What realistic aspects of history do you want to see?

[Hrothgar777]

It's no secret that the scale and in-world complexity of Fire Emblem has grown over time. According to a YouTuber who apparently counted it, the original Shadow Dragon for the NES had a meager 6,200 words in English, while Three Houses clocked in at 290,500+ words (not counting supports), making it longer than the first three Harry Potter novels combined. In short, newer entries aren't "just" video games but full-blown fantasy novels in their own right.

The basic template of armored knights fighting dragons for kings who live in castles can only keep audience attention for so long. So to add some variety to its storytelling, FE has at times drawn from the historical record. Fates introduced the "retainer", found in some parts of Europe during some parts of the Middle Ages. Three Houses implied that Petra was a hostage to the Adrestrian court, a callback to what was a very common practice in the Roman Empire. Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn had one country ruled by a senate, a nod to the fact that some Medieval republics did exist, such as in Italy. And so on.

Assuming the next game leans heavier on realism than Engage, which had the cast dress in 21st century attire in the Somniel, what realities of history would you want to see depicted?

[Etrurian emperor]

I think in general Fire Emblem could do with more mercantile or monarch-less nations like Carcino, Leicester and Lycia. In particular I think it be interesting to see a focus on scheming Lords like Claude who strive for monarchical powers they aren't quite supposed to have, and the friction it brings. Historical examples being the consuls seizing more and more power in Republican Rome, the Dutch House of Orange slowly promoting themselves from representatives of the government to actual monarchs or even the samurai claiming power that was way beyond their class and paygrade. 

 

[vanguard333]

For me, I want to see more of the armour that existed in Medieval Europe.

For example, I really dislike how a lot of armor knights' armour in FE games is often ugly and impractical and often have the same impracticalities (side plates, overly-stiff shoulder plates, etc.), especially when there are many varieties of plate armour from which they can take inspiration. One type of plate armour that I would really like to see is Maximillian armour: a type of late-Medieval German armour where the plates were fluted to increase its stiffness without increasing its weight.

Spoiler

Another form of armour that I would like to see is jack chains: strips of plate attached to the sleaves of cloth armour to make it more resistant to sword cuts. This was worn by people who couldn't afford plate armour, and it would be great to see on units such as myrmidons.

Spoiler

Finally, one form of armour I would like to see more often is the gambeson. Gambesons were armour made from thick, layered cloth, and they were the cheapest form of chest armour available.

Spoiler

 

Another thing I would like to see more in Fire Emblem is siege warfare. Battles were actually relatively infrequent in the Middle Ages; sieges, however, were a lot more common. And yet, whenever Fire Emblem presents the idea of an army having to take a castle, it usually just cuts to the moment that they're already in the castle. I want to see trebuchets and war ladders, I want to see battering rams, I want to have to seize gatehouses and open the gates for the army.

[Etrurian emperor]

Some colonial regimes could be fun. Either Kingdoms akin to Ptolemaic Egypt and Targaryan Westeros or corporations like the East India Company owning while countries and behaving more like nation states than corporations. 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Serfdom. Fire Emblem dipped its toe into class divide between commoners and nobles in Echoes and Three Houses, but there's more ground to cover. I understand not wanting to focus on the leading cause of war in Medieval/Early Modern Europe because God is a controversial topic for an international audience. A good war to draw on for inspiration would be the German Peasants' War of the early 1500s. Socio economic conditions were improving for those privileged, but it wasn't trickling down to workers. Nobles, backed by clergy, were coming up with outrageous laws for workers. If you lived on a Lord's land you couldn't legally collect firewood, hunt for game, or fish to feed yourself. Those bounties were the Lord's even if they would go unclaimed otherwise. Protesting these conditions lead to early theories of personal freedom and workers' rights, and right when the printing press was just beginning to catch on. So even the though the Movement was a failure in real life, there's a lot of story to tell about how notions of freedom get disseminated. Set your fire emblem universe to AFTER that type of conflict. Where the Nobles "won" but the schism is still there by the time the Dark Dragon shows up with his brainwashy followers.

