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FE4 Chapter 5: Threshold of Fate Zaxon (turn 0) Ah. I thought otherwise because the wiki has "default growths" for the children listed, but looking a bit closer, those are just 50% (for boys) or 100% (for girls) of the mothers' growths. Agreed with this conclusion to the Rescue discussion. Your explaination why Daccar is killing his future subjects makes sense, and so does Ruben's idea that moving the whole tutorial to Orgahil would've made more sense.

I do wonder about that name, too. Unfortunately, the .org wiki (which usually has some ethymology on names) doesn't have a page for the Cross Knights specifically, and I can't find how their name in Japanese is pronounced. I wouldn't be surprised if it was Kreuzritter, but changed to Cross Knights in the translation to avoid (or at least somewhat cover) the obvious religious connotation, but "Cross Knights" still seems like an odd name in a world without christianity. She has a blazing 0 AS with the Hand Axe, too! Honestly, it simply was the easiest 1-2 range available to her that isn't really expensive. And since the Pegasi weigh themselves down to negative AS with their Javelins (barely - they have 17 Spd and Javelins have 18 weight), Raquesis even doubled and one-rounds them. Well, apparently, the portrait of the king of Agustria is going to be reused for some generic boss, too, so Kinbaith is in good company. Always funny to have an underflow bug in the wild. And I guess Dew was a lot more unlucky than I thought. I assumed that they always proc, since I'm pretty sure that's how it goes in Thracia - I remember that this is a central piece in recruiting Xavier. Something that I definitely won't make any promises towards. 10 procs / 22 level-ups = 45%. Yeah, that's pretty speedy. I assume Erin's the fourth, considering that we don't have a fourth named Pegasus rider. ...and yeah, the wiki confirms that. Honestly, since she's pretty low-level when she joins Sigurd, she really does feel a bit out of place in that line-up. -- My impression is that for the real elitist elitist, every resource has the same endpoint. His name is "Seliph". But no, I get what you mean, Paragon ultimately being a financial skill. The kids still have their innate growths, right? I don't want to look up right now how exactly growth inheritance works (it's getting rather late ), but in theory, it should've been possible to just crank up his innate Str growth by another 10% or so. Your explaination is still entirely possible, too, of course, although I would like to think that Aideen and Bridget's high stats in the respective useless Atk stat is supposed to show that they both would've had the capabilities to be in their twin sister's class.

In Turkey, a turkey is called a 'hindi'.

To be fair, it's quite in line with Daccar's general characterisation (he is not very smart). I think this could've been used better if Silesse had indeed been behind Zaxon, as I suggested in the update. Daccar moves to Silesse after André conquers it and actually threatens to kill Rahna when you come near. Or Daccar remains in Zaxon and, after you conquer it, turns out to be alive and bargains to be exchanged for Rahna, just to flee to Grannvale and appear as a minor boss in ch.5 - basically a shorter version of those traiterous Etrurian nobles in BinBla. Ruben's waifu (no worries, I'm not going to accuse you of liking an anime girl): But yeah, I agree with what you say about Lamia. It's consistently rare to find a woman in Fire Emblem that is allowed to be a villain instead of being vaguely Camüh-shaped. Petrine in PoR comes to mind, if you remember her. She even has some flirtatous lines with Greil as an additional parallel to Lamia, although Petrine of course has a much bigger role in her game, and is more brutish in her behaviour. Clearly, that is foreshadowing for just how disappointing Jahn's Long March is going to be as the last (real) map. And since I was just thinking about PoR - the Defend map right after Greil's death is another example, unless you're playing on Lunatic. On Hard, the challenge is to rout the map, ideally with non-Titania characters getting good XP. Staying alive is a simple matter. But still, the fight is followed by a cutscene of Ike almost fainting from exhaustion before Lethe and Mordecai arrive to save the day.

