Espinosa

I don't think Kliff can reach lv. 3 in 1-2 ever. If you remember, getting FAYE to lv. 3 in the first two maps entailed getting her two kills in 1-1, then getting something like a +str/spd/def level in 1-2, turn 1, and iirc also a speciifc Tobin level-up too? Kliff can get one kill in 1-1 at most and can't feasibly get to promotion before 1-3. I've never LTC'd 1-3 with an archer for a reason on any of my Act 1 runs. Getting Silque to lv. 7 was hard work, but after she got nearly 3 levelups in just the first map, I knew it wouldn't be that bad. It was still very hard work because of rigging mag levelups for Silque and Faye not contributing in 1-4 due to being a villager scrub, but you can't expect to get 3 levels of experience AND Kliff and Faye promoted in one single lucky clear.

Until I returned to 1-7 to try for a 5-turn, I had a Clair who was actually 1 AS faster than Paladin Clive (but with way poorer bulk and noticeably less strength). I thought she might double cavs more easily than Clive would. Not sure if I would want to give fountain boosts to Clive, but it's something that can be considered I suppose. 5-turning 1-7 is hell as expected. Looks like not only should the combat on the eastern wall work out as intended but I have to seriously modify the way I warp and use Gray and Alm on the first few turns so that they clean up and can keep moving north. Silque has a 7 warp range and I might experiment with an 8-tile range to see if it helps me with the objective at all. My 6-turn strat involved warping Leather Shield Gray to tank some hits and bait all the cavs/some archers south, then warping Lightning Sword Alm to KO one of the eastern wall archers, leaving the other one for Python (dealing with the archer and possibly chipping at the lone soldier was literally all he was supposed to do). However, the mess created is huge and moving on forward is not possible for the next couple of turns, which possibly robs me of my 5-turn clear. I wonder if warping Gray two tiles further could help with 2 more mag on Silque + Swap!Tobin on the 1st turn. I could either try to counterkill an archer, forced to attack at 2-range, or weaken/try to critkill multiple cavs with an iron sword. Connecting two Lightning Sword hits on a cav is almost always bad though. Then I need to do something about the extra living archer on the eastern wall... Tobin could ORKO them if he had 1 extra mag... I'm questioning my Clair use in this chapter. What she does is bait the 2nd eastern wall archer so that Python can start countering him on turn 2 EP, then retreat to be healed by Faye, then move into position where she can engage some enemies. Her actual contributions don't start until turn 4, when she engages the lone soldier that cleanly 2HKOs her. So the eastern wall is not exactly guaranteed to be clean by turn 5 either...

Yeah, Alm would level up... and he'd level up while raising Forsyth to do all of this too. I think I know an unconventional solution to the skirmish problem, inspired by your idea in part. This save editor tool. Face the skirmish without using weapons/shields so that your units don't make progress towards learning skills, then edit their level and stats to what they were prior to the skirmish. You need some patience and time to do it repeatedly, but you can potentially do some things like have Celica visit locations that she would otherwise generally avoid, like visiting the Dragon Shrine and retaining Atlas/Pegbabes. Thoughts? The game will still record your turn counts in those skirmishes though (also, can we have a confirmation of dungeon encounters not being counted in the ending credit turn count roll?). I have a feeling you're right about the map 1-7 5-turn... On the last 6-turn clear that I kept, Clair killed the soldier on the eastern wall on turn 5 PP, so by then the only enemies remaining were the two archers and armour to the north. If Alm and Gray can somehow manage to get there a turn earlier (if they don't waste any turns not moving forward), the map can be cleared 1 turn sooner. You're also correct that it will be some serious RNG hell though, and things like good level-ups and Clive getting into promotion range cannot be taken for granted after all the time it will take to succeed. I'll see what I can do!

