To Become an Elitist [Playlogs FE1-5] [currently playing: Thracia 776]

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Personally, I would've retained the Sable Order chapter. It feels weird to just teleport to the shrine from Altea, and even more weird to have a single text crawl state that we encountered this incredibly strong force with a badass name on our way and just... sort of instantly defeated them offscreen. Why bring them up at all if didn't serve a purpose of consequence? It's a complete failure to set up the Order. That chapter really needed to exist.

Well I guess they mention it to make sure we know it hasn't just been warping to the shrine (though with Gotoh now on Marth's side, it'd really help if he was warping the army to these locations which he canonically can do, the lazy bugger). And what's funny is, of course, that this map appears in Book 2, meaning they probably could have fit it in memory wise. I'm sure it wouldn't have been hard to just load the same map data for two separate chapters. Like, that's probably the reason why Book 2 ends up reusing so many chapters. The reuse nothing from Macedon or Grust, then we get Khadein, which has to be original, and then as we approach the end game we're hit with Altea, Altea Castle, Gra, one original reprieve, Knorsa and the Millennium Court. Okay, like, yeah, it makes sense in terms of plot why those maps are being reused, but consider they had original maps for the early game Grust and Macedon, it can't help but feel like they ran out of data at the end or something and just shoved a bunch of reused maps in. The plot even seems to indicate that the route Marth took to reach the Millennium Court is different from the War of Shadows, coming in from the mountains to the north east instead of Knorda which should logically lead to a map where the castle is in the south east like the way approaching the Fane is, yet it's just Knorda again. So yeah, being forced to reuse maps seems likely, but then, if it is a work around...just sorta weird they didn't have The Sable Order when the map's already there.

[ping]

FE3 Book 1 Chapter 4: Orleans Soldiers

Spoiler

The plains to the north east of Akaneia are ruled by the Kingdom of Orleans. Since its formation, it has had a close relationship with the Holy Kingdom of Akaneia, to the north. 

So that's just a plain translation error, right? Orleans is to the north*west* of the Kingdom of Akaneia, and in what I would describe as a central location on the continent of Akaneia. And no matter how you slice it, it follows that the Kingdom of Akaneia is *not* "to the north" of Orleans. But back to the exposition...

Other countries have completely fallen, and one half of Orleans has been conquered by Macedonia. However, the King's younger brother, Hardin, nicknamed the "Wolf of the Plains", continues fighting. It was also thanks to Duke Hardin that Akaneia's Princess Nina was able to arrive safely.

It has already been several months since letters were sent, containing plans to defear the Durhua Empire... But these sad cries for help were left unanswered. Facing the Macedonian army's elite forces, their fate is also reaching its end...

Macedonian elite forces (also Matthis)

Here's the team for this map - only the one Axe Bro so that Shaky doesn't have to fear Saji-ception.

: "Princess Nina, the Aritian army has appeared across the river."
: "Huh? Is that true, Hardin? Does that mean Prince Marth has finally come...?"
: "That's right. Now we can finally restore our army's strength. But, Princess Nina, it's going to be dangerous, so please wait inside the fort. We will come back together with the Aritian knights. Men, charge!"

People have mentioned that Mystery conveys the feeling of an epic, larger-than-life tale of Marth's exploits - and this scene, maybe involuntarily, adds to that for me. Really, the prince of a fallen, small kingdom, accompanied by a handful of retainers and a few Mercenaries of an even smaller island kingdom... that is the big relief you've been hoping for?

I'm probably being a bit unfair here, since armies being represented by very small numbers of actual people is standard procedure in FE. It just came to mind reading this conversation.

Notably, we've had our first map skip of the game. FE1's chapter 4 is the Battle in the Lea, where Matthis and Marich join, and... honestly, not that much else happened. In terms of gameplay, it was actually a bit of a challenge to save Marrich's village, but I can kinda understand why that map was chosen to be erased, since I don't think much is happening in its narration.

Matthis and Marich still join in chapter 4 though: Everybody's favourite Mage boy moved to the village at the top of the map, while Matthis is the leftmost Cav on the map. Unfortunately, His Holiness the Pope does not grace us with his presence quite yet, so that Marich may have his moment to shine.

I probably start boring people with this, but this map is mostly the same as the original, although the change-up in recruitable characters is fairly impactful in the way it plays. The most obvious addition to the map itself is the second village near our starting location, since Marich took over the original one at the top of the map.

[HP 50% | Str 30% | Skl 50% | Spd 60% | Lck 30% | WLv 70% | Def 20%]

Turban Man actually got a +5 HP boost compared to his previous self, which is a pretty decent increase to his survivability. Otherwise, I think he's unchanged, a third alternative to Kain and Abel that comes at a higher base level, but I think maybe with slightly weaker stats than a trained Xmas Cav is expected to have? But even if that was the case, "slightly" would be the operative word.

[Hp 50% | Str 30% | Skl 10% | Spd 20% | Lck 10% | WLv 70% | Def 10%]

Biraku has twice the Spd growth of Darros, who procced that stat numerous times in our FE1 playthrough. There, I almost convinced myself into thinking that Biraku is going to go places.

Like Hardin, Biraku got an improved HP base (only +4, but still), but unlike him, I think he's hit pretty hard by the change to the promotion mechanics. Our FE1 Roshe did reach Paladin Spd base before promoting, but that required a very humerous RNGeesus, who deemed it funny to give Roshe two, or was it even three, Spd procs on the very map he got his promotion. Paladin promo does still give a nice +3 to Spd still, but I'll have to expect Biraku to have Spd issues throughout the game, with no stat except WLv he could reasonably call "good".

[HP 80% | Str 40% | Skl 50% | Spd 40% | Lck 50% | WLv 30% | Def 30%]

Meanwhile, Roshe suddenly has a Spd growth. And a Lck growth. And a Def growth. And the same +4 HP that Biraku got. I'm sure you're all snickering for making me use this guy in FE1 and Biraku here.

I assume he has been buffed because he's the one Wolfguard that's playable in Book 2. He's still a bit worse than Hardin or the Xmax Cavs, but he seems honestly like a extremely OK character, who is neither really good nor really bad in any particular fashion.

[HP 70% | Str 40% | Skl 10% | Spd 20% | Lck 50% | WLv 60% | Def 20%]

Wolf didn't get the memo that he's a prepromote now. Which is weird, because his base stats are actually more different to FE1's than other characters', with +/- 1s or 2s everywhere. But the result are still stats that look appropriate for an unpromoted Lv.3 unit, which means that I don't see too much reason to use him over Kashim. Well, if you're just looking for a temporary bow user, Wolf of course has the movement (and ability to double 0 AS enemies) over our favourite con artist. 

[HP 90% | Str 30% | Skl 20% | Spd 10% | Lck 10% | WLv 30% | Def 20%]

Meanwhile, Zagaro's stats have been buffed by a noticable degree. He used to be much worse than Wolf, now he's a bit worse. Well, at base. He still has the unfortunate distinction of having even worse growths than his buddy, so there's even less reason to treat him as a growth unit than Wolf.

It's a bit of shame, honestly - in FE1, even though I didn't use him, I could definitely see at least Wolf as a servicable bow user even for later stages in the game, thanks to bows' low weight, the +1 doubling threshold, and Wolf's decent Str growth. In Mystery, bows are a bit heavier, the doubling threshold is higher, and Wolf and Zagaro become a lot worse as a result, even before factoring in the new competition in Kashim.

Boss Man still is carrying the NiteKil (which I shall still refer to "Knightkiller" or "Horseslayer" depending on my mood) and an impressive Def stat. Very much taylor-made to give Marich a good first impression, although Marth or anybody particularly hard-hitting can still overwhelm him.

More cool class cards! Quite clear to recognise the class in question, too. Even the distinction between the military Archer and the more "civilian" Hunter class that we saw in the previous chapters is pretty clear.

__

The genius strategy for this: Move people forward.

Well, OK, the actual thought put into this was to move Marth into the range of some of the approaching enemies, but still close enough to the village to visit in on turn 2. 

I appreciate that Mystery shows you how much damage you deal with a crit. Overkill if fun, even funner when you're allowed to see it clearly.

Four level-ups, resulting in +4 HP, +4 Str, +4 Spd, and +4 WLv. Marth is very focused this playthrough.

Pictured: Why Matthis being on this map makes things a little more awkward. Rena isn't exactly lightning-fast and of course can't warp herself closer, so you have to stay out of Matthis's range for now, marked with some ugly red lines. ...the ability to show an enemy's range is a really nice feature that is still missing from Mystery.

To make things more awkward, I think that Matthew (and probably the two Archers, too) have some form of random AI that makes them roam the map, or maybe a determined section of it. I have to admit that I completely forgot about Matt being there at first, which did not end well for him, so I had a bit more data on his behaviour, and it honestly seemed entirely erratic, as long as there wasn't an enemy in his range.

Pictured: Me remembering that for healers, the menu entry at the top is "Wait", not "Staff". Not the end of the world, but I can almost smell a reset incoming because my muscle memory will betray me at a more inopportune moment in the future.

: "Kid, what are you looking at? You haven't seen many rural towns like this? Now that you mention it, I remember the time I went to Peraty. I was really shocked when I first saw a Mamkute... An ordinary looking old man suddenly transformed into a gigantic dragon. That was really... surprising. Well... I knew that the dragon tribe had some survivors. But I didn't expect them to be so impressive. Huh...? Oh... This? I found it there. I don't know what it is, but you don't see many glowing red stones like this, right? If you want, you can have it. See you kid, I hope we meet again."

Wordy little bastard, but at least he gives Bantu his deserved respect.

__

Everybody else just fights what they can reach, which unfortunately isn't quite enough with Maji missing his attempt. But the Pegasus will attack Rena (and doesn't double; enemy Pegasi aren't very fast thanks to wielding Lances) whom the Archer can't reach, so they will split their attacks. Although I think the Archer moved first, so it could've been gnarly if he had brought somebody into kill range... But he didn't, so this plan was clearly flawless.

__

To the west, the Biraku training arc begins. ...I probably didn't need to add badly drawn red lines on a previous screenshot; this one shows Matthis's attacking range just fine.

So about Matthis's random movement pattern: He moves up and right one tile, which doesn't really seem to answer any of my own positioning. Unless, maybe, he's programmed to stay just out of the blue units' ranges? Because that's what both he and the left Archer are doing.

Waiting for Rena...

Wolf and Zagaru chipped down the Archer a bit, but of course he's getting healed by the nearby Bishop...

...which is actually not a bad thing, since he moves out of Matthis's range to attack Jeigan.

And then Matthis keeps running around. I guess this is barely out of Sheeda's range, if it isn't just random? By two tiles, but the Knight is blocking Matthis from creeping closer.

Next, Marich:

: "Oh! Prince Marth, it's been a while."

: "Huh? Oh, Marich... Marich!?"

: "Yeah, it's me! When I was studying at Khadein, I heard war broke out so I came to look for your highness."

: "Really...? Thank you. With you in our ranks, I can relax. You will help me, right?"

: "Of course. Check out the might of my Excalibur magic that I learnt at Khadein."

[HP 80% | Str 20% | Skl 30% | Spd 50% | Lck 50% | WLv 80% | Def 20%]

Appropriately, since Str now increases spell damage, Marich has now given a growth rate in it, although it's not exactly a stellar one. Other than that, the only changed stat is his Res, which he of course had a zero in during FE1. 

Contrary to what I said before, it seems that magic still ignores terrain, which the main site doesn't mention on the Calculations page. This means that Marich should be able to pick up the mantle of boss killer again, whacking them with the highly accurate Xcalibr spell.

Stat-wise, Marich obviously has a weak base Def stat, but his HP/Def growths are actually on par with the (good) Cavaliers. Not that this makes him a tank, but he is less squishy than other mages in the series. Otherwise, his stand-out stat is his WLv growth - which he can definitely use: If he want to get all the way to the most advanced spell in the game, Bolganone, he'll need 9 procs in it. More importantly, though, Starlight (9 Wlv) is easily reachable for him.

Pictured: An accidental thief kill. "Surely, Julian doesn't hit hard enough to one-round", I though, not checking the numbers beforehand, but he didn't even need the crit to prove me wrong. Enemy thieves are really squishy. The thief was carrying a Silver Sword, which I assume is Hardin's and he stole it from the deleted map.

And at this point, we can lure Matthis into Rena's range. The Horseman bait makes sure that he doesn't attack anybody that can fight back, as well as that he moves to the right spot.

__

: "Machis, brother! Brother, it's me Rena."
: "Ah, Rena!? Why are you here...?"
: "I was captured by the Devil Mountain bandits, but the Aritians rescued me. But brother, why are you in the army?"
: "After you fled from Prince Misheil, Macedonia became more and more ruthless. The prince despised me, so he forced me to join the army and fight here. I detest fighting, but if I don't cooperate, they'll execute me. I don't really have a choice."
: "No, brother. You should have been brave and walked on your own path! It was Macedonia that was wrong, for allying with the Durhua Empire and causing its people to suffer. What they're doing is deplorable. Brother, it's not too late. Come with us, and join the Aritia Alliance. Everybody will welcome you, because they're all good people."
: "...Really? I understand. Since I'm going to die anyway, I might as well die a glorious death. However I heard that you flatly denied the prince's proposal. My life is going to be hard with a sister like you. That said, you're still a woman. Are there any guys that take your fancy?"
: "Huh...? No, there's nobody..."
: "Huh? I was so sure there was. Nevermind, you've already reached the age to freely love. But, remember what I am about to say: Never fall in love with a thief."
: "...Huh...? But..."
: "...Okay, that's good. Well, Rena, don't push yourself too hard. I'll just go and say my farewells to the Macedonian army."

Huh...?

A common point of criticism for Fates, if not the most prominent one, is that a lot of the time, freshly joining characters just won't stop talking.

[HP 50% | Str 40% | Skl 30% | Spd 20% | Lck 20% | WLv 70% | Def 20%]

I just want to take a moment to appreciate that Machis has stricly better growths than Biraku. That has already been the case in FE1, as Machis's only improved stat is, once again, his +4 HP base, but I thought it's worth noting. As is the little detail that his previously random Lck base is now locked in at 0. Goodness.

Not really anything to add that I didn't say about Biraku already.

With that, the map more or less solved. The remaining Knights really don't pose much of a threat on their own. 

: "This castle is Minerva's. I won't let you enter freely."

__

For the boss kill, Sheeda and Marich manage to perfectly chip him down to 1 HP, thanks to Sheeda's imperfect accuracy.

Perfect.

...hm.

: "You... Don't think you've won."

And that's the map. Even with Machis slowing down progress towards the boss a little, it's still easy enough to finish well before reinforcements start spawning on turn 14, after which they keep coming every turn for roughly half an eternity.

: "Oh, Prince Marth, you came at the perfect time. Princess Nina has almost arrived here from the fort. However there are still many enemies in the castle. Please be careful."

