2019 edit: It's a little late but I recently went through my old memory cards to remember the tactics I used so I figure I might as well add some general notes in case it helps anyone doing some sort of trs playthrough. Note that playing this way is super boring due to the millions of resets and it's not even a particularly interesting run to plan out since I ignored reliability to take the most direct path to the throne.
ch1 (6 turns): Runan got sea fighter. The iron sword got 5 kills and sasha got some exp. Picked narron.
ch2 (9 turns): Gave kills to iron sword and to narron. So far it seems like I've bought a steel sword, two slim lances, three iron lances, three javelins, and a hand axe. Not going to bother listing stuff I buy since I think it's pretty self-explanatory.
ch3 (4 turns): looks like I'm missing a couple save files so I'm not sure on some of this. Deployed julia, esther, bartz, garo, raffin, kreiss, arkis, narron. Sent one mount to lure the boss then finished with an axe user. The other cavs, raffin included, went to the southwest. No javelin crits but due to 0% growths I had to get two crits with the iron sword +18 (perhaps only one?). Presumably no crits required if playing with growths but I haven't looked into it. Julia obtained the super proof and knight crest from the villages. Runan met Narcus.
ch4 (11 turns): I don't remember anything. I let them live but it wouldn't be much of a loss if I killed mel.
ch5 (3 turns): I didn't realize unequipping raquel and raffin was the answer so I wasted a turn.
ch6 (3 turns): Mahter is too weak to two-turn in 0% so I deployed zieg in the left group and 3-turned. Sasha spoke to Mel for the flute. Narron promoted.
-> Mahter could 1-turn if she had a luna sword. I don't know how random drops work, can the enemies in ch5 drop one?
ch7 (6 turns): Nothing interesting. Sasha got some exp in the arena and Mel died so I could revive her later (though she's not necessary). I bought lots of stuff.
ch8 (10 turns): Nothing special. Sasha hit lvl10, zieg hit lvl14. Yuni got the agi plus and knight proof. I think mahter helped clear the way and runan picked up some kills, while the rest killed the reinforcements.
split #1:
Runan's team: sasha, zieg, raffin, plum, tom, esther, kreiss, julia, arkis
Holmes' team: xeno, juni, garo, narron, raquel, barts, mahter, vega, maruju, kate
Most gold with runan to buy charms while holmes can get rich gambling
Some notable items include: far-healing, needle spear, one estoc, and ran's mirror with runan; save staff, +crit iron sword, killing edge, and HP+ potion with holmes
I think I ended up selling the knight proof
ch9 (5 turns): Deployed meriah, raffin, and zieg at the top of the map. Zieg put in a ton of work with wrath crits and stuff.
ch10 (7 turns): I wasn't aware that killing the armor knight would let you recruit mintz so I kept my units out of range of the northern enemies and missed him. I bought the dragon flute for Sasha.
ch11 (0 turns)
ch12 (3 turns): Picked up sylphid and lionel on the way. Attrom (and lionel, and shigen, and barts, and vega, and narron) need to gain exp quickly in holmes' chapters. Attrom got 5 kills here, lionel got 4.
ch13 (2 turns): Mahter had used a wlv+ at some point beforehand. Here I killed the mercenary to get the thunder sword then gave it to mahter to ORKO the boss.
ch14 (5 turns): Krishna helped shigen move to a better starting position. I think this chapter was pretty straightforward aside from getting exp for everyone. Attrom barely had enough exp to promote (12 kills so far), narron learned re-move early in the chapter, barts hit lvl10, vega was lvl9, shigen was just short of lvl10, lionel was lvl7. Macaroon even captured four enemies. Picked +mag, +str, +agi, +skl, and hero proof.
ch15 (1 turn): Promoted attrom recruited lyria on turn 1. Plum helped holmes move forward. Mahter moved forward. Then lyria refreshed both of them with a single sing (1% chance), mahter recruited frau, and holmes seized. Afterwards lyria ran the coinflip out of business and I taught my units a bunch of skills.
