Interdimensional Observer

Selectable multiple AIs was a thing in some of the old Advance Wars -but only for Versus Mode, the War Room/Trial Maps and the Campaign didn't have this. You could pick Standard- a balanced AI, Defense, Attack, or Aggressive- a really ignorant of caution version of Attack. Super Famicom Wars their predecessor had several AI options in the form its different COs. Yuan Delta was Balanced, Rojenski was Balanced-Incompetent, Fon Rosso was Offense, Name & Face-Tweaked IRL Dictator was Defensive, and the three super-strong COs were all Balanced-Smart.

I'm thinking it would've been an intentional little reference. The game did include the Neilnails in a Time Attack Mission and a Squad Mission, which is weird when they scrapped the unknown story role they were planned to have at some point. Ruler of Fates. Not sure why they opted to give it two distinct titles.

Genealogy Gen 1 could make a -lousy- attempt at harnessing some generic "dark medieval fantasy" energies. And speaking more seriously, it is a game that could greatly benefit from the slowdown that a multiple-seasons show could provide. The SigurdxDeidre romance would be made better by it, since there ought to be plenty of downtime between chapters available in a TV show that a game can't have which would help with that. Likewise, we could get glimpses of court politics back in Belhalla and the Issach Campaign, thereby helping the no-characters of Prince Kurth, Prince Marricle and Duke Ring, as well as Byron, Andrei, Lombard & Langobal & their children, and Arvis. As a result of the Second Generation being less defined and much happier, I'd end at the end of Gen 1 instead of continuing the show. It'd otherwise easily become so disparate.

According to the Wiki, there is actually a Tyrant other than the greatest one that is acknowledged as being named. Apparently, a Wrothian NPC at night at the Oblivia stronghold named Da Zeulbe mentions "Bruno, the Iron-Fisted". Although, this Tyrant doesn't actually exist in the game, it's a Simius that showed up in a pre-release version of XCX, but was snipped out of the final product. Not sure if they'd speak of this in the postgame if you wanted to check this yourself. I'd actually take a main male character who swears themselves to celibacy. Could be interesting having one that never gets laid not because they're as oblivious as a rock, but because they don't want it. Plz no "woman shoving herself in celibate dude's face b/c she wants to seduce him" tho', dat would be bad.

Considering the game was (alongside Baten Kaitos EWatLO) my first real dive into non-Mario or Pokemon or Quest 64 RPGs, I do have a certain fondness for its elemental system (and Summon Spirits). It's mostly Water-Lightning thats an oddball pairing b/c it'd seem lopsidedly in Lightning's favor, although I've heard pure H2O without anything in it (salts, fleshy organisms) isn't actually that conductive. It's not the only oddball elemental pairing I've encountered in gaming of course.: EWatLO paired Wind with Chronos- time & gravity. That doesn't make any sense besides a tiny excuse of Wind being "uplifting" and gravity being a downer. Though I did like the inclusion of Chronos as a standard element, kinda cool. (Only for BK: Origins to do away with it and Wind and add Lightning.) Arc Rise Fantasia's secondary elements are instance of oddities. Each secondary element is comprised of two non-opposite primary elements. Light consists of Fire + Wind, and Dark is Fire + Earth. Therefore, the two classic starkly contrasting elements of good and evil, are not true opposites. The total opposite of Light is Water + Earth = Ice, and the total opposite of Dark is Water + Wind = Lightning.

The four elemental associations are Fire-Water Light-Dark Earth-Electric Wind-Ice Using the opposite means you deal more damage to that enemy, not sure if the enemy would deal more damage to you. Note- enemies in their name-HP bar display show what they're weak to, not what they are. I get your confusion. Wind & Ice is a little weird- cold winds exist as much as hot winds do. Although an alternative of say Fire-Ice, Water-Electric, and Wind-Earth (Tales of Symphonia), isn't a whole lot better, Water has no logic to being effective on Electric. The core, tiny, issue here I say is the division of Water & Ice into separate elements. If Ice and Water are one element, then Fire can technically be effective on the former and weak to the latter. Thanks for bring that back into my mind. I've heard of that modern sci-fi-ish human weather control method before, but wasn't connecting it here.

