Triangle Strategy Thread

[zuibangde]

20 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Nothing holds a candle to Demonoa though.

I don't think I'm far enough in the game to meet her yet (just started today). Hopefully I'll get to experience her(?) eventually. 

17 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

It probably wasn't the best voice direction with Narve. He seems the youngest male character by a good margin so he should have a relatively high voice but he's not that young either and would be better served sounding boyish rather than girly. 

Yeah the voice directing is my only complaint so far for the game. Other than that, everything else is pretty amazing. I feel like this is what I envisioned Three Houses to be more like with your choices actually affecting the story and who you can recruit.

[Alastor15243]

14 minutes ago, zuibangde said:

I don't think I'm far enough in the game to meet her yet (just started today). Hopefully I'll get to experience her(?) eventually

Demo Seranoa. His voice acting was terrrrrible before it got re-recorded for the actual game.

Edited March 10, 2022 by Alastor15243

[zuibangde]

34 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Demo Seranoa. His voice acting was terrrrrible before it got re-recorded for the actual game.

Oh lmao. Completely thought there was an actual character called 'Demonoa' since the names of characters in this game are...unconventional to say the least. I only played the first demo a while ago so I completely forgot what he sounded like but did remembering the voice acting not being as good as I hoped.

[lenticular]

I've just finished playing the demo and have mixed feelings so far. I have a question for people who have picked up the full game: does it get less exposition-heavy as the game progresses? The chapters shown in the demo seemed to drag on forever, and while that's undrestandable if it's just needing to get a lot of setting and lore established early, I'm not sure if I could put up with it if it carries on for the full game. It also feels very easy so far, but I'm assuming that's just because the demo only covers the first few chapters and of course they're going to be easy.

[vanguard333]

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

It also feels very easy so far, but I'm assuming that's just because the demo only covers the first few chapters and of course they're going to be easy.

Funny; I had almost the opposite problem, though my issues were more due to confusion, annoyance and frustration rather than difficulty. I found the UI and controls very unintuitive.

[Etrurian emperor]

2 hours ago, lenticular said:

I've just finished playing the demo and have mixed feelings so far. I have a question for people who have picked up the full game: does it get less exposition-heavy as the game progresses? The chapters shown in the demo seemed to drag on forever, and while that's undrestandable if it's just needing to get a lot of setting and lore established early, I'm not sure if I could put up with it if it carries on for the full game. It also feels very easy so far, but I'm assuming that's just because the demo only covers the first few chapters and of course they're going to be easy.

Personally I found the game decently challenging on normal mode. There were a few missions had I had to restart. And the difficulty is pretty custimizable. You can turn it up and down whenever you wish.

The amount of dialogue never really decreases but what they talk about gets more interesting as time goes on. However it never stops being a very text heavy game. 

[Sasori]

Well this ended up being a surprise. After spending most of the game playing the 'good options' 

Spoiler

Keeping Roland, Not flooding the capital and refusing to budge on sending the Roselle to the slave pit.

I  still ended up making the biggest asshole choice in the crucual moment in chapter 17. One that the game does a very poor job arguing in favour for. I'm mostly taking it to go a different route then Etrurian while also taking the one that looks to be the most interesting, but.
 

Spoiler

Yeah no I think agreeing to Roland's dumb plan on just letting Hyzante rule Norzelia won't be very popular with players.  Any of Hyzante's positives have long looong been burried underneath their negative qualities. Gustadolf is no angel with him being everything negative about Edelgard, but worse....however Hyzante has been getting a lot more focus as being truly bad.

Still the other two routes sounded more or less similar to each other so I decided to give this one a go. I'm curious to see if it will be a bad ending or if they'll try and jutstify this obviously wrong choice as the right one.

Roland in general has been a bit of a miss for me in the last chapters. First telling his little sis that he's done killing for revenge, before immediately challenging Avlora to a duel to the death afterwards or how his less then succesful stint as king is less about him and more that all of Glenbrook deciding to be the absolute worst.

 

Edited March 11, 2022 by Sasori

[zuibangde]

I thought Anna being un-killable was a meme but I just Anna cheesed the battle against Avlora (without setting the village on fire) and I don't know if I should be proud of myself or not. 

Edited March 11, 2022 by zuibangde

[Etrurian emperor]

I just completed my first game. Went with Benedict since the options provided by Roland and Frederica are kinda gibberish. I felt myself quite rewarded since the final three stages were quite good. The final stage has a fun gimmick of ''spend your TP like crazy or die'', and one chapter about facing an army of horsemen while hiding behind wooden fences is my favorite map so far. 

