Paralogues Were A Mistake

[Jotari]

I'm going to go ahead and say it. This game has the best paralogues in the series. Even though they mostly reuse maps, focusing on individual side characters is a great idea for characterisation, they offer great gameplay rewards and in terms of gameplay most of the paralogues are pretty great. We even get to fight pseudo Final Boss like enemies with the two saints. That all being said, I think they were a major mistake.

Three Houses is clearly a rushed and unfinished product. They obviously didn't manage to make the game they envisioned with Verdant Wind and Silver Snow being the same and Crimson Flower being almost half the length. I count 23 paralogues in the game + 3 DLC ones. That's as long as a full route of the game, including all of White Clouds. Aside from Claude's paralogue being kind of random, yet feeling important, yet also giving him a sword from his own bloodline that is completely unrelated to the Saint you fight, most of the paralogues feel quite complete. They clearly spent a lot of time on them. But paralogues are side stuff. They were fun, bit they weren't important. 23 paralogues doesn't mean they could have given us 23 more unique chapters because a lot of the paralogues reuse maps, but a lot of those maps are also exclusive to paralogues. By ditching the paralogues they could have at least given us a few more Crimson Flower chapters and at least one Silver Snow chapter to replace Grondor and differentiate it from Verdant Wind. Finish the game first, then work on the side content. Giving every single character including Sothis and Rhea a paralogue was overly ambitious and to the games detriment.

Edited March 10, 2021 by Jotari

[Armchair General]

Well, it would have helped more if they showed more of students' relatives. I was genuinely looking forward to see Petra's grandfather.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Most of the paralogues can be enjoyed on any route, and it's a thoughtful reward for recruiting all those units you won't use. Without paralogues, the bulk of the game (monastery/interacting with characters) would seem even more pointless. Meanwhile, my decision to play this game, start to finish again is my own fault. Three Houses' issue isn't that four routes is too much, it's that they set out to do three: SS, AM, VW, before adding a fourth mid-development. That original project plan would probably have resulted in a much better game as far as main story content.

[Interdimensional Observer]

Or, how about a much more radical idea- the main plot gets dumped in a river from the start, and the central focus becomes the side content? 

-Not actually suggesting this for 3H, but it could be a different direction to take an FE in. Or maybe an FE side project, perhaps it could be the solution to making an FExfarming sim spinoff work.

Edited March 10, 2021 by Interdimensional Observer

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

This is a gamble, though, that time not spent on making the paralogues would instead be spent to make the main campaign better, or "fuller". We can't really assume that to be the case, with any sort of confidence. Not doing paralogues could have given them more time for, I dunno, skinship with your students.

Anyway, my big complaint with them is how they're distributed within the story. As the game starts, there are no Paralogues - but that's okay, you can only do one battle per weekend, and there are a decent amount of battle quests. Then, in the latter half of the pre-skip, the game dumps a bunch of them on you - if you're going for full recruitment and play, you need to do like two per chapter, possibly more - so the chapters drag on longer. Then post-skip, there are still a few, but you have a lot of battle points. And they forgot to give you any quests, so once the paralogues are knocked out, it's just boring grinding.

I would change the battle system - rather than warping up to three different places on a single day, you can now take one "field trip" per week, in lieu of tutoring your students. This can be a quest, paralogue, or regular grinding. I'd also spread the paralogues out moreso, moving a couple to post-skip, and a couple others to be accessible earlier pre-skip.

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Or, how about a much more radical idea- the main plot gets dumped in a river from the start, and the central focus becomes the side content? 

-Not actually suggesting this for 3H, but it could be a different direction to take an FE in. Or maybe an FE side project, perhaps it could be the solution to making an FExfarming sim spinoff work.

Ooh, I like this. Maybe you lead a mercenary company, that takes on quests from various people in town? Then you get to use other people, learn more about them, and possibly convince them to join your crew. Or there's a defense map, where you guard your corn from hungry ravens.

3 hours ago, Armchair General said:

Well, it would have helped more if they showed more of students' relatives. I was genuinely looking forward to see Petra's grandfather.

This telling-not-showing was some serious bullshit. Petra's grandfather, Baron Dominic, Holst, and Count Gloucester, among others, deserved better.