They do have a conversation, but they don't know who they are to each other during it.: We haven't a clue about Silvia's choice. The conversation says Silvia dropped Lene off around the age of two as you see, which means Coirpre could've been born and dropped off by this point too, but Lene clearly doesn't remember it, which throws that possibility into question.

Considering the Titans upon whose backs you walk are living creatures, there is little that isn't alive. Be fortunate none of them have gigantic white blood cells or something that'd eat the pests on their backsides.😛 --- Although speaking of the Cloud Sea, I've an inquiry about its salinity. Clouds IRL I don't think contain a whole lot of salt, if they did, then why would rainwater be safe for us to drink and plant life to soak in? Can clouds exist that contain unsafe-to-drink saltwater levels of salt? Do the clouds atop the Cloud Sea contain little salt because, salt being too heavy to float in clouds, most of it sinks into the unclouded water beneath it? Most organisms not found in saltwater need freshwater to live. Given Titans have organic interiors, there can't be a tremendous water table or underground aquifers, so I'm concerned about freshwater supplies for all inhabitants of the Titans. Clearly, everything is sustainable since life has existed for untold eons in Alrest, and IRL people have lived on little islands for thousands of years where freshwater supplies I'd expect to be quite limited. But I like to think about this kind of stuff.🚰

Didn't feel like Sakuna today, with me approaching the end, I wanted to savor it on the big screen (I'd expect I'd need another two or three non-binge play sessions to finish the game however), and wanted to save my TV for inhaling every vapor of hope for this country I can on this happy day. As it the antiquated saying goes, "pick your rosebuds while you can". Instead, I popped up the 3DS and played Advance Wars: Dual Strike during the ceremonies. Sensei is great on small to medium maps with an airport, he has been fun. On the other hand, more of the COs are "eh" than I remembered, so many weak or nonexistent day-to-days, given I'm quite conservation with my CO Power usage, they're rather dull. When there is only five regions, and you insist on having diverse enemy levels in every one of them, it somewhat makes sense that would happen. Personally, Primordia wasn't that deadly on my second run, maybe it was on the first and I've forgotten that, curiosity in a game you haven't experienced before is a serial killer. FrontierNav colors every map hex according to the strength of its enemies relative to you ATM, that cuts down somewhat on the surprise deaths. Yet I acknowledge the color coding ain't perfect, some enemies slip into wrongly-colored hexes, and sometimes getting to where you want to go likely means passing through a spot of strong enemies. Monolith was stupid and abolished it as "unnatural" or something.😟 With the DLC being yours, you can turn off enemy aggression entirely in the menu at any time though, if you really need to. But if you do that, don't forget to turn it on again later if you want.

Somehow, I missed it that you did this chapter when I commented yesterday. I don't exactly like it. It's tedious and slow if you don't ferry units around to the different boats, waiiiiting for the Cammy ship to become approachable by foot, wherein a Berserker could potentially force a reset. Bad map design. This said, it's not so terrible to me, because you can easily 2-turn this map via pairing Subaki to Azura and Reina to a boss killer. This is what I've usually done, there isn't a major reason to not go fast, not like there is any treasure you have to take your time to nab.

I wouldn't say all enemy stats do, but did you take any particular notice of generic Master Ninjas this early? It's promoted enemies with decent stats before you have a full and fully competent team that adds a little toughness to early Rev.

Well, it isn't like the old schools of thought always go away when the new one arises. You still have Americans who tout the Cold War as American heroism against a villainous USSR as if it were an epic fantasy, Ronald Reagan being a glorious crusader and the various countries in Europe having their own patron saints like Thatcher in the UK, Kohl in Germany, and Pope John Paul II in Poland. That people far to the Left (too far) still regard America as the sole villain is to be expected, there are still some Marxists out there, not a lot in the West, but a few. A professor once informed me that interest in Marxism in the West declined following the collapse of the Soviet Union- clearly that kind of thinking was totally wrong for a system built around it to suddenly die. But then the 2008-9 Great Recession led to a new bump in popularity for Marxism, because the Great Recession was the result of unregulated capitalism run amok. Good luck! These chances are sure to be highly competitive. So carpe diem and break a metaphoric leg!