I'm routing Act 3 and it's causing me terrible distress. Of course, I'm referring to the skirmishes that start appearing on the map and which totally ruin any semblance of reliability and replicability the run should have by this point. The skirmish armies can randomly engage your party in a different part of the map, can ambush it without you being able to do much about it, and can take a different number of turns to beat. Different runs may also face skirmishes a different number of turns, causing the player to lose control over turn count planning and reaching level benchmarks with key characters. This is a big deal. Ideally, we should be able to avoid random skirmishes altogether, like we can in Sacred Stones or TearRing Saga LTCs. I've been doing my best to gauge just how possible this is. Unless I'm missing extra means of rigging the RNG, it's not as possible as one would like. When a battle has finished and you have saved the game, the RNG seems fixed, so loading your save will cause the same skirmish army to appear in a certain place... or not appear, every time. Of some importance here is visiting towns, dungeons and forts. Both travelling there and exiting out can potentially trigger a skirmish to appear or an existing one to advance, with what seems like comparable consistency. However, there MIGHT be some ways to rig it. Before engaging Desaix, you naturally want to recruit Luthier who's likely as good of an armour slayer as Levin Sword Gray is. Now, here's the thing. If you enter the village and exit it without doing anything, a skirmish will appear in the same location as Desaix. If you recruit Luthier and then exit the village, nothing will appear. I do imagine on a different run it could well be the other way around, or cause no change regarding this issue. The RNG seems to be in a fixed state after a battle has been finished. I don't know if backing up a temporary save and then restoring it just before the end of a battle would, but if it's something I will have to continuously engage in for the desired outcome I'm going to fucking hate it. Changing equipment, opening menus and moving from one area to another doesn't appear to affect skirmish behaviour, though there may be some methods I haven't figured out to try (not sure what they could be). I suppose I needn't worry about any of this until I actually reach Act 3, but I will eventually, and it needs to be fully figured out before any actual LTC-linked planning is done. You know, what the run is supposed to be about. All in all, it's really frustrating.

I notice people keep talking about leaving the Iron Shield for Celica's party to pick up since they need to ShoveSwap more, but nobody (seems to be) talking about the Steel Lance in the same location in Act 1. Alm's party already has an iron lance, a steel lance and a ridersbane, the latter being by far more important than anything else, and on this run Lukas is too useless to be fighting with a lance. Clive, Clair (I'm actually training her; should I not?) and Mathilda do genuinely need weapons, but I thought that Celica's army having one for both Palla and Catria is more important? Their importance can't be understated on that path, while Clair... may have Soren-Shove-type contributions that we haven't yet established? That's what seems to me. I couldn't promote anybody but Gray and Clive, but these two both getting there is lucky in my book. Kliff is lv. 4 and can get to a Sniper promo by the Forest Village earliest which is where he can potentially get his Killer bow and/or forge too. Tobin is losing in level to both Kliff and Python and leaves me wondering if he'll ever Excalibur access anytime soon. Physic looks unlikely right now, and Luthier may well have better combat stats when he joins in Act 3. Tobin is faster when he does get Excal though, and that could matter more when both are close to the doubling threshold for much of the game. Faye is only lv. 2 lol. If she'd promoted in 1-3, she might have been more privileged now, but Faye has so much magic in 1-3 she ate up all the Brigand kills - I could barely get Kliff to promotion on the last turn of the map. Her +str/spd level-up makes me hopeful about her levelling up some more in Act 3. When Physic is hers, she can gain experience more rapidly, but being able / having to heal Silque after her Warps does get her a surprisingly stable source of exp already. Still, Silque does want to see at least SOME combat to continue getting more Warp range. I've never tried to LTC Act 2 before, so the experience will be all new, but these maps all look short and not any sophisticated, so it shouldn't take forever. Also, it appears that in Act 3, Alm's army can go back to his Act 1 wells without moving any of the enemies on the map until he initiates the first storyline encounter, so we could sit on the wells a little while longer since we can't decide what to do with them. In the last map with the masked knight, Celica could actually require the well boosts (+3 str could make a world of difference there, I imagine) to assist her with the quick clear. This solves my coin dilemma too - Alm could go back to his dungeons after coins in Act 3 should I decide it's okay to farm them.