FE4 Chapter 4: Dance in the Skies [Thove/Sailane] --> Silesse --> Zaxon

For the narrative, the general layout of the map does make sense. Not-Bordeaux (I should call him Marseille) starts attacking once he gets word that Sigurd has beaten Maios, since that means that Sigurd is now much further away from the capital. It's nice that the villains are on the receiving end of some teleport bullshit for a change, too. I dunno, I find that ch.2 made a similar concept work much better. The long distances Sigurd has to travel are much less annoying when you can move your horsies a full screen worth of tiles every turn, as opposed to the frustrated movement in the Silessian forests, and I don't think it had ch.4's problem where there's literally zero pressure on you while you're only halfway to your destination. There are forcefields preventing her to actually move onto the land tiles, but the game is very charitable when it comes to Erin helping Claude and Taillte. This is right when they spawn, so Erin is able to immediately act as a frontline tank for them. Broadly agree with your points. I think the forcefield are particularly annoying in ch.4 because they linger for at least one extra turn (I haven't continued playing yet, so I don't know how this will work exactly) and I obviously can't say anything about the rest of the game, but I don't have a fundamental problem with them existing. I'm in two minds about the Critical skill - I do enjoy that you don't have the constant low% crit chances potentially screwing you over, like in the Akaneia games, but I don't like the multiple proc-based damage-increasing skills like Accost, Adept, Astra, which Critical in practise becomes one of. They add to the variance in Genealogy's combat, where almost every fight has like five potential outcomes with non-marginal probabilities, which I think is a weakness of the game. Wait a second... Why did I have Dew attack in melee-- Oh fuck, I'm an idiot. Turns out that when I reloaded the last turn of ch.3 to sell Ethlyn's Mend staff, I forgot that I had also picked up the Wind Sword on that same last turn. ...welp, minus one magic sword. That's annoying. The Wind Sword will only be available in ch.10, too. Good thing I didn't let Ethlyn take a magic sword with her, I suppose. It's pretty insane just how much micromanagement one can do with the arena Sigurd, Beowulf, and Erin could all go to 30-ish Def with the Shield Sword plus Shield Band. Definitely impressive, although I suspect that there's too many enemies that would ignore them to make that a good play. To be fair, christmas dinner can't really get much more awkward than Lewyn already makes it by being Lewyn. Nordion not being a warp spot is a bit annoying, yes. But as I said, moving units about is much less of a hassle if their movement isn't slowed down as much. If I recall, even Quan riding all the way from Anphony and Azel walking from Heirhein both managed to contribute vs. Mackily and Agusty. Seriously. He's making progress, evidenced by his realisation that some people might not enjoy being invaded, but he still can't overcome his instincts. But it really is a running theme that Sigurd achieves what he set out to do... and then just keeps on a-conquerin' for no good reason. Happened in Verdane, happened in Agustria, and now it's happening in Silesse. Dew is just a very fast swimmer

You can trust on Fire Emblem fans to always have the worst possible opinions. But seriously, that's wild. I found ch.2 to be the best map thus far, with ch.3 falling behind because of the Orgahil sequence. Ch.2's back-and-forth movement might look bad on paper, but with all the castles connected by roads, it really isn't, and I very much enjoyed how there was stuff happening all over the map. The only bad parts, as far as I'm concerned were Raquesis's body guards (specifically that they prioritise attacking enemies in their range over keeping close to her) and the Mackily ballistae on a cliff. Meanwhile, ch.4 is just a big nothingburger thus far. Move people east. Move/warp them back west. Presumably, move them next across the bridge (and a few mountain tiles, it seems, to make the movement extra annoying). Holy shit, I didn't even consider this. The southern path towards Thove is literally all mountain, what the hell. I think it's because the old beardmen (or the one old beardman with a Rewarp staff. I think I might prefer that headcanon) are providing some background in mythology, which obviously has to be done by an old wise man. And there are no old wise women because women tend to die young, while serving as pegasus knights. That arrow weakness is brutal. Thracia's 99 hit cap might come as a relief, compared to the effective 70-80ish hit cap against enemy barons. Very merciful of you that you don't have to sacrifice Joshua to recruit Ismaire in The Sacred Rubens. (wait, Joshua was playable as normal, right? Now that I'm typing this, I'm suddenly not sure, since I don't remember using him at all) Honestly, I get why they're there. It's more annoying here because they didn't vanish right the next turn after seizing Thove, but I can understand that they're a (somewhat brute-force) way to prevent the player from sequence-skipping with Erin. It's just a cost of having big, multi-seize map.

