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

[Acacia Sgt]

Just gonna say since the talk is so interesting, but even if it's a failed assassination attempt, you still have the psychological angle. What better way to instill fear and paranoia on your enemy than demonstrating you can warp right to their location without the negative consequences that warping usually carries. Unless they can find out about the staff, all they know is that they have removed the flaws of warping. First it was just one man... what stops them from thinking an actual army could be next? Warping right behind them, or even right amidst of them.

Oh wait, never mind, Part 4 will show exactly that while at the same showing how you still can screw up that plot point.

Also, doesn't Lekain has

Spoiler

Rexaura and a AoE Silence effect? Unless those came from Ashera, he ain't no slouch. If not him, then any other senator or just strong magic user who can use staffs can do the job.

 

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

The senators having access to rewarp is fitting as they are the heads of Begnion and have superior magical prowess compared to someone like the Black Knight. Only the laguz can use sending stone. 

So it makes sense that they can make a teleporter, but not a telephone?

And if they should just automatically be able to make stuff better than the shit the Black Knight had, where's their invincible armor?

Edited September 7, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Icelerate]

31 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

So it makes sense that they can make a teleporter, but not a telephone?

And if they should just automatically be able to make stuff better than the shit the Black Knight had, where's their invincible armor?

Sure if the writers wanted to they could. 

Edit: It was blessed by the goddess which isn't reproducible by magical research. 

 

32 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Just gonna say since the talk is so interesting, but even if it's a failed assassination attempt, you still have the psychological angle. What better way to instill fear and paranoia on your enemy than demonstrating you can warp right to their location without the negative consequences that warping usually carries. Unless they can find out about the staff, all they know is that they have removed the flaws of warping. First it was just one man... what stops them from thinking an actual army could be next? Warping right behind them, or even right amidst of them.

Oh wait, never mind, Part 4 will show exactly that while at the same showing how you still can screw up that plot point.

Also, doesn't Lekain has

  Hide contents

Rexaura and a AoE Silence effect? Unless those came from Ashera, he ain't no slouch. If not him, then any other senator or just strong magic user who can use staffs can do the job.

 

Has any FE game used teleportation as a weapon to demoralize the enemy? 

Spoiler

  AoE Silence attack comes from Ashera as it is a judge weapon. Lekain probably does have access to Rexaura as it is simply a powerful light tome, not created by Ashera. 

 

Edited September 7, 2020 by Icelerate

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

Has any FE game used teleportation as a weapon to demoralize the enemy? 

Is that supposed to be a rebuttal, as if it never happening before means it never should, or is that more of a "interesting concept, have they ever tried that before?" genuine question?

 

Incidentally @Acacia Sgt I agree it would be cool.

Edited September 7, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Acacia Sgt]

2 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

Has any FE game used teleportation as a weapon to demoralize the enemy? 

Lekain did just that with Peleas. Else why gloat and boast about the staff before bringing up the Blood Pact. I'm sure his threats of having people watching him who he tells about the Blood Pact include people that could Rewarp back and forth to report to him.

Edited September 7, 2020 by Acacia Sgt

[Icelerate]

22 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Lekain did just that with Peleas. Else why gloat and boast about the staff before bringing up the Blood Pact. I'm sure his threats of having people watching him who he tells about the Blood Pact include people that could Rewarp back and forth to report to him.

I thought Lekain was just showing his arrogant personality but you're right he may have brought it up to hype up Begnion's magical prowess and make his intelligence gathering topnotch or at the very least appear to be topnotch. 

Rewarp staves have limited uses and seem to be limited in terms of quantity, hence only present on Senators and Izuka, so I don't think using them on a massive scale would work, but a limited attack mainly to demoralize the laguz alliance could be a good tactic. I doubt the senators would give them to ordinary mages in the army and keep them for themselves because the power to teleport is too great to give to potential adversaries. Now would it make Valtome a bigger threat if he was to use it once as a means to attack and intimidate his opponent at least once? Certainly, I think he'd be a stronger villain as a result. 

23 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Is that supposed to be a rebuttal, as if it never happening before means it never should, or is that more of a "interesting concept, have they ever tried that before?" genuine question?

 

I'm wondering has any FE game made a better use of teleportation magic which wasn't too selective for plot purposes. I think the Tellius games do a better job with warp magic than most but Binding Blade gets credit for not having it at all which is probably for the better. 

Edited September 7, 2020 by Icelerate

[Eltosian Kadath]

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'm just gonna have to be infinitely grateful that it'll be ten more games (counting the three saga games) before I have to sit through anything this story-heavy.

...hopefully the Kaga Saga games aren't too wordy for you.

 

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Man, it would be great if I could get that gauge-refreshing galdr.

I don't think I have even grinded one of the Herons up enough to see that galdr. I think the closest I have gotten is seeing Sorrow once in the endgame.

 

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Then we get a short scene of Pelleas talking to Lekain, and really, honestly, if they can teleport into the capitals of enemy countries completely unimpeded like this, I have to ask why they're even bothering with shit like blood pacts when they can assassinate the Greil Mercenaries in their sleep with ease.

