough to affect the climate, like snowcapped mountains?

I will point out that map has colored the entirety of Sillesse as Alpine, as in Alps (the highest and most extensive mountain range in Europe) like, so it probably is supposed to be like snowcapped mountains.

 

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

In this case, equipping Forseti increases your skill by 10, and your speed by TWENTY.

It is even more ridiculous in Thracia, where it still adds 20 speed, but the speed cap is only 20 without boosts...

 

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Lamia, this heartless, sadistic mercenary (as the game very clumsily but clearly spelled out) who even uses (unless I'm misremembering horribly) the infamous Hilda's portrait. Whaddya know!

Sorry to be a bit pedantic here, but its only speculated to be a younger Hilda due to the striking resemblance, and not actually a reused portrait. I will also say, that I rather like that they had all of Lamia's mercenaries be female, it always seemed like a nice touch that emphasized how extreme of a personality she was.

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Shield Sword no doubt sounds much better in Japanese. I don't know what the translators were thinking with that one. They're being way too literal. Defender is much better.

Chapter 4 does take place in dead winter as far as I remember. At least, if it isn't stated it's heavily implied, because Chapter 5 occupies the south eastern portion of Chapter 4 and all the snow is removed. That at least implies it's winter, or that not all of Sileese is as snowy as it looks, but they only had one palette to work with for the entire Chapter because SNES.

Are pegasus actually native to cold regions? Is it not possible they're merely a highly domesticated animal with no real native region anymore, and it just so happens that they populate mountainous areas because that's where people find them most useful? (of course when we're talking about flying beasts of burden, they'd be ridiculously useful everywhere and by all rights should be completely integrated into every culture and make their society completely different to our own. Why even have horses when you can have flying horses?).

Edited by Jotari
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Genealogy Day 19: The Beginning of the End of the Beginning

So, Sigurd says at the end of Chapter 4 that he and his troops are “leaving. Now.” Which says that, unless the next scene contradicts this... yes, the sudden change from winter to summer is entirely due to the climate of the area.

Which means that, again, in Jugdral...

hrx4QHq.jpg

...the distance between a winter wonderland and a scorching desert is so tiny that they have OVERLAPPING LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE.

I don't presume to be an expert on climate or geography, so maybe that's possible in real life, but the distance between these things still seems RIDICULOUSLY small. Now, one could argue, as the above topographical map does, that these are cold because they're high up alpines. Problem:

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The desert is clearly higher above sea level than these “alpines”.

Ooh! New map screen music! I don't remember that happening before! I just remember part 1 and part 2 having different map themes. Cool! Pretty somber, but that's fitting.

Yep, the map screen confirms that Sigurd has to go because of Lubeck's forces “before [he] can so much as rest”. Which means that whatever reason for the total loss of snow in this map, it's not because the passage of time made it melt.

Also, the map screen narration says that “the fields of Silesse peacefully rest beneath a deep blanket of snow”. Which means the absence here... is probably due to tileset limitations or something. The area around Sigurd is supposed to be still snowy, but since the rest isn't supposed to be, my guess is they ignored it so that the majority that shouldn't be snowy isn't snowy.

Also, I always thought it was super cool that Lord Byron was a master knight.

...Wait, don't you have to be a prince or princess to be a master knight?

...Actually, about that...

...Isn't Eldigan supposed to not be eligible for the throne, because the Mystletainn line is meant to protect the throne, not sit on it? Then why is his sister a princess?

...Ah well. Let's keep going.

So, they leave it kind of ambiguous, but it at least isn't INCONSISTENT with what they say here that after Kurth's death, Byron escaped with his loyal Grünenritter and has been surviving all of this time on the run, only to be just about routed at this crucial time. The stuff they say here at least allows that to be true and doesn't contradict it.

Also, quick script comment: When Slayder is talking to Langbalt about Byron and says they don't need to chase after him since he's gonna die soon anyway, I prefer Langbalt's old “You gravely underestimate the situation” to the new “I've never heard such naive drivel!” I dunno, I just like the old one's vibe of “boy, you have no idea what you're dealing with” when it comes to the holy weapon Byron's about to give to Sigurd.

ALSO also, Andé says “you've still got the Beigenritter and I at your side”. You know, like a douchebag, trying to err on the side of sounding smart when normal people would use the grammatically correct “the Beigenritter and me”. I'm sure it's probably a translation mistake, but I dunno, I find it amusing to take as canon.

Okay, so we get to the “Lord Ring, may you rest in peace” line, and I prefer the old one, where he calls André a “contemptuous little brat” instead of an “insolent worm”. The old one has a way better insult and had more of a “you immoral piece of shit” vibe to it, which he was clearly trying to get across because even Langbalt is disgusted by André.

