Water Mage

Since this your first time playing, I think you should keep things simple. You could do with the one Emblem Blade mentioned, but it's a bit to much for someone who is just beginning. I would advise a class that lets you keep your sword rank like Samurai, Cavalier or Mercenary, and since you're in Birthright, you should choose Mercenary or Cavalier, as can obtain Samurai from other characters. If you choose Mercenary, your boon should be speed, as mercenary aren't very fast. If you chose Cavalier your boon can be either strenght or speed. Both work. As for bane, you should go with either luck or defense, however there are many fragile units in Birthright so a -def Corrin could be a little difficult. -Luck hurt your offenses, but it's very little.

About boon and bane: Most people recommend +Spd because speed is always good. But +Str and +Mag are also pretty good too. -Lck is recomended because is the one that hurts the stats the least. The class you should choose depends on your boon and bane. Do you want your Corrin to be physical or magical unit?

Where does it say that Azura has the same rights as them? As far as I know, Azura is despised by many Hoshidans, and some don't trust her. They even send assasins to kill her! Giving retainers to someone so widely disilked by people of court would obviously cause problems for Mikoto and Ryoma.

Yeah, I think that conversation with Niles might have been an oversight of the developers. Another interesting thing is that Flora's and Felicia's father, Kilme, is know for showing favoritism towards Felicia. Maybe because he favors Felicia, he might have chosen not to tell Felicia the truth, and placed the burden only on Flora.

To be fair, since Ryoma didn't give Elise the medicine, it was obvious that the next choice was to take it by force, and Corrin's army also couldn't ignore an ocuppied castle by enemy forces, so Ryoma's soldiers were going to fight one way or another. Nohr's and Hoshido's relations are already pretty bad by the time game starts, it's obvious that Hoshido doesn't have the option of diplomacy anymore, Azura's kidnapping is a prime example of that.And believe me, a martyr can actually do more harm than good. In a country like Hoshido, it works because the people loved the royal family and it was a clear act of aggression from Nohr. In Elise's case, she part of the Nohr royal family, which is despised by the people of Nohr, and Elise's death by illness would be the result of Nohr's actions, because Nohr if hadn't attacked Hoshido, Ryoma wouldn't have a reason to deny Elise medicine. And even if it spurred the army to fight harder, they would be driven by emotion, and when people are driven by emotion, they tend to act rashly and stupid.

I was reading the OP again, and something struck me as odd. You said that Ryoma should have given the medicine as an act of goodwill. Anwser me this: Why would Ryoma do that? Hoshido didn't anything wrong. If they are invading a Nohrian castle, it was because Nohr attacked first. All of their actions are essentially in self-defense. If anything it's Nohr that should of offering an act of goodwill. In other words; there's still no reason for Ryoma to save Elise's life. And besides, there's no reason to take Elise hostage, Elise is actually more useful dead rather than alive to Hoshido, as her death would obviously affect the Nohrian royal family, who command the army. It may sound evil, but letting Elise die a slow, cruel and painful death is actually a pretty sound strategy, as Xander, Camilla, Corrin and Leo, who leads the armies of Nohr, would obviously be distressed and that would lead them to let their emotions get the better of them, which would lead them to make hasty decisions, bad planning and simple mistakes, giving Hoshido the upper hand.

Like many others, I'm sick of explaining this all the time. Here's a better and more interesting question: What if victim wasn't Elise? What if the sick person was Camilla? Or Xander? Better yet, what if it was Garon? I think the major reason people critcize Ryoma in Chapter 12 is because the victim is Elise, the "cute, innocent little sister". Who the game expects you to feel sorry for.

Ironically, as I said before, Nohr's motivation for invading are explained in Birthright, in Chapter 22 to be more specific. It's actually an interesing reason, that could haven been used more.

Honestly Felicia's, Gunter's and Jakob's skill are actually incredibly useful in earlygame Lunatic.

Dwyer's skill may be only be activated on castle battles,, but it can be pretty useful when it's used. There are units with much worse personal skills than Dwyer, like Saizo and Selena. It's almost impossible for Selena's skill to be activated, and Saizo's is just plain bad, especially on a fragile class like ninja.

You're reaching to the chapters I like to call the unholy trinity. Chapters 19, 20 and 21. It's nothing storywise, but the gameplay of these chapters can be hell for the unprepared. I would love to see your reactions to them.

Skills aren't really important, because you can simply buy one from others players's castle. There's even a thread here for that. As for stats, Setsuna would make Asugi fast, however she hurts his defenses too much, and what Asugi really want is offensive stats. Asugi's magic growth is actually higher than his strenght growth, so giving him a magic mom like Sakura or Felicia is a good idea.

That's probably the reason why the Royal Sibilings only have two retainers.There are already 16 units are retainers to the Royal Sibilings, so giving them even more retainers would be a little to much.

She still is a hostage, why would they give her personal servants and soldiers? There were probably people spying on Azura, and reporting to Yukimura and Mikoto, becaus she is a prisioner. Again, why would you give servants to a prisioner. Also, Kagero is the only non-Corrin retainer that looks after Corrin. None of the other retainers are said to be looking specifically after him. In Birthright the Hoshidan retainers either join Corrin with their lords, or they join Corrin's army to look for their lords. And while in Conquest the retainers join to help Corrin, to be fair, in the beginning of the path, Corrin is sent to do battle with a very small force, so it's not really strange that his sibilings sends people they trust as reinforcements.

The other royals probably have a lot more retainers as well, we only see most of Corrin's retainers because he is the main character. Also, Azura doesn't have any retainers because no matter how much the Hoshidan Royals treat her as family, she still is a war prisioner. It would be weird for a war prisioner to have retainers.

While I do like Laslow and Peri's support, the fact that their support is faster than normal is because all retainer pairs require less support points to reach the next rank. For example Azama and Setsuna support rank grow faster with each when compared to other characters. It's the same with Laslow and Peri.

I think it's easier to say that both Gunter and Xander were Corrin's battle instructors, but Xander, being the Crown Prince, probably didn't have enough time to fully train Corrin. Also, it's not really strange thay Flora and Felicia are at the Fortress. The Northen Fortress is essentially a prison for Corrin, so why not use that place for other war prisioners?

Really, really fun, and really really good! I finished all the stories and evolved all of the Warlords as well. I would love a sequel! However this game was also the reason there wasn't a PokemonxFire Emblem crossover. IS did thought about making a crossover, but saw this game and gave up on it.

Shura's actually a good unit, so there's need to kill him honestly.

You know, I've heard that the reason the games are easier nowdays is because a lot of parents in Japan complained about the 4th Gneration games being to hard, and their kids couldn't complete it. Ever since Black&White they are making things easier. The reason the Battle Frontier didn't show up was because it was deemed to hard.

Y-You played Shadow the Hedgehog? As someone who played it blind, I know the pain, I offer you my condolences. Seriously, I have never been so disapointed...and I even wasn't a big fan of Shadow, but even I think he deserved better.

I'm pretty sure it's It was mentioned in Revelations.

Let me guess, Hinoka's gloating because she had Corrin's daughter.

This is great! Thanks! I know it wasn't easy! Now I can hear Kaden's mad laugh anytime I want to!

I really don't think Birthright's story is bad, because as blah said, it's coherent. And Corrin stays true to the personality he showed in the first 6 chapters, where in Conquest, he seems like a completely different chapter. And it's ironic, but Birthright actually makes Nohr more sympathetic, and it shows more of the country. The Nohr sibilings are also more interesting in Birthright.