From what I remember those staves are rare enough that they are only available to the elite of the senators, and only warp the user. None of the senators have the guts to try and assassinate anyone, or would be willing to risk not only that priceless staff, but their own person on what might be a risky venture. Plus they don't simply want to win the war, they want to slaughter as many Laguz as they can while they are out in the open, and Zelgius already made it readily apparent that directly targeting the leaders makes that objective even harder to accomplish. As one final note for this I will add that the senators are about to be shown as fairly incompetent military commanders (thanks to Valtome), and previously shown to be classist enough that they might not even realize the value of the Greil Mercenaries in the war effort.

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

As one final note for this I will add that the senators are about to be shown as fairly incompetent military commanders (thanks to Valtome), and previously shown to be classist enough that they might not even realize the value of the Greil Mercenaries in the war effort.

Ah yes. It's always a really tricky game, having ridiculously powerful enemies only rendered mortal by their own stupidity.

[Benice]

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

before I have to sit through anything this story-heavy.

Ehhh...Haven't played enough of TRS, but Berwick is chock-full of text-Every single character has at least three events in which their character/backstory is fleshed out. Some have more; Esteban has six, as far as I'm aware. Enid and Percival also have lots.

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Benice said:

Ehhh...Haven't played enough of TRS, but Berwick is chock-full of text-Every single character has at least three events in which their character/backstory is fleshed out. Some have more; Esteban has six, as far as I'm aware. Enid and Percival also have lots.

How long is Berwick, incidentally? I was planning on playing TRS and BWS between 12 and 13.

[Benice]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

How long is Berwick, incidentally? I was planning on playing TRS and BWS between 12 and 13.

Berwick is 15 chapters long. (I'm 90 sure, it may be 14)However, each chapter consists of up to three maps: A main mission, and two (usually) optional side missions. (Don't mistake these as Three Houses-esque auxillary battles, though! They're tough.) Also, four characters have side mission maps, which makes it more or less 49 maps. (Yes, it is a really long game.)

Edited September 8, 2020 by Benice

[Acacia Sgt]

Pft, that's nothing. Just look at SRW. 49 maps is slightly below average; and they're quite text heavy at times. Don't even get me started on the SRW game that has 101 chapters... I'm not kidding.

7 hours ago, Icelerate said:

I thought Lekain was just showing his arrogant personality but you're right he may have brought it up to hype up Begnion's magical prowess and make his intelligence gathering topnotch or at the very least appear to be topnotch. 

Rewarp staves have limited uses and seem to be limited in terms of quantity, hence only present on Senators and Izuka, so I don't think using them on a massive scale would work, but a limited attack mainly to demoralize the laguz alliance could be a good tactic. I doubt the senators would give them to ordinary mages in the army and keep them for themselves because the power to teleport is too great to give to potential adversaries. Now would it make Valtome a bigger threat if he was to use it once as a means to attack and intimidate his opponent at least once? Certainly, I think he'd be a stronger villain as a result. 

Well, you don't quite need a whole lot. Rewarp one or two, then they Rescue the rest in. I mean, considering Elsleep and Elsilence, what are the odds of an Elrescue? All you need is a hit and run tactic, avoid a Rewarp getting lost, and let paranoia do the rest.

[Icelerate]

14 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Well, you don't quite need a whole lot. Rewarp one or two, then they Rescue the rest in. I mean, considering Elsleep and Elsilence, what are the odds of an Elrescue? All you need is a hit and run tactic, avoid a Rewarp getting lost, and let paranoia do the rest.

Could make for a fun and perhaps frustrating map where someone uses a rewarp staff and then uses rescue to warp non magic units if you fail to kill the rewarp staff user fast enough. 

[Alastor15243]

Radiant Dawn Day 27: Chapter 3-8

Alright, time for an actual new chapter!

The narration talks like they're taking a different route out of Begnion than they took into it, and I'm a bit confused by that, because it looks almost the same. I do know they wind up taking a different route specifically to get into Gallia though, but didn't they move through the Serenes Forest last time?

Interesting that the beorc Begnion army is somehow gaining on an army of cats and hawks. They aren't suggesting the Greil Mercenaries are the slowest people in this chase, are they?

Anyway, they ditch the mountain trail due to the impossibility of using it without being found out, and opt instead for the volcanic caves nearby.

Then Valtome shows up in a scene with Zelgius, and he's a pompous, effeminate, vaguely-homosexual psychopath who declares he's now in charge of the army, and Zelgius immediately acquiesces to him. Anyway, yeah, I...

...It's kind of interesting how much I groan whenever I see these senators, when I loved Dolores Umbridge and Admiral Greyfield so much. They were such fun villains. I guess, if I had to think of a distinction between these guys that might be radically altering my perception of them, it's probably that while Valtome is an incompetent authoritarian psychopath appointed to a position he is not even remotely worthy of, Dolores Umbridge and Admiral Greyfield are incompetent authoritarian psychopaths appointed to positions they aren't even remotely worthy of... who the main characters are forced to answer to. It's one thing to merely watch these characters be incompetent, vile assholes. It's an entirely different dynamic when you're actually forced to live under and resist their authority and stop their cruelty and idiocy from ruining literally everything. Days of Ruin actually had you forced to fight a battle while dealing with ridiculous orders being handed down to you by Greyfield. It's not nearly as compelling to merely watch your opponent do stupid shit. I mean, they get into that a little thanks to the blood pact, but...