Anyway, onto the actual map. The biggest issue is that Lord Byron is currently sandwiched between three battalions. A bunch of axe knights and the Beigenritter behind him, and the axe armors and mages blocking his advance towards me. I've gotta get as many of those guys killed as I can, as soon as possible. For all I can tell, taking even two turns to do it might be too long.

But first, I need to do the arena. Amusingly, there's a guy in the arena called Nazarre. Is that supposed to be a reference?

But yeah, I've got most of the preparations done, but this arena is pretty nasty, and not everyone makes it all the way through. I can only have Claude fortify them all once though. I absolutely cannot spare Sylvia to do it again. I need to make a brilliant opening gambit, and hope it takes.

These axe armors are made of some seriously tough stuff. 57 HP, 15 defense. 1 Resistance though. I need as many as possible dead by the end of turn one, and that means I need to send in the big guns.

I trade around some stuff. Give Lex the strength ring (Patty's gonna want that anyway) and give Raquesis the armorslayer. Good. Now they can both one-round the armors (not even they could manage it without those). Lex has slightly worse defense than Raquesis, and also way worse evade, especially against axe users, but he also has Vantage. My plan is to send those two in, along with Lewyn and Sigurd, and dance them all at the very limit of Sylvia's range. Everyone but Sigurd (who can't quite reliably take the heat) rushes in. Lewyn can dodgetank, Raquesis has nearly perfect dodgetanking against axes and great defense, and Lex has Vantage and can one-round everyone but the thunder mage and the brave axe general, so unless I've calculated horribly wrong, he can't die, and on the off chance Raquesis is considered the juicier target, I've somewhat blocked her off and also her evasion's pretty good. Sigurd steps back to provide a bit of aura. He's mostly coming along to talk to Byron as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, I have Ayra and Dew head over to head off the other identical battalion marching from the west, have Erin head down to take out the bandit to the south, and have Midir head up to brave bow the bandit to the north.

...Hold onto your butts, guys. I only get one shot at this.

Alright, I was wondering how the rules worked here. Looks like for this one time with Byron, the green team doesn't get his own turn, he just moves right after I do. I guess he doesn't have a castle, so he doesn't officially have a side, but... wait... no, armies have not had sides before... what about later this chapter... I'll have to check on that later.

But anyway...

...I nearly made a grave miscalculation. I thought if I killed one of the mages, there wouldn't be enough enemies left capable of landing a hit on him to get rid of the rest of Lex's HP. I underestimated both the attacking order the enemies would fight in and how much damage could get done to Lex before he entered Vantage mode, and he got to a range where the general could kill him...

...But thankfully I forgot that the extra 10 damage of the strength ring isn't just enough to kill the axe armors, it's enough to kill the general too. So whoo! Looks like I was right! Crisis averted!

...But I still feel like an idiot. This was so close to being my awesome victory through sheer skill. If only I had double-checked the general's bulk and therefore KNOWN it was perfectly safe, that would have been me being a badass. But no, I did that thinking the general could land two brave axe hits on him and thinking it wouldn't matter, and now it's just me being lucky I was accidentally right. Shit. And that would have been so satisfying to do legitly.

Oh well. Lessons for the future. Gotta keep moving forward.

...Also, I avoided mentioning this immediately so as not to kill the dramatic tension, but HOW THE FUCK ARE THERE ENEMIES TO THE WEST OF ME? I JUST ROUTED EVERYTHING TO THE WEST. THE SNOW THAT THE NARRATION INSISTS STILL BLANKETS THE FIELDS IS STILL COATED IN THEIR BLOOD.

Also, uh... I originally elected not to bring this up because I assumed Dierdre forgot her name due to amnesia, but no... they still use her old name. Princess Dierdre. She's going by that now, after losing her memory.

MEANING THAT RAHNA SOMEHOW MANAGED TO HEAR ABOUT THE LONG LOST PRINCESS WITHOUT HEARING HER FUCKING NAME AND REALIZING THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT SIGURD'S FUCKING WIFE.

Also, the dialogue confirms that yes, as people have said, the brand is under her circlet.

It's canon. Dierdre fucks with the circlet on.

Also, I find it curious that Langbalt, despite respecting Lord Ring and regretting his death and considering André a bastard for doing it, he's still totally on board apparently with the official lie being that Lord Ring conspired with Lord Byron, as Arvis, bastard he is, tells the king.

Anyway, Dew and Ayra start working on those inexplicable western reinforcements.

Turn ends, and it confirms that Byron will talk to Sigurd on his own, meaning I now have the Tyrfing!