Spoiler

Completely destroying Hyzante seems the logical thing to do since its completely evil and it also crowns Serenoa as king of Norzelia. The ending of Hyzante's destruction triggering an industrial revolution in both the best and worst sense of the word is interesting though I suspect the negative aspects of Serenoa's reign is mostly there to make the golden route more appealing. 

The shota time mage is quite the useful little lad. He can warp your units around, increase their speed, place magic time bombs that just tore to a powerful boss defenses and he can even stop time for everyone on the map. I suspect he might be either the son of Lyla or the goddess since he occasionally references a missing mother and when deployed in Hyzante he muses that his mom simply must be around. So that should be interesting. 

[Fabulously Olivier]

2 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I just completed my first game. Went with Benedict since the options provided by Roland and Frederica are kinda gibberish. I felt myself quite rewarded since the final three stages were quite good. The final stage has a fun gimmick of ''spend your TP like crazy or die'', and one chapter about facing an army of horsemen while hiding behind wooden fences is my favorite map so far. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Completely destroying Hyzante seems the logical thing to do since its completely evil and it also crowns Serenoa as king of Norzelia. The ending of Hyzante's destruction triggering an industrial revolution in both the best and worst sense of the word is interesting though I suspect the negative aspects of Serenoa's reign is mostly there to make the golden route more appealing. 

The shota time mage is quite the useful little lad. He can warp your units around, increase their speed, place magic time bombs that just tore to a powerful boss defenses and he can even stop time for everyone on the map. I suspect he might be either the son of Lyla or the goddess since he occasionally references a missing mother and when deployed in Hyzante he muses that his mom simply must be around. So that should be interesting. 

With this game, I'm kind of concerned that choices might come with a strong desire to game the system to recruit specific desired characters more than to guide the story. Did that feel like a problem?

[Etrurian emperor]

1 hour ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

With this game, I'm kind of concerned that choices might come with a strong desire to game the system to recruit specific desired characters more than to guide the story. Did that feel like a problem?

Theoretically every conviction is grindable but I'd advise against that. From what I know there are only three characters that require a ton of conviction points. Three late game characters require 1600 points of their respective convictions. The other characters tied to a certain conviction will likely join you sooner or later no matter what you do. My brother and me took very different options and aside from one exception we all got roughly the same characters, if at different points in the story. 

[lenticular]

20 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

The amount of dialogue never really decreases but what they talk about gets more interesting as time goes on. However it never stops being a very text heavy game. 

That's good to know, thank you. I don't mind a game with a lot of text, so long as I'm interested by what's going on, so this sounds good to me. I think I will go ahead and pick up the full game.

[zuibangde]

I'm currently at Chapter 11 and am wondering if anyone can tell me whether the number of deployed units is capped at 10 for the rest of the game? I'm currently mostly using Medina and while I find her way more fun and versatile than Geela, I don't think the merchant stocks at a rate that is sustainable to only using her? I'm going through my potions really quickly. I also find that only having one dedicated healer not enough for some maps.

I'm debating if I should switch to using both Geela and Medina in one map or just alternate between the two but I'm reluctant to using both because I have a team of 9 others that I use pretty consistently. Would appreciate any insight the people who are further in or have completed the game can provide (without spoilers)! 

Edited March 12, 2022 by zuibangde

[Etrurian emperor]

4 hours ago, zuibangde said:

I'm currently at Chapter 11 and am wondering if anyone can tell me whether the number of deployed units is capped at 10 for the rest of the game? I'm currently mostly using Medina and while I find her way more fun and versatile than Geela, I don't think the merchant stocks at a rate that is sustainable to only using her? I'm going through my potions really quickly. I also find that only having one dedicated healer not enough for some maps.

I'm debating if I should switch to using both Geela and Medina in one map or just alternate between the two but I'm reluctant to using both because I have a team of 9 others that I use pretty consistently. Would appreciate any insight the people who are further in or have completed the game can provide (without spoilers)! 

My brother used Medina as his singular healer so it seems like its a viable strategy. You can also combine her with Ricken who can also heal, so you have an alternative to having Medina use items.

Or you could try switching around Geela and Medina from chapter to chapter. Healers tend to gain XP pretty quickly, especially if they're a tad underleveled. 

 

 

[vanguard333]

Okay; I decided to give the demo another try, and this time I completed chapters 1 and 2. I am warming up to the game a lot more, though I still haven't gotten used to it yet. It introduces a million things at once, and provides the player with knowledge about maybe 70% of it, particularly when it comes to the combat. It normally does not take me long to get used to a turn-based strategy game; I understood Valkyria Chronicles and Fire Emblem fairly quickly. I'm not sure what it is that's keeping me from getting used to this game.