Christ, now this is really making me wish Zelgius were playable and also not the Black Knight.

That said, Valtome isn't... awful.

Anyway, yeah, he orders Zelgius to send some of his men into the caves to collect the bodies of the laguz who die in the caves, which is just... I don't even understand what he has to gain from that unless he just did that to assert dominance on Zelgius or some shit like that, since the guys going into the caves are apparently assuredly going to die.

...Okay, so apparently they have a ton of live wounded in the Laguz Alliance, which I have to assume is why their march has been so slow. I wonder how normal that is, and how much of that is Ranulf's influence. The sense I get of laguz bravado doesn't really give me a mental image of all that many laguz retreating to fight another day.

Ranulf says that Skrimir is standing in a pool of his own blood, and I have to assume that's like, astronomical hyperbole, because apparently none of the soldiers have noticed despite their insanely good noses.

...Oh no, apparently the part nobody but the main characters has figured out is that it hurts for Skrimir to even stand, not merely that he's still injured.

We get a conversation between Lethe and Lyre. Kinda cute I guess, and we get a daunt scroll.

I totally forgot I was supposed to be avoiding having Soren level up, but thankfully he only got to 81 exp or so. He wound up capping literally everything but luck by level 20 after dumping all my bonus experience into him, and then I got him to 74 experience so he can promote soon, since nobody else really needed the bonus exp anymore but him.

...So, we just got the ability to forge thrown weapons, but apparently we can't forge wind edges. That's just fantastic. Really, really, I want to understand what the weapon balancers were thinking here. I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS.

Daunt is a hilariously terrible skill. 10 capacity in exchange for reducing the hit and crit rates of nearby enemies by 5.

...Speaking of skills...

...Wow.

Wooooooooow.

APPARENTLY YOU CAN ACTUALLY VISIT THE TENTS IN THE SENATOR CAMP CHAPTER AND I NEVER KNEW.

WHAT THE FUCK.

I MUST HAVE PLAYED THIS GAME LIKE EIGHT FUCKING TIMES AND I NEVER KNEW THAT.

WELL, THAT CERTAINLY EXPLAINS WHY I NEVER FOUND BLOSSOM.

I feel like such an idiot now.

Apparently I missed out on both a blossom scroll and a hammerne.

Well, doesn't really matter. Certainly not for the Greil Mercenaries. Bonus experience is kinda ridiculous like that.

Anyway, let's get moving.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

SEPTIMUS IS THE ONE WHO WAS ORDERED TO GO INTO THE CAVE!?

OH MY GOD!

Why do I get the feeling that Zelgius made sure the worst soldiers he had were the ones who went into the caves?

Anyway, Ike calls the enemies “clowns”, a term that in real life didn't exist until like the 1500s. Would've been fun if he called them “jesters” or “fools”. Though “fools” would've had the actual meaning get completely lost probably.

Anyway, I'm gonna try using Janaff and Ulki. I've got enough olivi grass that they should be able to make themselves useful.

This map seems pretty straightforward. It's a simple rout map without any enemies that would really make this difficult.

Honestly, while it's entirely random and generic, I find Mist and Soren's second conversation pretty cute.

Mist: Don't you dare leave me behind, Soren! I'm tagging along even if you say no!

Soren: I am not inconvenienced by that plan.

Man, Haar is so amazing. He has just barely enough speed to double most enemies, and thanks to that he can one-round pretty much everything with a humble hand axe. He can also pretty reliably one-shot mages with a steel poleax, which is useful since they're basically the only guys who can hurt him.

Yeah, this is a pretty straightforward chapter. Honestly, difficulty's pretty hard to come by when you have double-earth units.

Soren just promoted. He now has 21 defense thanks to the +4 boost, and 25 speed. He's about as fast as Haar, which means he's gonna be doubling most things, which means... at least for now, he's gonna be pretty dang good.

Especially since he has flare now, which is actually superior to aether in terms of survivability, since the healing hit has its damage boosted due to being the same hit as the luna hit.

Map damage is apparently lethal in this game, as I just learned when a fighter died to falling rocks. Noted.

Man, the enemy AI loves targeting people who can't fight back, even if they're literally invincible.

...Was that a plague doctor mask? Are the dark mages wearing plague doctor masks? Shit, I only saw it for a second as he was dying so I can't be sure.

Anyway, that was a bit tedious, but I got it done. It was mostly just wearing the enemies down, since it's been ages since they've been a threat to the Greil Mercenaries.

Hahahahahaha! Man, it's nice to see that Ike still has his trademark snark. I just had him talk with Septimus and he's like “So I'm guessing this suicide mission wasn't the plum assignment all the best generals wanted, huh?”