ch16 (9 turns): Used two save staff charges but it looks like I lost one of the save files. Not only did I rely on a sing refresh, the splitting and movement of the monsters can screw me over easily. I killed the nearby opus with the longbow and shigen killed the other one so I could promote him. I gave frontier fighter to Plum, Lyria, Holmes, Yuni, Marco, Vega, and Lionel. Holmes got the gatling bow from the bottom chest, yuni got the repair staff then the hero proof, Martin got the saint proof and knight proof. Lyria used an empower on Vega and refreshed yuni to reach the chest on turn 9. I think she also refreshed someone in the early turns (hence the save). I think Vega killed the boss then led the way to the top left. Lionel went to the top right. Plum helped get people to the top right and lyria helped get yuni to the top left. By the end of the chapter lionel was lvl10 and vega was well over; lionel and barts promoted after the map. In retrospect I'm not sure why I bothered promoting shigen when I could have promoted vega and deployed attrom instead of shigen.
ch17 (5 turns): Deployed raffin, esther, arkis, zieg, kreiss, sasha, meriah, and julia. I think zieg killed the boss and the ballista before helping with the escaping soldiers. Got the thunder sword, sage proof, arrowspate, +skl potion, hero crest, and magic shield.
-> If map 34 was a plains map like it claims to be, raffin would need to learn plains fighter here. But it's not, so he doesn't.
ch18 (4 turns): This chapter is a nightmare without the save staff. Deployed esther, arkis, sharon, kreiss, leonie, julia, meriah, tom, raffin, sasha, zieg, and shirou (everyone except billford). Zieg did the majority of the work in the chapter as he could begin attacking turn 1 and take advantage of wrath crits. Sasha and raffin helped out in the lower part of the fort, kriess died, tom did some chip damage to the gate. Several charms were used up. Barbarossa died to a starlight hit + needle spear crit from zieg. Got the hero proof afterwards.
ch19 (2 turns): I can't remember anything about this chapter
ligria fort (2 turns): Plum and lyria had city fighter. Lyria used pluspower on narron, narron broke the gate, plum danced narron, narron killed a harpy. Turn 2, narron killed a green ogre with a killing edge and waited in front of the boss. Holmes and Raquel killed a couple monsters from the fort and the battle ended on enemy phase. Made krishna a shopkeeper and stocked up on charms.
mummy map (1 turn): with plum and frau/mahter spawning in the perfect location you can kill all the mummies on enemy phase 1. If you've already given mahter the str+ they might not attack her due to her vantage skill.
ariel caves #1 (3 turns): Not only does an enemy have to spawn with earthquake for you to steal, you need to get good starting positions and possibly need a sing refresh to reach the chests. Holmes, yuni, lyria, and plum all need mountain figher and your combat units need to clear a path for them.
ariel caves #2 (2 turns): Just need a sing refresh to reach the north chest.
ch20 (2 turns): Deployed lyria and plum in position's 9 & 10. t1: moved holmes, moved lyria down+left to refresh from 2-range, danced lyria from below, moved lyria left of plum and holmes left of lyria. t2: killed gargoyles, moved holmes, sing refreshed, danced lyria, moved holmes, sing refreshed again, seized.
ch21 (5 turns): deployed narron, shigen, plum, barts, lionel, lyria. I don't remember the early turns but lyria used empower on narron, holmes, barts, and lionel before saving on turn 5. Barts and lionel went to the northeast corner, killing the summoner and one dark mage, trapping the other dark mage so it has to attack lionel from 1-2 range. Narron killed the summoners in the center group (with plum's help) then blocked the road. Holmes, one hit from death, equipped the longbow and positioned himself behind narron so the dark mages would attack him. The treasures were looted of course. Katri roasted the bottom left group and shigen finished off the last guy. Then holmes miraculously killed the dark mages and barts miraculously killed whoever attacked him. Barts' accuracy is terrible so maybe it would be better to deploy mahter instead and re-move her out of attack range on turn 5 so lionel can kill everything.
ch22 (1 turn): Narron and plum need plains fighter. With a +power boost narron OHKOed with an estoc crit.
ch23 (1 turn): For some reason I sung mahter then killed with two killing edge crits. But now that I'm looking at it again I don't see why I couldn't teach both mahter and lyria forest fighter, use empower on mahter (slot 8), dance lyria, sing mahter from 2-range, then kill with a single crit.
sealed bridge #1 (2 turns): Gargoyles spawned close enough for them to attack vega turn 2 enemy phase (and die to +pow shramm). Shigen died.