Or do something REALLY subversive and leave every character with their autonomy intact

Edited February 15 by Zapp Branniglenn

[Hrothgar777]

A few examples I can think of:

 

-Captured nobles in war being ransomed for money instead of killed

-The dominant religion having an official theology, backed by secular powers in the main country, with heterodox groups or a rival country having a specific rival theology that inspires enmity between the two sides. I want this to be a thing, and to know exactly what said difference is. It can be something that comes across as petty or semantic to us, because indeed it often was.

-Monasteries having a rule, which is a written set of instructions governing every aspect of daily life, often centuries old and shared in common by numerous institutions over a wide geographic area

-The role of monasteries as scriptoria, with the biggest emphasis being placed on the reproduction of religious and "classic" texts from antiquity

-Monasteries as large landowners, with serfs under them

-An exploration of the relationship between the church "estate" of society and its two secular counterparts; for example, it offered the lowest peasants a pathway to upward mobility if they were willing to be celibate for the rest of their lives and follow austere rules, BUT the likes of bishops and abbots of prestigious monasteries were always from noble families.

-Set hours of prayer throughout the day, which all the Abrahamic faiths seemed to have before modern times; things like bell towers and town criers can be used to remind people "Hey, it's that time of day".

-Jousting tournaments as big lavish events

-Games that were played during the time, such as die, knucklebones, playing cards, or chess

-Miscellaneous honorary titles conferred by the king or emperor, including hereditary ones, beyond the mere status of being duke of this or that domain

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, Hrothgar777 said:

It's no secret that the scale and in-world complexity of Fire Emblem has grown over time. According to a YouTuber who apparently counted it, the original Shadow Dragon for the NES had a meager 6,200 words in English, while Three Houses clocked in at 290,500+ words (not counting supports), making it longer than the first three Harry Potter novels combined. In short, newer entries aren't "just" video games but full-blown fantasy novels in their own right.

The basic template of armored knights fighting dragons for kings who live in castles can only keep audience attention for so long. So to add some variety to its storytelling, FE has at times drawn from the historical record. Fates introduced the "retainer", found in some parts of Europe during some parts of the Middle Ages. Three Houses implied that Petra was a hostage to the Adrestrian court, a callback to what was a very common practice in the Roman Empire. Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn had one country ruled by a senate, a nod to the fact that some Medieval republics did exist, such as in Italy. And so on.

Assuming the next game leans heavier on realism than Engage, which had the cast dress in 21st century attire in the Somniel, what realities of history would you want to see depicted?

I wouldn't call Begnion a republic. It still very much has an Empress at the top, even if during the time of the game Sanaki isn't that powerful relative to the senate due to being shorter than Lekain's knee. If the Empress/Apostle was really a complete figurehead, well it'd still be a monarchy and not a republic, but even taking it to not be the case, we know the Empress is not just a figurehead position, as it it were the senate wouldn't have needed to go to the trouble of assassinate the previous one because they feared her new policies. The only genuine Republic we've had in the series that I can recall is Carcino. Though Grandvale was a republic in its ancient history.

 

 

As for my answer to the question, I'd like to see more happening during the war in the games. Especially more naval influence in things, as I've just stated on a different thread. I get why Fire Emblem does downplay the naval aspect of war, because a bunch of chapters on boats would lose its novelty pretty quickly, but that belies another issue I have with their approach to story telling, nothing happens in the world without the protagonist. Every battle we hear about is either the protagonist under attack or the protagonist attacking someone else. But, like, these are huge conflicts. There's going to be battles all over the place that the protagonist is simply not a direct part of. Battles that are obviously going to matter. Occasionally referencing the state of their navy would be a perfect way of increasing the scope of the game and also allowing the protagonist to be at a disadvantage even though they're winning all the time. Because the conflict is simply bigger than just one person. The only times I can think of any of the games making serious attempts to suggest stuff is happening outside of the immediate scope of the player is in Genealogy Generation 1 with all the stuff in Isaach (which is great!, though almost trends too much in the opposite direction in that it's almost more important than what Sigurd is actually doing) and Grondor Field in the Church Route of Three Houses, and even that's a bit of a cop out because we do play that exact battle, just not in that timeline.