[Florete]

The Paralogues weren't the mistake, 4 routes was.

[Dark Holy Elf]

5 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Anyway, my big complaint with them is how they're distributed within the story. As the game starts, there are no Paralogues - but that's okay, you can only do one battle per weekend, and there are a decent amount of battle quests. Then, in the latter half of the pre-skip, the game dumps a bunch of them on you - if you're going for full recruitment and play, you need to do like two per chapter, possibly more - so the chapters drag on longer. Then post-skip, there are still a few, but you have a lot of battle points. And they forgot to give you any quests, so once the paralogues are knocked out, it's just boring grinding.

I would change the battle system - rather than warping up to three different places on a single day, you can now take one "field trip" per week, in lieu of tutoring your students. This can be a quest, paralogue, or regular grinding. I'd also spread the paralogues out moreso, moving a couple to post-skip, and a couple others to be accessible earlier pre-skip.

Yeah, I definitely agree with this. If you do a lot of recruiting then the paralogues really cause the game to drag a bit around Chapter 7-11, especially if you're invested in the story. The DLC didn't help this, especially for the Lions/Deer routes... I think the Lions potentially have access to 14 paralogues in the relatively small window that is the second half of part 1.

Then part 2 feels pretty sparse in general: you get more and more points (battle, explore, but also typically more weeks per month) with less and less to use them on, including paralogues.

8 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

Three Houses' issue isn't that four routes is too much, it's that they set out to do three: SS, AM, VW, before adding a fourth mid-development. That original project plan would probably have resulted in a much better game as far as main story content.

The fourth route got by far the most meaningfully different content in terms of both gamelpay and story. Adding it was possibly the best thing decision made in the development of the game's route structure - without a lot of the route choice starts to feel very fake. I recall an earlier thread on this forum which detailed how big a problem for the game's reception the potential lack of CF would have been.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

12 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

 I recall an earlier thread on this forum which detailed how big a problem for the game's reception the potential lack of CF would have been.

ok but what about a version of the game where that development was repurposed into the other three routes? A game where the writers don't seem confused about who the villains and character motivations are. That game doesn't exist, but you can't tell me it's worse than what we got without having played it.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

23 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Yeah, I definitely agree with this. If you do a lot of recruiting then the paralogues really cause the game to drag a bit around Chapter 7-11, especially if you're invested in the story. The DLC didn't help this, especially for the Lions/Deer routes... I think the Lions potentially have access to 14 paralogues in the relatively small window that is the second half of part 1.

Then part 2 feels pretty sparse in general: you get more and more points (battle, explore, but also typically more weeks per month) with less and less to use them on, including paralogues

At the very least, I'm of the mind that the Seteth/Flayn Paralogue should've been post-skip, and an Silver Snow exclusive. Locking Caduceus, and the Spear of Assal, to one route may be controversial, but... Silver Snow has basically no exclusive content, otherwise, apart from its Endgame. It might take a rewrite, but I feel like the route should get something.

With the DLC ones, it's kinda tricky. The Annalogue has Pallardo, so it has to be before chapter 13 (except on CF). Which is frustrating, with Anna being recruitable post-skip. And the Ashen Wolf paralogues are set in Enbarr, so they'd have a hard time doing that during the war. Not to mention, the sooner a paralogue is available, the longer you get to spend with the earned batallions and Relicd. That said, I'd be game to rework one or two as post-skip maps.

18 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

ok but what about a version of the game where that development was repurposed into the other three routes? A game where the writers don't seem confused about who the villains and character motivations are. That game doesn't exist, but you can't tell me it's worse than what we got without having played it.

True, but we can't say it's better either. You have a point, for certain, but it's hard to evaluate from a point of view other than "what we got". Namely, a game where VW and SS are near-clones of one another, and even AM isn't all that different. A totally different VW, though, where Dimitri is a more serious "wild card", Claude isn't fettered to the Church, and maybe even gets Edelgard onto his side? That could be something special.

[Benice]

8 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

the main plot gets dumped in a river from the start, and the central focus becomes the side content? 

B E R W I C K  S A G A

 

Okay, in all seriousness, I do kinda agree. I feel like, had the main routes been properly fleshed out and whatnot, I'd have enjoyed TH a lot more. Plus, integrating them into the main story as chapters rather than having them be optional would have helped a lot in my opinion as well; everyone retreats in part one, after all.

