Alastor plays and ranks the whole series! Mission Complete! ...For now.

[Alastor15243]

17 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I am more nervous about sending Jakob on the offensive when he is the only one that can heal, and use the Freeze staff currently. Do you have a plan for getting a second healer?

I figured they could handle only a couple of turns, and if they were to retreat, they'd be retreating right towards Jakob anyway. As for healers, the plan is to capture a shrine maiden in Chapter 9, and remembering to do so is is doubly important because I have plans to make Jakob a malig knight, and it might be advantageous to do that for Chapter 10 if it doesn't leave me healerless.

18 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Good thing you tested that when you did, while you still had the chance to remove skills from him. With how careful you are being this run, I bet you are going to make it through this ironman (assuming you plan well for endgame itself...)

Here's hoping! Funny enough, whenever I've lost a unit in an ironman of a game that wasn't being bullshit, it was always due to me being careless. I tend to do way better on harder games.

19 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I find Niles does well against the mages on this map (although setting up a good enemy phase for him is a bit cumbersome).

As did I, eventually. Attack stancing with Elise was a huge help.

20 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Getting more comfortable using dual-strikes is a valuable skill to hone in Conquest.

I believe it.

20 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

They really do have a really fun support, barring the staggering awkwardness of the S support. Then again S supports with Elise are always uncomfortable...

Yeah, christ, I'm just bracing myself for that shitshow.

[Venger_06]

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, Fates' refusal to actually give us a morally grey story is a big part of what makes Conquest so trash. Conquest was written with three mandatory priorities in mind:

1: Make Nohr objectively in the wrong.

2: Make the avatar side with Nohr and fight Hoshido.

3: Make the avatar not evil.

Any two of these could have been done with ease. 1 and 2? Sure, have an evil campaign. 1 and 3? Have Conquest be about an internal rebellion within Nohr, possibly getting Hoshido's help. 2 and 3? Just make Nohr be sympathetic enough that siding with them isn't an evil act!

But the writers, in their Babylonian hubris, wanted to do all three at the same damned time, and we all know what complete horseshit they had to pull out of their asses to make that work. Ah yes, the infamous plot device that magically transforms conquering Hoshido into a “heroic” act.

The problem with option 2 and 3 is that it would make Conquest's story objectively superior to that of Birthright, since both the Nohrians and Hoshidans siblings would probably survive.

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Right, time for the battle. The main gimmick here is that two three-move soldiers will move towards the various villages, trying to get to them before you. This is bad for two reasons: 1, if you don't visit at least three of the villages by the end of the map, you don't get the full 10,000 gold, and 2, every time the soldiers visit a village, they summon a bunch of enemies from the village who will rush you next turn, which can be difficult to deal with. This always has me nervous because we don't have any really good combat units yet, and enemies start rushing us pretty fast. It's even worse now that I don't have Mozu with me, which I'm used to. Thankfully, I know a great way to take 90% of the pressure off, even on lunatic, and even without using DLC to promote early.

My tactic was to take my army to the first reinforcements and kill them all together with the soldier, and then cross the lake. Paladin Jakob and Silas went west and Silas killed the soldier while Jakob dealt with Flora. So, I managed to save the three villages and still gave 80% of the map to Odin.

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

A lot of Nohrrin fans like to argue that this shit makes Nohrrin a better person than... than Hoshidorrin, I guess is what you'd call it... Because Nohrrin goes out of their way to not kill their enemies, at least at the start, while Hoshidorrin shows no such mercy at basically any point, except for the Nohrian royals. But that's not Hoshidorrin being a worse person or more bloodthirsty. That's just Nohrrin being subject to terrible writing. And Birthright is already badly written, so just let that sink in.

Exactly. This whole "I am bashing their skulls but not killing them" is the biggest cop out of the game, made to show that the special snowflake Corrin cannot do evil acts. Seriously, Conquest should've just been the evil route.

[Alastor15243]

4 minutes ago, Maof06 said:

The problem with option 2 and 3 is that it would make Conquest's story objectively superior to that of Birthright, since both the Nohrians and Hoshidans siblings would probably survive.

My point was more it could have easily been a good story in its own right. Essentially they wrote themselves into a nasty corner with gameplay demands, marketing obligations, and fear of telling a gray story.

5 minutes ago, Maof06 said:

My tactic was to take my army to the first reinforcements and kill them all together with the soldier, and then cross the lake. Paladin Jakob and Silas went west and Silas killed the soldier while Jakob dealt with Flora. So, I managed to save the three villages and still gave 80% of the map to Odin.

Ah, so you went with paladin Jakob? Yeah, I don't like doing that this early because at this point in the game, unless you make a dread fighter, Jakob's the only unit you have who can be made to reliably enemy-phase sweep, which can be valuable and important.

[Venger_06]

17 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Ah, so you went with paladin Jakob? Yeah, I don't like doing that this early because at this point in the game, unless you make a dread fighter, Jakob's the only unit you have who can be made to reliably enemy-phase sweep, which can be valuable and important.