split #2:
Runan's team: plum, narron, lyria, meriah, raphael, vega, frau, mahter, sasha, barts, sun, raffin, esther, arkis, leonie, yuni, maruj, kate
Holmes' team: lionheart, muggle, attrom, raquel, tom, zachariah, lionel, sierra, garo, xeno, shirou, julia, billford, sharon
ch24 (5 turns): Everyone filled their inventory with charms. LOTS of charms. Plum and Lyria needed sea fighter. Turn 1 runan moveed forward, lyria moved beside him and sing refreshed, plum danced lyria, runan moved again, then lyria moved into a very dangerous position to sing refresh runan at 2 range. The air force removed the arbalest tank to let runan advance (with the main gauche equipped) and then raphael and narron moved to the danger zone to start fighting. The air force was mostly out of ballista range, with sasha carrying ran's mirror. Vega promoted. Turn 1 enemy phase was extremely dangerous but everyone survived thanks to charms and luck. Next I cleared out some enemies, full moved plum to dance narron, and sent the air force to take out a ballista so runan's path wasn't impeded. After that I kept moving runan, narron, and raffin (+ main gauche) towards the throne while the other units killed nearby enemies and kept out of danger (this would have been a good time to kill kate but I forgot). on turn 5 raffin killed the bridge key guy with an iron lance and narron crit the boss with the needle spear so runan could seize.
ch25 (5 turns): deployed narron, mahter, raffin, barts, raphael, maruj, plum, vega, lyria, frau, sasha, yuni. Maruj knew frontier fighter but I don't think he needed it. I sent the air force + barts and vega through the fortifications to clear the path for runan (the blue star iron sword helps here) while yuni searched the desert for a mag+, agi+, and pow+. Rebecca learned frontier fighter. The dracoknights didn't attack anyone. I didn't kill the north boss either, just lured him off the throne. On turn 5 lyria sing refreshed runan so he could seize.
ch26 (2 turns): Deployed rebecca, mahter, raffin, raphael, barts, arkis, narron, sun, plum, lyria, vega, sasha. Vega, lyria, and plum needed city fighter. Also used some charms. Turn 1 runan moved towards the boss, plum danced runan, vega moved toward the boss, lyria used empower on vega, and other units went to visit houses. Turn 2 visited houses and moved vega, sung vega with lyria, killed boss, danced lyria, moved runan, sing runan, seized. If sing isn't 3-range for whatever reason lyria can sing refresh vega on turn 1 and crit the boss.
ch27 (4 turns): Taught sierra city fighter and used stat boosters before the map. Without refreshers this takes 4 turns minimum so just kill stuff and get the chests.
-> This can be 2-turned with lyria.
ch28 (1 turn): killed the boss
ch29 (3 turns): Warped sierra to renee's area to kill the midboss with nosferatu. Lured the boss off the throne on turn 2. Recruited renee on turn 3 and warped holmes to seize.
-> This can be 2-turned with lyria.
ch30 (1 turn): warp. Taught holmes wrath and gave skills to other units e.g. vantage zachariah
morse tower (1+1+1+1+1 turn): warp. Captured thief swords on floors 1&2, evil thunder on floor 3, nothing on floor 4, and another thief sword on floor 5. Revived dead people.
split #3:
runan's team: plum, mahter, sierra, tom, raquel, frau, lionel, narron, sasha, raphael, yoda, raffin, vega, lionheart, sun, mel, rebecca, meriah, barts, yuni, leonie, esther, kreiss, arkis, lina, shirou
holmes' team: renee, lyria, zacariah, attrom, garo, marching, billford, sharon, xeno, maruj, julia, kate
notable items with holmes: rukuud, gatling bow, repair, a couple door keys
notable items with runan: basically everything else, including bridge keys
sealed bridge #2 (1 turn): exorcise staff, refreshed with lyria, exorcised the rest
ch31 (1 turn): empower zachariah, warp, killed zieg w/ rukuud crit
ch32 (1 turn): warped zachariah, sing refreshed, killed boss, warped holmes, seize
ch33 (2 turns): warp zachariah, killed boss once. killed boss again, got a sing refresh to repair warp, warped holmes, seized sword.
ch34 (2 turns): rewarped sierra, used statboosters and attacked with sylphid on t1 ep and t2. Flew over with raffin (holding goddess shield) and atackedwith luna. Used long range bows + thief swords on air squad to disable ballistae. Cleared path through tanks before killing ernst.