But of course, I have Janaff do the honors of actually finishing him off. Seemed fitting. And he got a crit, which was super satisfying.

I apparently had 20 turns to rout this map to get full BEXP. I did it in eight.

We just got a scene where Ike and Ranulf tag-teamed a bunch of enemy soldiers while Ranulf was untransformed and just kickboxing. Jesus game, I mean that was cool and all, but can you be consistent or something?

But anyway, they find a way out, but... just as the foreshadowing at the beginning of the chapter suggested was possible... they wound up in Goldoa, not Gallia.

Hilariously, we're made to go all the way to the Goldoan capital, and despite going all the way there, Deghinsea insists we go back exactly the way we came, rather than escorting us just as far through Goldoan territory to a path to Gallia that wouldn't get them all killed. Deghinsea is pretty ridiculous here. “I understand your predicament. However, your reasons neither justify nor change the fact that you trespassed on our territory”. The fuck? That is exactly what their reasons do!

Ike: Then you might as well just kill us now. It'd be the same as sending us back to the Kauku Caves, and it saves us the walk.

Wooooow, Ike. Good to know that you still know how to sass royalty.

But thankfully Nasir and Ena come by to remind Deghinsea that they owe Reyson a huge favor for restoring Rajaion's sanity. So he lets them escort them to the Gallian border like anyone even vaguely resembling someone without Freon for blood would have suggested.

But anyway we get the bonus exp, and then we get the fuck out of here.

Yeah, this chapter was... pretty boring, not gonna lie. And Deghinsea is, like... the most ridiculous thing, honestly. I get his motivations that they're gonna reveal later, but like they don't even remotely explain how much of a assbasket he is here. So yeah, not a fan. Especially since they could've done more to make those caves more dangerous and terrifying like they're supposed to be in-universe.

Well, that's that.

Stay safe, everyone.

[Jotari]

The Deghensea refusal does bring up a good moral dilemma with him being talked out of kind of side steps entirely. It's one Marth has to face in which the game side steps entirely in the other direction. Namely does a nation at war have the right to involve a neutral nation against their will in times of desperation. I brought it up in a topic not too long ago to some interesting responses.

 

[Alastor15243]

4 minutes ago, Jotari said:

The Deghensea refusal does bring up a good moral dilemma with him being talked out of kind of side steps entirely. It's one Marth has to face in which the game side steps entirely in the other direction. Namely does a nation at war have the right to involve a neutral nation against their will in times of desperation. I brought it up in a topic not too long ago to some interesting responses.

 

Ah yeah, I remember that coming up. Honestly though, it's not him being talked out of it that ruins it. It's the fact that they were all taken to his castle first before being told to "go back the way they came":

Look where the castle is.

The Gallian border is six times closer to the castle than those fucking caves are. If he granted their request, they would be out of his hair sooner. Deghinsea has literally no excuse whatsoever to be demanding the Laguz Alliance march back to their deaths.

Edited September 8, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Jotari]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

Ah yeah, I remember that coming up. Honestly though, it's not him being talked out of it that ruins it. It's the fact that they were all taken to his castle first before being told to "go back the way they came":

Look where the castle is.

The Gallian border is six times closer to the castle than those fucking caves are. If he granted their request, they would be out of his hair sooner. Deghinsea has literally no excuse whatsoever to be demanding the Laguz Alliance march back to their deaths.

Well chalk that one up to the customary zero sense of time or space this series has.

[Icelerate]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Ah yeah, I remember that coming up. Honestly though, it's not him being talked out of it that ruins it. It's the fact that they were all taken to his castle first before being told to "go back the way they came":

Look where the castle is.

The Gallian border is six times closer to the castle than those fucking caves are. If he granted their request, they would be out of his hair sooner. Deghinsea has literally no excuse whatsoever to be demanding the Laguz Alliance march back to their deaths.

I think Deghinsea is one of the best written antagonists in the series but his action here doesn't make much sense unless he wants the laguz alliance to die to punish them for starting a war. But that would just make Begnion's counter offensive even worse so he has no excuse here. 

[Benice]

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Look where the castle is.

The Gallian border is six times closer to the castle than those fucking caves are. If he granted their request, they would be out of his hair sooner. Deghinsea has literally no excuse whatsoever to be demanding the Laguz Alliance march back to their deaths.

Uh...That's where all of the lingerie stores were and Deghinsea wanted to keep the game PG-12?

Also, is it weird that my least favorite part of RD is part three? I loved part 1, liked part 2, tolerated part 4, (barring Oliver's map) and liked Rebirth, (Rebirth 1 notwithstanding) but part three was the most boring part for me. Hm...And that was before I played FE9, so my bias against Ike hadn't even applied yet...

That's Wack.

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Was that a plague doctor mask? Are the dark mages wearing plague doctor masks? Shit, I only saw it for a second as he was dying so I can't be sure.