To be honest, the argument that you don't get your money's worth for the three Fates titles never had a leg to stand on, as far as quantity goes. Quality always has room to argue, of course. But if you compare Fates gameplay to the GBA games (plus PoR, arguably), Fates 1-3 seem at least as distinct from one another, even though they're all identical in their fundamental game mechanics. Birthright is overall the most simple game, Conquest has the most tight map design (also in the sense that it's more punishing if the player makes mistakes), Revelation maps tends to be more gimmicky. Obligatory disclaimer that this is just my observation from watching LPs. FE6-9 do have their little differences in their mechanics (SacSto's branched promotions and world map; PoR's much improved support growth system), but I would say that the biggest differences in "game-feel" come from their different difficulty and map/enemy design, not from the ability to promote Joshua into an Assassin. And as far as the story goes... I'm saying this as somebody who really dislikes most aspects of Fates's story (and the very concept of the golden Rev route), but despite the main villains being the same, the three routes still have very different structures. Certainly not a "Hector vs Eliwood mode" situation, where the same story is told just from a different point of view. And with CQ and BR mostly having their own casts of playable characters, you can't really complain about the overlap in supports, either. Not sure how the situation with Rev is in that regard, but I think it has at the very least a ton of romantic supports between Hoshidans and Nohrians? Again, not commenting on the quality, but I wouldn't be surprised if these alone would be larger in volume than the supports of any given GBA game (+PoR).

FE4 Chapter 4: Dance in the Skies Sailane --> Thove A couple scenes with the Black Fang, too. Brendan and Sonia sending the brothers after Eliwood is an example, unless I misremember. But I also don't think BinBla has any instances of this, so (outside of non-FE Kaga), BlaBla should be the first. Welp, RIP Lck in Genealogy. Weird that the devs still found the stat to be too powerful in and after DSFE. I guess the crit negation nerf in Fates makes sense because, if I recall, you also get this from pair-up? Just to make sure that you can't get out of crit risks too easily.

Further proof that BinBla is the Fire Emblem's peak. Even its apparent faults are for our own good.

