Timlugia

How about three imperial army groups with auxiliary in Radiant Dawn being represented by 20 guys? Fire Emblem rarely repents realistic numbers. It's not like playing Total War series. And current info hints that you could get more characters(may not be called students anymore) later in war phase, since some of the instruction mechanism still remains. Flayn, Tomas, Cyril might very well be your "second class students" after time skip. As for overall cast size, including faculties, we already have close to 35 potential playable. While smaller than previous games, each character has far more background and interaction than any previous Fire Emblem title. Anyway, over 100 battles (consider over 36 battle possible a year) even before hitting main arc just doesn't make sense.

If I heard it right from various demo presenters on Youtube, you could do more than 36 battles in the year. I think there is one random skirmish each week, with multiple quests and paralogues depending on your students and progression. In normal mode fighting weekly skirmish does not taken movement points, but it does in hard mode. Also fighting too many battles in a row would reduce morale in your classes (and Sword of Creator needs recharge). Those are soft limits how many battles you could have. So yeah, 3 years would be kind absurd in terms of progression or pacing.

Well, where there is a dragon loli speaks to you in your head, and then projects herself into your bedroom so she can watch you 24/7, you probably start wondering about reality or if you were going crazy... "What if my hands were there and Sothis was playing another mind trick on me?"

We don't, that's why I was wondering about being half way. Because I read several people saying war phase was probably only 12 month.

I actually was wondering about this If time skip is half into the game, that means there are only 12 chapters left when war starts. Not only it's very short for a game, there would also be major pacing problem: It seems academy phase is very light on the story, nothing too major or twist here. If we only have 12 chapters left, it would really hard to have proper story build up and the guaranteed plot twists. Unless there will be multiple plot events in a single month.

Problem isn't Byleth too OP, butthat rest of your students would be too weak since you ran out reclass seal pre-skip and they stuck at basic classes until post skip. I agree with @zuibangde here, I think IniSys going to put requirement as far apart as possible as a soft limit on how many student you could get.

Certainly there will be optimal ways to recruit students after people figure out all the mechanisms. But I think the biggest limit here is reclass seals, I am pretty sure there is limited number of seals during academy time. Not only it's unlike you have so many seals to reclass Byleth in every class, there is also the trade off not allowing your students to reclass. You might ended up with more students, but they would be very weak since they can't relcass to intermediate until war phase given you more seals later. You will have a very OP Byleth, but bunch of weak students, question is if Byleth alone is strong enough to carry the fight until you can reclass the remaining students.

Using this post as reference, I don't think it's possible to recruit most students. From these screenshots, Byleth by default is good at 4 stats, two very good and two above average, assuming you could pick strength. (I also believe sword and authority are hard lock due to being protagonist) This means you would have to reclass to be able to recruit other students. Consider there are only 12 months, with limited Seals, Byleth is unlikely to be good at everything, especially on harder difficultly you don't have free battle every weekend. So my guess is that you could probably recruit 3/4 students practically without giving all class seal to Byleth, which would hinder growth on other students in your class.

The way Mercedes casually talks about it, even saying "maybe she moved from her coffin" rather than "someone moved her" makes me wonder....do people expected Seiros would just walk around?

Well, it's not like they can go up Glassdoor and read a resume. Byleth might be Jeralt's child, but he/she never worked or taught with Seteh before, and being given freedom to choose a class even before other teachers based on archbishop's discretion alone, that's certainly a lot. (not counting the popular theory that Byleth was adopted)

I kind wonder the length of second arc, 12 seems pretty low, especially for a console Fire Emblem. It would also have severe pacing problem, since academy seems to be very light on story, mostly just character backgrounds and world building. 12 chapters don't seem to be able to cover whole war/conspiracy part well.

That would be ironical, since it was the ambush planned by Flame Emperor put Blyeth inside the church in the first place. The opening of the game is supposedly that Byleth and Jeralt foiled the assassination by Flame Emperor against Edelgard in a cutscene we saw a month ago.

Or we could go on tin foil hat side: maybe the ambush was a false flag to begin with: it was to plant Blyeth into the academy. Whoever behind the ambush knows that academy would hire Blyeth if he/she foiled the attack. Because it looks like Costa the bandit leader manage to survive the failed attack and return in a few chapters.

Ah, Flame Emperor was the guy sending assassins against the three lords in the opening of the game, Byleth saved them and thus hired by the academy later. On the other hand, despite people saying church is bad, we haven't be told any crime the church did, instead everything so far is saying church is the keeper of peace....

Not for another 200 years until more reliable flintlock and bayonet became common place.

I think it would be interesting to add early firearm units, consider the game was set in early Renaissance background rather than medieval. Handgunner: unit that carries early firearm, has very high damage, but poor accuracy compare to archers, cannot double (due to long reload times), poor close combat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_cannon Gunner company: company of soldiers carrying hand cannon, gambit is an area attack that also damage units adjacent to target. Dragoon: handgunner riding on a horse, would have even lower accuracy since they carry shorter firearms as compensate for high mobility and move again skill. Obviously some map could feather cannons in place of Ballista of older games

Ah? Her eyes changed into the "dragon eye" that's unique to manakete in the series while fighting Nemesis? Just like Mila in SoV? Or the fact she shares the very traditional design of manakete with Naga, Tiki, or Mila, and seemly ability to slow down time since the first trailer? While serving as head of church in a religion that worships dragons?

I mean so far we haven't see any image of Seiros in the present day, all the cutscene were from her fighting Nemesis a few hundred years ago. Maybe she's dead, or has departed from the land. If she's still alive, it makes one wonder why she's not active ruling the empire or the church like Mila did. Of course maybe she's sleeping/sealed away like Tiki or Idunn was.

Seiros, Rhea, Seteh, Flayn are also possibly playable manaketes. Seiros is pretty much confirmed to be a manakete in the recent trailer, but not sure if she will be present in the game; three others all shared traditional manakete designs, with their ears covered under hair. Edelgard might also have dragon blood from Seiros, but I don't feel her line was strong enough to transform.

Actually, let's not jump too early into the conclusion here. All we know was from one line without context in the first trailer a year ago. This quote could be very well taken out of the context/only appear in certain path/only applies to Edelgard during school phase..etc. If we think about the grand scheme, Edelgard later became the empress herself, but Crest and Church are the foundation of the Empire, it was in fact only reason she became the Empress rather than some other Imperial family members. Denying the crest is basically denying her own authority and legitimacy to rule.

I will wait until we have more details, especially background on Byleth, Edelgard, Rhea and Serios. It would be interesting if Byleth really was heir to Nemesis while Edelgard was to Serios, it would be like pairing Tiki with Robin, that the extreme of two sides seeking balance together.

I am pretty sure that Lucina's siblings could use Falchion but choose not to since they view it as responsibility to lead others.

Wonder how the rendition of theme sounds like this time.

Let’s not forget that Cipher card reveals Claude was a conspirator.

Pretty sure I saw Divine Seros changing her eyes into a dragon one, confirming she’s a Manakete...so Eddy also runs dragon blood? Still don’t know who the goddess really is. Previous Famitsu implied she’s the white dragon