"I conclude then this point touching upon the power of kings with this axiom of divinity, That as to dispute what God may do is blasphemy … so it is sedition to dispute what a king may do." – King James I (of England, also known as James VI of Scotland) Just throwing in a quote I've found cited in one video game I've been playing. It pops when up you unlock the Monarchy government in said game. The game's Wikipedia-esque entry on Theocracy is as follows.:

Think of it like this, the first draft of history is rarely perfect. Usually, someone needs to come in and proofread for errors later on. These can be technical details, like reexamining the number of soldiers brought to a particular battlefield- maybe the one gargantuan loser wasn't so gargantuan after all, and has been left inflated because it made the little guy seem more awesome for the "fact" that they won over the huge numbers. Sometimes, it's adding in new evidence that prior historians didn't have, perhaps some new archaeological finds. Or, it could be factoring in perspectives the prior histories left out of the story, perhaps because bias. Would expect the ancient Greeks to write a reputable biography of the Persian King Xerxes aka "Mr. Thermopylae"? You'd want to look at what he actually did for his country if you wanted a full perspective on the man, not just the handful of foreign invasions he ordered. I'm pretty sure the first generation of American historians didn't concern themselves about the role of women, African property, and native savages in the very first take on US history. Even among the white men, with regards to the American Revolution itself, the first histories were written by mostly New Englanders and hence they largely ignored the happenings of the Revolution outside of it. History for centuries was traditionally concerned mostly with politics and wars, or "great men". Then in the mid-late 1800s, Marxist history became a thing, which emphasized economics and socio-economic-political systems as the driving force of history, downplaying the importance of individuals as just cogs in the machines. There are those who reject all historical revisionism as "political correctness", thats the usually the mindset of those of certain conservative viewpoints. However, revisionism in history is not inherently bad, it all ultimately boils down to the strength of one's arguments, revisions backed by strong evidence have reason to be generally accepted. The Cold War is usually regarded as having three phases of in its American/Western European historiography. To offer a simple breakdown.: Phase 1- The Soviet Union started the Cold War, the West was merely defending itself in response to Russian aggression. Phase 2 "The Revisionists"- Came about in the late 1960s and early 1970s, part of the whole counterculture movement on the Left that wanted to defy authority. Threw all the blame on the US & Western Europe as the big evils and claimed the USSR was totally innocent. Not exactly the best revisionist work🤨, but they did have a point. Phase 3- Cold War was inevitable and both sides bear some blame for it. It takes into consideration the contrasting evidence used by the two prior schools of thought. You don't have to read any of the above.😀

Of course thats what usually happens. Public schools be usually incompetent (unless you have good teachers and or a natural interest in a field- I met both of these criterion) and end up having to save everything to the universities to resolve, if they ever are. My Master's in World History often required me by the end of the course to write a ~15-page historiography- the history of the study of history. I picked a topic, and then had to dissect, and compare and contrast the different interpretations of history on that topic which have emerged over the years (which meant reading or skimming like ten books and some academic articles per paper which I footnoted to the moon). Unfortunately, I cannot shove any of them in your face, because they're all stuck on my practically-defunct old computer whose hard drive I've yet to extract data from and probably never will b/c laziness. Then again, maybe I could access my old university email and find a copy of my very final exam, half of which discusses the Cold War and its temporal and geopolitical scope.😛 I haven't done anything with my degree yet, nothing at all, nor am I currently looking for a job in the presently-downturned economy (yet, I've had years to look). But don't be me, I lack for serious forethought and motivation to be anything in life other than a vaguely-defined modest existence.

@Jotari You edited the wrong post! This isn't Serious Discussions! Thanks for the laugh tho'!🤣

😡 You have the audacity to say that when I'm here. I didn't earn my degree in the field based on strict memorization of chronology, I'm terrible with that. Every field does call for some measure of memorization, you can't engage in evolutionary biology and suddenly forget what DNA is. Application of information matters! In the case of history, it's how you use that information to construct an argumentative narrative based on reputable evidence of what actually happened in history, and the implications of what it means if your argument is indeed the of truth of what happened. If we're talking the history of Babylon, that doesn't have a real impact on the modern world, but if we're talking American history and say slavery, then yeah, the veracity of the arguments sorta matters.