...Broken, but Sigurd has basically a full wallet and more of the arena to go. I may have forgotten to mention this, but each individual use of the holy weapons costs 1k to repair, so a full repair costs 50k, all the gold it's physically possible to carry.

Nothing really happens on enemy phase, except I discover that Dew and Ayra are at just the right evasion threshold that their lover bonus makes them just barely able to perfectly dodgetank, while still aggroing, the axe armors and the general. I immediately set about having them kill the two thunder mages so they can do this to the rest of the axe armor forces. I have Dew attack first because it's impossible to attack either of the thunder mages without the first attacker being outside the aura of the other, so while it's totally irrelevant in the short term, I figured having the one who can heal himself risk the more likely attack was a better idea.

Raquesis is literally just barely hittable by these axe knights (exactly a 1% chance) when she's sitting on a village and holding a 5 weight sword, so I have her feed most of the approaching axe knights to the wind sword. Gotta get some more kills on it before handing it off.

Gotta say, this is the first time I've gotten the... ugh... “Shield Sword”, and I'm loving it. The +7 to defense is super useful. It makes Dew a point shy of being as tanky as Raquesis. And Ulster's gonna be even more badass with it.

Slayder's axe knights are almost entirely routed, as are the western axe armors. Also, Erin and Claude are married, so that's every pairing complete! Now to finish up capturing Lubeck, and then double-check any shit I need to trade around last minute for the sake of the kids before heading off into the desert with my absolute best units. The thunder sword and wind sword probably won't get enough kills on them to reach... oh shit... did I ever explain this? I probably should.

So basically, for those who haven't played, the reason I've been so obsessed with getting “kills” on weapons is because every weapon has a “star” ranking, from 0 to 100, that increases by 1 every time the weapon is used to kill an enemy. Get that weapon to 50, and the weapon now innately has the critical skill (which in this game means instead of tripling damage after subtracting defense, it doubles damage BEFORE subtracting defense, making it utterly devastating). Every kill past that adds a 1% crit bonus to the weapon. Meaning that a 100 star weapon will have +50% crit rate. This is, as you can imagine, insanely useful, and I've been trying to get it on these magical swords because it means that you don't need a good magic stat to be able to wipe the floor with enemies at range with these things. It basically turns them into some of the best weapons in the game, since while any weapon with that kind of crit rate will result in an absolute slaughter, giving it to these will result in a slaughter at any range. That's really what you want to give the high kill rates to, the weapons that have other abilities besides killing things well, because any weapon will do that with enough investment.

I think that'll have to wrap it up for today. I certainly managed to find a lot to talk about at any rate. So, tune in next time, where I finish up Castle Lubeck and try to get Bridget to be the one to kill André, because that douche deserves it.

Edited by Alastor15243
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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...Isn't Eldigan supposed to not be eligible for the throne, because the Mystletainn line is meant to protect the throne, not sit on it? Then why is his sister a princess?

Theoretically he is eligible for the throne, but his claim is incredibly distant. Eldigan is a descendent of Hezul's youngest daughter (source:https://serenesforest.net/general/designers-notes/holy-war/playing-guide/). With the miracle of Darna being over 100 years, I am going to round some numbers and say there have been close 4-5 generation between then, which would make Eldigan something like a 3rd or 4th cousin to Chagall, and with it stated Hezul having many children, him being somewhere in the 40-100th in line to the throne seems around the right ballpark. As for the title of Princess, what constituted a prince/princess was incredibly vague back in the day, as there were many principalities, where the land holding title is Prince, and any relative to the prince would also be a prince/princess, just not THE Prince of the principality, and that is before considering children/kinsmen of kings or emperors.

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Gotta say, this is the first time I've gotten the... ugh... “Shield Sword”, and I'm loving it. The +7 to defense is super useful. It makes Dew a point shy of being as tanky as Raquesis. And Ulster's gonna be even more badass with it.

Just out of curiosity was it the old translation's tendency to softlock unless you reset the game that stopped you from getting the Shield Sword before, or something else?

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3 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Just out of curiosity was it the old translation's tendency to softlock unless you reset the game that stopped you from getting the Shield Sword before, or something else?

It took me a while to discover the various secrets of the game through guides and the like. For a while I wasn't aware of it and then later I just kept forgetting about it. Glad I remembered it this time.

Edited by Alastor15243
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4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

It's canon. Dierdre fucks with the circlet on.

Out of curiosity, I decided to check the Oosawa manga (since another trait of said manga is that it's a bit on the "spicy" side. Nothing too graphic though), and:

20191120-212022.jpg

The quality looks like hot garbage, but if you look closely, you can see a small line on her head. So, (at least in the Oosawa manga) Deirdre does fuck with the circlet on. (Also, Sigurd's hand looks kinda fucked up, there, not as bad as Shannan here, though)

Anyway, onto manga comparisons!

