Going to start a Thracia playthrough..anything I should know beforehand?

[Bors]

I hear its the hardest game in the series and I want I don't want to walk into this blindly.

I'm pretty familiar with game mechanics, but is there anything in particular I should be looking out for? Any units I should or shouldn't be using.

Also, would it be recommended to start of on Paragon Mode?

[General Horace]

On escape maps, make sure you leave with all your units before you leave with Leaf, otherwise they'll be gone until a lategame chapter.

Thracia really isn't too hard (the generic enemies are downright pathetic) but a lot of the bosses buff them up and have pretty good stats themselves. Playing on Elite mode is fine for a first playthrough, since it allows you to use whoever you like without much trouble really. It does make the game a lot easier though.

Not gonna say a whole lot on the units, I find it more fun to discover what units are good and terrible while you play!

[dondon151]

this topic is going to blow up with a bunch of unnecessary and bad advice

there's a plot related event at the end of chapter 3 that shakes up your army. leif gets thrown in prison with lifis and any weapons that he or lifis had are locked in treasure chests in chapter 4, which you'll have to unlock to get back.

try to bring as few items as possible to chapter 4.

[Klokinator]

try to bring as few items as possible to chapter 4.

I thought the correct advice was "put your best items on leaf and lifis"?

[Icon of Sin]

Putting less means less chests overall to get, which means the quicker you can leave the place.

Of course, if you want to train on the soldiers, nothing's stopping you other than a possible weapon shortage. This game is overall very flexible.

Edited July 10, 2014 by Woodshooter

[Baldrick]

We should make a stickied thread and put posts #2 and #3 in it.

Capture is something else you should know about. It causes your battle stats to be halved, but if you kill the enemy, you capture them (natch). While captured, you can strip them of their equipment and then release them after; it's the best way to keep your supplies up, because shops are expensive. Unarmed enemies can be captured without a fight; there's a certain unarmed enemy early on who you definitely want to capture and not release.

[Emperor Hardin]

Releasing captured units count as killing them, so if you capture a character thats going to be recruitable later make sure not to release them.

[Icon of Sin]

Releasing captured units count as killing them, so if you capture a character thats going to be recruitable later make sure not to release them.

That's actually variable depending of the version since I've let Shiva go only to face him again.

It's also possible to lose the opportunity to recruit them even if you capture but don't release.

[Nicolas]

IMO elite mode won't help you much. Fighting is less important part of this game.

Some of these advice are good for every FE game:

• Use your resources when you need them and don't save them for lategame.
• Don't be afraid of promoting your units early. Max cap is 20 for every class in in every stat (beside hp), so your units will cap it anyway. IIRC promo gains are highest in series, so promoting someone when you get first Knight's Chest is good idea.
• Know equipment of your foes, because they might have nice weapons.
• Beat chapters as quick as you can, because sometimes you can avoid some powerful reinforcements. You will get many good prepromotes, so don't think that your units will be too weak to beat chapter.
• In this game there is hidden stat: PPC. If any units deal second strike, crit chance is multiplied by [number of ppc]. Few units in this game has very high PPC (Asvel, Felgus, Othin, Havan and other...). Game for some reason never tells you about PPC. I have no idea why.

That + post 1# and 2# are probably everything what you need to know. Other information you can get from game. Have fun!

[Refa]

Fin is the best...looking unit, so you should use him. Otherwise your army's morale drops and hit rates decrease all around by 50% (avoid rates plummet to 0%). Don't try to prove me wrong, this is fact!

[Nicolas]

Fin is the best...looking unit, so you should use him. Otherwise your army's morale drops and hit rates decrease all around by 50% (avoid rates plummet to 0%). Don't try to prove me wrong, this is fact!

Yeah, and if you will use warp in ch22 game will crash deleting your all saves, destroying computer and your house!

[sirmola]

Abuse staffs.Staffs in this game are really good, and anyone who can use them is automatically at least decent. If you see someone with a really good staff early game(the best are thief, sleep, and warp, although m up and rewarp are also extremely usefull), you really want to capture/recruit them before it is used up. Also, starting midgame you get a ton of every non prf staff and some types of ranged magic, so feel free to use them. Also, capturing people does not render them unrecruitable in a latter chapter in the fan translation(and i assume the version that it is based off of.) as long as you do not release them. Also, there are many secrets(like how to get a dancer) that essentualy require a guide. Use the following two pages liberaly: http://www.serenesforest.net/fe5/hint.html

http://www.serenesforest.net/fe5/gaiden.html

also, abuse scrols, which boost growths.

Edited July 13, 2014 by sirmola

[Fried Chicken]

I don't know if this can be counted as a gaming advice, but save before placing your cursor on Heroes (or Mercenaries as they're called in this game) of chapter 22 and beyond. Else the game freezes (or remains blocked for a loong perdiod of time). I don't know if it depends in your emulator or your patch, but I was using the usual one with snes9x and cried a lot.

Other than that, enjoy.

[sirmola]

I don't know if this can be counted as a gaming advice, but save before placing your cursor on Heroes (or Mercenaries as they're called in this game) of chapter 22 and beyond. Else the game freezes (or remains blocked for a loong perdiod of time). I don't know if it depends in your emulator or your patch, but I was using the usual one with snes9x and cried a lot.

Other than that, enjoy.

That's a bug in the fan translation only. note that glazus is okay to hilight, despite being a hero Savestate repeatedly in those chapters. Also, save many of your rescue charges (and preferably some rewarp as well) for chapter 24x. You WILL need them. That being said, that chapter can be skipped entierly if you want(although the ending is slightly less good).

Edited July 13, 2014 by sirmola