Claude's entire trip to Grannvale is very "Tell, not Show". He tells Sigurd during Ch.3 that he will now return to Grannvale, but he (or Taillte) never leave the team. It makes sense for the gameplay (the two of them have the least amount of playtime already, alongside Bridget), and with there being a year of time between Ch.3 and 4, it's not a plot hole, either, but I think it would've flowed better if Reptor and Langbalt's assault on Sigurd in Agustria would've cancelled Claude's trip. Well, Lewyn and Erin have an instant-lovemaking-just-add-water conversation later this chapter, so I'd say it had already been Kaga's favoured pairing during Genealogy's development. For a blind playthough, I don't think Sylvia/Lewyn's head start is all that big, either. Yes, they spawn together as an isolated duo in Ch.2, but it's in the nature of a Dancer that she allows the people she refreshes to then leave her behind. Poetic, really. Silvia will still be a bit ahead of Erin when the latter joins, since it only takes 5 turns of non-adjacency for her to catch up, but likely not by too much. About the convo - that is possible, actually. Looking through the gen 1 chapters, there's never a blue unit that can initiate a conversation with more than one other blue unit. They might be able to be talked to by multiple characters (Sigurd in the prologue, for example), or have a blue-on-blue talk plus a talk to a differently-coloured character (Sigurd recruiting Ayra and Raquesis), but never a second blue-on-blue talk, not even one that is gated by a seized castle. It's not just the name - what Sigurd and his group know about the two Sigyns lines up nicely, too. Deirdre's mum? Fled the village, then returned 18-19 years ago (*) while pregnant, without telling anybody anything about what happened. Arvis's mum? After her affair with Kurth was made public "some twenty years ago" (**), she fled Grannvale never to be seen again. I think I can still maintain that if Sigurd, at any point, had remembered both these stories at the same time, it should at the very least have given him some pause. (*) Old village in Ch.1 says that Sigyn's daughter would be 17-18 years old at this point. (**) Quote from Filat when he visits Sigurd in Ch.2 In most games, it at least has crit mitigation, so that a character with abysmal Lck at least has this constant threat of low% crits looming above their head. At least Genealogy's +1 avo is generally more valuable than the +.5 hit / +.5 avo that I think Lck usually provides. Dangit, I wanted to make that joke when I read about Rahna's maternal vibes. Well, Sigurd only took three soldiers with him, so there should be plenty left I would imagine that Chalphy only has a minimal garrison left - same as Jungby and I assume the other duchies. The prologue unfolds as it does because everybody is blindsided by Verdane's raid and Jungby didn't have adequade defenses to stop it. Azel even says that Sigurd's effort to drive back Verdane is the last line of defense that Grannvale has, because the Isaach war is demanding all its attention, although he of course has ulterior motives (namely, he wants to go on an adventure with that hunk Lex). Actually, I like that one, contrary to what I said earlier in this post. Maybe even have Claude disappear if you talk to him with Sigurd - if the two are meeting up, the road is clear all the way to Grannvale, so he could even leave Taillte behind because she wants to zap some evildoers, and it's not like Claude needs the extra five turns between Sigurd talking to him and Sigurd seizing Orgahil to gain XP. Sending Claude to Belhalla would be a nice way of giving Arvis a little bit of screentime, too, by showing their interactions. I think I complained already that Arvis's role in the story is almost entirely developed in absentia, so one could add this (and maybe subtract Reptor revealing him as a villain to the audience) to present Arvis as a harsh and severe, but reasonable character, who agrees to relay Claude's revelations to the king who, how very unfortunate, currently isn't in a state to receive visitors because he's still in shock about the very unfortunate passing of his son, you see.

(Non-recruitable) Enemies have zero Lck Of course, I technically can't tell if that is true for arena opponents (other than Holyn), too, but Serenesforest explicitly says that it is the case. Now, I can't quite trust the numbers on that page, since I have found a few mistakes already, but because it's true for enemies on the field, and because I don't think I've seen an arena opponent (other than Holyn) with an odd avoid stat, I think it's pretty safe to assume that Serenes is correct about this. Nobody cares about bachelors. ...that's basically it. They're victims of my eugenics program, and specifically of my insistence on giving Patty, Fee, and Ced magical dads. It would be feasible (although most likely 100% headcanon) that Rahna herself is the Duchess of Sailane. It's likely that the king of Silesse would've married a noblewoman, so why not a duchess? "Thank you for letting us slaughter your enemies and plunder their riches" - Finn Well, the enemies of House Chalphy are also busy fighting a war in Isaach. And after Kurth's death, Reptor and Langbalt have an excuse to go kill Byron and Sigurd as a permanent solution, instead of occupying Chalphy's lands. But unless stated otherwise, it would seem likely that during the year that Sigurd spent in Silesse, either of the evil dukes would take it over. They control the king, so they would have the means to do so. Oo, and you don't even get a replacement in gen 2 if you don't grab it here. That does seem rather important.

Lewyn's excuse is rather thin, too. He ran away because his uncles would start a civil war about the succession... but why would the two of them not start a fight between each other, if both of them are willing to do so to grab the throne from Lewyn? So now there's still two pretenders, both of the with shaky legitimacy, and the third one who actually has a claim to the throne is awol. Good job, Lewyn. You didn't solve any problems, you just dumped them onto your mum. (the apostrophe is shift+"#" on the German keyboard layout. I'm only surprised that I don't make that typo more often)

FE4 Chapter 4: Dance in the Skies Sailane (Turn 0-1)