-> To 1-turn this with 0% growths, plum and raffin need to move 5 and 9 tiles respectively so raffin can attack ernst with luna. But they can't since this isn't really a plains map. I'd also need sierra to crit with god hand (thoron) with 40 hit and 3% crit so whatever.
-> to 1-turn this with growths I need movement growth. 10 move on lionel would work. Kill one tank with lionel's luna sword, kill one with narron and mahter's thunder swords, kill one with sierra, dance lionel, kill ernst with a luna crit, then seize.
ch35 (2 turns): Rewarped sierra to julius (gave her some charms) and danced raphael so he could finish with luna. Killed the mage blocking the way.
ch36 (6 turns): danced runan so he could reachs the house on turn 1, then waited around.
ch37 (5 turns): Deployed plum, mel, barts, sierra, yoda, raphael, lionel, rebecca, vega, yuni, and raquel. Plum, barts, sierra, vega, and yuni were tutored city fighter and others learn it naturally. Lots of things going on so I'll go through by character.
plum: move up to dance runan t1, move up to dance yuni t2, help raphael and yoda t3/4, then trade lan's mirror and dance sierra t5.
mel: not necessary, essentially a second rebecca. Can be substituted with a combat unit.
barts: move north then west. Goal is to unlock the bridge to the mag+ chest.
sierra: first warp to the bottom left to lure dracozombies. Then warp to kill the boss. Then kill the boss again. Then warp to yuni and use the mag+. Then warp to plum and earthquake. Plum will trade lan's mirror before dancing so sierra should warp near runan for the second earthquake. With 21 magic power (11 base + 3*3 + 1 might) most enemies are 2HKOed and the rest are severaly weakened.
yoda: kill nearby witches and move towards the summoners. Kill any remaining summons on enemy phase 5. (master sword should be plenty but one of yoda/raphael/lionel can use the luna sword)
raphael: kill nearby witches with master sword and move towards the summoners to help yoda.
lionel: move towards the dracozombie nest. Take a hit to fall to 1hp then kill stuff with wrath-boosted canaan spear / needle spear / pila / etc.
rebecca: summon to distract witches, save three times, and use far-healing if necessary.
vega: move towards the boss area to unlock the bridge. Then finish off a dracozombie straggler.
yuni: move to the mag+ chest. Get danced on turn 2, unlock first bridge on turn 3, open chest on turn 4.
raquel: go to the dracozombie nest and kill stuff with silver bow / arbalest / longbow / master bow
runan: move towards the sword. Get danced on turn 1, take the sword on turn 4, and kill the dragon scale dracozombie with a hit+crit on turn 5.
ch38 (1 turn): empowered holmes, warped to exit, killed with gatling bow.
ch39 (1 turn): rewarped and killed
ch40 (4 turns): sierra opened runan's door, got danced, opened sennet's door. Renee opened holmes' door then used exorcise as she went to meet sennet at the top of the map. Lyria used empower on holmes. Sierra warped around killing stuff and some combat units cleared the way of runan. On turn 4 sierra and alfred cleared the path with evil thunder and tornado. sennet moved to renee and got warped beside gerxel. runan walked up below gerxel and attacked. Holmes moved up, got danced, then attacked. Tia attacked last to finish him off. Runan, Holmes, and Tia needed 3 crits between their four hits but the crit %s are quite high as holmes has wrath.
total = 150 in chapters + 16 in encounters
Notable skill assignments
runan: sea fighter
narron: plains fighter
barts: frontier fighter
plum: plains fighter, mountain fighter, sea fighter, frontier fighter, city fighter
mahter: forest fighter
vega: frontier fighter, city fighter
yuni: mountain fighter, frontier fighter, city fighter
holmes: mountain fighter, frontier fighter, wrath
lionel: frontier fighter
merchant: frontier fighter
lyria: mountain fighter, sea fighter, frontier fighter, city fighter
sierra: city fighter
Notable stat boosters
runan: pow+ (better odds of killing dragonscale dracozombie in ch37)
mahter: wlv+ (thunder sword in ch13 and various other chapters, killing edge in ch23), pow+ (ch23, but unnecessary with empower. Lyria needs forest fighter though)
lionel: mhp+ (helps in ch37 especially)
sierra: wlv+ (earthquake and evil thunder), skl+*2 (accuracy), agi+*3 (doubling, e.g. ch37 boss), mag+*3 (earthquake power)
Promotions
narron
sasha
sasha
raffin
attrom
shigen
barts
lionel
vega
OLD POST:
I did a preliminary 0% growth LTC run of TRS recently (thanks to BBM for helping me change growths), taking a total of 160 turns in chapters and 19 in encounters. Thanks to Rin Nakai and dondon151, as I got ideas for a couple chapters from their playthroughs. Anyways, I'm planning on improving the run by using Lyria's sing to gain extra turns, potentially dropping the turncount as low as 153 + 16 [150 + 16]. I think that's the lowest reasonably achievable without using save states or anything like that (though the save staff will certainly be heavily used) [i don't think it can be lowered even with save states, the save staff is barely enough for everything], but it's based on a couple assumptions on my part. I'll write up strategies for each chapter when I do my final run, but I need to figure a couple things out first.