You know how you mentioned that you wished for the game to show you all of the plotting going on in the background? Well, in the manga, we do! We actually see all of the scheming going on, plus bits of Deirdre's childhood, Arvis's childhood after Victor died, Kurth's affair with Cigyun, and how Lachiesis and Eldigan met!

Speaking of those two, they're more incestuous in the manga.

As in, they almost fuck.

During the fight with Eldigan, Lachiesis shields Quan from an attack by Eldigan. Lachiesis gets majorly hurt, which prompts Eldigan to call off the battle to treat her wounds. Eldigan goes into the tent Lachiesis is staying in while she's unconcious, and we get a flashback to their childhood. After the flashback is over, Lachiesis wakes up and they discuss their love for eachother, and then Lachiesis begs Eldigan to have sex with her. Eldigan says no, but is implied to kiss her instead before he confronts Chagall.

Oh, speaking of Chagall, he sends Sigurd Eldigan's head.

Deirdre's capture is also slightly different.

Castle Evans is attacked, which prompts Deirdre to go out into the courtyard to defend the castle. She sees three guys, who are promptly defeated by Manfroy. Manfroy then wipes her memories, and she goes down kicking, screaming, and shouting Sigurd's name.

And she still managed to save the castle itself and its inhabitants.

Seriously, this is a really good manga IMO.

Edited by Espurrhoodie
Mixed up Chagall and Manfroy
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4 minutes ago, Espurrhoodie said:

Out of curiosity, I decided to check the Oosawa manga (since another trait of said manga is that it's a bit on the "spicy" side. Nothing too graphic though), and:

20191120-212022.jpg

The quality looks like hot garbage, but if you look closely, you can see a small line on her head. So, (at least in the Oosawa manga) Deirdre does fuck with the circlet on. (Also, Sigurd's hand looks kinda fucked up, there, not as bad as Shannan here, though)

Anyway, onto manga comparisons!

You know how you mentioned that you wished for the game to show you all of the plotting going on in the background? Well, in the manga, we do! We actually see all of the scheming going on, plus bits of Deirdre's childhood, Arvis's childhood after Victor died, Kurth's affair with Cigyun, and how Lachiesis and Eldigan met!

Speaking of those two, they're more incestuous in the manga.

As in, they almost fuck.

During the fight with Eldigan, Lachiesis shields Quan from an attack by Eldigan. Lachiesis gets majorly hurt, which prompts Eldigan to call off the battle to treat her wounds. Eldigan goes into the tent Lachiesis is staying in while she's unconcious, and we get a flashback to their childhood. After the flashback is over, Lachiesis wakes up and they discuss their love for eachother, and then Lachiesis begs Eldigan to have sex with her. Eldigan says no, but is implied to kiss her instead before he confronts Chagall.

Oh, speaking of Chagall, he sends Sigurd Eldigan's head.

Deirdre's capture is also slightly different.

Castle Evans is attacked, which prompts Deirdre to go out into the courtyard to defend the castle. She sees three guys, who are promptly defeated by Chagall. Chagall then wipes her memories, and she goes down kicking, screaming, and shouting Sigurd's name.

And she still managed to save the castle itself and its inhabitants.

Seriously, this is a really good manga IMO.

Wow, fascinating to know! Thanks again, I really appreciate this added context, even if none of it is strictly canon. Did you mean to say Chagall though, as the one who wipes Dierdre's memories? It isn't Manfroy? Anyway, that sounds like a way better way to do Dierdre's kidnapping.

Also, Jesus Christ does Shannan have some serious yaoi hands.

Edited by Alastor15243
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7 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Wow, fascinating to know! Thanks again, I really appreciate this added context, even if none of it is strictly canon. Did you mean to say Chagall though, as the one who wipes Dierdre's memories? It isn't Manfroy? Anyway, that sounds like a way better way to do Dierdre's kidnapping.

Also, Jesus Christ does Shannan have some serious yaoi hands.

Shit. Yeah, I meant Manfroy. It's 10:30 here, so I'm a bit tired.

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2 minutes ago, Espurrhoodie said:

Shit. Yeah, I meant Manfroy. It's 10:30 here, so I'm a bit tired.

Understandable, same over here.

Anyway, to everyone reading this thread, I just want to make it clear that I appreciate and read every comment, even if I don't reply to all of them or if I don't address every part of the ones I do reply to. Often I just feel like I have nothing to add when that's the case. And with that, I'm heading off for the night, Because yes, it's pretty damned late.

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