zahlman

I can't believe nobody's mentioned Tate. ... so in the same chapter, talking to one recruitable with his sister = nice straightforward recruitment, or you can use Roy. But for the other one, talking with her sister = things either get pointlessly complicated (and really, just the game logic there... talk before and after recruiting the other unit... just... why?!?), or you just plain screw yourself over for no good reason. Oh, and Roy doesn't help, either. Never mind that there's no plot reason why Klein would trust Roy any more than Tate does; they're both strangers themselves at this point, and they both have a sister on the blue team. Hell, Thany's been on the blue team longer than Clarine has. But Klein, of all people, can do the recruitment directly because these two are a team for whatever contrived plot reason, and will call the attack off as a team. Yeah, teamwork. Between a sniper and a peggie. That's just... wtf all around.

Anyway, this is a neat concept for a 1 on 1 draft actually. But if you're going to switch and play both teams anyway, why not just split them up randomly?

The game will count Ch4 as 8 turns btw.

Holy shit you guys. After playing around with a gazillion test runs, trying to figure out a variety of AI triggers, RNG abuse, even cheating with RAM hacks just to see what would happen if I did get certain key dodges (although I ended up not using anything that I learned from the RAM hack cheating, actually)... I think I've figured out something that will allow for a clean run that actually clears Ch. 13, with surprisingly few RN burns. (And if my Roy weren't so Str/Def screwed, that might not be necessary in the first place... although I have to say I appreciate his Spd blessing for the extra evade. Lorddomu, highly recommend arranging for Roy to nom the Ch11 Speedwings during the chapter... he won't be able to afford inventory space for them on 12 or 13.) I'll reply/update when I have a clean run. I intend to detour to get the Body Ring, which might add enough of a delay to push the whole thing over 100 turns. I really, really wish I were joking about that turn count, but I'm not. And no, arena abuse isn't involved. You'd think a game where every chapter is "seize throne" would be easier to solo relative to its ordinary difficulty >_< Edit: I have a complete script written out that I could play through "officially" without savestates now, but I also have ideas to improve it, mostly by taking the north path. I don't really need the Al Sword if I don't actually go down that way... I think... and anyway the Body Ring is much more important. Plus that way will avoid a bunch of nonsense baiting the Ballista users. Edit: Wow, that helped quite a bit, actually, and my turn count will be quite a bit lower than originally feared (although still ridiculously high). Also, RNs are only needed during the initial rush, where Roy is basically staying put and being a ninja vs. the initial aggros and all the reinforcements. Only 8 total RN burns, although there were a couple of places where I also found that variations in the attack pattern subtly manipulate the RNG in a helpful way. I'll do the whole run following my notes without savestates before updating, because I'm a masochist like that and want it to be "official". Honestly I never intended to go down this path, but this chapter proved it necessary. I'm hoping that with Cecilia's help for the rest of the game after this, it won't be any more. Edit: a bunch more refinements. There are now a bunch of seemingly illogical moves that manipulate the RNG (and the AI simultaneously), but no explicit RN burns, plus it's several turns shorter again. Edit: Figured out that with judicious use of the Horseslayer and understanding of the AI, Miledy can make herself useful earlier despite the apparent danger, and Roy will only need two Iron Swords as a result, allowing inventory space for him to bring the Horseslayer onto the map. Also worked out a slightly more aggressive way to deal with the wyverns near the throne, and played around with some RNG manipulation for the final part. These three things saved way more turns than I imagined possible. Final turn count is a surprise for the next post ;) I'm going to call it quits now; I'll go insane if I keep trying to optimize this. There are still no explicit RN burns, and it actually looks reasonably "natural" now, but there's actually some pretty heavy manipulation going on in terms of deciding on specific attack targets/orders (or just forgoing attacks that are "going to miss").

I noticed you have the chapter for my music tool marked as 'outdated' - I'm preeeeeetty sure the only meaningful changes since the version shown in the guide have been in the midi conversion stuff. Also, one day when NM3 is actually a real thing, it will effectively create a new "patch format"... And yeah, congrats! Having this much information in one place is really awesome. I hope you don't ever expect to consider it completely finished though

I'm sorry, I already promised Fiora I'd bear hers.

30, sir. Zut alors!

I think he has caring about efficiency disabled.

I think I'm the most qualified to call others "kid" around here, kthx.

I smirked repeatedly, and I didn't even get most of the references.

Why not trade Wolt's old Iron Bow to Dorothy? That's what I did, made things quite a bit more possible.

Having a ragefest constantly "in the pipeline" seems like a good idea to me. Love the promotional artwork too btw.