Edythe will cover for me. Also, how viable would Felicia be in Jakob's place?

[Eltosian Kadath]

7 minutes ago, Maof06 said:

Edythe will cover for me. Also, how viable would Felicia be in Jakob's place?

It would be... different as they really don't play similarly at all when class changed. You would want to switch Felicia over to Strategist instead, and while she would instantly become the best magic wielder you had (and would stay that way for a while...), she wouldn't have the defense to enemy phase physical enemies like Jakob can.

[Jotari]

 

13 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

And that's to say nothing of how much crazier it gets when we're just flat-out slashing people with swords, stabbing them with lances, arrows and knives, bashing them with axes, electrocuting them, or setting them on fucking fire, and somehow none of this is lethal.

Don't you know setting someone on fire is a rather mundane thing? You can even have a full conversation before there's a chance it will kill them.

 

[Alastor15243]

Conquest Day 4: Chapter 9

Alright. Here it is. The last chapter we have before Chapter 10. Our last chapter of relative leeway to train our army before the shit goes down. Oh, and the chapter where I absolutely have to capture a shrine maiden.

...No wait, we'll also have the invasion and Mozu's paralogue. Let's see, what's the invasion like...?

...Given that I apparently can bring two more units to it, I think I'll be waiting until that paralogue is done and I have Nyx and Mozu. Mostly Mozu though. I won't be bringing Nyx to Chapter 10 unless I lose someone.

Anyway, story time.

My god, Garon just looks so stupid whenever he laughs maniacally. He actually looked cool in all the promotional material, but everything about this game except for that cutscene in Birthright just saps the coolness right out of him.

Oh, so now we're following proper royal court protocol where we announce ourselves before entering, huh?

So yeah, Iago spills the beans that Dakota didn't do the mission alone, and then both Elise (who helped) and Xander (who organized the assistance) basically verbally leap in front of Dakota as human shields to protect her from the death penalty, and Garon's basically like “fuck it, fine, she lives”.

But yeah, now we're off on another mission to Notre Sagesse, and we're supposed to eradicate any Hoshidan soldiers we find along the way. And Elise and her retainers are coming too because I guess she's too young to be sent on missions of her own yet.

…

…

…

Fuck you, game.

I just realized.

When we have to pass through Fort Dragonfall to get to Castle Krakenburg, we go through one side.

When we have to pass through Fort Dragonfall to get from Castle Krakenburg... we go through that exact same fucking side.

Yeah, and the game has Silas just casually mention that Fort Dragonfall, a ridiculously well-fortified fort that is halfway into Nohrian territory, has been taken over by Hoshidan forces.

There will be no more Hoshidans that we will fight before getting there.

Oh and did I mention that this band of Hoshidan soldiers that made it this far into Nohrian territory and took over a fucking fort... also had a kidnapped Azura with them, and thus presumably didn't even fucking have the backing of the proper Hoshidan army when they did this?

This chapter is complete bullshit and shouldn't exist. It should've been the avatar helping wipe out some bandits in a town they pass along the way or something. It makes no fucking sense for Hoshidan soldiers to be here and only here.

But yeah, let's get on with the actual battle prep.

My general army isn't even close to being able to double much, with the exception of Niles. I think I'll be better off with a defensive meal.

Well that's lovely. Plus defense and magic, and all of the non-bond units who got it can use magic! Well, except for Elise I guess. Soon, my friends.

Alright, so, I spent a little under half of my windfall from last chapter buying a Nosferatu tome for Odin and a heal staff for Jakob (he burned through both his and Elise's nearly completely over the last two chapters). We're not going to be charging in from the front, but rather around the side entrance. I'll be trying to bait the lower archer guarding the entrance from a tile just below the waste with Odin (backed up by Elise), but if that doesn't work because they have linked AI or something, I'll go around back to take them out. If it does work, and if the rest follow, I'll just keep retreating and countering with Odin and Elise until I reduce their numbers enough to take out all of them at once.

I don't think I'll be needing tonics today. I want to save as much money as I possibly can for Chapter 10, so, let's just get going.

So, obviously, I have to pay attention to Azura and make sure I keep moving her. I'll have her go get the chest and then fight off the samurai with the help of her vulnerary. It'll be nice to have her in position to use the dragon vein.

...Weirdly, the archer moves, but the spear fighters who could have easily helped dual strike with him all stay put.

Odin gets HP, magic, skill, luck and defense. Basically every relevant stat for nostanking. I am pleased.

Dakota to Nyx: Girl!? You're one to talk! You look about the same age as my little sister.

Oh yes, tell me again how Elise is totally a legal adult.

Anyway, one of the archers out front is dead and we've broken in to the main area. Amusingly, knights can't cross wastes, but near where you find Nyx there's a little patch of forest surrounded by wastes that you can drop Effie into, and she'll be stuck there forever without the assistance of pair-up, which I think would be a way to soft-lock yourself after a near total party wipe.

Since I have no plans to use Nyx, I'm having her eat up the enfeeble uses while I take care of these enemies. Saves some time.