Just got a 6-turn clear of 1-7 that I'm happy enough to move on from. Clive levelled up, Gray got +3 str, Alm got str, Clair and Python levelled up even if they usually don't, Kliff got a good level-up, Python and Fate got the perfect offensive level-up. No Mana Herbs wasted here too. Don't think I could hope for anything better here. Yeah, you're right, the difference between a casual efficiency run, a draft run that allows dungeon encounters and an LTC run that says "no" to everything is pretty damn huge. Haven't tier lists always been like that since day one though? There's a vague concept of efficiency behind it that people struggle to agree on and little actual LTC involvement. Then again, LTC runs hardly require a tier list as a prop, rather they need prescriptions of how exactly units ought to be used, or the knowledge of how to operate efficiently with whatever units are available. I'm not even sure that anybody is going to loop for sure in this LTC run, but it could well turn out to be a necessity. Without dungeon encounters though, it's way tougher to maintain turn counts while raising a looper archer up, since dungeon fights have no stiff logistical requirements to meet in terms of unit movement and usually finish by turn 1 if the player tries to go fast. Anyway, I should have a lot of recordings to share soon as far as chapter 1 is concerned, but this won't last long. I can't move on to chapter 2 until I figure out if I'm using the wells or not and whether I want to farm coins in dungeons, and I can probably only give an accurate answer to that question after I have routed the entire run, which will take a while obviously.

Good news: I FINALLY 6-turned 1-7 as planned. It appears that if you play well with the strategy I designed, the reliability is not abysmal, though the issues we predicted would plague the attempts are all relevant enough. However, I'm not happy with the level-ups I got. Alm got no strength on his two levels, Kliff got defence, Tobin got nothing worthwhile. At least Gray's levels were fine (he got three and reached Myrmidon promotion) and Faye got +str, which will help her get more kills later (+spd/def would help make her a viable combat unit though). The good thing about the clear (other than the turn count) is that I don't waste many healing items in the process. Some of the old clears I had (which failed ultimately) had Gray use up both of my Mana Herbs in the convoy. So I'll probably have some more goes at the map until I'm happy enough to advance (or so dissatisfied with the new ones that I'll stick to the first successful 6-turn attempt). Before I finish map 1-7, I have to agree on a number of things, namely if anybody in Alm's party will be getting the remaining well boosts (+1 spd, +3 str/def remain to be used) and if I will allow myself to pick up coins from the ground, in which event I should start farming them for all future non-gold forges before I switch to Celica's party. Naturally, I've also been doing some longterm planning and theoryFEing. The new changes in tier list thinking are interesting imho. Clive is considered better than Mathilda? My Clive didn't level-up during 1-7 (it was too fast of a clear to feed him too many kills) and is imho unlikely to get better than Math at the speed an LTC run progresses. I also wonder what to do with Dread Fighters once they promote. Staying in the class is not an unintelligent choice since you keep swords, and with it whatever sword skills you may have learnt (silver sword/brave sword skills can be useful for one-shotting bulky bosses), but there are other options too. I've seen Cav as a potential option, but I wonder if Archer is workable as well, Bow Knight obviously being the desired end result of the sacrifice. Of course, Saber and Gray are the only units who even have the option under efficiency settings.

Dennis, these all sound like very ambitious objectives to accomplish. Doing the early chapters, I also wanted to get the best out of the best out of every map, but estimating success ratio of everything desired usually spelled out it wasn't going to happen (though as can be seen from my videos sometimes the impossible does happen), which helps you focus on the really important things. Simple example: Tobin getting +str/spd in the 1-1 may be nice, but for Tobin to benefit from the str proc post-promo he needs to proc it again in the following chapter, and there are many other similarly ultimately unlikely variables to consider (namely, Faye, Alm and Gray levels), if you want it all that is. One reason why I feel like investing in Kliff is a good idea is all the magekilling, not to mention better hit rates compared to Python. Mine is never going to end up a sniper as early as the 3rd act, but if I get one really strong bow user then it has to be Kliff. I don't think Alm's bow access comes soon enough for him to do anything interesting with a good bow. To be sure, he would have the kind of stats that Kliff and Python generally struggle to get (though none of the range). I'm really unsure about Clair - if I end up keeping my 1-6 clear (might go back and re-do for a +def proc with Gray... but I like my other levelups a lot so idk), she will be entering 1-7 with a +str/spd levelup, but is she worth a substantial investment? I just don't see her combat getting good until too many of these good levelups kick in, so she's basically a growth unit like most of Alm's party. There already are good mounted Horseslayer units in Alm's party, so I just wonder if flight is really as good on this route. I didn't mind giving her kills somebody like Lukas would've otherwise claimed, but exp is sparse when skirmishes are avoided and everyone wants it in an LTC run.