That said, I wasn't particularly fond of the paralogues do begin with, as they just felt like one more thing I had to do.

[lenticular]

37 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Yeah, I definitely agree with this. If you do a lot of recruiting then the paralogues really cause the game to drag a bit around Chapter 7-11, especially if you're invested in the story. The DLC didn't help this, especially for the Lions/Deer routes... I think the Lions potentially have access to 14 paralogues in the relatively small window that is the second half of part 1.

Then part 2 feels pretty sparse in general: you get more and more points (battle, explore, but also typically more weeks per month) with less and less to use them on, including paralogues.

What's more, paralogues are themselves pretty big incentives to be doing a lot of recruitment in the first place. If I want to get Thyrsus, I have to recruit Lorenz even if I have no intention of using him. If I want to do Mercedes' paralogue then I have to recruit Caspar even if I have no intention of using him. And so on. I'm generally of the opinion that doing fewer recruitments is the most fun way to play Three Houses, partly for pacing reasons and partly because having more named enemies in part two is more interesting, so I don't think it's good for the game to be incentivising the player to recruit people they aren't ever going to use.

I think that it would have been better if there had been a lot more two-person paralogues in part one, but fewer of them in part two. This would more evenly spread the paralogue load, remove some of the incentive for benchwarmer recruitment, and also give the player more chance to get to know students from outside their house.

More controversially, I'm also owndering if it would have been better to more tightly lock heroes' relics to their associated crests. If Thyrsus were garbage on anyone without the crest of Gloucester then that would completely remove the incentive to recruit Lorenz just to do his paralogue.

[Jotari]

 

6 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

This is a gamble, though, that time not spent on making the paralogues would instead be spent to make the main campaign better, or "fuller". We can't really assume that to be the case, with any sort of confidence. Not doing paralogues could have given them more time for, I dunno, skinship with your students.

Anyway, my big complaint with them is how they're distributed within the story. As the game starts, there are no Paralogues - but that's okay, you can only do one battle per weekend, and there are a decent amount of battle quests. Then, in the latter half of the pre-skip, the game dumps a bunch of them on you - if you're going for full recruitment and play, you need to do like two per chapter, possibly more - so the chapters drag on longer. Then post-skip, there are still a few, but you have a lot of battle points. And they forgot to give you any quests, so once the paralogues are knocked out, it's just boring grinding.

I would change the battle system - rather than warping up to three different places on a single day, you can now take one "field trip" per week, in lieu of tutoring your students. This can be a quest, paralogue, or regular grinding. I'd also spread the paralogues out moreso, moving a couple to post-skip, and a couple others to be accessible earlier pre-skip.

Ooh, I like this. Maybe you lead a mercenary company, that takes on quests from various people in town? Then you get to use other people, learn more about them, and possibly convince them to join your crew. Or there's a defense map, where you guard your corn from hungry ravens.

This telling-not-showing was some serious bullshit. Petra's grandfather, Baron Dominic, Holst, and Count Gloucester, among others, deserved better.

I actually was going to mention that in the OP too. This game is already accused of being pretty damn long, which wouldn't necessarily be an issue if we didn't have to play White Clouds 4 times to see all the different endings. The fact that the majority of paralogues are located in White Clouds just leads to the massive blockage that is the first half of the game before you get to the actual route split, which feels thin and empty by comparison.

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

At the very least, I'm of the mind that the Seteth/Flayn Paralogue should've been post-skip, and an Silver Snow exclusive. Locking Caduceus, and the Spear of Assal, to one route may be controversial, but... Silver Snow has basically no exclusive content, otherwise, apart from its Endgame. It might take a rewrite, but I feel like the route should get something.

This way Seteth could actually have used the Spear of Assal as an enemy too...*glances at the wiki* Wait what? Seteth does use the Spear of Assal as an enemy!? And Ferdinand's shield. That's only if you don't get it yourself, right? I'm pretty certain I got both on my Black Eagles playthroughs. And him using Ferdinand's shield is just a bit bizzare. Course it was also bizzare that his weapon was only avilable in a prarlogue that he can't actually do in Crimson Flower.