Thank you... King of Orleans, I presume. I'm almost impressed that you don't share a "generic kingy" portrait with Sheeda's dad, although I guess you do make another appearance in Book 2.

The Team:

	Lv. 	   HP Str Skl Spd Lck WLv Def Res  +XP
Marth	5.32	   22   9   6  11   7  10   7   0  +96
Jeigan	2.17	   22   7  10   8   1  10   9   6  +17
Kain	2.07	   21   7   6   7   3   6   7   0  +7
Sheeda	4.65	   18   6   9  14  11   9   7   6  +89

DOGA	3.29	   20   7   4   4   1   5  11   0  +15
Gordon	5.26	   20   5   6   5   6   6   6   0  +32
Maji	6.32	   22   7   5   9   7   5   6   0  +94
Rena	3.74	   16   1   7   8   8   7   3   5  +74	(base)

Julian	3.56	   17   4   6  12   7   2   4   0  +40	(base)
Navarre	3.72	   19   5   9  11   8   9   6   0  +40	(base)
Hardin	7.06	   25   9   8   8   3  10   8   0  +106
Biraku	1.85	   20   5   3   6   2   4   7   0  +85	(base)

Roshe	3.00	   22   6   5   7   4   7   7   0  --	(base)
Wolf	3.06	   22   6   6   7   5   6   6   0  +6	(base)
Zagero	1.22	   10   6   6   6   2   3   6   0  +22	(base)
Machis	2.00	   20   5   2   6   0   8   7   0  --	(base)

Marich	1.20	   20   1   3   6   3   5   4   3  +20	(base)

 

FE3 Book 1 Chapter 5: The Fire Emblem

Spoiler

After defeating the main force of the Macedonian army, the allied army advanced further to liberate Orleans castle. The valuable treasures in the castle must be reclaimed, before the enemy steals and escapes with them. 

"The chests can only be opened by Thieves, but do we have any within our ranks?" Someone murmured...

__

And we are back with a wonderful realisation: It is possible to manipulate the deployment positions at the start of a fight. A bit awkwardly, by de- and reselecting characters in the selection screen, but because I'm pretty sure Thracia does not allow this, I didn't expect this to work here, either.

"Hmm... Armour Knights, seek out the enemy!! Archers guard the throne. Thieves, gather all the treasures and prepare to make your escape. Listen well! Don't let the rebels take one step into this room!"

The map, with my first turn already executed because I didn't remember to prepare this before. But since the first turn is kinda obvious - move stuff forward, go recruit the prisoners - I guess it's not bad to show it like this, either.

The first new recruit is of course Ricardo:

: "Aren't you Ricardo? What are you doing here?"
: "Oh, big bro Julian! It's been a while. Heh, it's a little embarrassing. I came to the castle to steal, but I slipped up and got myself caught. But, big bro, what are you doing here...?"
: "I... I'm not a thief anymore. I'm, er, an ally of justice now."
: "Oh? Tsk tsk! You're probably being deceived by a woman. Big bro has always been intimidated by pretty women."
: "F-fool!! My, uh, sense of justice has awakened, that's all... ...Nevermind. Anyhow, from now on you're going to be a companion of mine."
: "Pfft! You're always so selfish... Okay. One, I have time. And two, since big bro asked of me... I understand. I will help big bro. But you must also help me."

"Three, you literally just broke me out of jail."

[HP 50% | Str 50% | Skl 20% | Spd 60% | Lck 40% | WLv 30% | Def 20%]

Rickard actually got some buffs - mainly a +2 to Str, which actually gives him a higher base than Julian's. But otherwise, he's still the worse thief in every metric. A higher Spd growth by +10%, if you want to be pedantic, but not really enough to make up for Julian's +3 base advantage.

So yeah, bit of a better version of himself, while still being a worse version of Big Bro.

Second turn, it's obviously Wendel's turn to be recruited. He actually moves around - not sure if randomly or if it's by design that he moved next to Julian because he's moving towards Marth. In any case, Marich grabbed the Door Key Julian starts with, so he can just recruit him on turn 2.

: "Ah... Master! It's you, Master Wendel."
: "Oh! Is it Marich? You're looking lively. It's good to see you're well."
: "Yes. I finally caught up with Aritia's Prince Marth. I am currently with the liberation army, fighting against the Durhua Empire. But, Master, why are you here...?"
: "Sigh... Khadein is finished. Khadein is currently ruled by the Demon King, Garnef, and has become a city of darkness. But I couldn't agree to do his evil deeds, so I escaped. Along the way, I was captured by Macedonian soldiers at Orleans."
: "Is that so... Then, Master, can you please aid us? We're no match for Garnef and the Durhua Empire... Yet, we must reclaim Khadein in the end. Prince Marth would be very happy if a great bishop, like you, joined our cause."
: "Mmm... Is that so? Although I don't like fighting, I guess this is the only option... I understand, Marich. I will fight together with you. Please inform Prince marth about this action."

[HP 60% | Str 10% | Skl 30% | Spd 20% | Lck 40% | WLv 70% | Def 10%]

The most dire news: Wendel's base Spd has been compromised. Kaga is making an attempt to contain the power of the papacy. On top of that -2 Spd, Wendell also lost 3 points of Def, which isn't quite made up for by his +1 Skl boost.

Not all is lost, though. Wendel's Str base actually matters now, so as long as 12 Spd is enough to double (which I assume it will be for a while), he'll still have that as an advantage over Marich, as long as you're trying to preserve Excalibur uses, or don't want to deal with its crit rate when setting up kills, as is the case for me. But overall, Wendel isn't as unreasonably good anymore, which is a crying shame. He might only be really good now.

Maji is our vanguard here, ready to chuck Hand Axes at the Archers and (for 1 dmg) the Knight.

__

...and I'll be honest, even though this looks so wonderfully calculated, I assumed that the Knight would keep choking the point. Good thing Maji got a +Def proc (and nothing else, I believe) on his first level-up.

Less good thing that yup, muscle memory betrays me and Rena leaves Maji at the brink of bleeding out. Whoops.

____

But still we press on. Faster than planned because Oguma got a crit and one-rounded the Bishop, XP thief that he is.

As a result, Maji can even try to clear the surroundings. Risky, but it's still early in the chapter...

__

Nice.

Although I didn't quite know it at this point, this map got quite a bit easier in FE3, since Thieves now drop items that they stole. Not sure about multiple looted items since that didn't come up - but one thief actually dropped whatever was in a chest plus 1000 gold, so maybe..?

Defence!

And now I know that I don't have to restart the map and spend a Warp to save the Angelic Robe.

I do have to spend one to save the Killing Edge in the north, though, and what better man than DOGA to choke that point?

DOGA agrees.

(this thief also was the one who carried 1000 Gold with him and dropped both it and the Killing Edge from the chest)

And as I'm warping him into the range of the two Soldiers starting around that area, I now remember: More enemy class cards! Very Final Fantasy Black Mage-y for the Mage class.

The next part of the map is rather pro forma, with DOGA choking the escape point. I still want to report Navarre's initial level-up, which highly encourages further use of the original edgelord.

__

And unfortunately, I also have to report a somewhat sluggish start to the Biraku Training Project on this map, especially when compared to Hardin's performance right next to him.

But generally, this is just a pretty trivial shove towards the throne once the Thief situation is under control. But this might be a good moment to take a look at the boss we're about to engage:

He beefy. Obviously, Marich and Wendell have a lot of value here.

__

The three generics guarding him are somewhat threatening, since it's more difficult to prevent 2-range enemies from ganging up on somebody. The other Archer only has an Iron Bow, but it's still somewhat high total damage.

Still, I'm being more careful than I needed to be. Instead of carefully putting Gordon in only one Archer's range (which does not turn the other two enemies aggressive), I could've just used Wendel's Barrier staff and have him run in, bows blazing. The Mage only has 7 Atk, so he's actually completely helpless against a freshly barriered character.

On the, er, "plus" side, it's an easy kill for Biraku.

: "Da-damn! Don't get too over yourselves. Rebels, taste steel!"

After this, time to slowly chip down the boss. Marich is restraining himself and uses Blizzard because I think an Excalibur crit+hit would've killed. 

Marth accelarates things with a crit (plus miss, but still)...

...Wendel continues...

...and it is up to the Hero of Orleans to finish the job.

After Rena heals him up, of course. 5 points of chip damage were actually enough to put Biraku into the boss's kill range.

: "Urgh... You..."

There we go. Biraku had two or three misses early in the chapter, so he missed out on a fair bit of XP there, but Mariones is worth a nice 75 XP to make up for that.

: "You are Prince Marth? Finally, I have a chance to meet with you. I am Nina of Akaneia. Our Kingdom of Akaneia, the guardian of this world, was destroyed by the Durhua Empire. The world is now facing ruin. Prince Marth, I have a request... Please, in my place, lead these soldiers who were defeated by the Empire and liberate the countries ruled by Durhua."

"I would ask Hardin, but he might mistake that for a gesture of affection."

: "Of course, Nina. In the past, Aritia has been loyal to Akaneia. And as a descendant of Aritia's founder, it is my destiny to defeat Durhua's Dark Earth Dragon, Mediuth. 
: "Thank you, Prince Marth. Then I will give this Emblem to you."

Title Drop.

I unfortunately missed a screenshot there so feel free to speculate what Nina said before:

: "...a conqueror, and given to the saviour of the world. With this, you can also open chests that contain valuable treasures. This war will be fierce, but please try your best to return light to this world."

Marth was promoted to Thief! Gained no stats.

The Team:

	Lv. 	   HP Str Skl Spd Lck WLv Def Res  +XP
Marth	6.46	   23   9   7  11   8  10   7   0  +114
Sheeda	5.69	   19   6   6  12  12   9   8   0  +104
Hardin	7.80	   25   9   8   8   3  10   8   0  +74
Biraku	2.92	   20   5   3   6   2   5   7   0  +107

DOGA	4.11	   21   8   4   5   1   5  11   0  +82
Maji	6.77	   22   7   5   9   7   5   6   0  +45
Oguma	3.91	   23   6  11  12   4   7   6   0  +90
Navarre	4.86	   20   6   9  12   9  10   6   0  +114

Gordon	5.77	   21   5   6   5   6   6   6   0  +51
Julian	3.56	   17   4   6  12   7   2   4   0  --	(base)
Ricardo	1.00	   16   5   2   9   0   2   3   0  --	(base)

Marich	1.34	   20   1   3   6   3   5   4   3  +14	(base)
Wendel	1.82	   22   3   2  12   1  10   5   6  +82	(base)
Rena	4.76	   16   1   7   8   8   8   3   6  +102

 

FE3 Book 1 Chapter 6: Trap of Lefcandy

Spoiler

After liberating Orleans, the allied army marched south along the central road, towards Akaneia's royal capital, Pales. Their most difficult challenge is the countless forts situated at Lefcandy Valley. As well as the guarding "Dragon Knights"; Macedonian White Knights commanded by General Minerva. At Lefcandy, the only passageway to the Kingdom of Akaneia, an intense battle is about to start.

Neat little detail: Minerva actually gets off her Wyvern to talk to Haiman. I'm not sure if I have to credit the developers for making a Wyvern sprite just for this occasion, though, since that might just be how the wild Wyverns in Book 2 will look like.

Anyway...

: "General Haiman. I cannot go ahead with this battle. As an honourable knight of Macedonia, I wish to fight an open front battle."
"But, Princess Minerva. Your Macedonian army, at Orleans, has already lost over half of its soldiers. To restore the army, we must bide for time at this castle. I came here following his highness's orders. And here, I would expect you to follow mine. You cannot have forgotten what will happen if you disobey the Empire. You sister, Maria's life would have no guarantee."
: "...I understand. I will leave everything to you... But I don't believe this method will defeat the Aritian knights... You will regret it in the end."

I know that the nature of Fire Emblem is that battles work entirely different than they would in reality, but Minerva does come across as a bit of an idiot here, tbh. The inability of beating the Aritians is the entire *point* of this - Durhua/Macedonia is trying to slow them down and harrassing them, to buy time to organise an army that can.

But of course, realistically, this would be attempted in a way that doesn't get your entire harrassing force slaughtered, so I guess Minerva isn't wrong as long as we stay within Fire Emblem logic.

There's one big change to this map: Instead of turn-based reinforcements, we now have what is the first reinforcement zone in the series. Or maybe I just have an awful memory. In any case, this means that it's much harder to avoid dealing with the reinforcements from the four forts in the south - in FE1, they start spawning on turn 13, and it's not too hard to beat the map within that turn limit as long as you send Rena along with Mars to warp him over the mountain range. It should still be possible - Marich and/or Wendel swooping in to kill the boss, then Rena warping Marth in for the insta-seize - but it's definitely a better way of creating these reinforcements.

Of course, Minerva and the Whitewings still leave the map before they would be able to fight you. Without them, the only danger on the map before the reinforcements become an issue are the remaining Dracoknight and two Pegasi, who can easily make use of the mountain range to threaten a large area of the map without exposing themselves to be sniped.

The Dracoknight also has a cool card, of course.

__

To open things up, Julian opens the door, and Marich and Marth take care of the Archers. The two Mercenaries are honestly not too threatening, so Marth can just fight them on enemy phase.

However, the addition of the Dracoknight does make this more dangerous, so Marth pulls back a little, while some more units move into his direction for support. Both groups have an Archer and a magic user to deal big damage to the Dracoknight if he decides to go into their direction.

: "I still cannot bring myself to fight like this. Paola, Katua, Est, let us return."

"Making use of our advantage in mobility would be cowardly. We should run into this wall head first, like a hero would do."

The generic Draco decides to go after Marth...

...which allows Gordon to chip him down cleanly for Marth to pick up the kill. Unfortunately, he misses his first attack, so while he still goes down, the Dracoknight manages to bring Marth down to 3 HP.

And he even got a pretty good level (Defence!), so I'm not very optimistic about the following turns going well.

And Biraku got a level that isn't completely terrible! Surely, somebody is about to die.

...and frankly, that would be my own fault. I missclicked here and can't even blame the UI - Sheeda was supposed to one-round the second Pegasus with the Silver Lance, but only chipped her down with Iron instead. Since Rena also healed Julian at the start of the turn, because he was brought below half HP by a Javelin-throwing Pegasus, this looks very much like a(n avoidable) reset.

Now it really really does.

__

However, Maji comes through with an awful level, calming the angry RNG gods. Thank god the AI is stupid. I was praying for coward AI, since there is a bunch of forts on this map - but instead, the Pegasus attacks Rena instead of going for the Marth kill.

Phew.

The Armoury on this map sells Slim Lances, which are honestly really great right now - as strong and light as Iron Swords, but they can be used on horseback and even have +10 hit / +5 crit as an additional bonus. Not needing to dismount to potentially double stuff seems rather useful, and with this shop, I didn't need to preserve Sheeda's Slim Lance as much as I have.

