When should units be recruited?

[triabolical]

I'm currently making a mod that attempts to turn Three Houses into a more traditional Fire Emblem. So far I am able to remove weekly teaching, access to the monastery, and aux battles.

The only thing left to do is to figure out how to deal with recruitment if the monastery isn't going to be available.

Units can easily be recruited in chapter maps but unfortunately cannot be used until the chapter is complete. 

I would like some thoughts and opinions on when units should be recruited, given the route. I'm not going to implement something like Chapter 1 Edelgard recruitment in Blues Lions (maybe for a meme "Golden Route" type of thing). 

[Dark Holy Elf]

How are you handling paralogues? Logically it might make sense to tie some recruitments to those. Ingrid joins the Black Eagles when Dorothea helps scuttle her arranged marriage to a creep. Cyril joins the Golden Deer to help Hilda save her people from Almyran raiders, Catherine joins the Lions once Ashe helps defend Rhea against the Western Church. Alois and Shamir join any house upon doing their paralogue, same with Hanneman and Manuela. Obviously from a modding perspective this might not be practical, since right now you have to have the characters recruited to trigger the paralogues, while here I'm proposing turning that around.

Otherwise, I could see some characters joining early as part of the story, for example:

• -Sylvain joins the party to reclaim the Lance of Ruin in Chapter 5
• -Leonie joins the party to get revenge on Jeralt's killers in Chapter 10
• -Linhardt joins the party out of interest in the Crest of Flames. Not sure when works best. I like him being later than Sylvain just because Sylvain being the first recruit seems am appropriate nod to Houses, maybe even he could join during the Flayn investigation?

And maybe have some characters you could recruit cross-house by talking to them in Gronder 1 before defeating them. I'd focus on stronger cross-house relationships... maybe Dimitri can grab Marianne, Edelgard can grab Lysithea, and Claude can grab Petra.

Ashe and Lorenz being recruitable post-timeskip also seems reasonable to me, at the current places they rejoin, for non-CF. CF could get Lysithea this way if she was missed earlier.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

I've actually thought about this, in a "what if Three Houses were remade (demade?) as a GBAFE-style game?"

• "Church units", like Cyril or Shamir, just join at the start of the same chapter that they do in the main game. So, Shamir joins in chapter 6, while Hanneman and Manuela become playable as of chapter 8. I would probably make these recruits "automatic", but if you want, you could leave them as a choice for the player. Or you could do as @Dark Holy Elf suggests - let the player choose to do the paralogue, and then the characters join you. I'd except Cyril from this, because as the game's resident Donnel, he should be joining early.
• Sylvain joining in chapter 5 makes sense... but if you're playing as female Teach, he should offer to join as soon as chapter 2. And if you turn him down, he offers again in chapter 3... I dunno, is that too on-the-nose?
• Ashe joins for chapter 3, since he wants to talk to Lonato. If you get him to Lonato, and trigger a "Talk" conversation between the two, he stays in your team - otherwise, he returns to the Blue Lions.
• Felix joins after chapter 7, if you - that is to say, Teach - engage him in battle, and defeat him, at Gronder I.
• Ferdinand can recruit Lorenz - and vice-versa - after Gronder I, by a talk conversation in which each "wagers" their best tea leaves to the winner.
• Marianne can be recruited by any unit, so long as they A) ride a horse or pegasus, B) have a "talk" conversation with her in Gronder I, and C) don't engage her in combat.
• Does the ability to choose a partner for the Goddess Tower still exist? If so, that could be a means of recruiting Dorothea. If she's invited from out-of-house, she'll join Teach's house.
• I like Elf's ideas for Leonie and Linhardt.
• You have the opportunity to recruit Anna before any chapter, for a small sum of 10,000 Gold. Once recruited, she stays with your party to the end.
• There's a new paralogue, that's essentially just the first mission of Cindered Shadows, but with your own army (instead of a pre-set one). As before, you fight the four Ashen Wolves. Once completed, they'll join your team in the main game. Up to you whether they should join with their relics, or just leave those to be obtained in the usual paralogues.
• Lysithea joins on CF, in chapter 14, as before. Hilda joins in AM, after chapter 19 (the one where you defend Dierdriu), assuming she survives the map.

