An FE4 substitute run

[Hero]

My interest in Fire Emblem has been rekindled in the last couple of months after about three years of neglect. If you've seen most of my posts lately you'll know I just recently played through FE6 again using characters I'd ignored the first time through.

I picked up FE4 again a few days ago, intending to try out some different pairings for a second run through the game (and a third run through Generation I). Right now I'm in the middle of chapter three, and am already a bit disappointed with the difficulty. I found the game challenging my first time through, but back then my hardest Fire Emblem experience was FE7's normal modes. Now I'm dreading that Generation II will be a mindless slog with the kickass children I'm preparing.

So I came up with the idea of doing a substitute run. I have a couple questions, though. The first is whether such a thing is feasible. I know that most FE4 enemies are pretty weak, but are the subs tough enough to deal with the ones that aren't? I'd also like to know when the best time is to kill off all my female characters, and how to do it. Like I said I'm in chapter three right now and some of the girls are already paired up, and a couple more will be even if I don't let them stand near anybody.

[Tables]

As soon as a female has a lover, her children are determined IIRC, although you might be able to kill them (in which case I recommend a suicide rush against Leptor's army). So if you want to do a substitute run, you have to kill them before they can pair up. It has been done, but it is tough. Of course, you can pile stuff onto Celice and watch him steamroll most of the game (I got up to Alvis like that, but he's virtually impossible without Tilfing, which I missed and saved after), but actually training people is still very possible and can be completed.

Edited January 10, 2010 by I eat tables

[Mousefire]

As soon as a female has a lover, her children are determined IIRC, although you might be able to kill them (in which case I recommend a suicide rush against Leptor's army). So if you want to do a substitute run, you have to kill them before they can pair up. It has been done, but it is tough. Of course, you can pile stuff onto Celice and watch him steamroll most of the game (I got up to Alvis like that, but he's virtually impossible without Tilfing, which I missed and saved after), but actually training people is still very possible and can be completed.

Nope, you can kill the female anytime, or at least until the final castle of part one is seized.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

Sub run save in here. Start at C6.

And yes it is possible to do.

Edited January 10, 2010 by Zetta

[Santino]

Just kill the women anytime as been said, I prefer at Leptor, and the sub run isn't that hard. You still get Celice, Shannan and Ares after all, and some subs are quite good.

[CT075]

Balmunk, Mistoltin, Tyrfing and Narga make it easy.

Otherwise just keep them away from males. You might want to kill Sylvia in Ch4, so she doesn't seduce Levin.

[Mekkah]

I've played through with just subs + Celice before. It's like you're playing through a shadow kind of FE4, because almost every one of them is like an inferior kid.

Some tips/thoughts on them:

Mana - Other than not inheriting awesome staves like Warp and Recover from Aideen, or money boosters such as Knight Ring, she's still useful as a healer. She will have more money issues than Lana, which is why I'd recommend Daisy's first money dump to go to her. If you're playing through slowly, you might be able to pair her up with someone, though she doesn't have any particularly early pairings other than Celice.

Radney and Rodolban - They have swords and Pursuit, and Rodolban has Ambush which is nearly useless. A good idea would be to have Sigurd buy all the good swords at the end of generation 1: the Hero Sword, both Silver Swords, Defense Sword, Silver Blade, Wind Sword, Thunder Sword, etc, then have the kids buy it off him when they can. They'll have some of the best parameters in your substitute army for a while.

Tristan - All he has is Critical, which makes his damage output extremely lackluster. If you can spare him a Hero Sword, you should, but what really helps him is the Pursuit Ring. This has some fierce competition, but it also makes him like three times as useful. And considering he has a mount, he'll get into more battles than most kids, so he makes better use of them. He'll have to buy it for 40k though.

Dimna - This one is good. Pursuit, mount, and 9 base str which gets 5 piled onto it in a secret event in Ch6 (make sure you don't miss it!). Other than this, he's only a little better than a Midir without Charge. Hit issues in the arena or against terrain'd enemies, might not double mediocre Spd enemies such as Thunder Mages...but he's definitely one of the best substitutes, since he doesn't require any favouritism to be useful. Speed Ring and better bows are welcome, of course. Until Ch8 he's basically stuck with Steel at most, and way early he can't even go above Iron.

Femina - Oof, she's terrible at combat. All she has is Continue, which any Pegasus gets upon promotion regardless. So another good candidate for the Pursuit Ring. She'll have an easier time collecting money, since she can get to villages very quickly. Rob brigands from their 5000G with a Thief Sword (dropped from Dannan, or transfer with Celice), and also take the village gold if it's too far out of the way for anyone else to reasonably get. Other than Pursuit Ring, she'll obviously make great use out of the Hero Lance. Without Pursuit Ring though, she'll always be horrid.

Amid - Not to sound like a broken record, but this guy really wants the Pursuit Ring. He has Continue (which again is wasted when he promotes to Mage Fighter). He can be relied upon to 2HKO almost anything he sees, since he can use Elwind/Elthunder while hitting on resistance. No staves or horse upon promotion is a huge bummer, especially since he starts with only 5 movement, but regardless he isn't bad.

Daisy - One of the worst units ever. 3 str, C swords and wet cardboard durability. If you want to actually use her for combat, you'll want to abuse Prayer for the arena. Use healers/castles to get her HP so that Prayer activates during her next arena fight, and use that to get higher up. And feed her lots of kills. And play very slowly. Some kind of ranged sword is a must.

Janne - Like Mana, she doesn't change all that much from her legit child counterpart: healing, except on a horse. Her combat is much, much worse than most normal Nanna pairings though, because of much worse stats, particularly in the str department, plus no Pursuit. Just Relive people with her and she'll be useful.

Laylea - Dancers don't change much at all. Many people say Laylea is better than Leen because of Charisma, but since dancers tend to lag behind a lot I don't often find it useful. I'd rather her be able to inherit items. Anyway, she can do what all dancers do.

Linda - Linda rules. She has three key things that make her arguably the best substitute: A in Thunder, Wrath and Elite. She can use the Tron tome Ishtor drops to 2HKO anything, and with Wrath activated, that becomes an OHKO. Which is very recommendable if you can prevent her from getting attacked on enemy phase. Gains B staves upon promotion for some reason, so she can use Warp to increase her level further and be even more useful.

Asaello - He's just a bow user lucky enough to have Pursuit in his class. His stats are not impressive at all, but that one player phase shot he makes is probably pretty good, especially in Wyvern land. He also has Charge. No reason not to use him, but nothing special.

Hawk - Hawk is like Sety, but without all the specialties. Just a plain prepromote Sage, with the Pursuit+Continue combo, the ability to use any 14 mt tome, 1~2 range, staves, yadda yadda. So compared to everyone else, he's very good, and requires no favouritism at all to help out.

Sharlow - He is a main use: Berserk Staffing Arion. And beyond that, unless you want to pour lots of gold into him to keep repairing his staves, he probably won't be getting anywhere. Having him heal is useful sometimes, but usually he'll lag behind with that 5 movement of his, never mind the 19 levels he needs just to be able to attack.

I used all of them for completionist's sake, but if you want to ditch some, I'd recommend not using Sharlow and Daisy at all, since they're more trouble than it's worth. Femina is useful for flying, but actually raising her to promotion is a pain.