: "Have you seen a young girl by the name of Chiki? Chiki is the Narga tribe's sole survivor. Without this child, there will be nobody to defeat the Mamkutes that seve Mediuth. I am a Fire Dragon, but I lost something important at Peraty so I cannot fight anymore. Regardless, I will come along with you. Please help me find Chiki."

He is here!

__

And I'll allow myself a save state in order to look at his actual combat stats without spending a FireStn use.

Banutu seems a fair bit stronger than in FE1, actually. Just comparing base stats (for the record: Unchanged except for Res, I believe) doesn't really tell you anything here, so here's the derived stats: Banutu now hits harder by +4 Atk, has his transformed Def decreased by -1, and his Res improved by +4, too. His Firebreath has 20 weight, so unlike in FE1, he's hard-stuck at 0 AS no matter how many Speedwings you feed him. However, he also hits at 1-2 range now, which is immediately a big glow-up. He also gains +1 Move when transformed, which lets him keep up with other foot units in this stage.

His growths have actually been reduced compared to FE1, believe it or not. He used to have 10% in HP/Skl/Lck, now it's only HP/Lck. I'm sure this change was central to Kaga's vision of the game.

__

Rena warps a healed up Marth over on the next turn. Kain and Jeigan lurk just outside of the reinforcement zone, which is close enough to lure in the two Knights guarding the boss.

__

A level-up relevant to many readers' interests.

...in case you couldn't tell on the previous map screen where the red line on the map was. Like this, every fort can just be blocked on the next turn, when attacking the boss.

: "Damn that Minerva for daring to betray us. In that case, you guys shall accompany her in Hell."

Another misstimed screenshot, so the first four words are from memory. Safe to assume that he's salty about Minerva just flying away, though.

__

Unfortunately, Biraku is just out of range this time...

__

...so this boss falls to more conventional means. Hardin's chip damage allows Navarre to kill in one hit, so I think it made things more reliable overall? Failing to kill on player phase would've put somebody at a high risk of death anyway, so I don't think there was a real disadvantage.

: "...Urgh... Minerva... You traitor..."

I mean, to be fair, she probably hasn't ever been "on your side" if you could only keep her in line by threatening to kill her little sister.

: "Prince Marth, we can finally talk about the Mamkutes. The Mamkutes already existed on this continent long before humans, and were referred to as the dragon tribe. However, they were punished by the deities, and were forced to seal their true form in stones and, afterwards, lived anonymously in the frontier lands... They coexisted with humans, living a life of peace and without conflict. 

"However, 100 years ago, at the Durhua Region the Dark Earth Dragon Mediuth appeared. He gathered all the Mamkutes that hated humans, and formed the Durhua Empire. He then led an attack on the human world, and soon they had conquered the whole continent. Of course, humans fought back to the death. But in front of Mediuth's might, it was no use. Then at that time, a youth from Aritia, wielding the Falchion, a sword that radiated light, appeared in front of Mediuth. After an intense battle, he defeated Mediuth.

"That's right. Your highness should know what happened afterwards. That youth, who founded the Kingdom of Aritia, was Anri the First. But 100 years after that dark age... At Durhua, Mediuth awakened once again. Prince Marth! You are the only one with Anri's blood, the chosen one. You are the only one that can succeed the will of your deceased father, King Cornelius.

The Team:

	Lv. 	   HP Str Skl Spd Lck WLv Def Res  +XP
Marth	7.73	   24   9   8  11   9  10   8   0  +127
Sheeda	5.89	   19   6   6  12  12   9   8   0  +20
Jeigan	2.20	   22   7  10   8   1  10   9   6  +3
Kain	2.10	   21   7   6   7   3   6   7   0  +3

Hardin	8.25	   26   9   9   8   4  10   8   0  +45
Biraku	3.56	   20   6   3   6   2   6   7   0  +64
DOGA	4.11	   21   8   4   5   1   5  11   0  --
Maji	7.17	   22   7   5   9   7   6   6   0  +40

Navarre	6.01	   22   7  11  12  11  10   6   0  +115
Julian	3.56	   17   4   6  12   7   2   4   0  --	(base)
Gordon	5.87	   21   5   6   5   6   6   6   0  +10
Kashim	4.10	   22   8   4   7   3   6   4   0  +16

Wendel	2.34	   23   3   2  13   1  10   5   6  +52
Marich	1.98	   20   1   3   6   3   5   4   3  +64	(base)
Rena	5.78	   16   1   8   8   9   8   3   6  +102
Banutu	1.00	   18   2   3   4   1   2   3   1  --	(base)

 

Answers

Spoiler

  

On 11/3/2023 at 7:25 PM, Saint Rubenio said:

Honestly, this has to have been a mistake. There's other explanation. It makes absolutely no sense.

Kaga hated the critcism of his games by Shaky specifically so much that he built a time machine and then went back in time to tell his younger self to reduce Maji's HP growth by 90%. ...what, you didn't say realistic explanation.

On 11/4/2023 at 12:32 AM, Jotari said:

You used Radd in your FE1 playground! I'm so happy.

I didn't play slow enough to really allow him to overcome his underleveled start, but he promoted and proceeded to do things and stuff. 

On 11/4/2023 at 12:32 AM, Jotari said:

I think you might actually have made a mistake since there are Eno growths there at all XD

 

On 11/4/2023 at 7:28 AM, Shaky Jones said:

His HP growth is so small, Gnip made the font .000001 to represent how low it is! Bravo!

 

On 11/4/2023 at 12:52 AM, Interdimensional Observer said:

You forgot to post the growths.

But, this is something one of those modern-day things called "patches" would've fixed right away, if it had somehow escaped playtesting.

...whoops. Let's see if I can edit the post...

Nope, Serenes doesn't allow it. So here are Maji's growths in a completely random spot of this playlog:

[HP 10% | Str 30% | Skl 20% | Spd 40% | Lck 40% | WLv 50% | Def 40%]

On 11/4/2023 at 12:32 AM, Jotari said:

The strongest boss in the series is very much humbled in this game.

No more "breaking his Hand Axe" strategies. I mean, it would technically work, but...

On 11/4/2023 at 12:32 AM, Jotari said:

How many times was she kidapped by bandits before this point!

She only entered a Kaga story right now, so there's hope that she was neither kidnapped nor brainwashed before the Devil Mountain incident!

On 11/4/2023 at 12:32 AM, Jotari said:

Also, instead of the Dread Fighter Loop, maybe Rudolf killed Mila when he was still a villager!

True, true. He might have been a Villager and not some special lord-y class as a youth. Alm must have inherited his incredible averageness and not-the-special-one-ness from somebody.

On 11/4/2023 at 12:52 AM, Interdimensional Observer said:

Considering Javelins got mega-heavy but Hand Axes didn't, it these guys a tiiiiiiiiiiiiiny niche of having doubling physical 1-2 range.

I hadn't noticed that, but... yeah, "tiiiiiiiny" probably describes that niche quite well. Not that they even occupy it when they join, anyway...

On 11/4/2023 at 12:52 AM, Interdimensional Observer said:

Blazing Bartre is manifesting in my mind. The guy who, for he starts with 3 Spd, needs his 40% growth to proc to even consider the possibility of doubling 0AS foes.

Kaga even did Bartre first. Incredible, that man.

On 11/4/2023 at 12:32 AM, Jotari said:

Remember this dude is a conman. He probably doesn't even have a mother at all.

(and generally @ the following Kashim discussion: Almost disappointed that he turns out to be a good person forced into a life of crime. It would've been a feather in Sheeda's cap if she had managed to guilt-trip somebody with the moral fiber of... Er, I wanted to say Lifis, but I think he's a few more rungs down the ladder of morals.

On 11/4/2023 at 7:28 AM, Shaky Jones said:

Fuck you Kaga.

 

See, that kind of talk is why Kaga went back in time just to ruin Maji.

On 11/4/2023 at 7:28 AM, Shaky Jones said:

I haven't got far in my FE3 run, but my Maji is easily my best unit so far, doubling everyone and one rounding all the cavs with his iron axe. He has jack shit HP though, so tanking is still....a challenge, but Maji can overcome all.

Yeahhh, he is not really going into that direction for me thus far.

On 11/4/2023 at 7:28 AM, Shaky Jones said:

I hope @Saint Rubenio changed the Speedwings she gives you (I assume that's... Wade's little sister? I can't quite remember who's related to whom) to some Boots. Y'know, the stat booster that makes you run faster.

On 11/4/2023 at 1:12 AM, Emperor Hardin said:

Funfact, Pirates have one less movement in Mystery of the Emblem!

I did not register that. Interesting. That would have made Darros even more funny-bad than he is in FE1.

On 11/4/2023 at 1:12 AM, Emperor Hardin said:

Also I like the spiky bangs sticking through the bandana in the Gazzak/Criminal portrait in this game, I wish a boss had inherited that detail in the DS remakes.

Yeah, although it would've been nice to have more unique portraits for the initial brigand/pirate boss men, it is at least a very cool one.

--

Apologies for not weighing in on the portrait discussion, but (a) this post is already getting rather long and (b) I unfortunately don't have the greatest eyes for aesthetics, so my input would be limited to "I LIKE PICTURE" anyway.

I won't comment on what chapters have been kicked out just yet, either, since it's only been the one thus far (and I made a short comment on that in the update itself). I'll just say that I'm rather grateful that I won't have to experience the Wooden Cavalry with proper 3-10 ranged Ballistae this playthrough.

Fingers crossed that the post layout will hold...

[Shaky Jones]

10 minutes ago, gnip said:

Here's the team for this map - only the one Axe Bro so that Shaky doesn't have to fear Saji-ception.

 

I love Saji!

Not enough to reset for him when I somehow got him killed early on from lack of giving a shit and didn't want to restart (epic Jeigan lvl), but I mean....go Saji.

11 minutes ago, gnip said:

People have mentioned that Mystery conveys the feeling of an epic, larger-than-life tale of Marth's exploits - and this scene, maybe involuntarily, adds to that for me. Really, the prince of a fallen, small kingdom, accompanied by a handful of retainers and a few Mercenaries of an even smaller island kingdom... that is the big relief you've been hoping for?

I'm probably being a bit unfair here, since armies being represented by very small numbers of actual people is standard procedure in FE. It just came to mind reading this conversation.

I don't consider this too much when playing FE given my extreme focus on pure gameplay, but I do admit this game has some sort of charm I don't feel in many other FE's. Maybe this is what you're talking about. Of course, B1 is still kinda difficult to enjoy because FE11 is just too good, while B2 feels at least different enough that I loved both versions. 

Sooner or later, you'll want to blow your brains out from hearing the map theme for the 20th time.

13 minutes ago, gnip said:

Unfortunately, His Holiness the Pope does not grace us with his presence quite yet, so that Marich may have his moment to shine.

The game can't just let you solo this early.

14 minutes ago, gnip said:

[Hp 50% | Str 30% | Skl 10% | Spd 20% | Lck 10% | WLv 70% | Def 10%]

Biraku has twice the Spd growth of Darros, who procced that stat numerous times in our FE1 playthrough. There, I almost convinced myself into thinking that Biraku is going to go places.

Like Hardin, Biraku got an improved HP base (only +4, but still), but unlike him, I think he's hit pretty hard by the change to the promotion mechanics. Our FE1 Roshe did reach Paladin Spd base before promoting, but that required a very humerous RNGeesus, who deemed it funny to give Roshe two, or was it even three, Spd procs on the very map he got his promotion. Paladin promo does still give a nice +3 to Spd still, but I'll have to expect Biraku to have Spd issues throughout the game, with no stat except WLv he could reasonably call "good".

[HP 80% | Str 40% | Skl 50% | Spd 40% | Lck 50% | WLv 30% | Def 30%]

What the fuck happened here?

And Kaga wonders why I talk shit on him. What were you thinking!?

15 minutes ago, gnip said:

[HP 70% | Str 40% | Skl 10% | Spd 20% | Lck 50% | WLv 60% | Def 20%]

Wolf didn't get the memo that he's a prepromote now.

Whoever remade Shadow Dragon must've felt betrayed by this. 

16 minutes ago, gnip said:

Boss Man still is carrying the NiteKil (which I shall still refer to "Knightkiller" or "Horseslayer" depending on my mood) and an impressive Def stat. Very much taylor-made to give Marich a good first impression, although Marth or anybody particularly hard-hitting can still overwhelm him.

if only they kept Saji's iconic hammer

Pretty sure I still killed him with Maji.

17 minutes ago, gnip said:

Wordy little bastard, but at least he gives Bantu his deserved respect.

Oh, so you'll definitely not like Genealogy. Good to know. 

18 minutes ago, gnip said:

A common point of criticism for Fates, if not the most prominent one, is that a lot of the time, freshly joining characters just won't stop talking.

Well this is their only chance of being a character since there's no obscure extra dialogue scenes in this era of Kaga FE. 

I genuinely don't get why people will say Archanea characters have no character, but then say Genealogy has amazing characters. The power of shipping sim really does wonders to the human mind. And they say they hate modern FE...I laugh.

20 minutes ago, gnip said:

Perfect.

Oh hell yeah, just like me.

21 minutes ago, gnip said:

...hm.

Oh shit, nothing like me.

You're pretty bad at Maji'ing, ya know that? Guess you're just the 10% speed master. Shoulda requested Saji for your case. Oh well. This is funnier.

22 minutes ago, gnip said:

The map, with my first turn already executed because I didn't remember to prepare this before. But since the first turn is kinda obvious - move stuff forward, go recruit the prisoners - I guess it's not bad to show it like this, either.

This showcases the flaw of B1 that I'll concede to when Ruben inevitably shits on FE3 again. This map was not designed with fe3 mount mechanics in mind. This chapter is a lot more boring when most of your army are basically sword locked mercs (you just got like, 3 extra cavs). Now the map plays much slower and everything just feels more boring that FE1, which sucks because I actually like this chapter quite a bit. It's not completely ruined, but the start of "I wish I was playing FE11 instead" for me.

24 minutes ago, gnip said:

: "Aren't you Ricardo? What are you doing here?"
: "Oh, big bro Julian! It's been a while. Heh, it's a little embarrassing. I came to the castle to steal, but I slipped up and got myself caught. But, big bro, what are you doing here...?"
: "I... I'm not a thief anymore. I'm, er, an ally of justice now."
: "Oh? Tsk tsk! You're probably being deceived by a woman. Big bro has always been intimidated by pretty women."
: "F-fool!! My, uh, sense of justice has awakened, that's all... ...Nevermind. Anyhow, from now on you're going to be a companion of mine."
: "Pfft! You're always so selfish... Okay. One, I have time. And two, since big bro asked of me... I understand. I will help big bro. But you must also help me."