SHIT, I FUCKED UP AND FORGOT TO MOVE AZURA WHYYYYYY!?

Okay, so she's still alive, but with her HP she dies in exactly two hits without a brass naginata equipped, and she just took one of them, so her vulneraries won't save her. The only way to save her is to have her unlock the chest and YOU DON'T AUTOMATICALLY EQUIP A WEAPON WHEN YOU UNLOCK A CHEST THAT HAS ONE IN IT AND YOU DON'T HAVE A WEAPON EQUIPPED!?

IT HAPPENS FOR TRADING BUT NOT THIS!?

HOLY SHIT.

WELP.

GUESS I KNOW WHOSE SPOT THE SHRINE MAIDEN'S TAKING!

HOOOOOLY shit. I fucked up big time. Of all the times for that to happen, why in that critical fucking moment?

I've checked, I can't do any ballsy move with Jakob to freeze staff the samurai. Unless she somehow gets a 5% dodge, she dies next turn. Christ.

On one hand, I'm kind of relieved something like this happened so I have more freedom to use all the units I want to use, but on the other hand, why my dancer!?

Well, that's ironmans for you. Time to see how well I can adapt.

Jakob gets everything but magic and defense, so yeah, I'll call that a good level, especially for him.

Yep, Azura's down. Godspeed, Azura. I know you're still alive in the story, but the story's dead to me and so are you.

Dakota just reached level 10, got a great level, and got dragon fang. Awesome. And I managed to deal with the two seal-defense spear fighters with only Arthur getting sealed. And Arthur and Nyx then teamed up to use the last two enfeeble uses, so we're good to go forward. Next step is to have Niles take out the archers around Haitaka.

...Christ I still can't get over the fact that I lost Azura like that. What a rookie mistake, forgetting Azura was there. Now, this doesn't have me pants-shitting terrified for what'll happen in Chapter 10. Honestly I'm confident I can handle Conquest without her. But still, it's embarrassing that I have to. And make no mistake, there will be times where I wish I had her with me. My mounted-only run of Hard made at least that obvious.

We're slowly making our way through the bunch of enemies in back by way of tanking with Effie. Seal defense would normally make this impossible, but by making sure there's only one enemy facing and then immediately retreating, I can make sure I only have to deal with one enemy at a time. And thanks to aura defensive boosts, I can even control which one it is.

And Odin and Niles just got their extremely crucial level 10 skills. Odin got malefic aura, essentially a +2 boost to magic except it can also be applied to allies' attacks on enemies in 2 spaces of them, and Niles got movement + 1, and... I trust I don't need to explain why that is awesome.

Alright, I haven't forgotten about the reinforcements that show up when you get too close to the boss. I'm gonna make sure all of these seals wear off before I move forward.

Alright, the shrine maiden has been captured. Now to prepare for the inevitable reinforcements and make our retreat.

Yep, they're here. Time to retreat and deal with them piecemeal like a coward, because I am not risking a frontal assault.

OH MY GOD I JUST REALIZED THAT I WAS COUNTING ON AZURA FOR GETTING LASLOW RALLY SPEED.

I can still do it, but I'll need to use Selena for it, and that means that Xander can't get shurikenbreaker except through friendship with Laslow. That's a bit nasty, but thankfully the timings for these things aren't simultaneous.

God, and this also means I don't have Shigure's paralogue, or the double replicate children, or glass cannon Soleil.

One death caused by one tiny slip of carelessness, and it has this many ripple effects on my army.

Man, I am just totally stepping outside of my comfort zone with this playthrough, aren't I?

...I think this is gonna be fun.

...Christ Haitaka is nasty. I'm not used to fighting this guy without Mozu, whether she's a dread fighter or sniper. In addition to having rally defense, seal defense, and strong riposte, his defense and evasion are both really impressive, thanks to the thirty evade throne. Even with WTA I'm struggling to get more than 50% hit rates on him. Hopefully I can land a good hit in with dragonstone Dakota.

Yep, I did one better: I captured him. I managed to get him down to low health with Dakota's dragonstone, and then Niles finished him off with a lucky hit. Okay, so we have rally defense as an asset. That's good to have available, even though he's not my priority for recruitment.

Alright, I just got the rescue rod, so now it's time to seize.

Oh hey there, little miss shambling corpse. What's your ridiculous excuse for why you're here?

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?

But yeah, this is their excuse for why Azura sides with you, despite the Hoshidan royal family still loving her and trying to protect her. This is going to... have some rather ridiculous consequences later.

Oh yeah, and then Elise shows up, and cue the super stupidly overt “foreshadowing” that Azura isn't actually a princess of Nohr.

Christ. Let's just get to the damned supports and end today already.

Oh hey, Niles got supports with both Elise and Effie! Let's do the Elise one first for totally arbitrary and not remotely planned reasons.