I don't think they are-It's been a bit since I played RD, but I think it's more akin to GBAFE druids-their faces are concealed within their cloaks. At least, I think that's what it's supposed to look like. Upon closer inspection, it kinda looks more like that thing they used in the middle ages to hold someone's tongue down so they couldn't talk. (The punishment for Nagging. Golly, weren't the middle ages so practical?)

[Eltosian Kadath]

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Yeah, this chapter was... pretty boring, not gonna lie. And Deghinsea is, like... the most ridiculous thing, honestly. I get his motivations that they're gonna reveal later, but like they don't even remotely explain how much of a assbasket he is here. So yeah, not a fan. Especially since they could've done more to make those caves more dangerous and terrifying like they're supposed to be in-universe.

Letting a foreign army pass through your country without conflict is the kind of activity that makes it hard to claim your nation is neutral. From a political stand point, sending the army back the way it came would be the neutral thing to do, and how exactly that pact with the goddess works, nobody seems to rightfully know. I find it kinda fits with what we see with him later, it gives us a taste of the callous neutrality that would help drive Lehran over the edge, it shows the more reasonable and progressive ideals that would latter break the pact, and gives us a view of the kind of hidebound obstinacy that would make him side with Ashera in the face of extinction.

[Interdimensional Observer]

10 hours ago, Jotari said:

Well chalk that one up to the customary zero sense of time or space this series has.

I know this isn't the place to mention it because armies move at a wholly different pace from participants in the normal economy and life of the world, but I have the urge to state some ~1650s-1800 numbers on the pace of travel in Europe. They shouldn't be entirely off from Medieval numbers, which I assume would be same or worse.

To summarize some points from the one book I always turn back to:

• Roads- just foot tracks, no foundations, no pavement, no drainage, plenty of potholes. The better (but not good) roads are mostly deteriorated Roman roads made over 1000 years ago. Roads not always made to most efficiently get you from point A to point B- they could meander.
• Because carriages overwhelmingly don't have shock-absorber springs and because roads are so muddy and holed-up, you're in for a bumpy, sluggish ride that is going to be very uncomfortable, but you still have to pay for it.
  • A coach required 4-6 draught animals, need to be replaced every 6-12 miles. On estimate put it at 1 horse per 1 mile along a well-maintained turnpike road in England in this period, and English roads were basically the Internet in terms of speed, practically everything else at the time was greatly inferior. London to Manchester was 185 miles, so 185 horses were needed for one stagecoach.
  • A coach could only carry up to ten people.
  • Price- A coach from Augsburg to Innsbruck in the Holy Roman Empire was 60 miles. It would take an unskilled laborer a month to afford just the basic fares.
• Get a horse? Look at the above numbers, if you want to go fast, you'll need a lot of horses, and that'll be a lot of $$$.
• Walking speed therefore, is the usual pace of travel for the average person. It's affordable (free) and won't be ruined by the dirt shit roads.
• Paris to Rouen was 60 miles, took at least 3 days to get there in the 1600s. By the time of the French Revolution in 1789, one scholar says all French cities could be reached in a fortnight (two weeks). Back in 1660, Bordeaux to Paris took 15 days to travel the 364 miles, dropped to 5 1/2 days by 1789. Paris to Bordeaux at that later time would cost a clerk's monthly wages.
• Paved roads require constant maintenance, thats a lot of money. You need a strong and centralized state to afford this, something which every kingdom to arise after the fall of the Western Roman Empire definitely wasn't.
• And the state needs to be willing to spend for this, France under Louis XIV "the Sun King" never spent more than 0.8% of the budget on roads despite Jean-Baptiste Colbert's best efforts.
  • Or, you could be the great exception like England and realize government-issued private construction of and profiting from roads builds them good and fast.
• Not all roads are created equal.
  • The French tried to build a road network in the 1600s-1789, but they succeeded only in the "royal roads" (or "arterial"), the roads connecting Paris to the other major cities.
    • Spain built very few roads, and even then mostly radial roads connecting royal estates to each other, not the country to itself. Those aren't very helpful for most people.
    • Building good roads isn't enough, the arterial roads of France were noted by the English as being positively empty of traffic compared to their bustling turnpikes. You need demand- a populace that can afford to use those roads.
  • "Lateral" roads connecting non-Paris cities to each other, or those non-Paris cities to farming hamlets, or those hamlets to each other, were all neglected. They started 1800 as they were in 1600, tracks of toil. 380 miles from Amiens to Lyon would take you 25-30 days.