Anyway, there are more that can be done, I'm sure. Obviously, getting Mercedes on CF (or SS) would be desirable, but I'm not sure how I would make it happen.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Probably not too relevant if you're trying to do a top to bottom overhaul of Three Houses, but it bugs the crap out of me that Cyril can't be recruited until chapter 5, and Catherine in 4. I legit think this is a coding mixup with these two, since Catherine can't be deployed in chapter 4's main mission, and you meet Cyril in a dialogue scene of chapter 4. 

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

16 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Probably not too relevant if you're trying to do a top to bottom overhaul of Three Houses, but it bugs the crap out of me that Cyril can't be recruited until chapter 5, and Catherine in 4. I legit think this is a coding mixup with these two, since Catherine can't be deployed in chapter 4's main mission, and you meet Cyril in a dialogue scene of chapter 4. 

I generally attributed this to Catherine showing up as an NPC in chapter 3. Maybe the game figures, once you've had her as an ally, you can get her into your personal army. Otherwise, the earliest time that would make sense is chapter 6 - when Shamir first becomes available.

Anyway, Cyril in chapter 4 would've been pretty cool.

[SnowFire]

Are you able to also hack joining stats / skills?  People who play a mod are likely veteran 3H-ers, and the nature of high-level 3H play means that late recruits are generally behind well-trained early recruits.  This is likely still true even if the monastery is cut (because good skills are learned through in-combat class mastery, your Death Blow and the like).  If hacking join stats / skills is feasible, then having some post time-skip late-joiners, probably after the map they're beaten (if conditions are met?  Is that even hack-in-able), could be interesting.  Not much point if not, because nobody will want to use Caspar after Fort Merceus in Golden Deer or the like.  

Some of Shanty Pete's ideas sound cool but would involve some intense modding tools (new maps, conversations, recruitment conditioned on actions in battle).  Do those exist yet?

[triabolical]

On 9/29/2022 at 1:53 AM, SnowFire said:

Are you able to also hack joining stats / skills?  People who play a mod are likely veteran 3H-ers, and the nature of high-level 3H play means that late recruits are generally behind well-trained early recruits.  This is likely still true even if the monastery is cut (because good skills are learned through in-combat class mastery, your Death Blow and the like).  If hacking join stats / skills is feasible, then having some post time-skip late-joiners, probably after the map they're beaten (if conditions are met?  Is that even hack-in-able), could be interesting.  Not much point if not, because nobody will want to use Caspar after Fort Merceus in Golden Deer or the like.  

Some of Shanty Pete's ideas sound cool but would involve some intense modding tools (new maps, conversations, recruitment conditioned on actions in battle).  Do those exist yet?

I can use the Lysithea/Lorenz/Ashe "Persuade/Kill" command to recruit units with no issues on maps (they don't even need to be physically on the map do it). Unfortunately, it's the only way to do so without crashing the map or fully understanding how the game does map scripting. So far I have added and tested all Blue Lion and Golden Deer units recruitment scenarios. All I have left is to do Chapter 17+, adding Cindered Shadows Chapter 1 for Ashen Wolves recruitment, and Crimson Flower recruitments.

The mid/late game recruits are going to be in advanced/master classes by default. Abilities can easily be obtained by adding them to the unit's learnset. For example, adding "Fiendish Blow" for Lysithea at A rank Reason or "Death Blow" at A rank Axes for Caspar. Upon recruitment, they will already learned those abilities. Recruitment stats are going to be better just due to auto-leveling in Advanced/Master tier classes. Gremory Lysithea at Chapter 17 for Azure Moon is probably going to be better than most trained units. 

I'm also considering either reducing the number of Divine Pulses or getting rid of it to promote usage of recruits.

Edited October 2, 2022 by triabolical
Ashen Wolves Recruitment in a Paralogue "Some Skirmish in Abyss" in Chapter 8

[triabolical]

This is what I was able to achieve with limited modding knowledge. Everything on the table was tested and verified that the unit was indeed recruited after the map.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 10/1/2022 at 7:41 PM, triabolical said:

The mid/late game recruits are going to be in advanced/master classes by default. Abilities can easily be obtained by adding them to the unit's learnset. For example, adding "Fiendish Blow" for Lysithea at A rank Reason or "Death Blow" at A rank Axes for Caspar. Upon recruitment, they will already learned those abilities. Recruitment stats are going to be better just due to auto-leveling in Advanced/Master tier classes. Gremory Lysithea at Chapter 17 for Azure Moon is probably going to be better than most trained units. 

Is it possible for characters to join with classes already mastered? In Cindered Shadows, for instance, the Ashen Wolves all join with their respective class already mastered. Not sure if you could code these units in the same way.