Niles and Elise's support is... weirdly wholesome. Niles just tells Elise that she should be attending the war council meetings like she's supposed to even though she doesn't understand anything that goes on, because the only way she'll be respected and thought of as an adult is if she acts like it and actually does her responsibilities.

But you wouldn't think that's what happened if Effie and Niles' support is any indication.

Yep, so, Effie's first line makes me weirdly want to see a To Catch a Predator parody with Effie as the host.

Niles: Effie, what's with the cold stare?! It's giving me chills... I find it oddly thrilling.

Effie: SIT DOWN, YOU CREEP!

Yeah, basically, Effie's pissed off that Niles has been teaching Elise filthy words. And she knows it's him because only Niles could have put these words in Elise's head.

Effie: Yesterday she invited me to her “secret lair” and offered me some “saucy snacks.” When I told her I must decline, she said “Why are you always such a tease?”

Weirdly, instead of it being “Oh, really?” “YES, REALLY!”, it's “Oh, really?” “OH, REALLY.”

But yeah, then Effie crushes an apple with her bare hands and says the next time it'll be his head.

Alright, now Odin supports with Effie. I'm mildly curious.

...Ah yes, so this is where Odin complains to Effie about her telling people he's weird. I could've sworn this was with Felicia, wasn't it...? ...I guess that's another one of it then. That one annoys me because yet again someone singles out Laslow the flirt over Peri the serial killer when they cite examples of bad behavior in the army. But yeah, it ends with Odin teasing Effie with the idea of some strength-doubling training regimen he came up with, and then it ends on that dumb cliffhanger.

And then there's Dakota and Elise, which we've already seen. Noncombatant angst again. Skip.

Right, one last thing: visiting the prison. This'll be the first time I'm using it in the whole marathon. So yeah, here you can visit the people you've captured and try to get them to join your side. They have a price in resources that you can get down by persuading them.

This is by far the funniest building in the entire My Castle gameplay segment. Either you're watching random members of your army walk into the backroom and then shout a bunch of extremely aggressive voice lines at a prisoner offscreen that's apparently supposed to be “negotiation”, or you're convincing said prisoners to betray their homeland and join your cause with bribes as trivial and petty as a handful of sparkly stones or a barrel full of meat. It is psychotically dumb, and I fucking love it. One of the best things about actually properly using Niles this time around is that I'll get to make more use of this precious, farcical treasure of a building, because I usually never see it again after around Chapter 10.

So I bribed Suzume the shrine maiden into joining us for just 4 of my 7 onyx, and thus we now have a second healer, but Haitaka was the one who wanted the aforementioned barrel of meat, and I've only got 2 of the things rather than the 19 he's asking for. Looks like he'll be the subject of my persuasion today.

But with that, I'm signing off. Like I said, while I am embarrassed by the loss of Azura, I am not worried. I think I can handle this.

Stay safe, everyone.

Stay safer than Azura.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Shadow Mir]

28 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

SHIT, I FUCKED UP AND FORGOT TO MOVE AZURA WHYYYYYY!?

Okay, so she's still alive, but with her HP she dies in exactly two hits without a brass naginata equipped, and she just took one of them, so her vulneraries won't save her. The only way to save her is to have her unlock the chest and YOU DON'T AUTOMATICALLY EQUIP A WEAPON WHEN YOU UNLOCK A CHEST THAT HAS ONE IN IT AND YOU DON'T HAVE A WEAPON EQUIPPED!?

IT HAPPENS FOR TRADING BUT NOT THIS!?

HOLY SHIT.

WELP.

GUESS I KNOW WHOSE SPOT THE SHRINE MAIDEN'S TAKING!

HOOOOOLY shit. I fucked up big time. Of all the times for that to happen, why in that critical fucking moment?

I've checked, I can't do any ballsy move with Jakob to freeze staff the samurai. Unless she somehow gets a 5% dodge, she dies next turn. Christ.

I apologize if this comes across as rubbing it in, but I can't help but think this is appropriate:

24 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

OH MY GOD I JUST REALIZED THAT I WAS COUNTING ON AZURA FOR GETTING LASLOW RALLY SPEED.

I can still do it, but I'll need to use Selena for it, and that means that Xander can't get shurikenbreaker except through friendship with Laslow. That's a bit nasty, but thankfully the timings for these things aren't simultaneous.

God, and this also means I don't have Shigure's paralogue, or the double replicate children, or glass cannon Soleil.

One death caused by one tiny slip of carelessness, and it has this many ripple effects on my army.

Ruh roh Raggy.

[Punished Dayni]

31 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I know you're still alive in the story, but the story's dead to me and so are you.

This quote is amazing.

I want it.

(Also, shit man Azura's just fucked off to Tamriel I guess)

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

But yeah, then Effie crushes an apple with her bare hands and says the next time it'll be his head.

Wait what?

I clearly forgot the time Effie went that far as to threaten to turn his head into mince. Pretty terrifying if you ask me, are we sure she's not the sadist? /s

[Alastor15243]

23 minutes ago, Dayni said:

This quote is amazing.

I want it.

For your signature? Go nuts.