I do not think that anybody here intended to hate on you or your playstyle. You had framed your initial post as a guide - and while that doesn't imply that you're telling people how they must play the game, it presents itself as advice how to beat the game more easily, or more efficiently, or "better" in any other sense of the word. People have criticised your initial post under that assumption, and stopped after you gave the clarification that you were describing your personal playthrough. There is no hard feelings on my part, but I want to point out that it's quite rude on your part to describe the replies as "hate and arrogance" or, implied by your last reply, with a "close mind and bad attitude". You've put out your opinions, others have responded with theirs, generally in a polite tone and explaining why they disagree. I know and understand that it sucks when you put effort into something and it doesn't receive the feedback you were hoping for, but I hope you will be able to look at this thread later and see that it really didn't have much of a hostile atmosphere. Finally - warnings from a moderator really don't have a lasting impact. They expire fairly quickly, if I recall, and nobody but the mod team and yourself will be able to see them. Again, I fully understand that it doesn't feel nice to be told what (not) to do, especially when it's a rule that doesn't seem obvious (doubleposts is just something that's always been seen as rude in forum culture), but I would advise that the only thing you should take away from the warning is to not doublepost again.

Help! The numbers don't make any sense! __ From this fight, we can derive Senghor's hit and avoid: 58 + 20 (arena avoid) + 22 (Beo's avoid) = 100 hit. Steel blades have 60 innate hit, which puts Senghor at 20 Skl. 134 (Beo's hit) - 92 (disp. hit) - 20 (arena avoid) = 22 avo --> 11 AS. Steel blades have 6 Wt, which puts Senghor at 17 Spd. __ From this fight, we can derive Senghor's hit and avoid: 52 + 20 (arena avoid) + 28 (Jamke's avoid) = 100 hit. The ranged attack of the Flame Sword has the same innate hit as Elfire (80), which puts Senghor at 10 Skl. 102 (Jamke's hit) - 60 (disp. hit) - 20 (arena avoid) = 22 avo --> 11 AS. The ranged attack of the Flame Sword has the same weight as Elfire (12), which puts Senghor at 23 Spd. Do I have some obvious brainfart here, or is Senghor cheating? Both duels are neutral wrt the weapon triangle, and I'm pretty sure that terrain does reduce magic accuracy in Genealogy. -- edit: I get the same result for opponent #6, Nikias, a Warrior who either uses a Brave Axe or a Brave Bow. Like Senghor, he has the same hit and AS/avo with both weapons, with the stats on the wiki confirming to the Brave Axe stats I calculated, even thouth the Bow should be lighter and more accurate. Forgot to respond to this - If I recall, the XP requirement for a ranked run is very strict, so I think sending off Quan at Lv.17 easily counteracts his maxed out wife. Not to mention Deirdre at Lv.7, or the crew of Lv.7-8 (Noish, Alec, Arden, Dew - all outleveled by Taillte already) significantly hampering the effort. And even if I managed to grind them all to Lv.30 in the last two maps - I'm sitting at 13 recorded losses. I have been playing entirely without emulator saves, just as Kaga intended, so the deaths I have reported do stick to the save file.

Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Yes, absolutely. Answer with a bit more goodwill: I suppose it gives a bit of breathing room between Eldigan's death and the Grannvale legions appearing at the horizon. I beg to differ. News travels instantaneous in Jugdral. If it's convenient to the plot. Like, for example, if Mahnya had arrived to escort Prince Arsehole back to Silesse and allows Sigurd to join them out of her own initiative - that would make sense. Erin sent her subordinate to Silesse six months ago at this point, so it would be reasonable for the queen to start wondering what is keeping Lewyn this time. But instead, Lewyn's mom seems entirely informed about the situation in Grannvale/Agustria. Mahnya arrives with her orders to save Sigurd while he himself is still in shock about Reptor and Langbalt arriving. I dunno, maybe the next chapter will reveal that the ruling houses of Jugdral all use Palantíri to keep up with global events. Otherwise, this seems to be another example of Genealogy being very fucky about the passage of time. Oh look, another example of Genealogy being very fucky about the passage of time. (I genuinely like the story thus far, some minor hiccoughs notwithstanding, but Genealogy is really loose with its sense of scale - both in time and in the scope of the land and the armies) That is Minnie "Stroni" Goodsoup, a minor character from Curse of Monkey Island. Ah, I see. That would've been an elegant solution, were it not for a glitch-y workaround. I guess I'm being very lazy by keeping it on Ethlyn, aren't I? To be honest, I don't even know how useful Claude is even going to be. Most of Aideen's staff usage was pretty much just for the XP, although I will say that now that she has Physic and Claude has Fortify, they can make up for their low movement that way. Looking at it, Lewyn should also easily hit Lv.20 in the opening arena section, so that's another character who would appreciate a healing staff. And Raquesis wouldn't mind upgrading her Heal, too, since she'll hopefully promote on turn 0, or at least very early in the chapter, too, allowing her to basically work as Ethlyn 2.0. Not to mention that Erin is the only character who can join up with them and act as a frontliner very quickly. (Somebody should do a Claudie's Angels poster with Erin, Tailtyu, and Bridget) Wellll, the implication isn't so much that the dudes carved into the mountains were fascist, or proto-fascist, or anything of the sorts. I see it more as criticism of the deification of political leaders alongside the glorification of a nation's past. But that is a discussion that (a) is rather off-topic and (b) can turn ugly quick, especially with the reference to fascism in place. But who would the Pawnbroker sell them to? ...well, an overly rich, excentric collector. I'm not going to assume that it's not an actual in-game phenomenon that people can only buy weapons that they're proficient in. But one could argue that the Holy Weapons would be too spicy to buy and sell - imagine some random small-town art vendor having the Mona Lisa for sale. That would invite questions, even if it was properly bought from the Louvre (or whoever officially owns it). Chagall does an understandable act (the narration does state that Grannvale is exploiting Agustria) for a petty reason (Chagall's just mad that he isn't in charge). I think that's how I would put it. You could easily do most of ch.2/3 with a less awful king (although you'd have to find another trigger than Eldigan's imprisonment), with the main difference being that Sigurd would probably look a bit worse as the guy upholding the occupation. Oh look, another example of Genealogy being very fucky about the passage of time. I do think Finn is a bit more of a babyface than Alec and Noish. I think his portrait has a bit less shadow on the face than theirs, and his head seems to be a bit smaller. To be honest, despite the eugenics mechanics, Holy Blood still seems more like divine providence than proper Mendel-ing. Aideen and Bridget are identical twins, so it seems "logical" that they their bloods should have the same "level" of holiness, for example. So I'd be willing to accept that major blood still isn't an automatic pass to use the appropriate holy weapon and that it still requires some dragon deity to point its finger at you to allow it. Ah, that makes sense. In addition to the Observer's observation, the GBA games also have that hard limit. It regularly comes up in the fight against Murdock in BinBla, and I remember that somebody didn't have Vaida spawn in Cog of Destiny, most likely because of this, too.

Well, I say that the only FE game where supports add something to the main story is PoR Everywhere else, they're their own little world, not even necessarily a bad own little world, but they're generally very much separated from the actual plot of the game. Bonus points for Fates having its supports literally take place in a timespace disconnected from the physical world. (PoR also is a nice example where the main plot is a very bog standard "reconquer Good Kingdom from the Evil Guys", and most of the appeal comes from the racism subplot. You do run into that subplot in the main missions, though)