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

With the DLC ones, it's kinda tricky. The Annalogue has Pallardo, so it has to be before chapter 13 (except on CF). Which is frustrating, with Anna being recruitable post-skip. And the Ashen Wolf paralogues are set in Enbarr, so they'd have a hard time doing that during the war. Not to mention, the sooner a paralogue is available, the longer you get to spend with the earned batallions and Relicd. That said, I'd be game to rework one or two as post-skip maps.

Honestly the Ashen Wolf paralogues were really unnecessary. They already have their relics in their own DLC campaign. Making it so they need to get them after meeting Byleth is just down right confusing in terms of continuity. I'd rather they just weren't recruitable until a more mid way point of the game and came with their weapons rather than have paralogues with them. That being said, it was great to see Monica's dad turn into a demonic beast.

 

[Icelerate]

13 hours ago, Jotari said:

I'm going to go ahead and say it. This game has the best paralogues in the series. Even though they mostly reuse maps, focusing on individual side characters is a great idea for characterisation, they offer great gameplay rewards and in terms of gameplay most of the paralogues are pretty great. We even get to fight pseudo Final Boss like enemies with the two saints. That all being said, I think they were a major mistake.

Three Houses is clearly a rushed and unfinished product. They obviously didn't manage to make the game they envisioned with Verdant Wind and Silver Snow being the same and Crimson Flower being almost half the length. I count 23 paralogues in the game + 3 DLC ones. That's as long as a full route of the game, including all of White Clouds. Aside from Claude's paralogue being kind of random, yet feeling important, yet also giving him a sword from his own bloodline that is completely unrelated to the Saint you fight, most of the paralogues feel quite complete. They clearly spent a lot of time on them. But paralogues are side stuff. They were fun, bit they weren't important. 23 paralogues doesn't mean they could have given us 23 more unique chapters because a lot of the paralogues reuse maps, but a lot of those maps are also exclusive to paralogues. By ditching the paralogues they could have at least given us a few more Crimson Flower chapters and at least one Silver Snow chapter to replace Grondor and differentiate it from Verdant Wind. Finish the game first, then work on the side content. Giving every single character including Sothis and Rhea a paralogue was overly ambitious and to the games detriment.

I once made a thread about this on Reddit and agree with you. Some of these paralogues are logistically impossible unlike the monthly chapters which give extensive details on why they happen. Also, they sometimes contradict the actual story. 

[Jotari]

12 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

I once made a thread about this on Reddit and agree with you. Some of these paralogues are logistically impossible unlike the monthly chapters which give extensive details on why they happen. Also, they sometimes contradict the actual story. 

Don't forget that Fodlan is by far the smallest Fire Emblem continent, despite the developers saying it's half the size of Europe. Because it's absolutely possible to get assistance from Dagda, stop an Almyrian invasion and beat up a giant turtle all in the span of a single weekend.

[Dark Holy Elf]

3 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

ok but what about a version of the game where that development was repurposed into the other three routes? A game where the writers don't seem confused about who the villains and character motivations are. That game doesn't exist, but you can't tell me it's worse than what we got without having played it.

I think @Shanty Pete's 1st Mate already said it bestwe can't assume that repurposing development time would lead to a significant increase in quality for what remains. I would argue that the lack of differentiation between SS and VW, as well as the muddled nature of the purpose of SS in particular, speaks to problems that are not easily fixed with a bit more dev time. Impossible to say for sure, of course, but that's my feeling.

 

2 hours ago, lenticular said:

What's more, paralogues are themselves pretty big incentives to be doing a lot of recruitment in the first place. If I want to get Thyrsus, I have to recruit Lorenz even if I have no intention of using him. If I want to do Mercedes' paralogue then I have to recruit Caspar even if I have no intention of using him. And so on. I'm generally of the opinion that doing fewer recruitments is the most fun way to play Three Houses, partly for pacing reasons and partly because having more named enemies in part two is more interesting, so I don't think it's good for the game to be incentivising the player to recruit people they aren't ever going to use.

I think that it would have been better if there had been a lot more two-person paralogues in part one, but fewer of them in part two. This would more evenly spread the paralogue load, remove some of the incentive for benchwarmer recruitment, and also give the player more chance to get to know students from outside their house.