[lenticular]

Oof. Of all the possible units to lose, the dancer (or singer, whatever) has got to be one of the worst. Still, on the plus side, at least it wasn't your lord this time, which is definitely even worse. I have to ask, though, what were you even doing moving Azura about in the first place? Isn't she perfectly safe if you just keep her in her starting location and let the patrolling guard continually miss her? Or am I misremembering that?

As for the level itself, I'm not a fan. The very cramped geography combined with all of the debuffs encourages turtling and slow play and wasn't any fun to play. Past that, the reinforcements are among the worst reinforcements in Conquest. They aren't ambush spawns, at least, but the spawn condition is not at all obvious, there are a lot of them arriving in a single turn, and depending on where your units are when they spawn, it's quite easy to get caught up in a way that you can't realistically escape from.

[Alastor15243]

4 minutes ago, lenticular said:

I have to ask, though, what were you even doing moving Azura about in the first place? Isn't she perfectly safe if you just keep her in her starting location and let the patrolling guard continually miss her? Or am I misremembering that?

Given that she has a chest key and the chest has a brass naginata, the idea is that you're supposed to have her sneak around the guard, get to the chest, and then use her vulneraries to kill the samurai so that she can activate the dragon vein for you and make that central area a lot easier.

Edited March 18, 2021 by Alastor15243

[lenticular]

23 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Given that she has a chest key and the chest has a brass naginata, the idea is that you're supposed to have her sneak around the guard, get to the chest, and then use her vulneraries to kill the samurai so that she can activate the dragon vein for you and make that central area a lot easier.

What is with Fates and continually trying to push Azura as some sort of a combat unit. No. Bad Fates. Stop that.

Anyway, my memory of the level is fuzzy and I am not feeling well today, so this is a genuine question asked because I don't remember the answer. Is there any indication in the dialogue that the chest has a brass naginata and that this is the intended strategy, or is it just something you're magically supposed to know? Or guess?

[Alastor15243]

4 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Anyway, my memory of the level is fuzzy and I am not feeling well today, so this is a genuine question asked because I don't remember the answer. Is there any indication in the dialogue that the chest has a brass naginata and that this is the intended strategy, or is it just something you're magically supposed to know? Or guess?

Not explicitly, but in the dialogue scene before the battle she herself specifically notices a dragon vein that's way closer to her than to the rest of your army, and suspects it can be used against the Hoshidan soldiers. Consider that she also has dragon blood and that the dragon vein affects enemies that you'd have to already kill to make use of the vein with anyone but Azura, and I think the strategy's reasonably clear.

Edited March 18, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

I have to ask, though, what were you even doing moving Azura about in the first place? Isn't she perfectly safe if you just keep her in her starting location and let the patrolling guard continually miss her? Or am I misremembering that?

She is, I think, but the dragon vein makes cleaning up the enemies in the center easier. Make sure to keep all of your units out of its area of effect before you use it, though!

Edited March 18, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[Jotari]

 

Quote

 

Oh hey there, little miss shambling corpse. What's your ridiculous excuse for why you're here?

Ah yes, so there was massive opposition to you 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?

 

Really did we even need this excuse to get Azura in Conquest? I don't think many people would have called bullshit if she just followed after Corrin like she does in Revalation. Sure the Hoshidon family is more hospitable to her, but Conquest does have the minor Valla stuff and Corrin's whole Yato and Dragon abilities that would make her following not be completely ridiculous. At least not any less ridiculous than this. On the flip side you're right that the Hoshidon dissidents could have made a great Birthright chapter if they were committed to this plot point. They could have even use Haitaka as a Birthright boss. Would make him more memorable beyond "being the guy with rally defense." What even is the canon we expected to believe about Haitaka in Brithright? That he just got board of being a dissident because Corrin stayed in the country longer (even though Corrin showing up is what got their queen killed)? Or emboldened by Corrin choosing to stay in Hoshido, Yukimura decided to imprison/execute the lot of them since the issue isn't going way? Just doesn't make any sense to throw something major about Hoshido into Conquest and not have even the slightest whiff of its existence in Birthright.

Quote

But yeah, then Effie crushes an apple with her bare hands and says the next time it'll be his head.

 

 

Edited March 19, 2021 by Jotari

[Eltosian Kadath]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Fuck you, game.

I just realized.

When we have to pass through Fort Dragonfall to get to Castle Krakenburg, we go through one side.

When we have to pass through Fort Dragonfall to get from Castle Krakenburg... we go through that exact same fucking side.

Yeah, and the game has Silas just casually mention that Fort Dragonfall, a ridiculously well-fortified fort that is halfway into Nohrian territory, has been taken over by Hoshidan forces.

The utter Non-sense that is Fort Dragonfall is a big part of why I harp on about how horrible Fates world building is, as I have no idea at all if it is a border fort, or some key internal fort that guards the capital, as it could be either with the way Fates treats it, and a simple political map of the world would show us which it is.

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

SHIT, I FUCKED UP AND FORGOT TO MOVE AZURA WHYYYYYY!?