There are cavs though, and armours, Gray and/or Alm using the Rapier to fight them would be good for somebody with a 2 AS Faye like moi. The Lightning Sword 7HKOs Tatarrah, and he's not terribly easy to connect an attack on from what I remember. I guess you had learnt the second skill by then and used it twice on enemy phase? Don't see another explanation. According to Shephen, selling everything Alm has got aside from the things you absolutely need gives you enough money for... a rapier and a killer bow, maybe something else too? 3-6 is a map that could require a super strong sniper who can wield the killer bow, with the bow knight boss and multiple snipers. You need 27 Mt to 2HKO them, or 18 Mt to 4HKO with one hit + one crit, which is plausible and actually achieved by base archer Kliff if you have a Killer Bow+3 (2 Gold required, +5 strength procs otherwise). You'd need 10 AS to double everything on the map, or 7 AS to double all non-boss enemies (probably can't Hunter Volley him this early though). Have you made any useful observations regarding manipulating skirmish enemies to, well, engage you less frequently? If we're counting those turns, which we should, we should minimize our exposure to them. A bit sad you can't just choose to never meet them entirely, which is easy to achieve in Sacred Stones and to a lesser extent TRS. And I do believe an LTC run should skip on Celica's first Act 2 Dracozombie encounter. This robs you of Seabound Shrine access, meaning no Blessed Sword ever in the game? Could be a big loss to endure. That map sounds terribly problematic to do without the DLC stuff you talked about; don't think Celica can even get to Angel when playing that fast (I imagine Mae is frontlining because her EP counters don't suck?) and once she does she still doesn't exactly faceroll the dracozombies in 1 turn or anything.

Everyone in this thread has very serious claims to make wrt an LTC in this game, it seems. I guess it's true that Silque handles movement in Alm's route much better than any any shield would. Since Alm does have frail casters though, it is nevertheless a good idea to have some shields there, such as the ones that don't grant any useful skills. Whether Atlas can get to Rescue at all without slowing the player down is a difficult question. Xator Nova says Atlas's early access to the spell can be ensured by feeding him the experience wells in Act 3 onward, which has the implication of postponing Palla's promotion. As important as this is for consideration, Palla's promotion doesn't really improve her offence against non-terror enemies all that much, though she will be able to take more punishment and move further on the map. Art Dealer, you say that Killer Bow forging can wait until the archer in question is agile enough to double with it, but there is plenty of motivation to start using it as soon as possible. 20 rounds of combat are necessary to access Hunter's Volley and the sooner you access it the more your sniper will snowball in their growth because we're looking at a very respectable, somewhat luck-reliant form of offence there. You are saying two Dread Fighters is the key on Alm's route, but they can't really have a good enemy phase against ranged fighters and they will probably only have 1 Rapier to use unless you sacrifice another one of your weapons, or if you have essentially unlimited cash to go from every Iron Sword to a Rapier. If one DF is using a Rapier/Brave Sword, what does that leave to the other? Meanwhile, Kamui and Saber need to be well-equipped for their Celica's route maps. Zweihänder is a weapon I haven't actually considered, but the ability that adds skill to attack power is worth looking into. A freshly promoted DF Gray has around 16 skl on average so that's 16 damage we're adding to attack right there. However, I have to wonder if PP-restricted form of offence justifies choosing this over, say, a Brave Sword if we want to ORKO in more situations. The pro I see here is bulky enemies and low% critblicking of hard-to-take-down bosses and Brave Sword skills being largely impotent, much like Rapier ones - well, I guess the weapon is good enough? Warping Faye in Desaix's map, hmmm... I don't think a 2 AS Faye would be able to do anything useful there. I better start feeding her kills in Act 3; hopefully, the maps there will be RNG-friendly enough to allow feasible resetting for decent level-ups. Delthea is obviously getting used, but the specifics are up for debate. She could either contribute heavy chip for other units to grab kills or she could have the same done to her. Magekilling with her is a good idea; however, she won't be able to counter the 3-range Arcanists the game likes to throw at you sometimes. I also imagine going Merc with Kliff makes Python's handling of mages pretty dangerous - he would need to dodge their attacks.