... how are trapped tiles anything new?

Dammit sauce why not hax in S bows while you're at it >_<

No offense, but if you haven't had to try anything more than 3 times yet, you really don't know what "hard" is :/ Either that or you're some kind of prodigy who is too good for anything IS has to offer

Seph: I recognize you. Everyone: OMGWTF drama. Honestly, I don't give half a shit who thinks who is "not ok" because I'm more than capable of forming my own opinions on that topic, and I don't have the kind of emotional instability issues that would cause me to harm myself because of a negative interaction with OMG SOMEONE FROM THE INTERNET. So unless you have reason to believe someone is going to try to steal my credit card number (protip: I don't have one), I don't care. I'm amazed how much you guys manage to fight with each other. Go be creative.

blah blah blah TIDAL WAVE

Welcome! Everybody knows how to OHKO the Fire Dragon btw Interested in any other sorts of creative endeavours besides writing? And yes, join a draft. If you ain't doing DRAFTZ gtfo my club

Sweet. Now I can feel like a proper ha><0r again. The RTE editor, like, totally converts spaces into tabs, except wrongly. Cleanup in Isle One 12/168 I actually did a large number of test runs for this, plus repeats due to random deaths. I really wanted to get the Silver Sword, but testing suggested it would cost about 17 extra turns and it's about time I started getting serious, yeah? I doubt that thing could save me 17 turns later with only 20 uses... The basic plan is for Roy to roflstomp axe mooks who have a max hit rate of about 5, not get too unlucky against the few sword and magic users, all while making a bee-line for the boss. He arranges things to land in Hand Axe range first so that he can get in one round with the Killing Edge not facing a Killer Axe. Scott's hitrate is low enough that it isn't a huge concern, but why take more chances than necessary? Anyway, Fir and Shin both survived because Roy didn't have time for their shit, and all the villages got pwned because saving innocents is for noobs. The good news: the next two chapters technically aren't solos. Plus, these Western Isles levels full of bandits vs. Roy's 55 base evade are about the closest thing to "fun" I'm likely to experience in the entire playthrough. The bad news: Roy won't get any more buff for almost the entire rest of the game except via stat boosters (there's a Secret Book left over for him to nom; I didn't feel like I could afford time/inventory space for him to use it here), and one use of the Elixir is gone (and if I'm reading right, there are not many more available except via the secret shops). Name Class Level HP Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res Roy Lord 20.00 40 11 16 18 19 6 8 Roy gained one point of def in 19 25% chances. :Eliwood: Son, I am disappoint. Isle Be Back 16/184 Pretty much the same idea, except with dark magic instead of anima, and a ballista. Geese seems like more of a liability than an asset, not worth talking to to recruit, since he has bad hit rates even on the bandits and completely fails WRT the sword dudes. Also, who would I give the Brave Axe to later? The village is also obviously not a concern. This took a few tries to figure out the best path to avoid getting blocked in by enemies and to 1RKO as much as possible with the two Steel Swords I had. Gonzo ran away and healed after the first round of combat, which was nice because he wasn't in my way. The ballista apparently only fired twice. Oh look, I get a Wyrmslayer. Used another charge of the Elixir, one left. I hope I don't need it for a while. No more stat blocks until Cecilia get, since Roy's capped. I'll make a note of him nomming the Secret Book if he does. Lalum On Real Thick 21/205 I guess I could redo this and shave a few turns if I got everything exactly right (in particular, I still have 5 uses of Killing Edge left and it would have been nice to use some on Oro), but there's just so much asdf stuff that can go wrong that I didn't want to bother. SP is right about enemies failing here. My Roy is doubling most of what's on this map with a Steel Blade FFS. But without anyone drafted, I'm still so outnumbered that real problems are caused. The NPCs certainly help by acting as bait. Lalum was kept alive until after I recruited Klein with Roy, and then flailed around in the skirmish until death. Don't worry, I have something much better planned for Sophia. Echidna remained an NPC, and fought valiantly, but really doesn't stand a chance without any healing. After Klein recruited Tate, Klein and Roy went to the gate to tag-team the boss, while Tate flew literal circles around the enemy reinforcements to pick up stuff from the villages, since she fails so much at actual combat here. She missed the Axereaver because a bandit sneaked through and destroyed that village, but she did get the Speedwings and Dragonshield (yesz!), and survived. Klein didn't, ironically enough, but he did at least trade the White Gem over to Roy during the boss battle. On EP after the boss KO, Roy had to dodge like 3 40s from cav reinforcements, but honestly everything else in this chapter is massively luck-dependant anyway with so few units, so... CATH IS TOP TIER 21/226 Speaking of luck dependance. Mother Earth and Father Sky did this take a lot of retries, and is almost certainly impossible starting from a hard reset. The plan: Roy takes two Vulneraries (the last Elixir charge was needed vs. Oro), the Wyrmslayer, a full Armorslayer and an Iron Sword (because the Steel is almost done and I didn't get that Silver asdf... I also tried using the Steel Blade instead of the Armorslayer and found it quite inferior). He ninjas his way through the gauntlet, dodging over 9000 arrows and Flux bolts, several 11%s or so from Sleep staves, and possible instant death from some low-hit Killer Axes; arranges himself to use the Armorslayer at key times to actually take out the armors (and in order to actually 2HKO some of the bandits in the gauntlet at key points where it's necessary to avoid being slowed down too much), without taking on too much risk from the lowered evade. Because of his crappy Str he also needs one specific bandit to make a bad roll for HP. Once he gets through all of that, he has to recruit Cath just as she comes by (and her movement is erratic - on the run where I finally succeeded, I actually arrived early, and had to wait like 2 turns for her because I learned the hard way earlier that she gets scared if you pursue her - and this was one of the runs where she decided to take an unusually direct route), have her unlock the door and block off one of the reinforcement stairs (which in turn means you have to get all this done before those reinforcements start showing up, or else I just get hemmed in and crushed by the next wave of reinforcements from the far south, if the wyverns don't get me) and hopefully also trade away her Vulnerary. Finally Roy makes his way in front of Aine while the other units hopefully swarm Cath and she dodges enough to keep their attention, even though she's easily put to Sleep. Once Roy is in position, he needs to hit 3 times in succession (or a 1% crit), 2 on EP and 1 on the next PP, with 68% display hit. If the wyverns have caught up then it's already too late, because if you try to take them out with the Wyrmslayer then it will get destroyed on EP (and nothing else can even scratch Aine), and otherwise they're just much too dangerous. On the run where I finally made it through all that ridiculousness, my Wyrmslayer got broken by suiciding bandits on EP after taking out Aine. I had two Vulneraries - one from Cath and one that I hadn't touched from the initial stock, but I really, really couldn't depend on that sort of thing. Oh, 14 uses of Armorslayer too. Leaving 9 split between two of them. Sadface. Cath dies of course, and I thus don't even get the Brave Bow or Elysian Whip that she steals by default, not that I'd have any use for them. No, the sucky part is that she won't be around for Ch 16. This was doing it as quickly as possible pretty much out of necessity; you get wtfpwned otherwise, and even if Roy could somehow survive the mob that shows up eventually, he'd run out of weapons with no way to get more. Finishing it in exactly enough turns to avoid 12x is complete coincidence. Lorddomu, if you still have hair by the time you've gotten this far, you have my respect. I'm amazed I do.