First of all, how does the sing command work? According to a formula I saw at fireemblemwod.com (speaking of which, the Serenes page on TRS has a bunch of inaccurate data and is also missing a lot) sing's reactivation rate is (times used/50)*2 + (support with Lyria/5) + 10, meaning the minimum is 10%. Is this accurate? It seems lower than that, but it's plausible that I've just been unlucky in my past experiences. And it also says the range of the command is (times used/5) + 1, with the maximum being 4. But the range definitely doesn't increase after 5 uses, and it can be visibly seen so it's not just me. So, how does it work?
And there isn't any restriction on reactivating Plum because she's a dancer, is there? That would be a problem. [seems to be the case] Similarly, is it possible to reactivate two units at once even with an untrained skill? [yes] I need a double reactivation (or a promoted Attrom, but I think that's impossible at that point) [promoted Attrom is barely obtainable] to 1-turn chapter 15 and I need a 2-range sing reactivation to 2-turn chapter 20.
Speaking of chapter 15, what happens if I kill Frau? She's in the way. Does Sun still join? [sun still joins. Not that she's ever useful]
Also, what happens if I kill off Mel before she leaves the party after chapter 7? Can I revive her at Morse Tower? If so, will she stay in the party for the rest of the game or will she leave? I really want another memory staff user for turn 5 of ch37 since I'm sending Lyria with Holmes this time. [Mel stays in the party if revived]
In chapter 25, how does the dracoknight AI work? I used a sacrifice (revived later) to lure them away from Yuni last time, but I'll have to put her in their range a turn earlier so I dunno how they'll respond. I did notice they tended to stick together even if they could attack more units by splitting apart but what determines which direction the leader goes? [they seem to follow the leader, but I'm still not sure how his AI works]
Do skills apply to multitarget tomes? Specifically, does the Life or Death skill affect Sierra's earthquake? [Life or Death doesn't seem to help. But I didn't have any problems with earthquake since I gave Sierra City Fighter.]
By the way, if you save before opening a random chest the result will be different each time. So you could technically get a skl+ and a pow+ in the ariel caves in exchange for merely a couple memory staff charges. But do you think that goes against the spirit of a 0% growths run? [i decided against it; it ruins the challenge, doesn't save turns, and it's a waste of precious save staff charges.]
Finally, I'm just not sure how standard "LTC" runs work. What are the typical rules? I tend to do 0% growth "ironman" LTC runs of most games (no resetting, delete file upon game over. I've been just above 180 turns in FE5 but would have a reasonable chance of a SS rank with a slightly riskier strategy in one chapter) rather than reset-crazy ones like this one, so I'm not sure how reliable something must be to be considered a viable strategy. I'll be doing a lot of resetting in many chapters, but there has to be some limit to the chances of strategies working. And I think RNG-abuse runs where you do seemingly illogical moves to capitalize on a fixed RNG are even dumber. And I'm also not willing to reset for a rare item drop from an enemy or anything like that, since they're an absurdly rare occurance (anyone have the numbers on that, by the way?). I mean, you could theoretically have Lyria and Sun sing and dance their way across every map in one turn but that's just silly.
Oh, I forgot to mention that 0% growths TRS is a lot of fun. TRS is great but the game's main problem is the lack of difficulty. For the most part, 0% growths makes your character strength more appropriately balanced relative to the enemy (honestly, it's still rather easy). What I'm doing is tedious, but I highly recommend 0% growths if you're replaying TRS.