I can tell I'm almost done with Sakuna, barring any postgame this game might have. I think I'm on my ~12th Year, which is a little surprising, it feels longer than that. I can under no circumstances get distracted right now, particularly another Switch game, else I'll leave it undone for perhaps forever sorry I never got back to you Luigi's Mansion 3. This has happened to me with all kinds of video games since... *checks the original release date of Tales of Symphonia* circa 2004, maybe 2005. I used to think it was "I enjoy the fantasy, and by the finishing the game, I end it, and so I don't want to finish the game, so that the fantasy never dies". But it's clear to me now that that can't explain it. I gave up on trying Ryoma solos on Lunatic. Swords were always too scarily accurate, and the Weapon Triangle meant either Lances & Daggers or Axes & Bows always stood the chance of forking him over. Not to call Ryoma weak, he can be a good dodge tank, but I found him situational. Guard Naginata on a Spear Master Hinoka is where the reliable Hoshido tanking was at -minus Berserkers. To add on to this, while various jobs IRL do crunch numbers, that isn't what actual mathematicians primarily do. Mathematicians don't calculate math problems and then check an answer sheet to see if they were right. We're long past that phase in human history, if it ever actually was a thing, which I doubt. Proposed mathematical theories, postulates, and other constructs have no answers that readily exist. You think about the infinitude of numbers, you search for some form of order within them, you express that order in the form of actual words and or a mathematical formulae, and then you carry out many tests to determine whether that construct you've proposed is Truth that reflects reality, or is invalid trash due to having holes in it. If treated like this, math really is an empirical science I would think. However, whereas with physics, chemistry, biology, and environmental science is it possible to readily observe the physical world and then test a hypothesis it gives you, the realm of math is the realm of the immaterial and requires a very specially attuned mind to see in physical reality the basis for a mathematical hypothesis, much less test it. And as for engineers and the like, I'm not sure if you could say their jobs are really about calculating either. Yes they do calculate, but is that the hardest/most important part? If I'm an architectural engineer, I can throw the numbers and formulae I need for determining whether a building survives an earthquake into a calculator. But, how do I determine what dangerous forces an earthquake emits that must be thrown into the math, and how strong those forces are, and what measures do I have to design into a building to mitigate those forces, and how do I independently confirm the efficacy of those quake-mitigation structures and materials (whilst not compromising the building's structural integrity and overall design)? Thats a lot harder I would think, a calculator can't answer those questions. This leaves me wondering how math could possibly be more effectively taught beneath a collegial level. How do you get children to engage in abstract critical thinking? *Sigh* I guess one cannot abolish number crunching then, have to introduce math to kids somehow, even if it is totally wrong for the mathematician or any other math-related job.