27 minutes ago, gnip said:

[HP 60% | Str 10% | Skl 30% | Spd 20% | Lck 40% | WLv 70% | Def 10%]

The most dire news: Wendel's base Spd has been compromised. Kaga is making an attempt to contain the power of the papacy. On top of that -2 Spd, Wendell also lost 3 points of Def, which isn't quite made up for by his +1 Skl boost.

They tried nerfing the world's greatest athlete by making him start 1 second later in the race. Great job Kaga.

29 minutes ago, gnip said:

Neat little detail: Minerva actually gets off her Wyvern to talk to Haiman. I'm not sure if I have to credit the developers for making a Wyvern sprite just for this occasion, though, since that might just be how the wild Wyverns in Book 2 will look like

Okay, Kaga is good again.

30 minutes ago, gnip said:

There's one big change to this map: Instead of turn-based reinforcements, we now have what is the first reinforcement zone in the series. Or maybe I just have an awful memory. In any case, this means that it's much harder to avoid dealing with the reinforcements from the four forts in the south - in FE1, they start spawning on turn 13, and it's not too hard to beat the map within that turn limit as long as you send Rena along with Mars to warp him over the mountain range. It should still be possible - Marich and/or Wendel swooping in to kill the boss, then Rena warping Marth in for the insta-seize - but it's definitely a better way of creating these reinforcements

The start of a horrifying fate for reinforcements in Fire Emblem games to come.

31 minutes ago, gnip said:

And I'll allow myself a save state in order to look at his actual combat stats without spending a FireStn use.

Banutu seems a fair bit stronger than in FE1, actually. Just comparing base stats (for the record: Unchanged except for Res, I believe) doesn't really tell you anything here, so here's the derived stats: Banutu now hits harder by +4 Atk, has his transformed Def decreased by -1, and his Res improved by +4, too. His Firebreath has 20 weight, so unlike in FE1, he's hard-stuck at 0 AS no matter how many Speedwings you feed him. However, he also hits at 1-2 range now, which is immediately a big glow-up. He also gains +1 Move when transformed, which lets him keep up with other foot units in this stage.

I shed a tear from sheer beauty.

Man, manaketes are so cool in SNESFE.

32 minutes ago, gnip said:

I mean, to be fair, she probably hasn't ever been "on your side" if you could only keep her in line by threatening to kill her little sister.

Yeah, that didn't do shit for me either.

Minerva, you traitor.

33 minutes ago, gnip said:

Kaga hated the critcism of his games by Shaky specifically so much that he built a time machine and then went back in time to tell his younger self to reduce Maji's HP growth by 90%. ...what, you didn't say realistic explanation.

He would do that.

I take back my one compliment. You're a poopy head. Tf you gonna do? Change cord in New mystery. You don't have power past Thraica. I win.

35 minutes ago, gnip said:

I hadn't noticed that, but... yeah, "tiiiiiiiny" probably describes that niche quite well. Not that they even occupy it when they join, anyway...

Hey! It's doing wonders for my Maji.

35 minutes ago, gnip said:

See, that kind of talk is why Kaga went back in time just to ruin Maji.

Well in all seriousness, I do kinda like Kaga and respect how he designs his games, even if I utterly despise FE2 and FE4. There's more effort I can credit there than FE7, that's for sure. But don't tell him I said that.

36 minutes ago, gnip said:

Yeahhh, he is not really going into that direction for me thus far.

I guarantee you, Ruben would have an amazing Maji if he actually gave FE3 a chance.

He should totally do that after his rev run. He plays fe3 b1, and I play his precious FE1. Of course, I am considering trying out @Polinym's Project War of Darkness for the QoL additions like master seals and the translation patch that I think was used by Gnip. Sure it wouldn't be pure vanilla, but I think it's similar enough to where I could justly rank the game without hating myself for playing FE1 again.

44 minutes ago, gnip said:

Apologies for not weighing in on the portrait discussion, but (a) this post is already getting rather long and (b) I unfortunately don't have the greatest eyes for aesthetics, so my input would be limited to "I LIKE PICTURE" anyway.

Don't worry. You focus on getting good at Maji gaming.

[Emperor Hardin]

Alot to quote here!

2 hours ago, gnip said:

[HP 80% | Str 40% | Skl 50% | Spd 40% | Lck 50% | WLv 30% | Def 30%]

Meanwhile, Roshe suddenly has a Spd growth. And a Lck growth. And a Def growth. And the same +4 HP that Biraku got. I'm sure you're all snickering for making me use this guy in FE1 and Biraku here.

I assume he has been buffed because he's the one Wolfguard that's playable in Book 2. He's still a bit worse than Hardin or the Xmax Cavs, but he seems honestly like a extremely OK character, who is neither really good nor really bad in any particular fashion.

I think Kaga buffed Roshea because he liked him and he was plot important. Kaga tends to try to improve characters he likes, I believe. There's some evidence to it in a interview on Genealogy of the Holy War.

2 hours ago, gnip said:

Boss Man still is carrying the NiteKil (which I shall still refer to "Knightkiller" or "Horseslayer" depending on my mood) and an impressive Def stat. Very much taylor-made to give Marich a good first impression, although Marth or anybody particularly hard-hitting can still overwhelm him.

His Knite kill was taken from Bentheon in the cut chapter!

Also he has 1 higher strength and skill as Armored Knights in FE3 have higher base stats than in FE1.

2 hours ago, gnip said:

[HP 60% | Str 10% | Skl 30% | Spd 20% | Lck 40% | WLv 70% | Def 10%]

The most dire news: Wendel's base Spd has been compromised. Kaga is making an attempt to contain the power of the papacy. On top of that -2 Spd, Wendell also lost 3 points of Def, which isn't quite made up for by his +1 Skl boost.

Not all is lost, though. Wendel's Str base actually matters now, so as long as 12 Spd is enough to double (which I assume it will be for a while), he'll still have that as an advantage over Marich, as long as you're trying to preserve Excalibur uses, or don't want to deal with its crit rate when setting up kills, as is the case for me. But overall, Wendel isn't as unreasonably good anymore, which is a crying shame. He might only be really good now.

Funfact when I first got to the FE wiki long ago, it said Wendell was bad...LOL

2 hours ago, gnip said:

[HP 50% | Str 50% | Skl 20% | Spd 60% | Lck 40% | WLv 30% | Def 20%]

Rickard actually got some buffs - mainly a +2 to Str, which actually gives him a higher base than Julian's. But otherwise, he's still the worse thief in every metric. A higher Spd growth by +10%, if you want to be pedantic, but not really enough to make up for Julian's +3 base advantage.

Ricardo can now open doors and chests without a lockpick so there's no reason for him to be in this prison cell!

2 hours ago, gnip said:

He beefy. Obviously, Marich and Wendell have a lot of value here.

Mariones/Emereus got a huge buff in FE3 compared to FE1. To list; +11 HP, +3 Strength, +6 skill, +1 speed and +3 defense.

Some of this can be put on General's having higher base stats, like they now have 3 skill instead of 1. Others are just plain buffs to his personal base stats! I think the DS remake should've used these stats for him.

2 hours ago, gnip said:

: "Da-damn! Don't get too over yourselves. Rebels, taste steel!"

He had a Silver Sword and mentioned it in his dialogue in FE1, here he mentions his steel lance.

2 hours ago, gnip said:

...and frankly, that would be my own fault. I missclicked here and can't even blame the UI - Sheeda was supposed to one-round the second Pegasus with the Silver Lance, but only chipped her down with Iron instead. Since Rena also healed Julian at the start of the turn, because he was brought below half HP by a Javelin-throwing Pegasus, this looks very much like a(n avoidable) reset.

Believe it or not, that Pegasus Knight is a guy.

Not only is he using the male rider sprite, which is identifeid as male in the game data, but units are labeled MALE or FEMALE within their character IDs in Mystery of the Emblem. 

All Enemy Pegaus Knights are labeled Male and they are coded to dismounted to the male dismounted sprite.

If you attacked the Whitewings, you'd see what a female enemy Pegasus Knight would look like.

This is the only time in the franchise we have had a truly male pegasus kngiht!

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, gnip said:

FE3 Book 1 Chapter 4: Orleans Soldiers

  Hide contents

The plains to the north east of Akaneia are ruled by the Kingdom of Orleans. Since its formation, it has had a close relationship with the Holy Kingdom of Akaneia, to the north. 

So that's just a plain translation error, right? Orleans is to the north*west* of the Kingdom of Akaneia, and in what I would describe as a central location on the continent of Akaneia. And no matter how you slice it, it follows that the Kingdom of Akaneia is *not* "to the north" of Orleans. But back to the exposition...

Other countries have completely fallen, and one half of Orleans has been conquered by Macedonia. However, the King's younger brother, Hardin, nicknamed the "Wolf of the Plains", continues fighting. It was also thanks to Duke Hardin that Akaneia's Princess Nina was able to arrive safely.

It has already been several months since letters were sent, containing plans to defear the Durhua Empire... But these sad cries for help were left unanswered. Facing the Macedonian army's elite forces, their fate is also reaching its end...

Macedonian elite forces (also Matthis)

Here's the team for this map - only the one Axe Bro so that Shaky doesn't have to fear Saji-ception.

: "Princess Nina, the Aritian army has appeared across the river."
: "Huh? Is that true, Hardin? Does that mean Prince Marth has finally come...?"
: "That's right. Now we can finally restore our army's strength. But, Princess Nina, it's going to be dangerous, so please wait inside the fort. We will come back together with the Aritian knights. Men, charge!"

People have mentioned that Mystery conveys the feeling of an epic, larger-than-life tale of Marth's exploits - and this scene, maybe involuntarily, adds to that for me. Really, the prince of a fallen, small kingdom, accompanied by a handful of retainers and a few Mercenaries of an even smaller island kingdom... that is the big relief you've been hoping for?

I'm probably being a bit unfair here, since armies being represented by very small numbers of actual people is standard procedure in FE. It just came to mind reading this conversation.

Notably, we've had our first map skip of the game. FE1's chapter 4 is the Battle in the Lea, where Matthis and Marich join, and... honestly, not that much else happened. In terms of gameplay, it was actually a bit of a challenge to save Marrich's village, but I can kinda understand why that map was chosen to be erased, since I don't think much is happening in its narration.

Matthis and Marich still join in chapter 4 though: Everybody's favourite Mage boy moved to the village at the top of the map, while Matthis is the leftmost Cav on the map. Unfortunately, His Holiness the Pope does not grace us with his presence quite yet, so that Marich may have his moment to shine.

I probably start boring people with this, but this map is mostly the same as the original, although the change-up in recruitable characters is fairly impactful in the way it plays. The most obvious addition to the map itself is the second village near our starting location, since Marich took over the original one at the top of the map.

[HP 50% | Str 30% | Skl 50% | Spd 60% | Lck 30% | WLv 70% | Def 20%]

Turban Man actually got a +5 HP boost compared to his previous self, which is a pretty decent increase to his survivability. Otherwise, I think he's unchanged, a third alternative to Kain and Abel that comes at a higher base level, but I think maybe with slightly weaker stats than a trained Xmas Cav is expected to have? But even if that was the case, "slightly" would be the operative word.

[Hp 50% | Str 30% | Skl 10% | Spd 20% | Lck 10% | WLv 70% | Def 10%]

Biraku has twice the Spd growth of Darros, who procced that stat numerous times in our FE1 playthrough. There, I almost convinced myself into thinking that Biraku is going to go places.

Like Hardin, Biraku got an improved HP base (only +4, but still), but unlike him, I think he's hit pretty hard by the change to the promotion mechanics. Our FE1 Roshe did reach Paladin Spd base before promoting, but that required a very humerous RNGeesus, who deemed it funny to give Roshe two, or was it even three, Spd procs on the very map he got his promotion. Paladin promo does still give a nice +3 to Spd still, but I'll have to expect Biraku to have Spd issues throughout the game, with no stat except WLv he could reasonably call "good".

[HP 80% | Str 40% | Skl 50% | Spd 40% | Lck 50% | WLv 30% | Def 30%]

Meanwhile, Roshe suddenly has a Spd growth. And a Lck growth. And a Def growth. And the same +4 HP that Biraku got. I'm sure you're all snickering for making me use this guy in FE1 and Biraku here.

I assume he has been buffed because he's the one Wolfguard that's playable in Book 2. He's still a bit worse than Hardin or the Xmax Cavs, but he seems honestly like a extremely OK character, who is neither really good nor really bad in any particular fashion.

[HP 70% | Str 40% | Skl 10% | Spd 20% | Lck 50% | WLv 60% | Def 20%]

Wolf didn't get the memo that he's a prepromote now. Which is weird, because his base stats are actually more different to FE1's than other characters', with +/- 1s or 2s everywhere. But the result are still stats that look appropriate for an unpromoted Lv.3 unit, which means that I don't see too much reason to use him over Kashim. Well, if you're just looking for a temporary bow user, Wolf of course has the movement (and ability to double 0 AS enemies) over our favourite con artist. 

[HP 90% | Str 30% | Skl 20% | Spd 10% | Lck 10% | WLv 30% | Def 20%]

Meanwhile, Zagaro's stats have been buffed by a noticable degree. He used to be much worse than Wolf, now he's a bit worse. Well, at base. He still has the unfortunate distinction of having even worse growths than his buddy, so there's even less reason to treat him as a growth unit than Wolf.

It's a bit of shame, honestly - in FE1, even though I didn't use him, I could definitely see at least Wolf as a servicable bow user even for later stages in the game, thanks to bows' low weight, the +1 doubling threshold, and Wolf's decent Str growth. In Mystery, bows are a bit heavier, the doubling threshold is higher, and Wolf and Zagaro become a lot worse as a result, even before factoring in the new competition in Kashim.

Boss Man still is carrying the NiteKil (which I shall still refer to "Knightkiller" or "Horseslayer" depending on my mood) and an impressive Def stat. Very much taylor-made to give Marich a good first impression, although Marth or anybody particularly hard-hitting can still overwhelm him.

More cool class cards! Quite clear to recognise the class in question, too. Even the distinction between the military Archer and the more "civilian" Hunter class that we saw in the previous chapters is pretty clear.

__

The genius strategy for this: Move people forward.

Well, OK, the actual thought put into this was to move Marth into the range of some of the approaching enemies, but still close enough to the village to visit in on turn 2. 

I appreciate that Mystery shows you how much damage you deal with a crit. Overkill if fun, even funner when you're allowed to see it clearly.

Four level-ups, resulting in +4 HP, +4 Str, +4 Spd, and +4 WLv. Marth is very focused this playthrough.

Pictured: Why Matthis being on this map makes things a little more awkward. Rena isn't exactly lightning-fast and of course can't warp herself closer, so you have to stay out of Matthis's range for now, marked with some ugly red lines. ...the ability to show an enemy's range is a really nice feature that is still missing from Mystery.

To make things more awkward, I think that Matthew (and probably the two Archers, too) have some form of random AI that makes them roam the map, or maybe a determined section of it. I have to admit that I completely forgot about Matt being there at first, which did not end well for him, so I had a bit more data on his behaviour, and it honestly seemed entirely erratic, as long as there wasn't an enemy in his range.