I also wasn't a fan of the shieldbearer lying to me; he said he would counterattack enemies that attack him, yet he just sat there doing nothing whenever he got attacked.

[Etrurian emperor]

9 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

 

I also wasn't a fan of the shieldbearer lying to me; he said he would counterattack enemies that attack him, yet he just sat there doing nothing whenever he got attacked.

Your units don't realyl counterattack in this game. Only Serenoa and the shieldbearer can do it. Its part of their upgrade tree I believe. 

[joevar]

soo.. how's the game? is it fun or challenging and also engaging story ? (dont compare it to FE)

[Dark Holy Elf]

I'm at Chapter 7. Definitely enjoying the game so far. I wasn't expecting it to be definitely more FFT/TO than Fire Emblem, but it's good anyway. There are complaints to be had - the pacing of the game is definitely a bit slow, the upgrade system seems overpriced and encourages investing in a small number of favourites, and the playable cast is a bit dull - but in general I'm enjoying it a lot. Battles are fun and engaging; I'm playing on Hard and am feeling very pleasantly challenged. And I find myself very curious to know where the story is going next. Game's doing a great job fleshing out the political actors of the cast and making them feel reasonable. I'm kinda terrified they'll fuck it up with a bad supernatural plot the way FFT/TO did, but for now I'm enjoying it.

[Etrurian emperor]

I'd say the gameplay is fun enough. You got plenty of gimmicks to play around with. Elemental magic affecting the map and opening new strategies, height mechanics, flanking tag teaming. It all makes the gameplay rather dynamic since you can always open a way towards various strategies. The game is challenging but not at all punishing. Enemies can pack a real punch and you might need to redo a map from time to time, but failure doesn't cost you anything. Any xp your units get is retained even if you are defeated. You can also increase or decrease the difficulty any time. 

I find the story engaging but with some caveats. The story is rather low stake with it being a conflict primarily about something mundane as salt, and other resource management. This can either be refreshing or dull depending on your tastes. But the world building is excellent and the characters you meet are all an interesting bunch, even if there are probably a bit too many characters for the game to keep track of. The story is slow phased in the beginning but it gets progressively more interesting with all nations and factions juggling competing plots against each other. 

[vanguard333]

7 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Your units don't realyl counterattack in this game. Only Serenoa and the shieldbearer can do it. Its part of their upgrade tree I believe. 

I see. I knew that the units don't counterattack; I just remember that, when I got the shieldbearer, the bit of text about him said he could counterattack, so I was surprised when he didn't.

Anyway, I'm currently at chapter 3, and I have to decide to either go to Aesfrost or Hyzante. I know already that this doesn't really affect the plot, just what mission you end up doing in this chapter and which of two mutually-exclusive units you get; one being an archer and the other being an ice mage. Since I'm just playing the demo, I plan to do both versions on separate save files and then decide on one if I get the game. But still, any advice about the voting system in this game?

Edited March 13, 2022 by vanguard333

[zuibangde]

I think I'm almost done my first playthrough (Chapter 18) and I can't wait to play NG+ to experience the parts of the story I missed. Gameplay wise, I think my favourite part is how every unit is pretty unique and all bring something to the table. It really allows you to experiment with using them and see which groups of characters work together the best. The two characters on horses are probably the weakest (which is unfortunate because I quite like Roland as a character because the game is not afraid to show his flaws). 

One of my main complaint is that the optional recruits seem a bit neglected (story wise). There are a few that are story relevant (especially the route specific ones) but once they're recruited they kinda just sit at the encampment and do nothing. It's a shame cause honestly they have way more interesting backstories than the Core 8 of House Wolffort. I know the character stories try to remedy this but the fact that it's always the same 3 or 4 people from House Wolffort talking to the optional recruits make it seem kinda random/repetitive? I kinda wish to see the optional recruits interacting with each other at the encampment.

Also, my major issues about route specific recruits story wise and would like to hear other's input:

 

So in my first run, I managed to recruit both Milo and Maxwell and they are both pretty story relevant at certain chapters. My main problem is that they know Milo is a spy sent from Hyzante but they are okay with her joining them. After she joins, their concerns with Milo being a spy seemingly disappeared? I then chose the Benedict route and Milo, who works for Hyzante says nothing about fighting against her own country. I know it's established that she admires Seranoa but the game doesn't really expand on it and even after the fact, she still continues to spy for Hyzante. I then unlocked Milo's first character story and it's literally just her talking about plants. Similarly, after Maxwell is found to be alive, I was expecting AT LEAST a scene of Roland's reaction but nope, Maxwell was just kinda ignored. Maybe I still have to unlock more character stories? 