Currently reading the 3rd book, the first chapters aren't very fun so far. I tried checking the show out (YouTubed some parts I'd read about to picture them better in my head; didn't help) and didn't like how they went about it. I imagine I'd need to watch the show as a whole to make any real judgment on it though, but there are obvious limitations, like not being able to find a male and female actor with the same appearance (Jaime and Cersei). I hear the next two books aren't worth it, so I'll have to think if I want to read 2200 pages of mediocre fiction when I'm done with this one, which is said to be good. But maybe it's all right, the chapter ratings I saw online are kinda bogus anyway (people upvoting characters they like and downvoting the ones they hate, mostly all the Caitlyn and Sansa stuff, though the really good chapters do have the best scores).

Good effort! Apparently taking an extra turn once can result in a very different run entirely, though you also have different rules from my playthrough. I take it you're going to allow coin farming as well? I imagine I will opt against it despite the poll's results. I freaked out when I saw Kliff's speed stat, then I realised he's a Merc in your run and not an Archer lol. Will Python really be competent when you need him to in chapter 3? I also keep considering double archers for later chapters; not sure how plausible giving both sufficient experience will be. Doesn't Celica get enough shields anyway? I figure you may want to keep some in Alm's party and just trade them to Celica when/if they're needed. I haven't got a clue how people's Fayes are getting so much experience. Don't think mine has levelled up even once prior to 1-7; then again, she didn't promote until after 1-4 on my present run...

Gray will want to be exposed to all the enemies sooner or later as he's the only one who deals with them effectively, Alm being a distant second. In an LTC, sooner is better for turn counts but not reliability of survival. I ended up making shield!Clive my tank bait. He's not doubled by the cavs (unlike Tobin) and has very respectable bulk. Most enemies just deal 1 dmg to him, the boss dealing 3x2. I Warp Clive first, then Gray to start routing, then Alm for support and also so that Gray can eat/drink from the Convoy while staying in enemies' range. I guess maybe having lower defence on Gray is a better idea? We do want enemies to keep hitting him. It seems like the main difficulty with achieving something like a 6-turn, aside from having the RNG of your dreams, is reaching the further enemies, namely the two archers and AK in the north (my current plan is to have Alm and Gray trade the Lightning Sword, but the AK is still a 2RKO without crits) and the lone soldier close to the group of archers to the right. Even if Claire flies there when it's safe and Clive can maneuver his way as well, he's pretty hard to take down with most of your army. Already starting to hate this map with everything having +20 avoid when facing already imperfect hit rates.

Warping Gray first doesn't seem like the cleverest idea to me. He will literally only be able to counter one enemy - the only cav that attacks him while letting like 4 archers strike him for heavy damage without fear of retaliation. The one cav Gray weakens will likely retreat too, so it's an EP wasted. What I currently have in mind is warping Leather Shield Alm as bait instead, then Warp Gray next turn to start routing, avoiding the archers to the right as much as possible (or actually starting out by killing one). Turnwheel used so early is a waste of time in a map where hit rates introduce such levels of reliability, too. 12 mag on Silque is what you need to start Warping without a dedicated Swapper, but 14 mag allows Silque to Warp the first bloke without any support. That's as much mag as she can get without wells if she procs the stat every level-up prior to Warp. Mine happens to have as much, but I still need to decide what to do with the well boosts. Still have +3 str/mag and +1 spd left to utilise, and doing so prior to chapter 1 end could be wise. Somebody like Kliff could probably really appreciate the +3 str.

Finally arrived in 1-7 with Warp!Silque, though I do intend to retry 1-6 for better level-ups. In particular, it seems like Gray really appreciates having more defence if he's the one being warped first, because a single point creates a noticeable difference in staying potential. A def proc in 1-6 might be a good idea and maybe I could use the well for the same purpose? Probably not, as str/mag points are really valuable for Warp ranges and reliable ORKOing. An alternative would be warping somebody other than Lightning Sword Gray, like maybe Gray, Alm or Tobin with a Leather Shield? Tobin wouldn't last with 5 AS and 5+3 def, but Alm and Gray would. By the way, can Celica make use of Alm's chapter 1 wells when she gets there towards the end of the following chapter? Has anybody tried? As long as there are no random encounters on the map, I can move around to my heart's content.