Pictured: Me remembering that for healers, the menu entry at the top is "Wait", not "Staff". Not the end of the world, but I can almost smell a reset incoming because my muscle memory will betray me at a more inopportune moment in the future.

: "Kid, what are you looking at? You haven't seen many rural towns like this? Now that you mention it, I remember the time I went to Peraty. I was really shocked when I first saw a Mamkute... An ordinary looking old man suddenly transformed into a gigantic dragon. That was really... surprising. Well... I knew that the dragon tribe had some survivors. But I didn't expect them to be so impressive. Huh...? Oh... This? I found it there. I don't know what it is, but you don't see many glowing red stones like this, right? If you want, you can have it. See you kid, I hope we meet again."

Wordy little bastard, but at least he gives Bantu his deserved respect.

__

Everybody else just fights what they can reach, which unfortunately isn't quite enough with Maji missing his attempt. But the Pegasus will attack Rena (and doesn't double; enemy Pegasi aren't very fast thanks to wielding Lances) whom the Archer can't reach, so they will split their attacks. Although I think the Archer moved first, so it could've been gnarly if he had brought somebody into kill range... But he didn't, so this plan was clearly flawless.

__

To the west, the Biraku training arc begins. ...I probably didn't need to add badly drawn red lines on a previous screenshot; this one shows Matthis's attacking range just fine.

So about Matthis's random movement pattern: He moves up and right one tile, which doesn't really seem to answer any of my own positioning. Unless, maybe, he's programmed to stay just out of the blue units' ranges? Because that's what both he and the left Archer are doing.

Waiting for Rena...

Wolf and Zagaru chipped down the Archer a bit, but of course he's getting healed by the nearby Bishop...

...which is actually not a bad thing, since he moves out of Matthis's range to attack Jeigan.

And then Matthis keeps running around. I guess this is barely out of Sheeda's range, if it isn't just random? By two tiles, but the Knight is blocking Matthis from creeping closer.

Next, Marich:

: "Oh! Prince Marth, it's been a while."

: "Huh? Oh, Marich... Marich!?"

: "Yeah, it's me! When I was studying at Khadein, I heard war broke out so I came to look for your highness."

: "Really...? Thank you. With you in our ranks, I can relax. You will help me, right?"

: "Of course. Check out the might of my Excalibur magic that I learnt at Khadein."

[HP 80% | Str 20% | Skl 30% | Spd 50% | Lck 50% | WLv 80% | Def 20%]

Appropriately, since Str now increases spell damage, Marich has now given a growth rate in it, although it's not exactly a stellar one. Other than that, the only changed stat is his Res, which he of course had a zero in during FE1. 

Contrary to what I said before, it seems that magic still ignores terrain, which the main site doesn't mention on the Calculations page. This means that Marich should be able to pick up the mantle of boss killer again, whacking them with the highly accurate Xcalibr spell.

Stat-wise, Marich obviously has a weak base Def stat, but his HP/Def growths are actually on par with the (good) Cavaliers. Not that this makes him a tank, but he is less squishy than other mages in the series. Otherwise, his stand-out stat is his WLv growth - which he can definitely use: If he want to get all the way to the most advanced spell in the game, Bolganone, he'll need 9 procs in it. More importantly, though, Starlight (9 Wlv) is easily reachable for him.

Pictured: An accidental thief kill. "Surely, Julian doesn't hit hard enough to one-round", I though, not checking the numbers beforehand, but he didn't even need the crit to prove me wrong. Enemy thieves are really squishy. The thief was carrying a Silver Sword, which I assume is Hardin's and he stole it from the deleted map.

And at this point, we can lure Matthis into Rena's range. The Horseman bait makes sure that he doesn't attack anybody that can fight back, as well as that he moves to the right spot.

__

: "Machis, brother! Brother, it's me Rena."
: "Ah, Rena!? Why are you here...?"
: "I was captured by the Devil Mountain bandits, but the Aritians rescued me. But brother, why are you in the army?"
: "After you fled from Prince Misheil, Macedonia became more and more ruthless. The prince despised me, so he forced me to join the army and fight here. I detest fighting, but if I don't cooperate, they'll execute me. I don't really have a choice."
: "No, brother. You should have been brave and walked on your own path! It was Macedonia that was wrong, for allying with the Durhua Empire and causing its people to suffer. What they're doing is deplorable. Brother, it's not too late. Come with us, and join the Aritia Alliance. Everybody will welcome you, because they're all good people."
: "...Really? I understand. Since I'm going to die anyway, I might as well die a glorious death. However I heard that you flatly denied the prince's proposal. My life is going to be hard with a sister like you. That said, you're still a woman. Are there any guys that take your fancy?"
: "Huh...? No, there's nobody..."
: "Huh? I was so sure there was. Nevermind, you've already reached the age to freely love. But, remember what I am about to say: Never fall in love with a thief."
: "...Huh...? But..."
: "...Okay, that's good. Well, Rena, don't push yourself too hard. I'll just go and say my farewells to the Macedonian army."

Huh...?

A common point of criticism for Fates, if not the most prominent one, is that a lot of the time, freshly joining characters just won't stop talking.

[HP 50% | Str 40% | Skl 30% | Spd 20% | Lck 20% | WLv 70% | Def 20%]

I just want to take a moment to appreciate that Machis has stricly better growths than Biraku. That has already been the case in FE1, as Machis's only improved stat is, once again, his +4 HP base, but I thought it's worth noting. As is the little detail that his previously random Lck base is now locked in at 0. Goodness.

Not really anything to add that I didn't say about Biraku already.

With that, the map more or less solved. The remaining Knights really don't pose much of a threat on their own. 

: "This castle is Minerva's. I won't let you enter freely."

__

For the boss kill, Sheeda and Marich manage to perfectly chip him down to 1 HP, thanks to Sheeda's imperfect accuracy.

Perfect.

...hm.

: "You... Don't think you've won."

And that's the map. Even with Machis slowing down progress towards the boss a little, it's still easy enough to finish well before reinforcements start spawning on turn 14, after which they keep coming every turn for roughly half an eternity.

: "Oh, Prince Marth, you came at the perfect time. Princess Nina has almost arrived here from the fort. However there are still many enemies in the castle. Please be careful."

Thank you... King of Orleans, I presume. I'm almost impressed that you don't share a "generic kingy" portrait with Sheeda's dad, although I guess you do make another appearance in Book 2.

The Team:

	Lv. 	   HP Str Skl Spd Lck WLv Def Res  +XP
Marth	5.32	   22   9   6  11   7  10   7   0  +96
Jeigan	2.17	   22   7  10   8   1  10   9   6  +17
Kain	2.07	   21   7   6   7   3   6   7   0  +7
Sheeda	4.65	   18   6   9  14  11   9   7   6  +89

DOGA	3.29	   20   7   4   4   1   5  11   0  +15
Gordon	5.26	   20   5   6   5   6   6   6   0  +32
Maji	6.32	   22   7   5   9   7   5   6   0  +94
Rena	3.74	   16   1   7   8   8   7   3   5  +74	(base)

Julian	3.56	   17   4   6  12   7   2   4   0  +40	(base)
Navarre	3.72	   19   5   9  11   8   9   6   0  +40	(base)
Hardin	7.06	   25   9   8   8   3  10   8   0  +106
Biraku	1.85	   20   5   3   6   2   4   7   0  +85	(base)

Roshe	3.00	   22   6   5   7   4   7   7   0  --	(base)
Wolf	3.06	   22   6   6   7   5   6   6   0  +6	(base)
Zagero	1.22	   10   6   6   6   2   3   6   0  +22	(base)
Machis	2.00	   20   5   2   6   0   8   7   0  --	(base)

Marich	1.20	   20   1   3   6   3   5   4   3  +20	(base)

 

FE3 Book 1 Chapter 5: The Fire Emblem

  Reveal hidden contents

After defeating the main force of the Macedonian army, the allied army advanced further to liberate Orleans castle. The valuable treasures in the castle must be reclaimed, before the enemy steals and escapes with them. 

"The chests can only be opened by Thieves, but do we have any within our ranks?" Someone murmured...

__

And we are back with a wonderful realisation: It is possible to manipulate the deployment positions at the start of a fight. A bit awkwardly, by de- and reselecting characters in the selection screen, but because I'm pretty sure Thracia does not allow this, I didn't expect this to work here, either.

"Hmm... Armour Knights, seek out the enemy!! Archers guard the throne. Thieves, gather all the treasures and prepare to make your escape. Listen well! Don't let the rebels take one step into this room!"

The map, with my first turn already executed because I didn't remember to prepare this before. But since the first turn is kinda obvious - move stuff forward, go recruit the prisoners - I guess it's not bad to show it like this, either.

The first new recruit is of course Ricardo:

: "Aren't you Ricardo? What are you doing here?"
: "Oh, big bro Julian! It's been a while. Heh, it's a little embarrassing. I came to the castle to steal, but I slipped up and got myself caught. But, big bro, what are you doing here...?"
: "I... I'm not a thief anymore. I'm, er, an ally of justice now."
: "Oh? Tsk tsk! You're probably being deceived by a woman. Big bro has always been intimidated by pretty women."
: "F-fool!! My, uh, sense of justice has awakened, that's all... ...Nevermind. Anyhow, from now on you're going to be a companion of mine."
: "Pfft! You're always so selfish... Okay. One, I have time. And two, since big bro asked of me... I understand. I will help big bro. But you must also help me."

"Three, you literally just broke me out of jail."

[HP 50% | Str 50% | Skl 20% | Spd 60% | Lck 40% | WLv 30% | Def 20%]

Rickard actually got some buffs - mainly a +2 to Str, which actually gives him a higher base than Julian's. But otherwise, he's still the worse thief in every metric. A higher Spd growth by +10%, if you want to be pedantic, but not really enough to make up for Julian's +3 base advantage.

So yeah, bit of a better version of himself, while still being a worse version of Big Bro.

Second turn, it's obviously Wendel's turn to be recruited. He actually moves around - not sure if randomly or if it's by design that he moved next to Julian because he's moving towards Marth. In any case, Marich grabbed the Door Key Julian starts with, so he can just recruit him on turn 2.

: "Ah... Master! It's you, Master Wendel."
: "Oh! Is it Marich? You're looking lively. It's good to see you're well."
: "Yes. I finally caught up with Aritia's Prince Marth. I am currently with the liberation army, fighting against the Durhua Empire. But, Master, why are you here...?"
: "Sigh... Khadein is finished. Khadein is currently ruled by the Demon King, Garnef, and has become a city of darkness. But I couldn't agree to do his evil deeds, so I escaped. Along the way, I was captured by Macedonian soldiers at Orleans."
: "Is that so... Then, Master, can you please aid us? We're no match for Garnef and the Durhua Empire... Yet, we must reclaim Khadein in the end. Prince Marth would be very happy if a great bishop, like you, joined our cause."
: "Mmm... Is that so? Although I don't like fighting, I guess this is the only option... I understand, Marich. I will fight together with you. Please inform Prince marth about this action."

[HP 60% | Str 10% | Skl 30% | Spd 20% | Lck 40% | WLv 70% | Def 10%]

The most dire news: Wendel's base Spd has been compromised. Kaga is making an attempt to contain the power of the papacy. On top of that -2 Spd, Wendell also lost 3 points of Def, which isn't quite made up for by his +1 Skl boost.

Not all is lost, though. Wendel's Str base actually matters now, so as long as 12 Spd is enough to double (which I assume it will be for a while), he'll still have that as an advantage over Marich, as long as you're trying to preserve Excalibur uses, or don't want to deal with its crit rate when setting up kills, as is the case for me. But overall, Wendel isn't as unreasonably good anymore, which is a crying shame. He might only be really good now.

Maji is our vanguard here, ready to chuck Hand Axes at the Archers and (for 1 dmg) the Knight.

__

...and I'll be honest, even though this looks so wonderfully calculated, I assumed that the Knight would keep choking the point. Good thing Maji got a +Def proc (and nothing else, I believe) on his first level-up.

Less good thing that yup, muscle memory betrays me and Rena leaves Maji at the brink of bleeding out. Whoops.

____

But still we press on. Faster than planned because Oguma got a crit and one-rounded the Bishop, XP thief that he is.

As a result, Maji can even try to clear the surroundings. Risky, but it's still early in the chapter...

__

Nice.

Although I didn't quite know it at this point, this map got quite a bit easier in FE3, since Thieves now drop items that they stole. Not sure about multiple looted items since that didn't come up - but one thief actually dropped whatever was in a chest plus 1000 gold, so maybe..?

Defence!

And now I know that I don't have to restart the map and spend a Warp to save the Angelic Robe.

I do have to spend one to save the Killing Edge in the north, though, and what better man than DOGA to choke that point?

DOGA agrees.

(this thief also was the one who carried 1000 Gold with him and dropped both it and the Killing Edge from the chest)

And as I'm warping him into the range of the two Soldiers starting around that area, I now remember: More enemy class cards! Very Final Fantasy Black Mage-y for the Mage class.

The next part of the map is rather pro forma, with DOGA choking the escape point. I still want to report Navarre's initial level-up, which highly encourages further use of the original edgelord.

__

And unfortunately, I also have to report a somewhat sluggish start to the Biraku Training Project on this map, especially when compared to Hardin's performance right next to him.

But generally, this is just a pretty trivial shove towards the throne once the Thief situation is under control. But this might be a good moment to take a look at the boss we're about to engage:

He beefy. Obviously, Marich and Wendell have a lot of value here.

__

The three generics guarding him are somewhat threatening, since it's more difficult to prevent 2-range enemies from ganging up on somebody. The other Archer only has an Iron Bow, but it's still somewhat high total damage.

Still, I'm being more careful than I needed to be. Instead of carefully putting Gordon in only one Archer's range (which does not turn the other two enemies aggressive), I could've just used Wendel's Barrier staff and have him run in, bows blazing. The Mage only has 7 Atk, so he's actually completely helpless against a freshly barriered character.

On the, er, "plus" side, it's an easy kill for Biraku.

: "Da-damn! Don't get too over yourselves. Rebels, taste steel!"

After this, time to slowly chip down the boss. Marich is restraining himself and uses Blizzard because I think an Excalibur crit+hit would've killed. 

Marth accelarates things with a crit (plus miss, but still)...

...Wendel continues...

...and it is up to the Hero of Orleans to finish the job.

After Rena heals him up, of course. 5 points of chip damage were actually enough to put Biraku into the boss's kill range.

: "Urgh... You..."

There we go. Biraku had two or three misses early in the chapter, so he missed out on a fair bit of XP there, but Mariones is worth a nice 75 XP to make up for that.