[Interdimensional Observer]

59 minutes ago, Jotari said:

As for my answer to the question, I'd like to see more happening during the war in the games. Especially more naval influence in things, as I've just stated on a different thread. I get why Fire Emblem does downplay the naval aspect of war, because a bunch of chapters on boats would lose its novelty pretty quickly, but that belies another issue I have with their approach to story telling, nothing happens in the world without the protagonist. Every battle we hear about is either the protagonist under attack or the protagonist attacking someone else. But, like, these are huge conflicts. There's going to be battles all over the place that the protagonist is simply not a direct part of. Battles that are obviously going to matter. Occasionally referencing the state of their navy would be a perfect way of increasing the scope of the game and also allowing the protagonist to be at a disadvantage even though they're winning all the time. Because the conflict is simply bigger than just one person. The only times I can think of any of the games making serious attempts to suggest stuff is happening outside of the immediate scope of the player is in Genealogy Generation 1 with all the stuff in Isaach

The amount of water separating southern Issach from Manster District seems inconsistent between C7 and the ingame world map. But, you'd think that rather than skirt the edge of the desert, that most Issach-Manster trade would be maritime. (Probably grain exports and luxury artisan crafts to Issach, livestock to Manster, judging from the economic specialties mentioned in the Treasure art book.) -Or that Seliph might respond to word of Leif's rebellion by sending out a fleet (provided the Grannvale Empire left seaworthy ships behind/he could get them built quick enough).

Edited February 16 by Interdimensional Observer

[AnonymousSpeed]

I'm afraid I don't follow. Doesn't history imply reality? I feel like "realistic aspects of history" may be a redundant statement or muddling the question. I read "realistic" and think of armor maintenance or logistics, the day-to-day stuff, not kinds of historical polities (which seems to be how most people have taken this).

Edited February 16 by AnonymousSpeed

[Armchair General]

I want to see an side plot that involves an case of mass hysteria, tbh

[Jotari]

3 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

I want to see an side plot that involves an case of mass hysteria, tbh

The Serenes Massacre was kind of that. The Senators definitely pointed the fingers, but they probably weren't expecting the common citizenry to just get up and genocide the entire population in a single night. Like, it would take an outright psychic to expect immediate and comprehensive genocide to be the end result. Lekain probably had much more long term plans about concessions and blood pacts with a contingency to send in the central army in the end and enslave the Herons, and then one dude said "Let's just fucking kill them all right now!" and bibibabiboop, no more Herons.

[Armchair General]

Yeah, but I meant it in a non-genocidal way.

[ARMADS!!!]

6 hours ago, Armchair General said:

I want to see an side plot that involves an case of mass hysteria, tbh

That'd be pretty cool.

 

 One thing I like is religious in inquisitions (we already have the Loptous cult child hunts and the like, but I like this sort of thing).

 Other is drama in royalty such as battles between cocumbines (and the queen), with them fighting to ascend to power or to put their own sons and daughters on the throne, or the queen taking revenge on the cocumbines that the king likes the most because she's afraid he'll give power to her, and this sort of thing, I know this sort of thing happened either in ancient China or Japan (I'm not sure which, or if it was both, cause I was reading about cocumbines from both countries on the same day, though I'm almost certain it was in both). Could be gender flipped as well, no difference.

 And branch families trying to ascend to power (like in feh's book VI, that plot was pretty cool). Don't know exact examples of this but I'm sure there's some.

 I also like royalty shitshow like FE4 had with people that had forbidden relationships, people that were in love with their siblings (and couldn't be together, or were together and one person never told the other person that they were siblings), people who were engaged but weren't in love, etc, or like the Nyna/Camus/Hardin love triangle, or bastard kids, running away with a side piece, etc, etc, etc. I'm a sucker for this sort of shit (and we have several examples of this in history already, well and on Fire Emblem too but I'd like to see even more).