In a 5-turn, Silque getting a full level is no problem. She can chip the cavs and even get close enough to kill the boss. I guess Alm needn't be Swapped three times, but for each time you Swap him, you need to crit one less Cavalier. Swap him thrice and he will only need to crit the boss. I could get Cliff to Swap during 1-4/1-5 (2+3 rounds of combat with the leather shield), but nobody else. On my old clear, Cliff and Silque got to Swap around turn 3 of the same map - 1-6, but by then Alm was already too far away. Also, unless Cav!Kliff is in the game, whoever Swapped Alm prior to him moving will never see him during the map again. I think this will have to be dropped, as you need an Irysa-level control of the RNG and combat every round to pull something like this off. Not quite achievable on console, and you can agree my approach is ambitious enough as it is. And even then getting to Swap between 1-3 and 1-5 sounds like the equivalent of playing FE6 HM LTC with deaths allowed, which nobody in the FE community has understandably tackled yet. I guess good level-ups and allocation of experience it is then. 1-5 won't give draw me cards that will satisfy me enough to move on. The one save I've got that I may return if I get desperate has some flaws: a pointless Kliff level with no offence, Silque only getting +1str/spd (could be better really), but satisfactory Gray/Alm/lolLukas levelups.

So it's been brought to my attention that my turn count in 1-6 is 5 turns not 4 as I'd previously thought. Here's the YT video (from my original run that I will discard if I can get Silque to lv. 7 for 1-7) for anyone who's been wondering if it can be 4-turned somehow: If Alm gets swapped enough (dunno how however) i.e. 3 times he can engage the cavs in direct combat. Without an Iron Sword and at 13 str, he can deal 12 dmg to them, dealing the other 16 on EP with an Iron Sword equipped back in. He can even try to kill the boss on turn 4 (7x4 dmg with a crit is not enough...) or weaken him and expose Silque to him if she's even getting close enough. If she doesn't kill the boss in this map, she's not getting to lv. 7 for 1-7 period. Or maybe I'm not doing a good enough job in 1-5 if she only gets like 1.01 worth of exp (with the bonus disappearing mysteriously)? So 1-6 is a map that *might* be improved by 1 turn, complicating our other objectives even more. Also holy shit, the new Serenes forum engine is abysmal. Not only can you not adequately see topics with new activity, but it's almost impossible to do anything about the spoilered code tags you've previously entered into posts. I can't delete my old code tag, nor can I do an edit without having to tick a "captcha" (with no actual words or letters) that just brings me back to the post with my edit undone... every time. Can't even edit my turn count in the 1st post.

Here's a Linkmstr video: Make note of the exp values prior and following the bonus exp dump @ around 9:44. Then check the characters' exp when they start moving in the following map at about 15:50. Kliff, Tobin, Gray, Silque and Faye all go back to their pre-bonus exp dump values. Alm and Lukas aren't affected (Claire and Lukas are the unaffected ones when I check my videos), and Claire inexplicably goes from 72 to 70 exp, the latter number being neither her pre- nor post- exp dump value. If this is a glitch only affecting a particular version of the game, I could transfer my saves to a different version and do map 1-5 there, then transfer my saves back to the English language version I'm playing. edit: if you check a Japanese playthrough, the error is still there. Go figure. edit2: the 1.1 update does not fix this (just tested).

Comparing my original 1-5/1-6 clears, this seems to have happened to everyone but Claire and Lukas who retain their bonus exp. Fatigue seems like an unlikely correlation considering only Alm and Gray finish the chapter with anything other than a smiling face. This appears to be happening every single time I am done with 1-5. As for 1-3, Silque got as many as 7 kills and still carried over her bonus experience. There was some update to the game released recently, wasn't there? Maybe applying it will alleviate the issue? That is, providing they were aware of it to begin with.