Otherwise, this seems like a solid workaround. 

20 hours ago, triabolical said:

This is what I was able to achieve with limited modding knowledge. Everything on the table was tested and verified that the unit was indeed recruited after the map.

I'm a big fan of this list! Great to see that you were able to work the Wolves joining into its own paralogue. I also like the notion of Shamir joining earlier on BE routes, because Catherine and Cyril aren't available then.

One question, though - why does Caspar join AM/VW as soon as chapter 13? Does this mean he won't be showing up as an enemy at Fort Merceus?

[triabolical]

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

Is it possible for characters to join with classes already mastered? In Cindered Shadows, for instance, the Ashen Wolves all join with their respective class already mastered. Not sure if you could code these units in the same way.

Otherwise, this seems like a solid workaround. 

I'm a big fan of this list! Great to see that you were able to work the Wolves joining into its own paralogue. I also like the notion of Shamir joining earlier on BE routes, because Catherine and Cyril aren't available then.

One question, though - why does Caspar join AM/VW as soon as chapter 13? Does this mean he won't be showing up as an enemy at Fort Merceus?

There's something that might suggest that I might be able do that. I have been able to do stuff like immediately picking the house after confirming Byleth's birthday and always give the option to go Crimson Flower regardless if you talked to Edelgard (which means completely no monastery is 100% possible for all routes), so maybe with some digging I might be able to get class mastered upon recruitment. 

If not, I think having intermediate boon type class ability learnable by skill ranks fits the spirit of streamlined Three Houses. I don't see a downside giving all Axe boon units Death Blow at B/A rank. There's no aux battles for you to get Brigand mastery anyways. I am open to other ideas and workarounds. 

The "Ashen Wolves" paralogue did require replacing Sothis's paralogue to get to be fully functional (with intro/outro event scenes from CS Chapter 1, Ashen Wolves actually appearing on the map, and all battle voice lines). I kept all the rewards from Sothis's paralogue, like the Knowledge Gem and rewarded some ore to make up for replacing it. I'm sure people who end up playing it won't mind trading that paralogue for the ability to use Bernadetta in Abyss.

Caspar is one of those awkward units due to paralogue availability. I can control when paralogues are available but given that Caspar would be recruited along with the death of the Death Knight, there are continuity issues having him recruitable in Fort Merceus. His paralogue has the most relevance in Azure Moon and it doesn't make sense to have that paralogue available after killing the Death Knight, at the time when Caspar would be recruited. Because of this, Caspar just becomes a student coming back for the reunion and spotting the professor after Pallardo is dead. 

I appreciate the feedback and enthusiasm! Modding/Hacking knowledge of Three Houses is basically non-existent so it took quite of bit of work to figure all this out myself. 

[Bylift]

On 10/2/2022 at 12:44 AM, triabolical said:

This is what I was able to achieve with limited modding knowledge. Everything on the table was tested and verified that the unit was indeed recruited after the map.

10/10 no notes would absolutely play. I would even (finally have a reason to) use Anna since she's the only thief.

I've never applied a patch to a switch exclusive game so I will have some learning to do myself before playing this hack.

You mention above that you would add abilities etc. to each player's skillset; what will happen with certifications/class changes? Is there a limited promotion tree like in FE8 for each character? Or are class changes still open to all (assuming you can manage to train the skill levels)?

Would love to learn more about this. I realize you're still working on it but if you have any patch notes or anything else available please share and thank you for doing this 🙂

[triabolical]

On 10/11/2022 at 1:55 PM, Bylift said:

10/10 no notes would absolutely play. I would even (finally have a reason to) use Anna since she's the only thief.

I've never applied a patch to a switch exclusive game so I will have some learning to do myself before playing this hack.

You mention above that you would add abilities etc. to each player's skillset; what will happen with certifications/class changes? Is there a limited promotion tree like in FE8 for each character? Or are class changes still open to all (assuming you can manage to train the skill levels)?

Would love to learn more about this. I realize you're still working on it but if you have any patch notes or anything else available please share and thank you for doing this 🙂

Some intermediate abilities can be learn in a boon skill at B rank. Death Blow for anyone that has an axe boon at B rank Axes, Hit+20 for anyone that has a Bow Boon at B rank Bows for example.

I have posted the mod in Fan Projects. It's basically complete aside from balancing enemy levels and fixing bugs/issues.