 

• Freight is in its own category apart from passenger traffic. The French road boom in the period (I'm just using it as a typical "non-England/Netherlands trying to move forward in history" example, Spain, the Italian peninsula, and Russia would all be waaaay worse) did nothing to bring freight travel out of its rut of 2 1/2 miles per day at best.
  • The 126 mile distance from Mayenne to the port of Le Havre would take about four weeks for freight. In 1715, the 289 mile distance from Lyon to Paris along a royal road would take three weeks for freight, and only 5 days less by 1789.
• The effects of poor freight conditions? In Spain, Almeria is only 50 miles from Guadix, yet the price of wheat was double in Almeria what it was in Guadix. That shouldn't be the case if grain could flow remotely easy from city to city, but poor roads, combined with internal tariffs and other junk, meant it was cheaper for the coastal city of Almeria to import wheat from France, Italy or Africa via ships than to get from its own country via land.
• As the Almeria example indicates, you don't have a national economy without a national transportation network (not that it made what at the time were strong economies impossible- the prosperity was just concentrated in select locations, feast adjacent to famine). You wind up with islands of production, unable to effectively service each other.
• Most people traveled in their lives no more than 4-5 miles from where they lived. They went from home, to the local market (we're talking 90%+ agrarian populations here), the local notary's place, and the seigneurial court, all on foot.
• As terrible as this all sounds, the above point means most people didn't know they were living in bad conditions. They never realized better than what they had existed, so how could they know it was bad? They never went to England and experienced its roads of glorious capitalism-meets-mercantilism-meets-country gentlemen, or traveled by barge up those countless Netherlands canals.

 

...I felt like I've written enough and don't want to talk waterways, not that FE has shown a whole lot of sophistication here. Canals aren't very relevant besides that one in Valentia.

• However, the waves and storms could make things as uncomfortable at sea as a coach on land, or worse.
• Also, the winds are a fickle beast for sea travel with sails. A one-way trip from Nantes on the west coast of France to Gdansk in eastern modern day Poland, with perfect winds, would take 18 days. On average, you'd need a month, and if Mother Nature was being a witch, it could take 100 days or even 150 in the winter.

The flow of mail on land is another distinct aspect of travel apart from people and freight, but the urge is out of my system and hence I will not discuss it.

Edited September 9, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, Icelerate said:

I think Deghinsea is one of the best written antagonists in the series but his action here doesn't make much sense unless he wants the laguz alliance to die to punish them for starting a war. But that would just make Begnion's counter offensive even worse so he has no excuse here. 

Well I can see it less as punishment and more as not wanting the word to get around that Goldoa is willing to help anyone period, otherwise every other decade they'd have refugees flooding the place. Though as Ike points out he'd save some time by just executing them there. Still the plot line would have made more sense if Deghnesea had went to them instead of vice versa. Probably wouldn't have even taken that long for a messenger to fly over and for him to fly back, at least judging by how quickly Kurtnaga gets to the furthermost reaches of Daein later in this Part.

51 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I know this isn't the place to mention it because armies move at a wholly different pace from participants in the normal economy and life of the world, but I have the urge to state some ~1650s-1800 numbers on the pace of travel in Europe. They shouldn't be entirely off from Medieval numbers, which I assume would be same or worse.

To summarize some points from the one book I always turn back to:

• Roads- just foot tracks, no foundations, no pavement, no drainage, plenty of potholes. The better (but not good) roads are mostly deteriorated Roman roads made over 1000 years ago. Roads not always made to most efficiently get you from point A to point B- they could meander.
• Because carriages overwhelmingly don't have shock-absorber springs and because roads are so muddy and holed-up, you're in for a bumpy, sluggish ride that is going to be very uncomfortable, but you still have to pay for it.
  • A coach required 4-6 draught animals, need to be replaced every 6-12 miles. On estimate put it at 1 horse per 1 mile along a well-maintained turnpike road in England in this period, and English roads were basically the Internet in terms of speed, practically everything else at the time was greatly inferior. London to Manchester was 185 miles, so 185 horses were needed for one stagecoach.
  • A coach could only carry up to ten people.
  • Price- A coach from Augsburg to Innsbruck in the Holy Roman Empire was 60 miles. It would take an unskilled laborer a month to afford just the basic fares.
• Get a horse? Look at the above numbers, if you want to go fast, you'll need a lot of horses, and that'll be a lot of $$$.
• Walking speed therefore, is the usual pace of travel for the average person. It's affordable (free) and won't be ruined by the dirt shit roads.
• Paris to Rouen was 60 miles, took at least 3 days to get there in the 1600s. By the time of the French Revolution in 1789, one scholar says all French cities could be reached in a fortnight (two weeks). Back in 1660, Bordeaux to Paris took 15 days to travel the 364 miles, dropped to 5 1/2 days by 1789. Paris to Bordeaux at that later time would cost a clerk's monthly wages.
• Paved roads require constant maintenance, thats a lot of money. You need a strong and centralized state to afford this, something which every kingdom to arise after the fall of the Western Roman Empire definitely wasn't.
• And the state needs to be willing to spend for this, France under Louis XIV "the Sun King" never spent more than 0.8% of the budget on roads despite Jean-Baptiste Colbert's best efforts.
  • Or, you could be the great exception like England and realize government-issued private construction of and profiting from roads builds them good and fast.
• Not all roads are created equal.
  • The French tried to build a road network in the 1600s-1789, but they succeeded only in the "royal roads" (or "arterial"), the roads connecting Paris to the other major cities.
    • Spain built very few roads, and even then mostly radial roads connecting royal estates to each other, not the country to itself. Those aren't very helpful for most people.
    • Building good roads isn't enough, the arterial roads of France were noted by the English as being positively empty of traffic compared to their bustling turnpikes. You need demand- a populace that can afford to use those roads.
  • "Lateral" roads connecting non-Paris cities to each other, or those non-Paris cities to farming hamlets, or those hamlets to each other, were all neglected. They started 1800 as they were in 1600, tracks of toil. 380 miles from Amiens to Lyon would take you 25-30 days.