: "You are Prince Marth? Finally, I have a chance to meet with you. I am Nina of Akaneia. Our Kingdom of Akaneia, the guardian of this world, was destroyed by the Durhua Empire. The world is now facing ruin. Prince Marth, I have a request... Please, in my place, lead these soldiers who were defeated by the Empire and liberate the countries ruled by Durhua."

"I would ask Hardin, but he might mistake that for a gesture of affection."

: "Of course, Nina. In the past, Aritia has been loyal to Akaneia. And as a descendant of Aritia's founder, it is my destiny to defeat Durhua's Dark Earth Dragon, Mediuth. 
: "Thank you, Prince Marth. Then I will give this Emblem to you."

Title Drop.

I unfortunately missed a screenshot there so feel free to speculate what Nina said before:

: "...a conqueror, and given to the saviour of the world. With this, you can also open chests that contain valuable treasures. This war will be fierce, but please try your best to return light to this world."

Marth was promoted to Thief! Gained no stats.

The Team:

	Lv. 	   HP Str Skl Spd Lck WLv Def Res  +XP
Marth	6.46	   23   9   7  11   8  10   7   0  +114
Sheeda	5.69	   19   6   6  12  12   9   8   0  +104
Hardin	7.80	   25   9   8   8   3  10   8   0  +74
Biraku	2.92	   20   5   3   6   2   5   7   0  +107

DOGA	4.11	   21   8   4   5   1   5  11   0  +82
Maji	6.77	   22   7   5   9   7   5   6   0  +45
Oguma	3.91	   23   6  11  12   4   7   6   0  +90
Navarre	4.86	   20   6   9  12   9  10   6   0  +114

Gordon	5.77	   21   5   6   5   6   6   6   0  +51
Julian	3.56	   17   4   6  12   7   2   4   0  --	(base)
Ricardo	1.00	   16   5   2   9   0   2   3   0  --	(base)

Marich	1.34	   20   1   3   6   3   5   4   3  +14	(base)
Wendel	1.82	   22   3   2  12   1  10   5   6  +82	(base)
Rena	4.76	   16   1   7   8   8   8   3   6  +102

 

FE3 Book 1 Chapter 6: Trap of Lefcandy

  Reveal hidden contents

After liberating Orleans, the allied army marched south along the central road, towards Akaneia's royal capital, Pales. Their most difficult challenge is the countless forts situated at Lefcandy Valley. As well as the guarding "Dragon Knights"; Macedonian White Knights commanded by General Minerva. At Lefcandy, the only passageway to the Kingdom of Akaneia, an intense battle is about to start.

Neat little detail: Minerva actually gets off her Wyvern to talk to Haiman. I'm not sure if I have to credit the developers for making a Wyvern sprite just for this occasion, though, since that might just be how the wild Wyverns in Book 2 will look like.

Anyway...

: "General Haiman. I cannot go ahead with this battle. As an honourable knight of Macedonia, I wish to fight an open front battle."
"But, Princess Minerva. Your Macedonian army, at Orleans, has already lost over half of its soldiers. To restore the army, we must bide for time at this castle. I came here following his highness's orders. And here, I would expect you to follow mine. You cannot have forgotten what will happen if you disobey the Empire. You sister, Maria's life would have no guarantee."
: "...I understand. I will leave everything to you... But I don't believe this method will defeat the Aritian knights... You will regret it in the end."

I know that the nature of Fire Emblem is that battles work entirely different than they would in reality, but Minerva does come across as a bit of an idiot here, tbh. The inability of beating the Aritians is the entire *point* of this - Durhua/Macedonia is trying to slow them down and harrassing them, to buy time to organise an army that can.

But of course, realistically, this would be attempted in a way that doesn't get your entire harrassing force slaughtered, so I guess Minerva isn't wrong as long as we stay within Fire Emblem logic.

There's one big change to this map: Instead of turn-based reinforcements, we now have what is the first reinforcement zone in the series. Or maybe I just have an awful memory. In any case, this means that it's much harder to avoid dealing with the reinforcements from the four forts in the south - in FE1, they start spawning on turn 13, and it's not too hard to beat the map within that turn limit as long as you send Rena along with Mars to warp him over the mountain range. It should still be possible - Marich and/or Wendel swooping in to kill the boss, then Rena warping Marth in for the insta-seize - but it's definitely a better way of creating these reinforcements.

Of course, Minerva and the Whitewings still leave the map before they would be able to fight you. Without them, the only danger on the map before the reinforcements become an issue are the remaining Dracoknight and two Pegasi, who can easily make use of the mountain range to threaten a large area of the map without exposing themselves to be sniped.

The Dracoknight also has a cool card, of course.

__

To open things up, Julian opens the door, and Marich and Marth take care of the Archers. The two Mercenaries are honestly not too threatening, so Marth can just fight them on enemy phase.

However, the addition of the Dracoknight does make this more dangerous, so Marth pulls back a little, while some more units move into his direction for support. Both groups have an Archer and a magic user to deal big damage to the Dracoknight if he decides to go into their direction.

: "I still cannot bring myself to fight like this. Paola, Katua, Est, let us return."

"Making use of our advantage in mobility would be cowardly. We should run into this wall head first, like a hero would do."

The generic Draco decides to go after Marth...

...which allows Gordon to chip him down cleanly for Marth to pick up the kill. Unfortunately, he misses his first attack, so while he still goes down, the Dracoknight manages to bring Marth down to 3 HP.

And he even got a pretty good level (Defence!), so I'm not very optimistic about the following turns going well.

And Biraku got a level that isn't completely terrible! Surely, somebody is about to die.

...and frankly, that would be my own fault. I missclicked here and can't even blame the UI - Sheeda was supposed to one-round the second Pegasus with the Silver Lance, but only chipped her down with Iron instead. Since Rena also healed Julian at the start of the turn, because he was brought below half HP by a Javelin-throwing Pegasus, this looks very much like a(n avoidable) reset.

Now it really really does.

__

However, Maji comes through with an awful level, calming the angry RNG gods. Thank god the AI is stupid. I was praying for coward AI, since there is a bunch of forts on this map - but instead, the Pegasus attacks Rena instead of going for the Marth kill.

Phew.

The Armoury on this map sells Slim Lances, which are honestly really great right now - as strong and light as Iron Swords, but they can be used on horseback and even have +10 hit / +5 crit as an additional bonus. Not needing to dismount to potentially double stuff seems rather useful, and with this shop, I didn't need to preserve Sheeda's Slim Lance as much as I have.

: "Have you seen a young girl by the name of Chiki? Chiki is the Narga tribe's sole survivor. Without this child, there will be nobody to defeat the Mamkutes that seve Mediuth. I am a Fire Dragon, but I lost something important at Peraty so I cannot fight anymore. Regardless, I will come along with you. Please help me find Chiki."

He is here!

__

And I'll allow myself a save state in order to look at his actual combat stats without spending a FireStn use.

Banutu seems a fair bit stronger than in FE1, actually. Just comparing base stats (for the record: Unchanged except for Res, I believe) doesn't really tell you anything here, so here's the derived stats: Banutu now hits harder by +4 Atk, has his transformed Def decreased by -1, and his Res improved by +4, too. His Firebreath has 20 weight, so unlike in FE1, he's hard-stuck at 0 AS no matter how many Speedwings you feed him. However, he also hits at 1-2 range now, which is immediately a big glow-up. He also gains +1 Move when transformed, which lets him keep up with other foot units in this stage.

His growths have actually been reduced compared to FE1, believe it or not. He used to have 10% in HP/Skl/Lck, now it's only HP/Lck. I'm sure this change was central to Kaga's vision of the game.

__

Rena warps a healed up Marth over on the next turn. Kain and Jeigan lurk just outside of the reinforcement zone, which is close enough to lure in the two Knights guarding the boss.

__

A level-up relevant to many readers' interests.

...in case you couldn't tell on the previous map screen where the red line on the map was. Like this, every fort can just be blocked on the next turn, when attacking the boss.

: "Damn that Minerva for daring to betray us. In that case, you guys shall accompany her in Hell."

Another misstimed screenshot, so the first four words are from memory. Safe to assume that he's salty about Minerva just flying away, though.

__

Unfortunately, Biraku is just out of range this time...

__

...so this boss falls to more conventional means. Hardin's chip damage allows Navarre to kill in one hit, so I think it made things more reliable overall? Failing to kill on player phase would've put somebody at a high risk of death anyway, so I don't think there was a real disadvantage.

: "...Urgh... Minerva... You traitor..."

I mean, to be fair, she probably hasn't ever been "on your side" if you could only keep her in line by threatening to kill her little sister.

: "Prince Marth, we can finally talk about the Mamkutes. The Mamkutes already existed on this continent long before humans, and were referred to as the dragon tribe. However, they were punished by the deities, and were forced to seal their true form in stones and, afterwards, lived anonymously in the frontier lands... They coexisted with humans, living a life of peace and without conflict. 

"However, 100 years ago, at the Durhua Region the Dark Earth Dragon Mediuth appeared. He gathered all the Mamkutes that hated humans, and formed the Durhua Empire. He then led an attack on the human world, and soon they had conquered the whole continent. Of course, humans fought back to the death. But in front of Mediuth's might, it was no use. Then at that time, a youth from Aritia, wielding the Falchion, a sword that radiated light, appeared in front of Mediuth. After an intense battle, he defeated Mediuth.

"That's right. Your highness should know what happened afterwards. That youth, who founded the Kingdom of Aritia, was Anri the First. But 100 years after that dark age... At Durhua, Mediuth awakened once again. Prince Marth! You are the only one with Anri's blood, the chosen one. You are the only one that can succeed the will of your deceased father, King Cornelius.

The Team:

	Lv. 	   HP Str Skl Spd Lck WLv Def Res  +XP
Marth	7.73	   24   9   8  11   9  10   8   0  +127
Sheeda	5.89	   19   6   6  12  12   9   8   0  +20
Jeigan	2.20	   22   7  10   8   1  10   9   6  +3
Kain	2.10	   21   7   6   7   3   6   7   0  +3

Hardin	8.25	   26   9   9   8   4  10   8   0  +45
Biraku	3.56	   20   6   3   6   2   6   7   0  +64
DOGA	4.11	   21   8   4   5   1   5  11   0  --
Maji	7.17	   22   7   5   9   7   6   6   0  +40

Navarre	6.01	   22   7  11  12  11  10   6   0  +115
Julian	3.56	   17   4   6  12   7   2   4   0  --	(base)
Gordon	5.87	   21   5   6   5   6   6   6   0  +10
Kashim	4.10	   22   8   4   7   3   6   4   0  +16

Wendel	2.34	   23   3   2  13   1  10   5   6  +52
Marich	1.98	   20   1   3   6   3   5   4   3  +64	(base)
Rena	5.78	   16   1   8   8   9   8   3   6  +102
Banutu	1.00	   18   2   3   4   1   2   3   1  --	(base)

 

Answers

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Kaga hated the critcism of his games by Shaky specifically so much that he built a time machine and then went back in time to tell his younger self to reduce Maji's HP growth by 90%. ...what, you didn't say realistic explanation.

I didn't play slow enough to really allow him to overcome his underleveled start, but he promoted and proceeded to do things and stuff. 

 

...whoops. Let's see if I can edit the post...

Nope, Serenes doesn't allow it. So here are Maji's growths in a completely random spot of this playlog:

[HP 10% | Str 30% | Skl 20% | Spd 40% | Lck 40% | WLv 50% | Def 40%]

No more "breaking his Hand Axe" strategies. I mean, it would technically work, but...

She only entered a Kaga story right now, so there's hope that she was neither kidnapped nor brainwashed before the Devil Mountain incident!

True, true. He might have been a Villager and not some special lord-y class as a youth. Alm must have inherited his incredible averageness and not-the-special-one-ness from somebody.

I hadn't noticed that, but... yeah, "tiiiiiiiny" probably describes that niche quite well. Not that they even occupy it when they join, anyway...

Kaga even did Bartre first. Incredible, that man.

(and generally @ the following Kashim discussion: Almost disappointed that he turns out to be a good person forced into a life of crime. It would've been a feather in Sheeda's cap if she had managed to guilt-trip somebody with the moral fiber of... Er, I wanted to say Lifis, but I think he's a few more rungs down the ladder of morals.

See, that kind of talk is why Kaga went back in time just to ruin Maji.

Yeahhh, he is not really going into that direction for me thus far.

I hope @Saint Rubenio changed the Speedwings she gives you (I assume that's... Wade's little sister? I can't quite remember who's related to whom) to some Boots. Y'know, the stat booster that makes you run faster.

I did not register that. Interesting. That would have made Darros even more funny-bad than he is in FE1.

Yeah, although it would've been nice to have more unique portraits for the initial brigand/pirate boss men, it is at least a very cool one.

--

Apologies for not weighing in on the portrait discussion, but (a) this post is already getting rather long and (b) I unfortunately don't have the greatest eyes for aesthetics, so my input would be limited to "I LIKE PICTURE" anyway.

I won't comment on what chapters have been kicked out just yet, either, since it's only been the one thus far (and I made a short comment on that in the update itself). I'll just say that I'm rather grateful that I won't have to experience the Wooden Cavalry with proper 3-10 ranged Ballistae this playthrough.

Fingers crossed that the post layout will hold...

Breaking up a quote in spoiler is too difficult/dangerous on mobile, so I'm just going to make responses in bullet points and hope context is clear.

*Of course Aurelis isn't to the North East, that's where Jdayd and Adeecde are.

Awww shit. I went through a tunnel, lost wifi briefly, page crashed and everything I'd written except my first comment was lost. The cliff notes remembered version

*NiteKil is a better name and we should all call it that from now on.

*Where was the king of Aurelis during the battle?

*Lena's engagement to Michalis was removed on the DS too.

*Lefcandith and Warren was moved on the DS in a way that makes little sense

*Harmein's battle strategy is actually very sound making use of terrain and a choke point with fliers that have superior mobility. Yet because he's the bad guy it's depicted as reckless or dishonorable or something.

*How did Naga tribe become Narga? Surely the Japanese original is just the two hirigana for na and ga.

*More range and movement is nice, but NES Bantu is basically invincible, which in a game with limited 1-2 enemy range is better.

*Of course Harmein's genius strategy has the glaring weakness of being powerless against players who have experienced the map before and know exactly how to stop it before it begins. Can't fault a guy for being unable to deal with meta fictional psychics guiding the hands of the player though.

*Would breaking Gomer's hand axe work on SNES? I know enemies don't use durability in Genealogy.

*Since it's not in the game and mildly contradicts Arch Saga, I'm free to ignore Kaga's notes and imagine that Castor has no moral fibre (and no family) at all.

*Fear not, I have made a dedicated thread for portrait discussion 

 

@Shaky Jones Do people say Genealogy has amazing characters? I think people say the story is great, but I'm not sure I've ever seen much praise for the actual characters and their handful of lines, beyond some of the plot important ones of course.

@Emperor HardinI don't care if they called it a Sky Knight. Tsubaki rides a pegasus, he's a pegasus knight.