Okay, so she's still alive, but with her HP she dies in exactly two hits without a brass naginata equipped, and she just took one of them, so her vulneraries won't save her. The only way to save her is to have her unlock the chest and YOU DON'T AUTOMATICALLY EQUIP A WEAPON WHEN YOU UNLOCK A CHEST THAT HAS ONE IN IT AND YOU DON'T HAVE A WEAPON EQUIPPED!?

IT HAPPENS FOR TRADING BUT NOT THIS!?

HOLY SHIT.

WELP.

GUESS I KNOW WHOSE SPOT THE SHRINE MAIDEN'S TAKING!

HOOOOOLY shit. I fucked up big time. Of all the times for that to happen, why in that critical fucking moment?

...Oof... yeah I have done that before as well, but that really, really, really hurts in an ironman context...

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Yep, I did one better: I captured him. I managed to get him down to low health with Dakota's dragonstone, and then Niles finished him off with a lucky hit. Okay, so we have rally defense as an asset. That's good to have available, even though he's not my priority for recruitment.

Probably a good thing you saved the Mozu paralogue and invasion 1 map then, as that should be enough to guarantee his recruitment before chapter 10, which is very useful.

 

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

But with that, I'm signing off. Like I said, while I am embarrassed by the loss of Azura, I am not worried. I think I can handle this.

The thing that worries me about losing Azura is endgame, as it will be harder to play that nightmarish map quickly...I am betting that is going to be a massacre...

 

[Kalken]

>dark side of Hoshido

The problem with that option is that as it stands, Corrin siding with Hoshido is strictly morality. Corrin is taking a stand against Nohr ravaging its neighbors even if it makes her an enemy of her beloved siblings in Nohr. It's Bonds against Justice. It needs Hoshido to have the overall moral high-ground since they aren't the imperialist aggressors whether Nohr needs to invade other countries or not (I say "or not" since it's not like they have any real trouble supplying their continent conquering military). Absent of that Corrin has no real grounds to join Hoshido since he wouldn't really know the country even with muh memory loss.

As it stands, the plot wouldn't really be improved in a notable way by throwing in random meanie Hoshidan generals or Takumi eating a Nohrian puppy. Even the talk where Azura was allegedly chased out of Hoshido is just a lazy excuse to let you have her in CQ (it's not like Hoshido is shown as building death camps for Nohrians or segregating foreigners like the tribesmen or forbidding their royalty from marrying Nohrians so if that's supposed to be fantasy racism it's a weak effort).

Edited March 19, 2021 by Kalken

[Jotari]

42 minutes ago, Kalken said:

>dark side of Hoshido

The problem with that option is that as it stands, Corrin siding with Hoshido is strictly morality. Corrin is taking a stand against Nohr ravaging its neighbors even if it makes her an enemy of her beloved siblings in Nohr. It's Bonds against Justice. It needs Hoshido to have the overall moral high-ground since they aren't the imperialist aggressors whether Nohr needs to invade other countries or not (I say "or not" since it's not like they have any real trouble supplying their continent conquering military). Absent of that Corrin has no real grounds to join Hoshido since he wouldn't really know the country even with muh memory loss.

As it stands, the plot wouldn't really be improved in a notable way by throwing in random meanie Hoshidan generals or Takumi eating a Nohrian puppy. Even the talk where Azura was allegedly chased out of Hoshido is just a lazy excuse to let you have her in CQ (it's not like Hoshido is shown as building death camps for Nohrians or segregating foreigners like the tribesmen or forbidding their royalty from marrying Nohrians so if that's supposed to be fantasy racism it's a weak effort).

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.

[Alastor15243]

Conquest Day 5: Paralogue 1

It's Elise's birthday today, which means it gets a tiiiiiiny bit easier to try not to feel gross about what I'm gonna have her and Odin do.

She got a speed surge. Man, that would've been awesome if I got it for Chapter 10, but we've got two whole maps to do before that's a thing.

But she just got to C rank axes. And she found a moonlight tome, which fills a similar niche to Nosferatu, but way worse and only on player phase.

Elise's birthday present is a fox tail. Thanks, BenP!

Incidentally, I've stopped with doing the My Castle visits during playlog time. I'll do that on my own time in the evening so that it's not taking up valuable time to get to the stuff you really want me to talk about, and also so that I don't have to skip it for the day if I get held up for too long the day before.

One of the most ridiculous things about the prison is that characters will often interrupt themselves due to their voice lines being too long. I'm guessing they were shorter in Japanese or something?

Haitaka is apparently “almost convinced”, which is awesome. Not sure if I'll be bringing him to Chapter 10, but it'll be great to have that option, and to have rally defense.

But for today, I've just gotta get Mozu up to speed and feed her as much of this map as humanly possible.

Effie apparently doesn't know what cabbages are. Doesn't say great things about her diet.

But yeah, okay, so we've done this chapter 2 times already, so I'm not sure what I can really do to make this playlog entry interesting. But I'll try.