Where's the option to turn off wysiwyg?

Bros before Ho's: so many turns I have to spoiler it I don't manage to get a Thunder from Lilina before she dies, which I'd been hoping for. I do get to steal from Cath and the other thief, and end up with everything except the nice swords which are what actually matter . Just getting through the initial rush is hard enough. Roy is nearly out of room for levels, so I try to let asshole Astol do most of the work... but he can't dodge everything, he has WTD just like Roy, and oh yeah, fucking javelins asdf. Speaking of javelins, Barth rescues Oujay and stands with one just outside the broken wall, also protecting Wendy, eventually taking out the archers in time for the party to meet up. Cath runs into us at turn 17 at the top of the stairs. The original plan was for Lilina to follow behind Cath and her fellow thief, but it didn't look like the area would be sufficiently clear, so she backed away, "conveniently" aggroing the Elfire!Mage in the treasure room who apparently will pick up on your scent from 2-turn range. She lets said mage chase her around her starting cell... just in time for reinforcements to come streaming out and mob her. This gives the main group time to regroup at the east entrance to the treasure room. We're low on Vulneraries even with Astol having stolen a bunch on the way down and Roy bringing one in to start. Roy has taken the Armorslayer from Oujay (losing that would be unacceptable), who at one point is needed to suicide himself in a blaze of glory with the Steel Sword (I wanted that :( ) while Barth and Roy heal. Wendy is sacrificed to bait the Killer Lance!Knight off to the side a bit, enabling Roy to sneak through while (eventually - I totally could have done this more cleanly, but this whole exercise is so asdf that I don't want to repeat it for a lower turn count) Astol steals the Chest Key and Barth ORKOs as long as neither of them gets crit (and they didn't, yayyyyyyyy). Thankfully, there are no more reinforcements; we got rid of them all in the last epic battle. Everyone is still badly injured, so they head around to the far side of the throne to grab the last Vulnerary off that Mage first. This turns out not to be necessary, as neither Mage, nor the Knight, nor Leygance ends up scoring a hit. Armorslayer!Astol eventually scores the boss kill (exactly 3HKO to start, with 43% display hit and obviously enough speed to double; RNG abuse could have made this a lot shorter) with Roy waiting to seize, while Barth uses the Chest Keys to grab the rest of the loot. In spite of my efforts not to use Roy, he gains more exp here than on any other chapter except 6 thus far. Name Class Level HP Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res Roy Lord 18.99 38 9 15 17 18 6 7 Now my Roy is Res-blessed, too. o_O @domu Ch7 is honestly not that bad, it's just long. This one is pure hell, though. Use the skills you learned in Ch6 to avoid over 9000 restarts.