 

[Shaky Jones]

3 hours ago, Emperor Hardin said:

I think Kaga buffed Roshea because he liked him and he was plot important. Kaga tends to try to improve characters he likes, I believe. There's some evidence to it in a interview on Genealogy of the Holy War.

He prioritizes the wrong people. Riff.....

I appreciate making Rosh of the wolfguard better, as the Wolfguard do deserve better and being stronger would make more people use them (I hope), although they then screwed over Sedgar/Wolf, and Biraku is basically donion rings due to how Rosh and even Matthis make his existence pointless. Don't get me wrong, I love trash meme units, but if you're going to rebalance your old cast, why only do one?

3 hours ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Funfact when I first got to the FE wiki long ago, it said Wendell was bad...LOL

Times were.....fuckin stupid I dunno. 

3 hours ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Ricardo can now open doors and chests without a lockpick so there's no reason for him to be in this prison cell!

Did you see the way he talked? I don't want to believe it, but I think he might actually want this.

3 hours ago, Emperor Hardin said:

He had a Silver Sword and mentioned it in his dialogue in FE1, here he mentions his steel lance.

And yet, FE11 mentions the silver sword for Hardin that Hardin can't use

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Breaking up a quote in spoiler is too difficult/dangerous on mobile, so I'm just going to make responses in bullet points and hope context is clear.

 

Skill issue.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

NiteKil is a better name and we should all call it that from now on.

Sure.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

*Fear not, I have made a dedicated thread for portrait discussion 

Time for everyone here to shill Kannival. I'm serious. This will be the new purpose of the thread.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

@Shaky Jones Do people say Genealogy has amazing characters? I think people say the story is great, but I'm not sure I've ever seen much praise for the actual characters and their handful of lines, beyond some of the plot important ones of course.

People who like FE4 have often told me they really like the characters. Hell, a few days ago I got into another FE4 argument in which they said the characters were so good to them, but I cannot see the appeal past the often non translated romance dialogue you can get when putting lovers in the same castle on rare occasions. 

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

I don't care if they called it a Sky Knight. Tsubaki rides a pegasus, he's a pegasus knight.

Hoshido doesn't want to get sued by Intelligent Systems.

[Saint Rubenio]

20 hours ago, gnip said:

[Hp 50% | Str 30% | Skl 10% | Spd 20% | Lck 10% | WLv 70% | Def 10%]

Biraku has twice the Spd growth of Darros, who procced that stat numerous times in our FE1 playthrough. There, I almost convinced myself into thinking that Biraku is going to go places.

He's a very social man. He has a meme face. Really, what more need you?

Sadly, the rules of the universe dictate that if your speed growth isn't completely memeish, it's not going to proc legendarily. Still, let us hope for the best.

20 hours ago, gnip said:

Pictured: Why Matthis being on this map makes things a little more awkward. Rena isn't exactly lightning-fast and of course can't warp herself closer, so you have to stay out of Matthis's range for now, marked with some ugly red lines

If only Wrys was still in the game, he could warp Rena for strategic shenanigans. But nah, he totally deserved to go.

20 hours ago, gnip said:

: "Kid, what are you looking at? You haven't seen many rural towns like this? Now that you mention it, I remember the time I went to Peraty. I was really shocked when I first saw a Mamkute... An ordinary looking old man suddenly transformed into a gigantic dragon. That was really... surprising. Well... I knew that the dragon tribe had some survivors. But I didn't expect them to be so impressive. Huh...? Oh... This? I found it there. I don't know what it is, but you don't see many glowing red stones like this, right? If you want, you can have it. See you kid, I hope we meet again."

Funny how this set-up of Pyrathi is still present here even though Pyrathi has been nuked out of the game.

20 hours ago, gnip said:

Huh...?

A common point of criticism for Fates, if not the most prominent one, is that a lot of the time, freshly joining characters just won't stop talking.

...Is that a common point of criticism for Fates? I can't say I've ever seen it myself. Then again, I move in circles where folks like Fates more than most, to be fair.

20 hours ago, gnip said:

: "This castle is Minerva's. I won't let you enter freely."

Not even a "princess" there. This extremely furious man must be personal friends with her.

20 hours ago, gnip said:

: "Oh, Prince Marth, you came at the perfect time. Princess Nina has almost arrived here from the fort. However there are still many enemies in the castle. Please be careful."

Thank you... King of Orleans, I presume. I'm almost impressed that you don't share a "generic kingy" portrait with Sheeda's dad, although I guess you do make another appearance in Book 2.

Funny how he's the more prominent of the two, and yet it's only the King of Talys who gets a name, Mostyn. Only in additional material, but King Aurelis of Aurelis doesn't even get that lol

20 hours ago, gnip said:

Khadein is currently ruled by the Demon King, Garnef,

He later changed his name to Fomortiis and did more shenanigans.

20 hours ago, gnip said:

[HP 60% | Str 10% | Skl 30% | Spd 20% | Lck 40% | WLv 70% | Def 10%]

The most dire news: Wendel's base Spd has been compromised. Kaga is making an attempt to contain the power of the papacy. On top of that -2 Spd, Wendell also lost 3 points of Def, which isn't quite made up for by his +1 Skl boost.

I mean, he's still 8 points away from the speed cap at base. Still insanely fast, this old guy. It'd take two games yet to make him less good.

20 hours ago, gnip said:

I really do not like Minerva's portrait in this game. Or FE1, for that matter, but at least in FE1 she just looks as weird as everone does in that game. Here she looks oddly juvenile, somehow. She looks a bit more mature and serious in DSFE and Archanea Saga, which I feel suits her better.

Speaking of, she looked fucking amazing in Archanea Saga. That game had the best portraits... Say, there's a translation patch for Archanea Saga. Might be worth to consider trying to play those lol.

20 hours ago, gnip said:

Say, why do all the bossmen have their mouths open in your portraits? Minor point, but I couldn't help but notice.

20 hours ago, gnip said:

Banutu seems a fair bit stronger than in FE1, actually. Just comparing base stats (for the record: Unchanged except for Res, I believe) doesn't really tell you anything here, so here's the derived stats: Banutu now hits harder by +4 Atk, has his transformed Def decreased by -1, and his Res improved by +4, too. His Firebreath has 20 weight, so unlike in FE1, he's hard-stuck at 0 AS no matter how many Speedwings you feed him. However, he also hits at 1-2 range now, which is immediately a big glow-up. He also gains +1 Move when transformed, which lets him keep up with other foot units in this stage.

His growths have actually been reduced compared to FE1, believe it or not. He used to have 10% in HP/Skl/Lck, now it's only HP/Lck. I'm sure this change was central to Kaga's vision of the game.

He doesn't need those growths, honestly. This is the best game for the manaketes, and while Bantu may not be a growth unit like Tiki, he honestly doesn't need to be.

20 hours ago, gnip said:

you guys

Ahh, the joys of old, janky translations.

20 hours ago, gnip said:

: "Prince Marth, we can finally talk about the Mamkutes. The Mamkutes already existed on this continent long before humans, and were referred to as the dragon tribe. However, they were punished by the deities, and were forced to seal their true form in stones and, afterwards, lived anonymously in the frontier lands... They coexisted with humans, living a life of peace and without conflict. 

"However, 100 years ago, at the Durhua Region the Dark Earth Dragon Mediuth appeared. He gathered all the Mamkutes that hated humans, and formed the Durhua Empire. He then led an attack on the human world, and soon they had conquered the whole continent. Of course, humans fought back to the death. But in front of Mediuth's might, it was no use. Then at that time, a youth from Aritia, wielding the Falchion, a sword that radiated light, appeared in front of Mediuth. After an intense battle, he defeated Mediuth.

"That's right. Your highness should know what happened afterwards. That youth, who founded the Kingdom of Aritia, was Anri the First. But 100 years after that dark age... At Durhua, Mediuth awakened once again. Prince Marth! You are the only one with Anri's blood, the chosen one. You are the only one that can succeed the will of your deceased father, King Cornelius.

I fucking love how in FE11 Marth just goes "Malledus, I know the history of my own country." It's a fun bit of lampshading of this super heavy-handed lore dump. In FE12 they resorted to just having Kris get all the lore dumps that Marth should realistically know, which was a massive shame. Sassy Marth was sorely missed. Then again, considering Sassy Marth was apparently an invention of the localization... Oh well.

20 hours ago, gnip said:

Kaga hated the critcism of his games by Shaky specifically so much that he built a time machine and then went back in time to tell his younger self to reduce Maji's HP growth by 90%. ...what, you didn't say realistic explanation.

Hah! Fair enough. From Kaga, I believe it. The man is mad enough.

20 hours ago, gnip said:

I hope @Saint Rubenio changed the Speedwings she gives you (I assume that's... Wade's little sister? I can't quite remember who's related to whom) to some Boots. Y'know, the stat booster that makes you run faster.

Sadly no. Just a speedwing

And no, that's not Wade Lot's little sister. It's the little girl that plays her role in the A route, but even in B route she's not longer in the village. Lot's little sister plays a...different role, in the hack.

20 hours ago, gnip said:

Fingers crossed that the post layout will hold...

Looks like it did. Hurrah!

19 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

I guarantee you, Ruben would have an amazing Maji if he actually gave FE3 a chance.

He should totally do that after his rev run. He plays fe3 b1, and I play his precious FE1.

Oh, I actually did play Book 1. I played up to Altea, and then I dropped it because I was extremely bored with the game.

Book 2 seriously deserves an honest shot. Just so hard to motivate myself when my favorite parts of FE12, high difficulty, map saves, the massive cast, QoL, silly reclassing shenanigans... It's all not there.

[ping]

22 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

What the fuck happened here?

And Kaga wonders why I talk shit on him. What were you thinking!?

Not sure if indignated because Biraku bad or Roshe good...

16 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

I appreciate making Rosh of the wolfguard better, as the Wolfguard do deserve better and being stronger would make more people use them (I hope), although they then screwed over Sedgar/Wolf, and Biraku is basically donion rings due to how Rosh and even Matthis make his existence pointless. Don't get me wrong, I love trash meme units, but if you're going to rebalance your old cast, why only do one?

Ah.

22 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Oh, so you'll definitely not like Genealogy. Good to know. 

I don't remember how the writing of Genealogy flows - what I don't like that much about the Akaneia games is that a good portion of their writing is just expositionary monologue - like proto-Merlinus giving Marth a lecture on Manaketes, for example. In this case, the presentation is more interesting than just "Listen up, this is the backstory", but it's still... wordy, and a monologue despite the different framing.

22 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

He should totally do that after his rev run. He plays fe3 b1, and I play his precious FE1. Of course, I am considering trying out @Polinym's Project War of Darkness for the QoL additions like master seals and the translation patch that I think was used by Gnip. Sure it wouldn't be pure vanilla, but I think it's similar enough to where I could justly rank the game without hating myself for playing FE1 again.

I mean, playing FE1 minus some of the more infuriating parts sounds like a good plan. If you do try War of Darkness, do share you thoughts, since if I happen to feel the urge to play through that story again, that sounds like a much more realistic option than play OG FE1 again.

...of course, what I should do is play FE11 again. I really haven't done so in years. But that's for future me to decide, I'm currently getting my Akaneia fill and then some.

22 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Well in all seriousness, I do kinda like Kaga and respect how he designs his games, even if I utterly despise FE2 and FE4. There's more effort I can credit there than FE7, that's for sure. But don't tell him I said that.

While plenty of innovations weren't actually good, I think one has to give Kaga credit for changing things up so much. Especially compared to the FE6-9 era, which didn't really add that much of new stuff.

19 hours ago, Emperor Hardin said:

I think Kaga buffed Roshea because he liked him and he was plot important. Kaga tends to try to improve characters he likes, I believe. There's some evidence to it in a interview on Genealogy of the Holy War.

But then why doesn't have Rena 100% growths in every stat? Kaga loves his mind-controlled girls!

But seriously, yeah, I can see that. Roshe was the one guy in the Wolfguard with a unique, non-recolour portrait besides Mr Turban, so it's not unrealistic that Kaga, liked the guy. For whatever reason - not like Roshe has any presence in FE1. Maybe he carried Kaga's team in one of his own patented ironman runs.

20 hours ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Funfact when I first got to the FE wiki long ago, it said Wendell was bad...LOL

|------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Rating:  7/10 | Fan Rating: 5.93/10 - 15 Votes - 1 zero                      |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

^ From Seth's entry in the "most recommended" character comparions guide on GameFAQs. I'm not surprised that people didn't recognise Wendell's greatness  

20 hours ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Ricardo can now open doors and chests without a lockpick so there's no reason for him to be in this prison cell!

To be fair, there are guards around. But it would be a neat feature if a new thief recruit would break out of his cell and then recruit himself Clarine-style by talking to the lord. It would make sense to break out when there's chaos abound.

20 hours ago, Emperor Hardin said:

His Knite kill was taken from Bentheon in the cut chapter!

 

Whoops - yeah, I mixed those two up.

20 hours ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Believe it or not, that Pegasus Knight is a guy.

 

That's interesting - something I think I heard/read somewhere before but have forgotten since. Pegasi being a female-only class is mixing up mythology anyway - it was unicorns that could only be tamed by (virgin) girls. The Pegasus even had a male rider!

18 hours ago, Jotari said:

*Where was the king of Aurelis during the battle?

In his defence, he's old.  My impression has always been that Hardin is doing the military work between the two. 

18 hours ago, Jotari said:

*How did Naga tribe become Narga? Surely the Japanese original is just the two hirigana for na and ga.

Maybe because Naga could theoretically be pronounced "Nay-ga"? At least I think it can, English is weird.

18 hours ago, Jotari said:

*Would breaking Gomer's hand axe work on SNES? I know enemies don't use durability in Genealogy.

No, you're probably right. I just assumed it would work like in later games and didn't check.

18 hours ago, Jotari said:

*Since it's not in the game and mildly contradicts Arch Saga, I'm free to ignore Kaga's notes and imagine that Castor has no moral fibre (and no family) at all.

The correct approach to matters of "canon". If it's not in the game, I can choose to ignore it.

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

If only Wrys was still in the game, he could warp Rena for strategic shenanigans. But nah, he totally deserved to go.

If the pope hadn't been imprisoned, he even would've had the WLv to do that.

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I really do not like Minerva's portrait in this game. Or FE1, for that matter, but at least in FE1 she just looks as weird as everone does in that game. Here she looks oddly juvenile, somehow. She looks a bit more mature and serious in DSFE and Archanea Saga, which I feel suits her better.

 

Yeah, she looks more like a young Anime boy than an experienced fighter lady. If you had told me that this was Xane's portrait, I wouldn't have doubted you. 

And also yeah, the Archanea Sage portrait looks great. There, I have exhausted my artistic knowledge.

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

...Is that a common point of criticism for Fates? I can't say I've ever seen it myself. Then again, I move in circles where folks like Fates more than most, to be fair.