I'm not entirely sure this would be terrible. Although, I'd consider adding mobile bonfires in some capacity. Either as special generic units who you can control and are apart from your standard deployment slots; or a special item your characters can carry around, albeit preventing them from attacking, counterattacking, healing or anything else while they hold the precious fire, which requires an entire action to take up or drop. Thinking on it, you could do this without the need for a blizzard too. The notion of mobile bonfires makes me think of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles and its infamously bothersome chalice which must be lugged around b/c if you aren't in its zone of protection, the miasma that fills the game's world will start to kill you. And that, reminds me of Metroid Prime 2 and the corrupting atmosphere of Dark Aether. And that reminds me that when Samus in the embrace of a Light Crystal, she is healed over time. Which makes me think that, in your hypothetical "damaging blizzard" scenario, taking one to three consecutive turns 5 points of blizzard damage wouldn't be terrible if upon returning to the protection of the bonfire, you automatically regained 5 points of health. I'm leaving out a terrain slowing aspect, but a damage-field that encompasses an entire map might not be a terrible idea in itself. Why need there be a movement penalty, if you're taking damage every turn? Isn't that enough incentive to avoid the bad when possible? Furthermore, if you're not slowed down by terrain alone, the enemy need not be either. And assuming there is enough safe zones and or enough capacity to shuffle around the mobile safe zones, this could make for fluid battles. Pretend we have an escape/seize map, the heroes must proceed through the blizzard to reach their destination. They leapfrog from bonfire site to bonfire site, they torches to stay warm between them when possible. If the enemy sends blizzard-proof foes at the heroes that aim for the torchbearers, then the heroes tactically send out their strongest into the blizzard to intercept and destroy the blizzard-proof squadrons before they reach the holy flame. The strongest afterwards return to the warmth and are healed by it in addition to staffers as they return to moving towards escape/seize point. If immobile enemies are in the way and could kill your torchbearers if they approach, the player would have to decide how to accept a turn or two of blizzard damage on some units to set up and then on the following turn effectively crack into and destroy the roadblock brigade, which could to be nicer be positioned around a bonfire and hence the heroes who pounced would have some or all of their blizzard damage undone if they survived any remaining enemies which the pounce did not delete. If all of the above worked out, then perhaps one could consider two levels of blizzard. The no-movement penalty, 5 HP per turn one I've been describing, and one that harmed for 10-20 HP a turn and with a movement penalty. However, this "superstorm blizzard" would be limited to critical points on the map, and could be dispelled or weakened if you brought sufficient flames right up to it. The point of the superstorm then would be to prevent sending an ungodly-strong Paladin or flier through the milder blizzard, chugging Vulneraries if need be, laying waste to the enemies en route to the important spot on the map. The superstorm would make it necessary for you to bring your torchbearers forward, as opposed to leaving them safe in the starting area surrounded by all your other units. -Not that it'd in itself prevent a god unit from killing everything in the lite-blizzard area and thus allowing the torchbearers to approach without fear of anything a few turns afterwards. However, I have neither SRPG Maker nor the creative mind and will to actually try testing this out in practice.😛 All that snow melting at once, that create a lot of steam. Depending on the temperature of the melting and its duration, I hazard it could or could not turn all the enemies into boiled lobsters. You might be able to win the battle instantly that way. If the melting took a long while however... then close the city gates, shut them tight. This town will for the next few hours be renamed "Onsentis"! The largest and most residential hot spring east of the Bottomless Canyon. Time to drop anchor and have a relaxing battle in the pleasantly warm waters while they last!♨️

It isn't like we don't have gendered careers/jobs IRL. Sometimes they started one way, and became another. Nursing, non-collegial teaching, secretary work, all have some tinge of femininity now, but I don't think any of these were this way until the past century or two when pioneering women opened the doors. By contrast, the production of beer in Europe, outside of the monasteries, was usually done at home by women in the Medieval age, only to become masculine when men in the Early Modern era took brewing out of the household and into the brewery business (possibly an inspiration for stereotypical witch attire). However, we do have male nurses and teachers, so no reason to deny FE men Pegasus (or Troubahorsies). We have female police officers and frontline military personnel too, so FE Warrior women deserve to exist. Horse jockeys IRL are usually small. Although in that case it's to minimize weight and air drag, combatants on mounts need to be capable of things other than going fast. Short but ripped might be ideal for FE fliers.

How about gold, the other highly impractical for war precious metal? You could then build this into the national armor aesthetics, red and gold vs. purple and silver. Although, I will add that during the 1500s, Japan contributed a great deal of the international silver output (although not as much as Spanish South America, and I forget South/Southeast Asia's output, beyond silver being worth more than gold in some locations therein). I don't have an exact number off the top of my head, but it was in the tens of percentage points, could be a quarter. Europeans liked this, because China was stingy with what they'd accept in exchange for silk and tea and the other Chinese luxuries that Europe so badly wanted, silver was one of the few things China was willing to trade for. With Japan off the coast relatively close, you could get some silver, go west and trade it for silk, and then maybe head east again and trade some of that silk in Japan for more silver. By the end of Sengoku and start of the Tokugawa Shogunate, concerns that the country's silver mines were running dry, made Ieyasu & successors wary of exporting any more for fears of domestic fiscal policy- precious metals being the basis of high-value currency. For a brief time, Japan swapped over to exporting gold coins, before settling on copper, which was useful for day to day money (you'd buy a bowl of rice with it, but a house is bought in silver) throughout the East Asia region. Agreed on the monotony, disagreed on the "no nasty surprises until the very end". Imagine this: You bring Azura, a healer, maybe some other squishy units in your super-limited deployment slots. You have Azura dance one of your few durable units after having them all take their actions. The refreshed unit smashes more snow, because you want this map to go by faster. The snow shoveling reveals enemies, enemies that notice low-durability Azura is nearby and exposed. ⚰️ your one and only refresher. I believe this has happened to me. It forces me to take this molasses map even more slowly, otherwise this map would take even longer if I didn't because reset. If only this snow were perfectly transparent ice, imagine that, being able to see every enemy and examine their stats and inventories before you free them. That'd reduce the tedium slightly, and I won't mention all the instances in gaming where "enemies trapped in transparent ice" has happened.