I did a strength meal to hit some one-rounding benchmarks just to get to Mozu faster so we can cut to the chase.

Alright, I've got the heart seal and the bronze bow on Dakota. I can't bring Suzume but she's a filler unit rather than someone I really want to give exp to so that doesn't really matter. Let's go.

Elise, with her speed surge, a Dakota pair up and strength meal, can one-round these faceless with a bronze axe and can take three hits without dying. Kickass, since that means we get to fly straight over the river and get to Mozu on turn 3.

Yep, mission accomplished, and Mozu is now an archer.

This is probably completely unnecessary, but given that I can, and given that this is an ironman that I really want to get right, I'm letting Mozu milk this first level where she only does 1 damage as much as possible for maximum EXP.

...Nope, never mind, it's more important to get Arthur and Mozu hitched as soon as possible than to do single damage like a lunatic to milk each enemy for as much experience as possible. 5 damage it is.

Interestingly, while enemies on this map will attack you even if they do 0 damage, this one wounded faceless hasn't been trying to crowd around the bridge I've been using as a bottleneck.

Man, I'm missing Azura already. Being able to have Mozu attack twice in a turn would be pretty handy right about now, when I can't wall with Effie and need to wall with people who can stand in the river.

Okay, I've come up with a pretty good strategy for taking these guys out in more open areas. There are a lot of 2 wide bottlenecks here, and with that, I can have Elise with Dakota in her pocket bait in enemies, and then have Effie/Silas and Elise/Dakota block the 2-wide passageway at a sort of diagonal, with Mozu standing in-between them and Jakob standing next to Elise to heal her. Like this:

OJO
MDO
SFO

Where J is Jakob, M is Mozu, D is Elise/Dakota, S is Effie/Silas, and F is faceless.

Since Elise still has lower defense than Effie, the faceless will go for her, meaning that Mozu can attack the faceless without keeping Jakob from being able to heal whoever the faceless attacks if things take too long.

And now that I've gotten plenty of supports with Arthur, might as well unpair them so that Mozu can get a bit more experience off of these last few enemies. She's almost level 7, which is perfectly workable. Let's see what else we can get her to.

Mozu's already at C bows. Wow. Okay, I'm pretty sure she's gonna be just fine.

So, let's see how we did today!

...Acceptable. I just checked Mozu's averages for level 9. She's significantly blessed in res by 3 and grossly underperforming in HP by 4, but apart from that everything's pretty much on average. I can work with this. And again, I'm not just using her for her combat performance. It's also for what people gain by supporting with her. Even if she doesn't turn out great, I know for a fact that Percy and Effie will.

Alright, so, first, Arthur and Mozu got a support. I actually like this one. It's pretty cute. They just randomly strike up a friendship due to going to the same field for different reasons, and this will eventually lead into Arthur helping Mozu out with her farming.

Ooh! Elise and Odin! I've literally never seen the B support before. Let's see what they've got for me.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Elise: Heehee! You're just like my father. He always talks to himself too.

Woooow. Ouch, Elise. Man, she gives a lot of unintentionally brutal burns in this game.

Oh my god I'm getting Owain and Morgan flashbacks. Male mostly. Now that Odin's awkwardly forced to break character to explain what's going on to her, Elise actually thinks it's fun and wants him to do it more.

Wow, I wound up accidentally making another Silas and Effie support.

It was just... dear god this is filler. These last two conversations could have easily just been one. There was no need for any time to pass between them.

I also got a B support between Elise and Dakota, but we've already talked about that one.

...PFFFFFFF.

Effie: This prison isn't very secure. Why don't the inmates just bend the bars and leave?

Okay, that got a chuckle out of me. Half the time I find Effie to be a ridiculous mess of bad localization, but sometimes this ridiculous flanderization can be hilarious.

And Haitaka just joined us! Awesome! He's actually got pretty badass stats, so I miiiiight consider having him join us for Chapter 10.

Okay, let's finish off for the day by making some forged bronzes! Mozu gets a +1 bronze bow called the Bowzu, 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), Elise gets a +1 bronze axe called Mr. Fluffmuffin (that's my half-joking headcanon name for her horse), and Arthur gets a +1 bronze axe called Snake Eyes, which despite the name actually mitigates his bad luck rather than making it worse.

Okay, I actually still have an hour or two before I have to leave, but given that I've got something to do when I come back, I don't want to risk getting caught with a half-finished update. So I'll be leaving it here for this week. I'll do the invasion on Monday, and then Chapter 10 on Tuesday.

Stay safe, everyone!

[Venger_06]

On 3/17/2021 at 10:01 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

It would be... different as they really don't play similarly at all when class changed. You would want to switch Felicia over to Strategist instead, and while she would instantly become the best magic wielder you had (and would stay that way for a while...), she wouldn't have the defense to enemy phase physical enemies like Jakob can.

Sorry, I think I expressed myself badly. What I wanted to ask was not if Felicia could replicate Jakob's role (I know she can't take a hit), but what would be the strategy if you didn't have a tanky character in Jakob's absence.

