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Hasn't Elyos ever heard of standing armies and fortification?


Etrurian emperor
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Mild spoilers for the flow of the story ahead.

Bizarrely enough the nations of Elyos seem very much akin to the Mushroom Kingdom in that any evil villain can just make an unopposed beeline the royal castle and abduct the reigning monarch. Elusia takes over both the castles of Solm and Firene with seemingly no problem whatsoever, and even Brodia, the nation of might can have its castle come dangerous close to falling simply because Elusia decides to go attack it. Then when its time to attack Elusia they just let you waltz on right to their cathedral without even trying to obstruct you. Even countries that got conquered in other continents usually imply there is at least some sort of fight for the villains to take over, and when you're doing the invading you typically have to do some work before reaching the enemy castle.  So did the four royals just kinda forget to form armies and build fortifications in their kingdom?

Mushroom Kingdom comparisons aside the kingdoms actually come across those early Final Fantasy kingdoms where the jrpg villain of the day can take over all the castles for a spell until you drive them out, rather than previous Fire Emblem Kingdom. I'm less harsh on the Engage story than I thought but this aspects is just kinda weird. 

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At least Brodia and Solm have the local terrain working for them. As for Firene, it's kind of ironic that most of the characters from the peace-loving kingdom are obsessed with hitting the gym.

 

And I would mention that an three-way peace agreement would have eliminated the need for maintaining an army, but that kind of depends on what Elusia was doing in the past 1,000 years to justify that.

Edited by Armchair General
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There are forts. In one of the chapters some enemies even make a beeline for the forts. In the chapter that takes place in brodia's castle, there's wooden fortifications. There are doors to knock down. I don't know what you mean by no fortifications. They also destroyed a bridge in one chapter, possibly to make it more defensible. There are also fences in towns that Louis and fire spells go through and knock over/destroy (visual only). Tho maybe in Jeans' chapter there are some fences you can't go through? Or was it bushes?

An NPC after a training battle in Firene told me the reason that Firene castle is so expansive is to make it comfortable for Lumera to visit in dragon form. I think they said the other kingdoms were under protection from Lumera, maybe her dragon breath makes fortifications somewhat moot.

Edited by Original Johan Liebert
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The invasion force use corrupted left and right. And they appeared instantly after the ritual to summon Sombrone. So we see a typical "enemy took as buy surprise with forces we were not aware of". Poland 39 is an example of such situation in the real life. High mobility of invaders adds to the analogy. Don't forget - Firene wasn't involved in any wars for centuries so this attack is very unusual.

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Yeah this seems to be less that fortifications don't exist but rather that they are far less impactful than they typically would be. Stuff like the surprise appearance of corrupted, a large force of them not as likely to be reliant on stuff like supply lines, and that a good amount of recurring antagonists are highly mobile can tie into why that is.     

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Yeah, the story lacks a "bit" of writing. Everyone can show up in a castle and take the king/queen hostage as they wish. Really strange, considering the world is at "war" since rumors of the return of the Fell Dragon seems to reach all kingdoms.

In Brodia, they tried to make you think it's a warrior kingdom, with an army and everything. You go fight Elusia at the border, with all the army. But two Elusian generals, winged, could show up in various place of the said kingdom with enough forces (infantry soldier, so not flying) to kill the princes and the Divine Dragon. So....military kingdom.... not so great.

For Firene, I get it as they're all "peace" everywhere. Their only "weak" border is by sea (because on the other sides, there's allies) but they don't guard it. Even after they were attacked by the enemy, in their own castle at the beginning of the game.

For Solm, they told sometimes soldiers are fierce, and will guard the Queen and everything. But then, anybody can enter the castle and threaten her. That must mean their defenses are really bad. Maybe the Divine Dragon should teach them to defend their kingdom and raises fighting forces for the war, instead of fighting the enemy solo with his army of whatevers.

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1 hour ago, Hiroki said:

Really strange, considering the world is at "war" since rumors of the return of the Fell Dragon seems to reach all kingdoms.