Something very odd keeps happening in 1-5. When the map ends, everybody gets their bonus exp. Silque gets from 6.01 to like 6.21. However, when I check her stats after the battle, she's still at 6.01. It looks like she's not the only character who this is happening to. Any rational reason for this? When I reload and do the chapter again, the same problem repeats. This could well rob me of my lv. 7 Silque before 1-7.

joshcja, you have a really cryptic way of writing that I don't entirely understand what you mean a lot of the time especially when talking about details is concerned. Thanks anyway! Just finished 1-4 on a new run, still keeping that ridiculous 1-3 clear with a 3.94 Silque. As I said, the strategy lacks reliability, so in addition to a lot of luck-reliant occurring without making me pull out Mila's Turnwheel until it runs out, I had to rely on a 8% crit when doubling for Gray to kill the last soldier. I could kill the Steel Bow Archer in one single turn, and Kliff managed to get a ton of exp (relatively to how short the map is anyway). Silque now needs to get 2.01 levels worth of exp in the next two maps, which sounds feasible enough unless the exp gain really slows down when she's the highest-levelled member of the party. She'll be fed the boss and some enemies. My level-ups in 1-4... could be better. Silque got mag again, but still not a point of spd or def (the lack of def makes her easy priority for nigh everyone though, which might be good in most circumstances?) and Gray got +str +spd. Tobin disappointed by not getting anything useful to him, which is sad but normal behaviour for him. Faye got nothing good for her last level-up as a Villager. Kliff getting exp was good luck indeed.

Sure, Faye with a single str/spd level-up is basically base Gray offensively in 1-2 (Gray still has a 1 AS lead, which doesn't matter as he isn't staying a Villager); however, Gray actually gets to 10 spd on promotion and can start doubling the bulk of the game with a -3 AS weapon provided his spd levelups keep coming. I really don't see how a 3 spd/4 spd Faye can wreak as much havoc as you tell she will be. She's supposed to gain a lot of early exp as a Villager (way beyond lv. 3) and then go Cleric while retaining high offensive stats? Or is this something Fork-related? The specifics of utilising this item in LTC context elude me, I must admit. Time matters little when spending a few hours can get you enough money for a few healthy forges without having to sell all your stuff off. The question is whether we do with no limits (with Killer Bow+3/Brave Sword+3/et al. appearing in our possession as soon as we get to the 1st smithy) or if we don't cut grass at all and just rely on the money enemies drop / we get from quests and the money we get from selling wine and possibly more stuff. It looks like the majority in the poll thinks it should be the former (coin farming), but I still need convincing that I want to do this in my run. How did Silque get so much experience in 1-3? My units had just the right stats to weaken Brigands without them getting below 50% HP and they would suicide on Silque, and her Nosferatu tended to connect more often than not. When she got the bosskill, she got even more mag and as a result she could take down even the meatier 20 HP remaining Brigands. I recall she proc'd a crit in some place too, and of course there was the bonus exp. The biggest punchline to this whole story is I'll probably have to drop the save and re-do 1-3 again. The reason? Because Faye is still at 2.99, she can't play her part and kill an enemy Soldier (a straggler with 5 HP), even if I give her the Iron Sword. If you watch the 1-4 video I uploaded, you'll see that even though Faye wastes the Turnwheel by missing Nosferatu, she can kill her straggler on the very last turn. She can't do such a thing here.

Promoting Faye is probably low priority. As you say, her ranged combat is lousy, and having to deal with her whiffs on top of all other luck-reliant things makes everything way more difficult, as seen in my lucky 1-4 clear. For Faye to double everything in 1-2, she needs to get a +spd level-up. When Faye promotes, she will care about having gained +str and +def prior to promotion as these are the stats promotion to Cleric doesn't grant her. She will have 4 spd automatically. The party can deal with the 1-2 Brigands fine enough without Faye's assistance, and my strat works just about 100% of the time regardless of what stats Faye gets on level-up, allowing me to allocate the kill experience as I please and reset for optimal level-ups (spd for Tobin, str or def for Gray etc). When Faye and Kliff level up in 1-2, they get bonus exp when the map ends, then some more in TS. They should be one kill away from promotion in 1-3. Both promoting is desired because they can now reach enemies behind walls and can start building exp and levelling up. Faye being promoted for 1-3 may seem like a waste of time, in hindsight, but lets her do things like heal severely injured Gray doing all the frontlining for the party. WRT uploading videos, the plan is to share my original 1-5 & 1-6 clears which get the job in the least reasonable number of turns. 1-6 can be 3-turned with a bunch of crits on enemy cavs with Alm and/or Swapped Gray, and 1-5 can only be 2-turned if Alm somehow gets Swapped a total of five (!) times during the two player phases, which seems really unlikely in any imaginable context. If the idea to use a Warp strat in 1-7 somehow backfires, I'll just go back to the original playthrough. I've already discarded another recorded run between the one on YouTube and the one I'm talking about now (with a lv. 3 Faye going into Thieves Shrine but with close to zero immediate payoff) because I have no reliable way to 4-turn 1-4 with that exp allocation, so I'll only upload revised clears of chapters I've already shared once I'm convinced they're the ones I'm keeping. I've just recorded a pretty wild 1-3 clear. Silque gets nearly 3 levels out of it, emerging @ 3.94, which basically means she needn't be babied so much on EP anymore if I keep this save. She got 2 mag but no spd from it. Alm got +str/spd/def and Kliff got to lv. 3 with another spd proc, which is the only stat he needs to grow before his Archer promotion. Faye, sadly, didn't level up, @ 2.99, but in the 1-4 clear I uploaded to YT she did no attacking through the walls so I should be fine. I dunno if Physic access in 3-1 is as big of a deal as Deltre claims it is.