 

• Freight is in its own category apart from passenger traffic. The French road boom in the period (I'm just using it as a typical "non-England/Netherlands trying to move forward in history" example, Spain, the Italian peninsula, and Russia would all be waaaay worse) did nothing to bring freight travel out of its rut of 2 1/2 miles per day at best.
  • The 126 mile distance from Mayenne to the port of Le Havre would take about four weeks for freight. In 1715, the 289 mile distance from Lyon to Paris along a royal road would take three weeks for freight, and only 5 days less by 1789.
• The effects of poor freight conditions? In Spain, Almeria is only 50 miles from Guadix, yet the price of wheat was double in Almeria what it was in Guadix. That shouldn't be the case if grain could flow remotely easy from city to city, but poor roads, combined with internal tariffs and other junk, meant it was cheaper for the coastal city of Almeria to import wheat from France, Italy or Africa via ships than to get from its own country via land.
• As the Almeria example indicates, you don't have a national economy without a national transportation network (not that it made what at the time were strong economies impossible- the prosperity was just concentrated in select locations, feast adjacent to famine). You wind up with islands of production, unable to effectively service each other.
• Most people traveled in their lives no more than 4-5 miles from where they lived. They went from home, to the local market (we're talking 90%+ agrarian populations here), the local notary's place, and the seigneurial court, all on foot.
• As terrible as this all sounds, the above point means most people didn't know they were living in bad conditions. They never realized better than what they had existed, so how could they know it was bad? They never went to England and experienced its roads of glorious capitalism-meets-mercantilism-meets-country gentlemen, or traveled by barge up those countless Netherlands canals.

 

...I felt like I've written enough and don't want to talk waterways, not that FE has shown a whole lot of sophistication here. Canals aren't very relevant besides that one in Valentia.

• However, the waves and storms could make things as uncomfortable at sea as a coach on land, or worse.
• Also, the winds are a fickle beast for sea travel with sails. A one-way trip from Nantes on the west coast of France to Gdansk in eastern modern day Poland, with perfect winds, would take 18 days. On average, you'd need a month, and if Mother Nature was being a witch, it could take 100 days or even 150 in the winter.

The flow of mail on land is another distinct aspect of travel apart from people and freight, but the urge is out of my system and hence I will not discuss it.

Well all this and then factor in that Goldoa has a population wherein every single member can fly and you likely don't have any real roads outside of urban centers at all. So it makes even less sense that the dragons marched Ike and co to the capital before sending them on their way instead of bringing the king (or like Gareth if the matter is considered too minor) to them.

Edited September 9, 2020 by Jotari

[Interdimensional Observer]

26 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Well all this and then factor in that Goldoa has a population wherein every single member can fly and you likely don't have any real roads outside of urban centers at all. So it makes even less sense that the dragons marched Ike and co to the capital before sending them on their way instead of bringing the king (or like Gareth if the matter is considered too minor) to them.

Storywise? Maybe, or the wings are just vestigial now. But in gameplay, only Dheg and Kurthnaga can.

Applying real-world pre-1800s communications, Goldoa being desert isn't good for roads if sand blasts them into erosion or if the sand much more simply buries the roads in an hour due to wind. (I have no idea how long it took those gold-bearing Malian camel caravans to cross the Sahara. ...*Checks* Says at least 40-60 days for a loaded camel caravan of typically 500 camels but could be upwards of 12000; Goldoa is probably a lot smaller.) Though the very small population and the very resilient dragon forms I could speculate makes rudimentary roads sufficient for this kingdom of a few thousand not interested in the acquisition of wealth. -Which now that I see your point makes bringing Ike & co to the capital less logical.

Edited September 9, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[Alastor15243]

Radiant Dawn Day 28: Chapter 3-9

So the game very helpfully confirms as canon that the route the Laguz Alliance were permitted to take through Goldoa back to Gallia was almost literally a straight line between the castle and the closest part of the border. So yes. One-sixth the distance, people.

Alright, so, I'm interested to wait and be reminded of what Elincia's reasons are for her eventual declaration of neutrality in the laguz-Begnion war, because, I mean... Valtome just starts pillaging her villages when she refuses him passage through her country into Gallia. That's... a pretty big deal. But I'm open to the idea of her having a good reason.

Oh shit, there's an adept scroll in the bargain section, I might want to nab that!

And here's the conversation I alluded to in part 2, the one demonstrating that racism against laguz has at least reduced enough that Elincia's treatment of their royalty as equals wouldn't piss off the people at all like it pissed off the nobles. But basically, it's four villagers talking about the prospect of having to go to war with one of their two allies from the previous war, and how much that would suck to be forced to choose... and who they would choose, if they had to.

We get a mostly-useless master crown, and then the war funds. Nice. Awesome. Because we were pretty much all out.