Yeah I basically agree with all of this. On my most recent playthrough (and several others besides) I ended up recruiting everyone without even really intending to because a part of my brain just wanted everything.

I do like the paralogues overall, but I think they would benefit from being spaced out more. And while I appreciate their rewards, you could probably fight the FOMO effect by having more paralogues being like (non-CF) Hanneman's and Manuela's where you can still buy the associated battalions later in the game.

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

This way Seteth could actually have used the Spear of Assal as an enemy too...*glances at the wiki* Wait what? Seteth does use the Spear of Assal as an enemy!? And Ferdinand's shield. That's only if you don't get it yourself, right? I'm pretty certain I got both on my Black Eagles playthroughs. And him using Ferdinand's shield is just a bit bizzare. Course it was also bizzare that his weapon was only avilable in a prarlogue that he can't actually do in Crimson Flower.

Seteth and Flayn have Spear of Assal and Caduceus as enemies but only if you don't do their paralogue. The Ochain Shield... yeah I dunno what's going on there.

[Icelerate]

CF is the least deserving route of being removed IMO. 

[Jotari]

25 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I think @Shanty Pete's 1st Mate already said it bestwe can't assume that repurposing development time would lead to a significant increase in quality for what remains. I would argue that the lack of differentiation between SS and VW, as well as the muddled nature of the purpose of SS in particular, speaks to problems that are not easily fixed with a bit more dev time. Impossible to say for sure, of course, but that's my feeling.

 

Yeah I basically agree with all of this. On my most recent playthrough (and several others besides) I ended up recruiting everyone without even really intending to because a part of my brain just wanted everything.

I do like the paralogues overall, but I think they would benefit from being spaced out more. And while I appreciate their rewards, you could probably fight the FOMO effect by having more paralogues being like (non-CF) Hanneman's and Manuela's where you can still buy the associated battalions later in the game.

Seteth and Flayn have Spear of Assal and Caduceus as enemies but only if you don't do their paralogue. The Ochain Shield... yeah I dunno what's going on there.

If I remember right there's no even explanation as to how Ferdinand gets the Ochain shield in his paralogue. It's just if you save all the villagers it's just given to you at the end of the chapter. So it's just one weird myterious weapon.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

17 hours ago, Jotari said:

If I remember right there's no even explanation as to how Ferdinand gets the Ochain shield in his paralogue. It's just if you save all the villagers it's just given to you at the end of the chapter. So it's just one weird myterious weapon.

Obviously, each villager has a piece of the Ochain Shield. So you have to save all of them to reassemble it.

17 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Seteth and Flayn have Spear of Assal and Caduceus as enemies but only if you don't do their paralogue. The Ochain Shield... yeah I dunno what's going on there.

I intentionally skipped their paralogue on my first Crimson Flower playthrough, just to see what would happen. Was not disappointed.

20 hours ago, Jotari said:

Honestly the Ashen Wolf paralogues were really unnecessary. They already have their relics in their own DLC campaign. Making it so they need to get them after meeting Byleth is just down right confusing in terms of continuity. I'd rather they just weren't recruitable until a more mid way point of the game and came with their weapons rather than have paralogues with them. That being said, it was great to see Monica's dad turn into a demonic beast.

I liked how those Paralogues integrated not-yet-seen NPCs, like Duke Gerth and Baron von Ochs. I'm feeling like, the thing is, the Cindered Shadows campaign just doesn't fit within the established White Clouds narrative. And I like getting options with the Ashen Wolves - recruit them early for extra muscle, but then you have to train them up; or hold off on getting them for levels and auto-ranks, but then you miss out on mastery training and off-ranks. I don't think I'd really change them, save for tuning down the Balthus/Hapi difficulty a peg.

[Etrurian emperor]

18 hours ago, Icelerate said:

CF is the least deserving route of being removed IMO. 

Indeed. Its the only route that's any different from the others. Verdant Wind and Silver Snow are copy pasted, and Azure Moon only barely less so. 

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Obviously, each villager has a piece of the Ochain Shield. So you have to save all of them to reassemble it.