Not sure if some of these count but Anyway.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

All of them. Where´s our famines, our floods our earthquakes, where´s the natural disasters (so not a fuckoff big dragon in the sky) that etch themselves into the memory of it witnesses...

Where´s the illnesses and the malnutrition and the religious effort to work through it? Naga is dead, she won´t hold your hand, grab a whip and commit a weee bit of self-flagellation? Or maybe you want a letter for 100 goldpieces telling you, you´re going to heaven?.

Where´s the animals? Bears, Wolves, Boars all legitimate threats in medieval Europe...whermst? Birds are a lie and so are hounds.

Where´s the trouble in communication, are we in the 15th century and everyone hires professional scribes? Why do we have a Lingua Franca, but noone speaks anything but it? Where´s the messenger?

How many courts have we had depicted yet, where royalty and clergy are deeply connected? If you rule through divina favente clementia than should god not have a servant at their side? Throw a side eye on what da boi doin? Where the hell is the clergy and the religion overall anyway... oh look here´s a nice lvl 1 staff user of said religion and 14 chapters later you might get someone with the rank of bishop... whoopdidoo, here´s the gods kid with no memory whatsoever.

Where´s the literal convoy? Moving armies is a lot of work, in any age, but in FE you march from here to there and battle with no second thought... ah a weapons shop right next to the remote place, delivering standardized weapons in large enough quantities for an entire army. Food! for people. for animals (which don´t exist). From where, how much and how do we move it? Put the benched ones in front of the carriage? Has any FE ever acknowledged the need for a dedicated place to take a dump? Clean hands aren´t invented before the 19th century.

 

Rats.

[Etrurian emperor]

29 minutes ago, Imuabicus der Fertige said:

Where´s the animals? Bears, Wolves, Boars all legitimate threats in medieval Europe...whermst?

In Ylisse at least bears have an excuse not to appear. They might get worried Chrom and Lissa will eat them if they show up.

30 minutes ago, Imuabicus der Fertige said:

How many courts have we had depicted yet, where royalty and clergy are deeply connected?

Its kinda there in Begnion in the sense that the clergy and the nobles are the same persons. 

[henrymidfields]

I've written about this in aother place. Let's see if I can bring it up:

A succession crisis with some gender studies, based on both the wars involving the Austrian Empress Maria Teresa, and current-day Japan's hang-ups with having a female tenno - or even just addressing female leadership:

Another one I would like to see is an industrial-military complex with merchants and weapon suppliers supporting a belligerent government or Empire just because they can sell more of their products, and would assassinate pacifists (and scapegoat other people for the incident) who do not tow the business line.

Thirdly, some mass hysteria involving a royal family member who is also a demagogue who is in a succession crisis and, alongside with his supporters, tries to stop the perceived steal of his succession rights despite everyone else rightly believing that a) he is unfit to rule, and b) the rightful heir is someone else. He and his supporters commits the Duscur Massacre 2.0, and takes over the kingdom with an iron fist. You are the next rightful heir who saw your family (who was supposed to be the previous heir) got murdered - initially, you can only run, hide, and survive, but you gradually build your alliances to overcome the evil usurper. It's based on what if a certain event on January 2021 was more successful for the insurrectionists with a theme on misinformation and propaganda, as you have to convince others that you are the rightful prince(ss)/King/Queen who was exiled, or otherwise bribe them to turn over to your side. It's also far less ideal, and more like Leif's story in FE5, in that your enemies (both active fighting ones and political ones) often have the upper hand in the first half of the story, particularly in the first several chapters, and you have very little choice except flee and survive for another day/chapter.

Edited February 16 by henrymidfields

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Imuabicus der Fertige said:

All of them. Where´s our famines, our floods our earthquakes, where´s the natural disasters (so not a fuckoff big dragon in the sky) that etch themselves into the memory of it witnesses...

