What's the most obscure thing you've accidentally discovered in Fire Emblem without having foreknowledge of its existence?

[Jotari]

48 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Interesting! See, I did a "minimum recruitment" playthrough, where Silque gave me the Turnwheel, but I didn't recruit her. I knew she disappeared later on, but didn't know that she reappeared in Act IV.

Oh, I guess I did discover something kind of obscure, though easily logically deduced. As, in Shadows of Valentia, I did a "minimum recruitment" for Alm and a "maximum recruitment" Celica simultaneously. That meant recruiting Kliff and Faye to Celica in addition to having Celica recruit all four of the DLC units. With this set up you actually can break the unit cap for overworld maps and be forced to leave someone behind. I'm not claiming I discovered this when it should be very obvious that's the case playing any map in Part 5 when the armies are combined, but it is kind of neat that you actually can do it with regular play before the armies rejoin. I don't have my 3DS on hand to check right now, but one would expect the unit cap to be 20, matching the end game, but it's actually a bit higher than that. My memories tell me two units had to be left behind with maximum recruitment meaning the unit cap is 22 ie exactly enough to recruit all DLC units to Celica's side if you don't cross recruit Kliff and Faye. That being said, my  memory has lied to me before in the past. So don't take anything I say as a given.

Edited August 6 by Jotari

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

Oh, I guess I did discover something kind of obscure, though easily logically deduced. As, in Shadows of Valentia, I did a "minimum recruitment" for Alm and a "maximum recruitment" Celica simultaneously. That meant recruiting Kliff and Faye to Celica in addition to having Celica recruit all four of the DLC units. With this set up you actually can break the unit cap for overworld maps and be forced to leave someone behind. I'm not claiming I discovered this when it should be very obvious that's the case playing any map in Part 5 when the armies are combined, but it is kind of neat that you actually can do it with regular play before the armies rejoin. I don't have my 3DS on hand to check right now, but one would expect the unit cap to be 20, matching the end game, but it's actually a bit higher than that. My memories tell me two units had to be left behind with maximum recruitment meaning the unit cap is 22 ie exactly enough to recruit all DLC units to Celica's side if you don't cross recruit Kliff and Faye. That being said, my  memory has lied to me before in the past. So don't take anything I say as a given.

Wait, Celica's side would have:

Spoiler

1. Celica

2. Mae

3. Boey

4. Genny

5. Saber

6. Valbar

7. Leon

8. Kamui

9. Kliff

10. Faye

11. Palla

12. Catria

13. Atlas

14. Jesse

15. Sonya/Deen

16. Est

17. Nomah

18. Conrad

18 before the DLC, unless I'm totally forgetting someone. So add the DLC, and you go up to 22. Meaning, if you're benching 2, then the deployment cap must be 20.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Wait, Celica's side would have:

  Hide contents

1. Celica

2. Mae

3. Boey

4. Genny

5. Saber

6. Valbar

7. Leon

8. Kamui

9. Kliff

10. Faye

11. Palla

12. Catria

13. Atlas

14. Jesse

15. Sonya/Deen

16. Est

17. Nomah

18. Conrad

18 before the DLC, unless I'm totally forgetting someone. So add the DLC, and you go up to 22. Meaning, if you're benching 2, then the deployment cap must be 20.

Ah, you're absolutely right. The source of the error is the wiki

https://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/List_of_characters_in_Fire_Emblem_Echoes:_Shadows_of_Valentia

Which I took a quick look at to determine how many characters are on Celica's route without realizing they took the somewhat creative option of listing Faye and Kliff on both Alm's route and Celica's route. So I was counting them twice.

 

[Seafarer]

On 8/6/2024 at 4:35 PM, Jotari said:

Oh, I guess I did discover something kind of obscure, though easily logically deduced. As, in Shadows of Valentia, I did a "minimum recruitment" for Alm and a "maximum recruitment" Celica simultaneously. That meant recruiting Kliff and Faye to Celica in addition to having Celica recruit all four of the DLC units. With this set up you actually can break the unit cap for overworld maps and be forced to leave someone behind. I'm not claiming I discovered this when it should be very obvious that's the case playing any map in Part 5 when the armies are combined, but it is kind of neat that you actually can do it with regular play before the armies rejoin. I don't have my 3DS on hand to check right now, but one would expect the unit cap to be 20, matching the end game, but it's actually a bit higher than that. My memories tell me two units had to be left behind with maximum recruitment meaning the unit cap is 22 ie exactly enough to recruit all DLC units to Celica's side if you don't cross recruit Kliff and Faye. That being said, my  memory has lied to me before in the past. So don't take anything I say as a given.

Funny story: the deployment cap in Act 1 and 2 is 10 (except for the final battle of Act 1, which has a deployment cap of 11 since you can have 11 units there without DLC units). You can have 10 units in the very first map of the game if you recruit all 4 Cipher characters, and skipping the Seabound Shrine until you have 11+ units lets you hit the cap there without DLC characters too. Deployment cap from Act 3 on is 20, but you can only see that on Celica's side prior to the final battle iirc.

 

Anyway, my obscure thing is the actual NESFE critical formula. Aggro says that the Japanese LTC community knows about it, but I haven't seen it anywhere in the English-speaking community.