World is at war, but we don't know how long it is in this state. It looks like the distance between first Fel Dragon ritual and the beginning of the story is very short. And the action is very fast paced - there isn't that much time between chapters. In real live it takes months or even years to switch from "peaceful thinking" to "we are at war". So the whole confusion is perfectly explained by the surprise factor. 

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1 hour ago, Scaramuccia said:

World is at war, but we don't know how long it is in this state. It looks like the distance between first Fel Dragon ritual and the beginning of the story is very short. And the action is very fast paced - there isn't that much time between chapters. In real live it takes months or even years to switch from "peaceful thinking" to "we are at war". So the whole confusion is perfectly explained by the surprise factor. 

I consider that there is some days passing between each chapter, only for the party to travel between various point. I don't know the exact distance between two kingdom, or the size of Elyos, so it's just an assumption. There is no large scale transportation with flying or so, so everything must be made by foot (or maybe by horses? I won't enter those details), so they must take some days to travel from point to point. And have some rest too, they can't just march all the time, too tiresome. So I think there's some days/weeks between each chapter. I don't think you can reach a capital from another in just a week. I'm not sure, but I think the game tell us that's traveling is kind of long too, but don't remember when. Then:

Firene - Alright, it's the first place we go. They're not aware of the Fell Dragon or even the Divine one when we arrive there. So the first invasion is pretty logic. But

Spoiler

Since the chapter 5, I'd say, they're well aware of the menace. They even sent their only heirs to go fighting, ahah. So, in Chapter 17, when Elusian come to the port and fire everything, it means two things. Firene did not take the months (we're talking 12 chapters) to gather their forces at the sea border, or they did but are really bad at fighting, since Elusia doesn't seem to encounter any forces. But, on that point, I might extrapolate a bit too much maybe.

After all, it's just a REALLY peaceful kingdom of tea and farms.

Solm -

Spoiler

When we go to Solm, we learn that they're well aware of the coming of the Divine Dragon (and so the Fell one too?). They sent their heirs to find the Divine Dragon, whatever side he/she can be. They even tell in a chapter that their royal guard are well trained and enough to keep the castle. Yet, anyone seem to be able to enter it and threaten the queen. Even Hortensia and the Hounds. Once again, either their soldier are really bad and overestimated, or they were on lunch break during the "invasion".

Brodia - We learn at the beginning that it's the nation of warrior, a military one always at war against Elusia. So, even before the Fell Dragon awake or so. They're used to fight Elusian forces. We even have a chapter on the front, with a nice cinematic of Brodian forces fighting Elusian ones.

Spoiler

But, since they're at war against Elusia, really knowing their enemy, they let two flying generals, and their own army, enter their Kingdom to threaten princes and everything. Not just the two flying sisters, but their whole infantry troops. So by road (or sea, I did not look the map carefully for now). While Brodian forces were well aware of Elusian possible attack. Alcryst, for example, was guarding one border and mistake the Divine Dragon. But at first, he was guarding the border against enemies. So they knew all along. Maybe, they're just bad at war. That would explain why they've still not conquered Elusia before the Fell Dragon.

 

I'm not sure I remembered everything correctly, but that's my guesses for now.

Edited by Hiroki
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14 hours ago, Hiroki said:

For Solm, they told sometimes soldiers are fierce, and will guard the Queen and everything. But then, anybody can enter the castle and threaten her. That must mean their defenses are really bad.

Hortensia straight up said she had lied to get into the castle. Solm knows that Ivy is working with Alear so of course they'd let her sister in under the assumption that she's also working with Alear. That's not having bad defenses. That's being trusting when you have no reason not to be.

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I didn’t mind the lack of armies because we see them a couple of times.

 

I did mind (Chapter 14ish spoilers) 

Spoiler

Solm point blank says they have spies everywhere and knew what was going down in Elusia.

 

I get defending your own land but WHY wouldn’t you warn everyone else? A lot of lives could have been saved if you had told the other nations to be on the look out for Elusians and Fell Worshippers. That took me out of the story how stupid it was that the knew, hunkered down, and just waited for the dragon to reach them. What if he died in Elusia?

 

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