We do see a genuine non magical earthquake in Sacred Stones that influences the plot. We also hear about regular flooding hitting Telegra or however Jill's province is spelled in Radiant Dawn. Which I think is meant to be ironic in some way because that's the map in Path of Radiance that is flooded for non natural reasons.

1 hour ago, Imuabicus der Fertige said:

Where´s the messenger?

 

[Armchair General]

7 hours ago, ARMADS!!! said:

Other is drama in royalty such as battles between cocumbines (and the queen)

Nohr did that and it ironically resulted in an stable quartet of siblings.

 

7 hours ago, ARMADS!!! said:

with them fighting to ascend to power or to put their own sons and daughters on the throne

3H kind of did that, but that was propped up by Team Slither. All things considered, it's basically an missed opportunity until 3 Hopes mentioned it in a blurb about how the Holy Kingdom was divided into three major regions.

 

But I doubt if the devs would go for promoting actual incest, again.

 

 

[Nauriam]

Maybe this is just confirmation bias because I just played them, but I feel like Vestaria Saga I and II have really good examples of most some of these ideas.

One thing I'd like to see more of are false gods. There have been so many religions throughout history, and no matter what your personal theology is, there is not room for all of them to be correct about the nature of gods. In a fantasy setting like Fire Emblem, if people are worshiping something, then it is always an actual tangible god, but I think more blatant worshiping of nothing would be really interesting. I'm specifically thinking of the story in Exodus where the Israelites decide to make a calf out of whatever gold they had around because Moses was assumed to be dead, and they wanted a new god to follow. Especially if the main lord is from a nation that spends its resources waging war against Poseidon, or something akin to that, and the playable character has to navigate the consequences.

[Yexin]

i think i'd like it if they picked a certain historical period and location with its culture and made it "fire emblem-ized"

what i mean by this incredibly imprecise and generic line is, i'd love it if they, for instance, decided the new game would be set in a FE version of 16th century europe, and actually stayed coherent with the armor, weapon and outfit design of 16th century europe, same goes if they decided to pick east-asian or middle-east countries
if some elements are not coherent, they should be given a proper reason why, like armors and weapons created with old designs as inspirations

this would definitely require a certain amount of research, something i'm not confident they'd make

[Hrothgar777]

1 hour ago, Yexin said:

i think i'd like it if they picked a certain historical period and location with its culture and made it "fire emblem-ized"

what i mean by this incredibly imprecise and generic line is, i'd love it if they, for instance, decided the new game would be set in a FE version of 16th century europe, and actually stayed coherent with the armor, weapon and outfit design of 16th century europe, same goes if they decided to pick east-asian or middle-east countries
if some elements are not coherent, they should be given a proper reason why, like armors and weapons created with old designs as inspirations

this would definitely require a certain amount of research, something i'm not confident they'd make

On this note, one of the fortresses you'd have to seize could have an elaborate 16th century European "star fort" design visible from high elevation.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

A flash flood chapter could be a memorable set piece. Like the Wind Village map except you only get pushed in one direction instead of "whoops you were standing in Column 4 instead of Column 5 so you're miles from the rest of your army now". New rivers get created, bridges crumble and break. You might have to really study the terrain to find remaining shelter as you rescue green units from their homes. Maybe have different classes get swept away to differing degrees (Armor knights could be immune from pushing, while also providing one adjacent safe space opposite the current's direction for a unit to shelter behind) Why would the bandits be fighting you in such awful conditions? Well they probably holed up in the sturdiest buildings when the storm rolled in during their raid. So you'd have to siege your way into each building to secure more safe zones for the green units.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

A flash flood chapter could be a memorable set piece. Like the Wind Village map except you only get pushed in one direction instead of "whoops you were standing in Column 4 instead of Column 5 so you're miles from the rest of your army now". New rivers get created, bridges crumble and break. You might have to really study the terrain to find remaining shelter as you rescue green units from their homes. Maybe have different classes get swept away to differing degrees (Armor knights could be immune from pushing, while also providing one adjacent safe space opposite the current's direction for a unit to shelter behind) Why would the bandits be fighting you in such awful conditions? Well they probably holed up in the sturdiest buildings when the storm rolled in during their raid. So you'd have to siege your way into each building to secure more safe zones for the green units.