So you're saying you're a masochist?

True. Anyway, lolol here I go with no drafted units because Cecilia is still punishing me and I'm kinky like that MONEY IS REALLY IMPORTANT 6/6 Hard to argue with that logic, so Bors heads to the village. Marcus hands his Iron Sword over to Roy because he'll need the Rapier later. The horsies do a bunch of rescue-dropping of Roy to keep him at the front, Lance weakens bandits for Roy, and Wolt picks up some scraps for lolz. Marcus takes out the damnedest idiot of the bunch in the interest of turncount. That's the basic plan, anyway. Had to restart a few times because Roy apparently thinks dodging 37s is for peasants and vassals, not royalty like himself. Once I get it, though, Roy procs speed on both level-ups, which is pretty sexy. Name Class Level HP Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res Roy Lord 3.47 20 5 7 9 8 5 0 "A bow has great power against flying enemies." 8/14 So Thany gets wtfpwned by one, obviously. Yeah, I'm not really more creative than you guys. Marcus grabs the Armorslayer and then catches up as the rest of the crew waits for Roy to finish off the bandits while standing in the fort. Merlinus shops till he drops (10x Iron sword and 8x Vulnerary) and learns valuable information about forts and weapon effectiveness for funsies. Dieck rips through stuff with the Iron Blade which is too heavy for Roy to bother with later. Thany hangs around, helps with rescue-chaining Roy, and eventually gets her chance to suicide. The archer doesn't OHKO her unfortunately, but that just means Roy gets to 2RKO him while he's nomming on delicious pegasus meat. Except not, because he misses the second time. So Thany goes to weaken the other archer, and finally dies. Marcus slays the armor with specialized tools and Alan takes out the Thany-kill-fail archer so I'm not tempted to waste a turn. Ward also suicided, not that I would care, except that the hammer is sorta valuable. Name Class Level HP Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res Roy Lord 5.03 21 6 9 11 9 5 1 Yes, Roy procced speed both times AGAIN. I think I'll hang on to the Iron Blade after all. Disregard Lugh, acquire exp 10/24 Except not. I sent Bors up to get Lugh because Cecilia can use that tome later. Merlinus went to the east house. A bunch of rescue-dropping was used to keep Roy on the front lines and Ellen and Chad not too far behind. Alan and Lance cleared a path to the treasure room while Marcus took out the boss with the Silver Lance (might as well save Armorslayer uses for Roy). Marcus survived with 1HP after the boss hit on a 29, he got hit by the eastern axe d00d, and reinforcements came in, all at once. He also ran the Silver Lance down to 2 uses, whee. Disappointing that Roy got less exp on this map, but then it's harder to get him exp on this map. I'm sure I could do this faster but meh. Chad got both treasures, not that a Halberd is going to be particularly useful. Name Class Level HP Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res Roy Lord 6.?? 22 7 10 11 10 5 1 I failed to copy the level the first time and now I've forgotten the exact amount. Old, moldy tradition 8/32 I totally could have finished this map in 6 turns, without Rutger even showing up; but I wanted that Killing Edge, so I set up some bait for Rutger and waited. (I actually had to restart for this, because apparently Rutger won't show up if you've already killed Erik?! And then restarted again a few times because of a random screw-up. Seems like enemies only go for Roy when you don't want them to.) He ended up deciding to wtfpwn Ellen, unsurprising really. A team effort, not much planning ahead. Merlinus got the ultimate item, the DOOR KEY. Lugh learned about nomad troopers and the main point of combat, and picked up a Steel Blade. Bors traded his lance to Marcus to do most of the work. Chad had more than enough time to walk to the south village; he could have bought some Fire tomes and Heal staves for Cecilia's use later, but there didn't really seem to be a point. He also got to steal a Vulnerary from one of Rutger's posse. I fed Roy the boss kill, slowing things down one more turn. He got one stat from the resulting level-up, COME ON GUESS WHICH ONE. Name Class Level HP Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res Roy Lord 7.79 22 7 11 11 10 5 1 Gratuitous Title Drop 9/41 Roy omnomnoms the Angelic Robe on turn 1, getting healed up by Clarine to