Anyway, we can remove skills from our soldiers here, something I don't believe we could do in part 2. I'll be making sure most of these skills, especially nihil and paragon, get to Ike's army, so Geoffrey loses his paragon now. Hopefully these guys will be tough enough to take Part 3 enemies. I remember them being able to do very little at the climax of Part 2.

Apparently paragon is only worth 500 gold when sold. That's absolutely hilarious.

Alright, I checked the battle map to see what things are like, and the battle doesn't look too nasty. Nobody will be able to double much, but the enemy won't be able to hurt Kieran or Geoffrey much either. Playing with an army you haven't gotten to make your own isn't really that fun for me, but I mean hey, at least my army isn't broken now. At any rate I see no reason to use any of the nice juicy bonus experience they've given me. Others are gonna need that.

There's really no need to buy any weapons, since I still have plenty of what I need left over from Part 2. So I might as well buy the adept scroll. With that done, let's go.

So the enemies start setting the buildings on fire, and I'm pretty sure they burn down if you leave them on fire for too long, hence why the game still gives you some exp for having the buildings merely be “on fire” when you're done. Not sure how long it takes though, so I won't push it.

This was actually kind of a tricky turn. I had a lot of stuff I had to do at once, so I took a gamble and set up a turn for the yellow ally units to hopefully do what I wanted... which they did. The bishop healed Marcia, and the cavalry finished off the enemies Geoffrey and Kieran had to move on from, allowing me to get closer to taking out the enemies in the way of putting out the villages.

…And then I lost Marcia to a 1% crit.

Oh joy.

Restarting.

Yeah, this didn't go too much better. Next time I counted on the allied units to do anything, they all whiffed fighting the exact same wounded healing archer. I think this attempt is completely fucked without casualties, but I'm gonna wing it and see how long I last.

I did a last-ditch gambit on the boss, which failed. But it's made me conclude that rushing the boss is the best option here, because I just do not have the manpower to keep up this fight for long. I only have two guys who can really be said to “fight”, and enemies popping up everywhere. The yellow units can hold their attention for a good while, but not forever, and once they're gone, but units are gonna start dropping like flies if they get swarmed.

Okay, I think I can safely conclude at this point that only the tier 1 soldiers will actually burn down buildings, hence why they'd actually put tier 1 enemies on this map. That actually gives us some options for how to save the buildings up above from burning down. Marcia can easily take that soldier out before he runs behind enemy lines if Marcia attacks him on both turn 1 and turn 2.

I have to abuse the fact that the enemy will gang up on the yellow units so I can be aggressive with my more fragile units (that being literally everyone but Geoffrey and Kieran).

Okay, this is going much better. I even managed to bait out the speedwing guy so I can slowly kill him with Danved and Marcia.

Aaaand speedwing guy is down! Awesome!

...The yellow bishop unfortunately sacrificed himself insanely stupidly to heal some chip damage on Marcia rather than running away from the reinforcements trying to kill him. So we'll have to function without him from now on. Thankfully, we're almost to the boss. Just a few more turns. And Geoffrey got a speed and defense level up, so that's encouraging!

Yep, we're pretty much done here, and making good time. No houses are on fire, and only two houses are even charred, so... we're pretty good.

The yellow units gon' die, but they don't matter for bonus exp, so they've served their purpose.

Aaaaand the boss is down, just as the reinforcements started getting messy. Alright!

So yeah, I get Elincia's insistence on neutrality. Begnion is a massive nation she has no hope of defeating, and it's, at least officially, ruled by a benevolent ruler she owes a great debt. But obviously siding against Gallia is completely unthinkable. She's in a difficult spot, and her people are recovering from two wars now. Yeah, neutrality makes sense, though as the story will demonstrate, it really isn't possible. Even Begnion's most reasonable offer involves letting Zelgius's army pass and fight within Crimean territory, so Elincia's put in an extremely difficult position... and a cliffhanger.

We got a ridiculous amount of bonus exp from completing our objectives, which I'm looking forward to being able to give to the Dawn Brigade in Part 4.

...Holy shit was this entry short, wow. I guess I didn't have much to comment on or that I took issue with.

This chapter was... I mean it was kind of interesting restarting and coming up with different plans until something worked, not gonna lie. But honestly these units just aren't that fun to use since they're all so weak, and weak in pretty much the same ways. I don't have anyone with more than 20ish speed. The cavalry are just as fast as the pegasus knight! Yeah, I'm just reminded of all the stuff I didn't like about Part 2.

...In hindsight maybe I should've used the master crown on someone since none of these guys are gonna be long-term. Fuck. Well, lesson learned.

But at any rate, we're done for today. So tomorrow, we'll be back with the Greil Mercenaries.

Stay safe, everyone!

[Jotari]

I'd definitely reccomend Master Crown use in Radiant Dawn. The gut instinct to get everyone to 20/20 doesn't really make as much sense in this game when you're forced to use so many units. Way better to have a 10/10/1 unit than a 10/11 unit if you have no intention of bringing them to the tower.