Edited March 13, 2022 by zuibangde

[Etrurian emperor]

2 hours ago, zuibangde said:

One of my main complaint is that the optional recruits seem a bit neglected (story wise). There are a few that are story relevant (especially the route specific ones) but once they're recruited they kinda just sit at the encampment and do nothing. It's a shame cause honestly they have way more interesting backstories than the Core 8 of House Wolffort. I know the character stories try to remedy this but the fact that it's always the same 3 or 4 people from House Wolffort talking to the optional recruits make it seem kinda random/repetitive? I kinda wish to see the optional recruits interacting with each other at the encampment.

Yeah its a shame that there's such a clear divide between units who are part of Serenoa's inner circle and those who aren't. I think the logic behind the support partners for the optional units always being Hughette, Erador or Anna is that the writers wanted to avoid having the players miss out on supports due to not have been able to recruit certain unit, and thus ensured they'd always have their side stories with characters you're guaranteed to already have. There would have been plenty of potential for supports between the optional character. Archibald must surely have known Narve's grandfather and other side stories make it clear he and Groma have the hots for each other,  and timeboy says he's friends with Jens if you chat with him in camp

It would have been interested if you could swap out the units that got to vote through the scales of conviction. Replacing Geena with Narve for instance. Having the optional units voice arguments in favor of opposed to your course might have fleshed them out a bit more. 

A character like Archibald who used to be a very big deal back in his younger days should have had some more story relevancy. He even briefly alludes to a bitter rivalry with a very important villain. 

Edited March 13, 2022 by Etrurian emperor

[zuibangde]

7 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Yeah its a shame that there's such a clear divide between units who are part of Serenoa's inner circle and those who aren't. I think the logic behind the support partners for the optional units always being Hughette, Erador or Anna is that the writers wanted to avoid having the players miss out on supports due to not have been able to recruit certain unit, and thus ensured they'd always have their side stories with characters you're guaranteed to already have.

I think for a game that encourages multiple plays to experience the story and recruit other characters, I don't think it would be that big of an issue if certain character stories are locked until both optional recruits are in your party. Even if the interactions have to be with characters from the core party, I kinda wish that there's more reason behind it? It felt like some optional recruits' stories can literally be with anyone and it doesn't clearly show Anna/Hughette/Erador's purpose in the story. 

7 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

It would have been interested if you could swap out the units that got to vote through the scales of conviction. Replacing Geena with Narve for instance. Having the optional units voice arguments in favor of opposed to your course might have fleshed them out a bit more. 

I think I would like this too. I personally find the game to have done a poor job showing the personalities or goals of some people in the core group as well. I think Geela is probably the most ignored member? Even during the main story, she doesn't do a lot outside of standing next to Frederica so it felt like she doesn't have as big of a reason to have the need to vote.

On the other hand, maybe adding other characters being able to vote as the decisions get bigger and bigger will make the voting process more exciting. I'd imagine at the very least, the route specific characters would like to be involved too for big decisions as some of them have ties to certain countries or other story characters and their own goals and purpose for joining you is made clear. Having to persuade them to vote one way or another might be a good challenge as I feel like I'm able to control the vote pretty easily thus far within the core group.

Edited March 14, 2022 by zuibangde

[vanguard333]

I'm currently playing the Hyzante version of chapter 3. I'm trying to be careful since I'm up against all mages, but the AI ally unit Exharme just rushes out and gets himself killed every time. Uncontrollable AI ally units are one of my least favourite things about strategy RPGs, so I was wondering: are there any consequences if Exharme is defeated in this chapter?

[Alastor15243]

...I just got to the end of that big 3 branch choice. The deeper I get in this game, the more similar the story feels to the Tellius Duology.

Spoiler

 

Generic fantasy kingdom gets invaded by militaristic country ruled by a policy of hard meritocracy rather than the concept of noble blood.

Heir escapes the capital and eventually seeks the help of a corrupt theocracy.

Heir gets said help by taking out a scheming, fat religious/political leader of said theocracy, but it's clear there's still a shitload wrong with the theocracy to be dealt with later.

With the theocracy's help, the kingdom is reclaimed.

 

Now I just hope it ends with me beating the shit out of Hyzante and liberating the Roselle at the source, because after all the lengths the game went to to show how fucked up Hyzante is, if I don't get to kick its ass I will be sorely disappointed.