FE4 Chapter 3: Eldigan the Lionheart Silvail --> Orgahil I have to admit that I'm still mostly ignorant about what actually happens in 3H, outside of things that people meme about. But I had to appreciate the extra spice in "Edelgard = USA", considering that "Edelgard = Fascist" seems to be the great flame war instigator in the more passionate parts of the fandom. Did I ever mention that in Civ4, the requisite tech for building Mt. Rushmore is Fascism? Yeah, it's always worth remembering that Sigurd's actions are those of a conqueror. He always has a good reason - at least to do something, although I've been memeing on his readiness to land on "conquer yet another castle" - but somebody who doesn't know him personally is likely to assume after the fifth castle that Sigurd has been making excuses all along. Heck, Eldigan loses his faith in Sigurd at the end of ch.2. I do agree with your read being the most likely constellation. Chagall may have jumped the gun, but it's unlikely that Grannvale would've acted to defuse the situation, like, ever, considering that policy is being made by Langbalt and Reptor at the moment. Come to think of it - with Reptor and Langbalt approaching at the end of this chapter, it's an interesting question how Eldigan and (a less rash) Chagall would've reacted to that. Would Eldigan have helped Sigurd? It seems likely that he would want to, but it seems equally likely that Chagall would try to seize the moment and launch his reconquest while Grannvale is busy fighting itself.

Darn, BlaBla actually works against my point because it's a "30 years later" story that really doesn't work. (I do think that BlaBla does a lot of things very well, better than any FE game before it, but the overall plot is not one of those things) Yeah, I admit that I'm reading stuff into the tone of her surprise, which could be wildly different in Japanese. There's two important questions here that we can only speculate over: How do the Cross Knights feel about all this? Apart from the world's greatest guardsman, we don't see any of them on-screen, so we don't know if their prevailing attitude is "we shall die for Agustria's glory", "Fuck Chagall, we won't die in defense of that moron", or anything in between. I could argue that their loyalty seems to lie with Eldigan more than with Chagall or the central Agustrian government, but that would be purely speculative. How close was Sigurd actually to negotiate a settlement that would've returned Chagall to full control over Agustria? Both Sigurd and Eldigan act like they both firmly believe in the process, but the chapter's opening narration describes how Grannvale seems to entrench an abusive colonial-like rule over the parts of Agustria that it controls. How a "What if Chagall wasn't a petty dingus" or "What if Eldigan had an agenda" hypothetical would work out really depends on these. If Grannvale never had any intention of returning soveraignty to Agustria, the entire drama could've just gone down another six months later. I don't think Deirdre is at fault for her kidnapping - no, she really couldn't have expected Manfroy's bullshit powers, or even just Manfroy being after her. She was just irresponsible in a general sense, leaving her son behind to reunite with Sigurd. I do understand her action - she established earlier that she had a premonition of danger should she separate from Sigurd, so her urge to reunite with him is more than just "because she loves him so much". But she is irresponsible when she foists the responsibility for Seliph on the 10-year-old Shanan (and I don't think that the "lucky" outcome for Seliph changes that - betting all your savings on red is a bad idea even if you end up winning), and she is reckless when she runs, alone and unprotected, from one castle to another in a fucking war zone. You're right, Darin is a much better comparison than Narcian, who only really matches Chagall in the "incompetent villain" checkbox. Honestly, I still like Eldigan. The way he goes out is disappointing, but up until this chapter, he's been quite reasonable (as long as we assume that he just didn't know about Chagall's attitude before the start of the game) and his growing tensions with Sigurd were established quite well - starting with "OK Sigurd, why are you occupying Verdane? (...) Ah, makes sense" in ch.1 and going to "what the fuck, dude" at the end of ch.2. I'd probably put the Reed brothers above him, maybe Zelgius (don't remember RD's story details well enough to make that call), but I think I'd put him above the rest of these fuckers. I'm sorry Ruben, Lot is fucking dead also. I unfortunately don't remember the details, but somebody in the Teehee thread pointed out to me some time ago that an "Edelgard is representing US-American imperialism under the guise of bringing freedom meritocracy to the world" shitpost would have some serious potential, down to one of 3H-landia's countries having oil reserves.