23 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh yes, tell me again how Elise is totally a legal adult.

We know that Hinoka started training right after Corrin was kidnapped, when she was 7 years old (this is said in her C support with Camilla) and it is mentioned in the Pellucid Crystal Artbook that Corrin was kidnapped 15 years prior to the start of the game, so Hinoka is 22 years old. I don't know if you noticed, but the game loves to draw parallels between the Royals. We have the dutiful warrior Xander / Ryoma, the devoted Camilla / Hinoka and the insecure and love-starved Leo / Takumi. I don't know if I can draw a deeper parallel between Elise and Sakura beyond the superficial "they are the younger sisters", since they are very different characters (Sakura embodies the Yamato Nadeshiko, while Elise embodies the Genki Girl), but according to Corrin the two are of similar ages. If the age difference between the Royals is approximately 2 years (which is mathematically possible) and they follow a similar pattern between them, then we have the following:

• Xander/Ryoma ~24~
• Camilla/Hinoka ~22~
• Corrin ~20 to 22~
• Leo/Takumi ~20~
• Elise/Sakura ~18~

This may look like a stretch, but it's possible.

11 hours ago, Kalken said:

The problem with that option is that as it stands, Corrin siding with Hoshido is strictly morality. Corrin is taking a stand against Nohr ravaging its neighbors even if it makes her an enemy of her beloved siblings in Nohr. It's Bonds against Justice. It needs Hoshido to have the overall moral high-ground since they aren't the imperialist aggressors whether Nohr needs to invade other countries or not (I say "or not" since it's not like they have any real trouble supplying their continent conquering military). Absent of that Corrin has no real grounds to join Hoshido since he wouldn't really know the country even with muh memory loss.

Facts.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Maof06

[Acacia Sgt]

31 minutes ago, Maof06 said:

We know that Hinoka started training right after Corrin was kidnapped, when she was 7 years old (this is said in her C support with Camilla) and it is mentioned in the Pellucid Crystal Artbook that Corrin was kidnapped 15 years prior to the start of the game, so Hinoka is 22 years old. I don't know if you noticed, but the game loves to draw parallels between the Royals. We have the dutiful warrior Xander / Ryoma, the devoted Camilla / Hinoka and the insecure and love-starved Leo / Takumi. I don't know if I can draw a deeper parallel between Elise and Sakura beyond the superficial "they are the younger sisters", since they are very different characters (Sakura embodies the Yamato Nadeshiko, while Elise embodies the Genki Girl), but according to Corrin the two are of similar ages. If the age difference between the Royals is approximately 2 years (which is mathematically possible) and they follow a similar pattern between them, then we have the following:

• Xander/Ryoma ~24~
• Camilla/Hinoka ~22~
• Corrin ~20 to 22~
• Leo/Takumi ~20~
• Elise/Sakura ~18~

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

Quote

After I was taken from Nohr, I heard a rumor about a newly born princess there...

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.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Acacia Sgt

[Venger_06]

19 minutes 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.

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~

[Interdimensional Observer]

2 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.

I'll disagree.

FE has standards that are our own, unless they aren't. Women warriors say hello, slavery is a bad thing says hello, discrimination as a bad thing is strike three against your argument, aristocracy is bad (though individual nobles might be good people), wars except in self-defense are bad, gods should die and not be submitted to. "Medieval" in FE is exotic window dressing for modern values more often than not.

 

13 hours ago, Jotari said:

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.

How about tozama?

When the Tokugawa Shogunate was established, all daimyo -warlords of the bushi class who controlled Japan- were divided into fudai and tozama. The fudai were the daimyo who sided with Ieyasu Tokugawa's Eastern Army at the pivotal battle of Sekigahara in 1600, those who sided against him were branded tozama.

The fudai had great social-political prestige, while the tozama were given lower status. In practice, the tozama did luck out in some ways, the Shimazu Clan of Satsuma Domain lived pretty well with some prestige; and tozama territories tended to be bigger than the fudai, because they were on the outskirts of Japan more often.

Nonetheless, the exclusion of the tozama from the center of power, which stemmed entirely from the decision of their ancestors and which they could not fix, led the tozama to build up resentment towards the Tokugawa Shogunate. When the Shogunate was forced to open to the West and began to weaken, major tozama families chose to support the downfall of the Shogunate and the "restoration" by force of the power of the Emperor.

In other words- if the happy peace of Hoshido is built on a flawed world order, then CQ could hammer those flaws against the kingdom of sunshine.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Interdimensional Observer

[Acacia Sgt]

Just now, Interdimensional Observer said:

I'll disagree.

FE has standards that are our own, unless they aren't. Women warriors say hello, slavery is a bad thing says hello, discrimination as a bad thing is strike three against your argument, aristocracy is bad (though individual nobles might be good people), wars except in self-defense are bad, gods should die and not be submitted to. "Medieval" in FE is exotic window dressing for modern values more often than not.

It still not our world. It's not a 1:1 mirror.