While not a flood, we have had pretty much exactly that mechanically with that one late game Engage map. The flood was just substituted for Avalanches. And as a mechanic I certainly enjoyed it much more than any of the nonsense Fates was offering with its gimmick maps.

[Coreyographed]

Three Houses actually prompted an idea for me during, of all things, the monastery group exercises that let you pair units for flying, mounted, and armored experience.

Full plate heavy armor was so incredibly expensive back for a lot of societies in history that it would have been prohibitively expensive to have a full military outfit of fully mounted or full-plated soldiers until a certain level of wealth was achieved. Additionally, horses (and by extension wyverns and pegasi) would require extensive resources to keep well-fed and taken care of. I do really enjoy what Three Houses tried to do with a weapon slot and an equipment slot for things like shields and staves as alternatives to full plate armor.

In the era of full reclassing that we are in, I think that perhaps the armor knight gets some tweaking as a different type of reclassing that you only have so many of, and they can equip special types of armor exclusive to armor knights. This would be similar to the Archanea games where you could only reclass so many units to the number of base units of that class + 1. It represents how many actual, expensive, but incredibly useful suits of armor you had. The reclass would have the unit retain the weapon ranks of what they were previously in, maybe?

Mounts as well could be restricted by how many your army could actually reasonably maintain and take care of, or else have to spend additional gold. And perhaps they would be affected by the environment as well. Cold-blooded reptilian mounts like wyverns shouldn't be deployable in arctic regions, and maybe horses pegasi wouldn't be able to handle the heat of a desert as they are not built very well for it. (The amount of mounts you can deploy could be upgraded if we keep a base-camp style hub, for instance).

I've always also liked the idea of side-missions you could send undeployed units on for a set of minor experience, with them getting bonus experience if the class is well-suited to the task, but that's a different soapbox.

[X-Naut]

15 hours ago, Coreyographed said:

Full plate heavy armor was so incredibly expensive back for a lot of societies in history that it would have been prohibitively expensive to have a full military outfit of fully mounted or full-plated soldiers until a certain level of wealth was achieved. Additionally, horses (and by extension wyverns and pegasi) would require extensive resources to keep well-fed and taken care of. I do really enjoy what Three Houses tried to do with a weapon slot and an equipment slot for things like shields and staves as alternatives to full plate armor.

In the era of full reclassing that we are in, I think that perhaps the armor knight gets some tweaking as a different type of reclassing that you only have so many of, and they can equip special types of armor exclusive to armor knights. This would be similar to the Archanea games where you could only reclass so many units to the number of base units of that class + 1. It represents how many actual, expensive, but incredibly useful suits of armor you had. The reclass would have the unit retain the weapon ranks of what they were previously in, maybe?

Mounts as well could be restricted by how many your army could actually reasonably maintain and take care of, or else have to spend additional gold. And perhaps they would be affected by the environment as well. Cold-blooded reptilian mounts like wyverns shouldn't be deployable in arctic regions, and maybe horses pegasi wouldn't be able to handle the heat of a desert as they are not built very well for it. (The amount of mounts you can deploy could be upgraded if we keep a base-camp style hub, for instance).

This actually ties into a pet peeve of mine, that some games grossly overuse armors as the go-to enemy type. That arguably part of the problem with armor knights: with how often they appear as enemies the devs have less incentive to tone down their flaws. If they were treated more as elite infantry and designed with that in mind we might see more meaningful armor knights. I think modern FE has been moving in the right direction in this regard, save for deployment limits like you said.

And on the subject of deployment limits, I can tolerate mounts on indoor maps but the terrain should actively disfavor them. Three Houses has stairs that slow down cavalry considerably in places, and I think fliers could just have indoor maps be their desert equivalent. Another change I'd advocate is for one-tile doorways to be their own terrain type, and that they and pillars become uncrossable on mounts. The former would create infantry-only sections on maps while the latter gives them exclusive cover.