It's a missed opportunity for sure. Quan introduces himself as one of the Three Amigos, but the dynamics on screen are almost entirely Sigurd <-> Eldigan, with only a little bit of Sigurd <-> Quan on the side. "What do you want to hear first, the bad news, or the really bad news?" I'd say it would be quite possible to do a FE story with two generations and without Rocks Metors Falling in the middle (and also without time travel or hypothermic thyme lambers). Sigurd succeeds on the surface, but Manfroy manages to remain hidden, and when Shit goes Down, say, 20-25, or even 30 years later, most of the gen 1 characters are simply too old to return to the battlefield. A longer incubation time would also allow for a bit more age variation in gen 2, although a 30yo Seliph as a protagonist would probably go against the laws of anime. Right, I didn't notice that, although now I remember this being brought up in the thread earlier. Their relatively high growth in the respective useless stat of Str/Mag is a cute little hint that they both would've had the aptitude to be a priest or an archer. It's certainly a convenient happenstance, allowing Claude to explain what that strange staff in his inventory does. About the "only heir" thing - I don't think this has ever been outright stated in the game thus far, but my impression was that there's always only one heir with major blood per generation, who can actually use a specific holy weapon. But now that I'm writing this - the sword twins both have major Odo blood if Chulainn is their father, right? That would disprove the theory right away. And that even though everybody knows that FE6 is the superior Elibe game, smh my head. Honestly, since the world map isn't a pre-existing setting that Genealogy takes place in... Unless it will be a plot point that Sigurd will have to go through pirate territory between chapters, the map could've been rearranged, too. Put Madino to the west, let the pirates come from that direction (with or without their own castle), put Sylvail to the north of the map.

FE4 Chapter 3: Eldigan the Lionheart Madino --> Silvail 4/15 = 26.7%, so that's still kinda passable by Genealogy's standards. But yeah, he's still not exactly inspiring terror in the hearts of man. Fun fact, relevant to Jotari's answer, too: Because arenaing didn't fit into Beowulf's tight schedule of stalking Raquesis because of Eldigan's appearance, Beo hit 50k when there still were a few generic enemies available to steal from. Meanwhile, Dew is sitting at zero gold, with a broken Iron Sword, right when there's a bunch of pirates he would've been able to steal from. That kind of micromanagement - which seems great at first, but then falls flat on its face once you zoom out a notch - is what my typical gameplay looks like. Yeah, the idea must be that Azmur trusts Claude, or that Claude assumes that his reputation will make sure that he can't just be dismissed. But there could definitely be a story about a corrupt descendant of Bragi abusing the fact that nobody can ever fact-check his insights. I think I would expect a different answer from Deirdre in that case - more along the lines of "Who is Sigyn?" or "You know who my mother was?" The way Deirdre does react reads to me like she isn't surprised to be called "Sigyn's daughter" until she realises that there doesn't seem to be a reason why this complete stranger would know that. It's a bit of a knock on Eldigan that he's knowingly leading them to death. By contrast, Jarod knows that the senate would disappear all witnesses, so he tells his men that while they're going to die anyway, they might as well have their revenge first - the Cross Knights aren't in the same position, despite Chagall's pettiness, and Eldigan doesn't even stop to consider if he can somehow keep them out of this.

If there won't be a Rocks Fall Everyone Dies ending for the playable villain cast, too, I'll be severely disappointed! (I don't know what your angle for the plot is, but if the player's goal is to revive Weirdly Spelled Demon Lord, this doesn't even sound too far-fetched)

How dare It sounds interesting (and challenging!), although I'll have to wait before checking it out. Ruben recommended a blind-ish Thracia run. I think he might hate me

...just the medieval fantasy version. Ah. Well, that answers that question. To be fair, you were both beaten by somebody else already. I remember reading that little piece of trivia in this thread. (Although it's possible that it was one of you who mentioned it earler, of course) It's an interesting question how fucked Sigurd is through events and plots outside of his control, and how much he is fucking himself over. Like, Langbalt and Reptor and the Young Men's Loptyrian Association have been plotting against Sigurd and Byron (or have bigger plots in which Sigurd is in the way), and it's questionable how much opportunity Sigurd would've had to defend himself against them. But at the same time, his friendship with two powerful figures outside of Grannvale (and military support from one of them) give Langbalt and Reptor's plot ample ammunition, while his "all I have is the Seize button" way of dealing with problems is alienating Eldigan. Sigurd is definitely dealt an awful hand, but he's still playing it really badly, too. #FairAndBalanced