True. Gives a new meaning to the old "inevitability of death and taxes"- either of those two threat could get the masses to flip quickly. But why resort to that explanation, when I like overthinking things that don't need to be overthought?😄

Partly, I was making a joke based on a historical religious factoid. The Plegian-Grimleal attire, is because Grima is horny, or at least the Grimleal thought Grima was (imagine the reaction if it turned out Grima a major prude all along and saw the sea of thinly veiled devotees before them).😛 Thank you for the clarification. Although associating religions with ethnicities/nationalities isn't entirely baseless. One shouldn't instantly assume X Ethnicity = A Religion, thats judgmental. But historically, not all religions have been "inclusive" and expansionist like Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. Countless smaller (or big in the case of Hinduism), more local religions have existed that may or may not be/have been intentionally "exclusivist", and for whatever reason, didn't place much if any effort into proselytization. The result being that a particular faith = a rather high likelihood, though by no means a certainty, of being of a particular ethnicity/nationality. Not like we know whether the Grimlealean scriptures have an expansionist, exclusivist, or another kind of bend. Nor have we information on the demographic breakdown of the Grimleal's flock across the two continents of Awakening. Validar most likely keeps that intel classified save for the most diehard believers working directly under him, and would kill you if you tried taking a peek.😈 Oh, and if you're referring to dress code. It is possible for religious adaptation to mean the devotee has to make fashion adaptations. All Sikhs abide by unshorn hair, the carrying of a small dagger, a comb, a bracelet, and wearing special underwear. Sometimes you get flexibility, Islam asks women to dress modestly, but how that is defined is ultimately left (or should be left) to every woman to decide for herself. And sometimes, the garb is purely ceremonial, or the language is ceremonial. All Muslims "wear" Arabic during their prayers, even if it's totally alien to the language they use on a daily basis. Perhaps you could make your own interpretation and spin "Plegian" attire as ceremonial (although whose idea was it to get everyone here to join the Grimleal then!?!).

Reminds me of the fall of the Soviet Union. Many a historian rushed in to access the now-declassified (and now likely re-classified due to the rise of a new strongman) archives and get their hands on the long-secret facts that could "revolutionize" (so they sensationally said, despite examining only a handful of documents in a gold rush to get their name out first) our understanding of WWII and the Cold War. In the process of doing this, the ex-USSR official/military officer/KGB agent who took a bribe in exchange for access to that archival information, often had their name placed on the book as a co-author. So one of my professors told me.

No it isn't. Some ancient Egyptian priestesses believed that to make the kingdom's lifeblood, the Nile River (Iteru as they called it), flood and thus fertilize the floodplain soil, it was necessary to appeal to Amun (or the god Min, although they came to be treated as Min-Amun, a single deity), the chief god who oversaw the Nile. This appeal included making Amun flood out his fertility. Which meant trying to make him... I'll leave you to fill in the blanks.😉 On the theme of the banner itself. Perhaps a good approach to these theme would've been to stick mostly to characters who aren't dark mages, but who would have some interest or connection to darkness? -Although, defining that might be difficult in itself, given most FE characters don't associate with dark practitioners. The one alright example I could think of would be Arvis, except we know he'd hate to don the black robes, barring a some niche celebration of Maira the Good Loptian. Oh, and Eirika tried this idea years ago.