And of course Setheth pays a visit to these chosen villagers (which are in the empire), tasked with guarding piece of the shield, while preparing for Edelgard's assault on the monastery in Crimson Flower and only Crimson Flower (since he's apperantly too lazy to do so in the other routes where he becomes a playable character that chapter).

5 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I intentionally skipped their paralogue on my first Crimson Flower playthrough, just to see what would happen. Was not disappointed.

I liked how those Paralogues integrated not-yet-seen NPCs, like Duke Gerth and Baron von Ochs. I'm feeling like, the thing is, the Cindered Shadows campaign just doesn't fit within the established White Clouds narrative. And I like getting options with the Ashen Wolves - recruit them early for extra muscle, but then you have to train them up; or hold off on getting them for levels and auto-ranks, but then you miss out on mastery training and off-ranks. I don't think I'd really change them, save for tuning down the Balthus/Hapi difficulty a peg.

Cindered Shadows could easily fit into canon though. It's just the fact that they get their relics in the main campaign and that Aelfric hangs around to give out a quest after the time frame of Cindered Shadows that prevents it. Nothing in Cindered Shadows itself actually contradicts the established canon as far as I remember. And if anything it's appreciated for enhancing the canon by actually putting a name and face on Byleth's mother who was a reasonably important character in the lore before hand.

[Dandy Druid]

7 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Indeed. Its the only route that's any different from the others. Verdant Wind and Silver Snow are copy pasted, and Azure Moon only barely less so. 

I'm sad to admit this, but this game only really needed Crimson Flower and Azure Moon to tell one coherent story and wouldn't feel incomplete without the other 2 routes. As much as I love the Golden Deer, those students could've easily been altered to be put into different houses with the exception of Claude.

[SumG]

I think most people here are discounting an important design philosophy that Nintendo has been using for a while.  And while it's not a guarantee that Nintendo is forcing the structure on the Fire Emblem devs, I think it would be naive to think it hasn't been discussed with them.  And I think that design philosophy underscores the design of the paralogues.

Nintendo games have an unusual challenge where they have both an established, veteran player base and also a large amount of newer players.  How do you make a game that satisfies both groups?  If you make the game too hard, the newer players get scared away.  If you make the game too easy, the enfranchised players get bored.  The solution that Nintendo has come upon is that you make the critical path of the campaign fairly simple and straightforward to ensure new players can get to the end of the story, but then add optional, more difficult objectives for enfranchised players looking for a challenge.

If you look at the design of the campaign missions and the paralogues, you can see this philosophy in force.  Most of the campaign missions have fairly straightforward objectives (rout the enemy, capture the throne, etc.) and simpler maps.  Whereas the paralogues tend to have more interesting and challenging objectives (arrive at points, rescuing units, securing multiple points simultaneous, preventing enemies from escaping, etc.) and more challenging map concepts (a map where all enemies are demonic beasts, bosses on islands that can only be reached by fliers, a map with endless reinforcements, or bonus 3x3 boss monsters).

If you take the paralogues out of the game, you would remove a good portion of the challenge that appeals to more enfranchised players in series.  I'm not going to sit here and say the execution on all fronts was flawless.  I agree that in Part 1 you end up too rushed with all the paralogues you can get and that a bit more time could have been spent on finishing CF.  But as an enfranchised player, I'm very happy the paralogues are there.  They are some of the more interesting individual missions from a gameplay perspective.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 hours ago, SumG said:

If you look at the design of the campaign missions and the paralogues, you can see this philosophy in force.  Most of the campaign missions have fairly straightforward objectives (rout the enemy, capture the throne, etc.) and simpler maps.  Whereas the paralogues tend to have more interesting and challenging objectives (arrive at points, rescuing units, securing multiple points simultaneous, preventing enemies from escaping, etc.) and more challenging map concepts (a map where all enemies are demonic beasts, bosses on islands that can only be reached by fliers, a map with endless reinforcements, or bonus 3x3 boss monsters).

The thing is, even Sieze is falling out of vogue. I'm pretty sure all the main-story maps in 3H are either "Rout" or "Defeat Enemy Commander(s)". A sieze-like is seen in the Paralogues, though, at least in Ingrithea. It's kind of a shame, though, that the interesting win/loss conditions, and side objectives, seem largely relegated to Paralogues now.