Made some progress on a new quest to get Archer!Kliff until 1-3 and Warp!Silque before 1-7. 1-1. The strategy that gets Tobin 4 kills and Faye & Kliff one each is an enormous pain in the arse. I was resetting so often because of unlikely crits and whiffs that I figured taking the fruits away from the villagers would force me to click less when repeating the strat. Guess what? AGAIN the enemies stopped going for Kliff even though I retained my positioning. I gave them their fruits back. No luck. I took the fruits away once more... and then the strategy would work again, except for times when something went different like an Alm or Faye crit that didn't change who would get the kills. On one single occasion Kliff was ignored with everything seemingly going right. This doesn't make any sense at all. I moved on with a +spd levelup on Tobin. +str/spd has a 7,5% chance of occurring and isn't worth it considering Tobin needs to proc strength twice for it to make a difference on promotion (which gives him +1 str anyway). 1-2. Actually came up with a 100% reliable strat (barring some extra whiffs) that doesn't, believe it or not, depend on any stats gained before or during the chapter. Changed the order so that nobody actually needs to follow the archer anywhere and Gray gets two kills, levelling him up to lv. 6. My goal was +str/spd on Alm, +spd on Tobin, +spd on Kliff, +str or +def on Gray (ended up getting both) and an adequate Faye levelup. Faye got +def, meaning she'll be hard to use in 1-3, but I took that and left. Probably wouldn't get anything better, and +def on Gray seems invaluable when he has to solo the north of 1-7, though I might have to warp some helper there (I also need to Warp somebody to the archer room I'd wager). Thieves' Shrine. No longer as reset-heavy because Alm saw less action in 1-2 and therefore fails to level up when he crits the boss. He's going into 1-3 @ 2.99, just like Lukas. I don't know how much rigging Alm requires in an ambitious LTC of this game. Obviously, he needs to have really high strength to dent the final boss (which Xator Nova has shown can be pierced by other units too in what seems like efficiency context - idk how he trained Delthea up though, but I imagine if there's a will there's a way) as well as high skill and luck for acceptable critical rates. There's also that whole section of the endgame where Alm solos monsters - since we count the turn counts there, he needs to have a lot of everything else. Currently, Kliff has the exact stats needed in 1-3 to frontline on turn 2 and knock two Brigands into such HP range where they still attack you without retreating and where Silque can counterkill them. 12,96% chance of her actually connecting all four Nosferatu counters. I'm gonna enjoy this map... What depresses me most is that Silque's magic will have to be continuously bolstered for the entire playthrough since we'll keep needing to maximise the range to cut more turns. I think I could deal with it better if this were a GBA game...

My game is the American version, but I could be wrong. Anyway, I changed some things about the 2nd turn, keeping your suggested Order intact. This time Lukas attacks his Brigand from the left, Gray waits under the bush (as if blocking the way to Faye to a completely unrelated Brigand - maybe they think they can kill her if nobody is blocking the way, much like healing tile mechanics?), Faye chips on a foe from above and Kliff takes a step back. Three times in a row this resulted in Kliff getting the 4 HP Brigand kill. Makes absolutely no sense, but it works! Thanks for taking the time to record the video.