realize the full effect. Marcus breaks the seal, prepared for the charge with Chad's Iron Sword. Bors and Alan rescue-drop Roy a bit closer to the front line. Dieck and Lot quest for the Holy Grail Gant's Lance, with Rutger serving as bait because lol why not. Chad also does research because lol why not. Lance can't 2HKO the bandits and Alan can't double them, blah. On the plus side, those bandits have absolute lol hitrates on Roy. That whole "Hand Axe" thing is kind of annoying though. Also he needs the superior might of the Killing Edge to 2HKO (nobody has a Steel Sword, the Steel Blade would weigh him down by 8 and Dieck is hogging the Iron Blade). I probably could have creatively sacced units to gain a turn, but I didn't want to lose their equipment unpredictably. random misses don't help either. Also Roy didn't crit with the Killing Edge the entire time until the very last hit where it was super-unnecessary ffs. I could have RNG abused, or for that matter set up a different strategy and let someone else weaken Dory, but I was getting kind of annoyed with restarting in early chapters already. Name Class Level HP Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res Roy Lord 10.27 31 7 12 12 13 5 2 Ok, now apparently he wants to be lucky instead of just fast. Get some eff kay enn DEF already. Your HP can only go up to 60 you know. I will fix the code boxes later Pretty bad so far I guess, although to be fair (a) I've only run through this game once on each mode before and (b) I was trying really hard to get Roy some levels early so that I won't be tearing out quite so much of my hair with restarts in 7 through 13 (and maybe longer than that). Woo, super bonus time. Admiral Ackbar's Tropical Hideaway 31/72 ... Yeah. This is the part where things really start to suck. I have Saul, who pretends to be a medic, Dorothy, who pretends to be a sniper, and Roy who pretends to be a heavy. (Ok, that's not fair to Saul.) Oh, and I get to sell a bunch of basically useless stuff before starting. It took several restarts just to survive. It might be possible to charge up the middle and seize the throne before getting swarmed by the reinforcements, but it looks like it takes stupid amounts of luck. Instead, I hung around the entrance, trading Wolt's old Iron Bow to Dorothy so that she doesn't fail too hard. She still didn't make it, but she helped a lot in allowing me to survive long enough to talk to Cath (I want her for Ch 16), just after she conveniently unlocked a safe door before running out. This allowed me to jam Roy in the doorway with Saul behind (UBERCHARGE FTW), gradually take out the initial rush plus the reinforcements, and then head up towards Wagner, who was dispatched with the last couple of uses of the Killing Edge. Oh yeah, and Sue rots in a dungeon cell since we all agreed that's the right thing to do. The CG implies there are spiders around. Maybe they ate her. Name Class Level HP Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res Roy Lord 14.43 34? 8 13 14 16 6 5 Oh look, a Str proc, and Def finally, and suddenly a crapload of Res. Also, Roy has A swords already. I am not unhappy. Lorddomu, gl with this chapter, seriously. Rebellion at SPARTA 33/105 Obviously this gets less hellish once Zealot is recruited, but there are still the reinforcements to deal with, plus it's a while before anyone can really get at those stupid Physic monks. Treck suicided himself on one of the wyverns, gg. Noah ran around villages and doing shopping, got everything, including buying keys to get the northeast treasure room so that Roy has a replacement Rapier and Killing Edge and Cecilia will have a couple of nice staves. Zealot took the boss kill this time. Not really any planning here, mostly just adapting to the situation, avoiding death, and trying to be aggressive where it seems feasible. The hard part really is recruiting Noah and making sure he doesn't die while also doing something useful with Roy. If you don't have Roy positioned well, he'll be blocked off from Noah on turn 2 and then you'll be sadface. Name Class Level HP Str Skl Spd Lck Def Res Roy Lord 16.38 36 8 13 15 17 6 6 I double-checked and these are actually pretty bad stats vs. average. -1HP (after discounting the robe), -3Str T_T, +0.5Skl, +2Spd, +1Luk, -3Def >__<, +1.5Res. Sigh.

Fiora is so sexy I wouldn't mind if she replaced one of my friends.

THE FIRST RULE OF COSINE LAW IS YOU DON'T TALK ABOUT COSINE LAW