I misphrased that (I meant "common, but not the most common", but it read like "common, maybe the most common"), but I have seen that a few times, yeah. I don't know if it's a fair point, or if it's just more apparent because of the (pseudo-) voice acting.

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Sassy Marth was sorely missed. Then again, considering Sassy Marth was apparently an invention of the localization... Oh well.

On the plus side, if you need an example of why some liberties in localisation aren't innately a bad thing, Sassy Marth is right there.

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Say, why do all the bossmen have their mouths open in your portraits? Minor point, but I couldn't help but notice.

That would be because I take those portraits from the screenshots of their combat quotes, where they move their mouths. I guess I should swap to their stat screens. Or not, because it looks funny.

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Looks like it did. Hurrah!

Huzzah!

---

No update today because I gave Kaga too much credit. I assumed that the Rapier would deal effective damage vs the Horsemen on the next map. They didn't, I could neither shield Marth nor trade him away from the Rapier as a result, and this happened. That irritated me, so I played some Civ5 instead.

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, ping said:

In his defence, he's old.  My impression has always been that Hardin is doing the military work between the two. 

I had a more expansive comment here before the tunnel ate it. To be specific, was the King of Aurelis with Nyna and Hardin the entire time and just didn't say anything at all? Or was he trapped at the castle and Marth somehow managed to rescue what would be an incredibly valuable hostage while only taking the castle gate?

[Interdimensional Observer]

18 hours ago, ping said:

That irritated me, so I played some Civ5 instead.

With one little game I was playing finished two days ago, I decided to slip in a Civ5 match yesterday myself. Ultimately rolled a Byzantium Emperor Pangaea Plus, low sea level, with the seven AIs who ignore religion the most chosen. Itinerant Preachers + Religious Texts, on a map where I had an excellent patch of Mt. Sinai riverine desert for my second city, the result of waaaay too much rerolling. It culminated in such passive religious spread, that with the help of the three free Borobudur Missionaries, piously conquered every single city.🕊️😄 With an easily-won World Religion vote, this meant that Shaka's holy capital was the only city at the time I quit the game (Mongolia declared war on me) that retained its own religion, and even then it had +100 pressure weighing down on it. I was getting over 100 Faith per turn from Pilgrimage alone (so at 2 Faith per foreign city, more than 50 cities). Unfortunately, maxed out Piety investment and failure to win the World's Fair (Washington won it) meant I'd aim for a Science win over Culture. Oda and Bismarck were also wiped off the map, tight quarters and a set of warmongers made conflict inevitable at a point. Not sure if I'll carry this one to completion.

On 11/6/2023 at 1:40 PM, ping said:

More cool class cards! Quite clear to recognise the class in question, too. Even the distinction between the military Archer and the more "civilian" Hunter class that we saw in the previous chapters is pretty clear.

...On topic 😅, the Archer card looks pretty weird. The full helmet yet naked arms and exposed legs on an utterly generic yet manly form is a strange getup.

18 hours ago, ping said:

In his defence, he's old.  My impression has always been that Hardin is doing the military work between the two. 

And that's what I rationally thought too. Stay back a nice distance from the front lines and do kingly stuff there, let the energetic and younger sibling do the actual fighting.

...The king's existence is probably because...

1. Permadeath and Hardin's demise isn't a fail condition on this map.
2. Nyna arrives royally late and doesn't make her first appearance to Marth until after the next map.

Considering FE1 didn't have Book 2, he wasn't invented with that one other scene where he shows up in mind.

18 hours ago, ping said:

That's interesting - something I think I heard/read somewhere before but have forgotten since. Pegasi being a female-only class is mixing up mythology anyway - it was unicorns that could only be tamed by (virgin) girls. The Pegasus even had a male rider!

But men could hunt them!

One of the Unicorn Tapestries. Fancy art for the day!🧐

[Shaky Jones]

On 11/7/2023 at 7:13 AM, Saint Rubenio said:

If only Wrys was still in the game, he could warp Rena for strategic shenanigans. But nah, he totally deserved to go.

Ruben when he can no longer spend 500 turns dodging his way to promoting Wrys at the end of the game:

On 11/7/2023 at 7:13 AM, Saint Rubenio said:

Funny how this set-up of Pyrathi is still present here even though Pyrathi has been nuked out of the game.

Ruben when Kaga didn't put as much thought into one random chapter as much as he did:

On 11/7/2023 at 7:13 AM, Saint Rubenio said:

...Is that a common point of criticism for Fates? I can't say I've ever seen it myself. Then again, I move in circles where folks like Fates more than most, to be fair.

I've never heard that complaint myself either. Maybe this guy is just imagining things.

On 11/7/2023 at 7:13 AM, Saint Rubenio said:

I mean, he's still 8 points away from the speed cap at base. Still insanely fast, this old guy. It'd take two games yet to make him less good.

I have to do berserker Wendell in my next FE12 run.

On 11/7/2023 at 7:13 AM, Saint Rubenio said:

I really do not like Minerva's portrait in this game. Or FE1, for that matter, but at least in FE1 she just looks as weird as everone does in that game. Here she looks oddly juvenile, somehow. She looks a bit more mature and serious in DSFE and Archanea Saga, which I feel suits her better.

Speaking of, she looked fucking amazing in Archanea Saga. That game had the best portraits... Say, there's a translation patch for Archanea Saga. Might be worth to consider trying to play those lol.

Personally, I think the DS art is better for Minerva here, but that could in part just be me not wanting women to be happy.

On 11/7/2023 at 7:13 AM, Saint Rubenio said:

I fucking love how in FE11 Marth just goes "Malledus, I know the history of my own country." It's a fun bit of lampshading of this super heavy-handed lore dump. In FE12 they resorted to just having Kris get all the lore dumps that Marth should realistically know, which was a massive shame. Sassy Marth was sorely missed. Then again, considering Sassy Marth was apparently an invention of the localization... Oh well.

I like to think that line was a slight jab at Kaga who basically always wrote his lore in the fashion of one guy dumping lore onto someone else that already knows it, at least in his first few FE games. It happens a lot in FE4 (as my brother keeps telling me as he plays it again for some stupid reason), where one noble or evil cult man just yaps to another about their generic evil plan that involves the potential future for their land that lasts like 2 to 3 minutes, but like they both already know this and are only wasting time reaffirming the point so the player can learn. Very tacky, but what do I know about the world's greatest storytelling apparently. I'm the guy that doesn't think Kris is a crime against humanity.

On 11/7/2023 at 7:13 AM, Saint Rubenio said:

Oh, I actually did play Book 1. I played up to Altea, and then I dropped it because I was extremely bored with the game.

 

Yes we know our Ruben lore. I'm telling you to actually give it a chance. I want a scenario where you're forced to finish the game and use Maji. I mean, who else are you gonna use? Riff? I don't think so. 

23 hours ago, ping said:

I don't remember how the writing of Genealogy flows - what I don't like that much about the Akaneia games is that a good portion of their writing is just expositionary monologue - like proto-Merlinus giving Marth a lecture on Manaketes, for example. In this case, the presentation is more interesting than just "Listen up, this is the backstory", but it's still... wordy, and a monologue despite the different framing.

Refer to Shaky Quote #6

Hey at least Thracia sort of does it better! It's still mostly tactician to Lord monologue, but at least it works better givein Leif's character and youth as opposed to the awesome bluntness of August who in turn often argues with the honorable Dryas/Dorias, another one of Leif's tacticians, both of whom serve as a literal leadership stat to Leif, combining their service to Leif as both a form of storytelling as well as a boon for Leif in gameplay. It's not perfect, but remember that this is Fire Emblem. There is no good story.

23 hours ago, ping said:

^ From Seth's entry in the "most recommended" character comparions guide on GameFAQs. I'm not surprised that people didn't recognise Wendell's greatness  

The desperation of wanting to mask your obsession with using only waifus as "smart". Just be honest. You never used him and never want to use him because you need boobs on your screen to find the will to play. 

Seth's power is that he turns you gay with his sheer stats.

23 hours ago, ping said:

On 11/6/2023 at 3:15 PM, Jotari said:

*Since it's not in the game and mildly contradicts Arch Saga, I'm free to ignore Kaga's notes and imagine that Castor has no moral fibre (and no family) at all.

The correct approach to matters of "canon". If it's not in the game, I can choose to ignore it.

The canon approach is that Maji kills Medeus, so most of you aren't even playing this game right.

4 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

...On topic 😅, the Archer card looks pretty weird. The full helmet yet naked arms and exposed legs on an utterly generic yet manly form is a strange getup.

I assume so that their arms don't get tired out from the weight of the armor on their arms and shoulders. They obviously desire regular armor to avoid headshots from other archers and don't get insta-killed when a cav rushes to them, and it does explain why archers have armor move and in DSFE, they are one of the tankier classes (although your starting archers aren't the best indication of that, and the armor appearance is gone). 

I can't believe you'd body shame them like that! All that effort to protect themselves and get fit, just to be called generic...

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 11/6/2023 at 6:15 PM, Jotari said:

How did Naga tribe become Narga? Surely the Japanese original is just the two hirigana for na and ga.

So, the name in Japanese is ナーガ. "Na" + (vowel extender) + "ga". I would transliterate this as "Naaga" or "Nahga". Essentially the same sound as "Naga", but with the first syllable emphasized.

That said, I can understand where "Narga" comes from. They probably weren't going for a "hard r" sound, but for the kind of vowel change that "-ar" has, relative to "-a". Like the difference between "part" and "pat".

On 11/7/2023 at 1:08 PM, ping said:

Maybe because Naga could theoretically be pronounced "Nay-ga"? At least I think it can, English is weird.

Yeah, that's a good point too. If they wanted it to be "Nay-ga", they probably would've gone with ネーガ. Of course, that would be most directly transliterated as "Neega", which people might think sounds like "Knee-ga". Alas, getting vowel sounds across between language is no easy one-to-one feat.

2 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Personally, I think the DS art is better for Minerva here, but that could in part just be me not wanting women to be happy.

"Resting bitch face" Minerva is indeed best Minerva.

[Saint Rubenio]

2 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Personally, I think the DS art is better for Minerva here, but that could in part just be me not wanting women to be happy.

I also like DS best, but Archanea Saga is a good second place.

2 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

Yes we know our Ruben lore. I'm telling you to actually give it a chance.

I did. That was like, what, 13 chapters? The game played itself throughout to the point where I didn't even need to read the numbers, I just moved units forward and won. If anything I'd say I was quite generous with it.

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Shaky Jones said:

I've never heard that complaint myself either. Maybe this guy is just imagining things.
 

I've never even heard of recruiting characters in Fates. Doesn't that game just give you all the  characters between chapters with no effort on the player's part to actually get them?

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

So, the name in Japanese is ナーガ. "Na" + (vowel extender) + "ga". I would transliterate this as "Naaga" or "Nahga". Essentially the same sound as "Naga", but with the first syllable emphasized.

That said, I can understand where "Narga" comes from. They probably weren't going for a "hard r" sound, but for the kind of vowel change that "-ar" has, relative to "-a". Like the difference between "part" and "pat".

Yeah, that's a good point too. If they wanted it to be "Nay-ga", they probably would've gone with ネーガ. Of course, that would be most directly transliterated as "Neega", which people might think sounds like "Knee-ga". Alas, getting vowel sounds across between language is no easy one-to-one feat.

"Resting bitch face" Minerva is indeed best Minerva.

The r is still there and spoken in part though. Overall it seems like a weird fan translation that failed to capture the actual essence of the name. We wouldn't have these issues if English could just be like all the other languages and use some bloody diacritics.

[Saint Rubenio]

10 hours ago, Jotari said:

I've never even heard of recruiting characters in Fates. Doesn't that game just give you all the  characters between chapters with no effort on the player's part to actually get them?

Not exactly. A lot of characters are just handed to you, but a few do need to be spoken to by Corncob. Then Rev does have... exactly two more exotic recruitments: Benny and Charlotte, who need to be spoken to by Elise. I mean, Elise joins in the same map so it's no Xavier, but still. Good effort.

[BrightBow]

On 11/7/2023 at 12:15 AM, Jotari said:

*More range and movement is nice, but NES Bantu is basically invincible, which in a game with limited 1-2 enemy range is better.

Definitely not. That 15 base defense is not going to last him throughout the whole game, especially with his meager HP and Speed. He is gonna be torn apart after a while. He also can't deal any damage in return.

FE3 Bantu's increase in HP not only makes his bulk much more reliable (and effectively gives him double the gains from an Angelic Robe too. Give him one and he has 50 HP), he can also retaliate just fine because his dragon breath ignores the defense stat of anything that is not another dragon unit.
Which also makes Bantu an excellent answer to enemy dragons too. Until Tiki, he is the only one who can easily wall them. Especially since his stats are actually higher than those of generic dragons.

[Jotari]

8 minutes ago, BrightBow said:

Definitely not. That 15 base defense is not going to last him throughout the whole game, especially with his meager HP and Speed. He is gonna be torn apart after a while. He also can't deal any damage in return.

FE3 Bantu's increase in HP not only makes his bulk much more reliable (and effectively gives him double the gains from an Angelic Robe too. Give him one and he has 50 HP), he can also retaliate just fine because his dragon breath ignores the defense stat of anything that is not another dragon unit.
Which also makes Bantu an excellent answer to enemy dragons too. Until Tiki, he is the only one who can easily wall them. Especially since his stats are actually higher than those of generic dragons.

You don't have to keep him at base. You can throw a Dracoshield on him. And yeah, stat boosters in FE1 are busted and can make anyone amazing (though Dracoshield is actually pretty modest only +3 defense), but what Bantu uniquely has over everyone else is that Dracoshields on him let's him actually exceed the defense cap.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

2 hours ago, BrightBow said:

Definitely not. That 15 base defense is not going to last him throughout the whole game, especially with his meager HP and Speed. He is gonna be torn apart after a while. He also can't deal any damage in return.

Wait, can't you use a promotion item on Bantu in FE1 to buff his defense, without actually consuming the item? I assume that anyone who wants to use Bantu long-term would be exploiting this mechanic.

15 hours ago, Jotari said:

The r is still there and spoken in part though. Overall it seems like a weird fan translation that failed to capture the actual essence of the name. We wouldn't have these issues if English could just be like all the other languages and use some bloody diacritics.

Well, one question to ask is - if the name they originally had in mind was "Narga", then how would they write that in katakana? Something like ナルガ (na-ru-ga) could hypothetically work, but that would be flawed, on account of creating a middle "ru" syllable, where it's not supposed to exist. As for ナーガ (naa-ga), while it's missing a "hard r" sound, that's not something that was necessarily even intended. The sound of a long "ahhhh" is probably closer to how English-speakers would say "ar", than going with "a-ru".

Also, maybe I missed the original context for this discussion, but who is speaking the name "Narga"? Are we talking the old OVA? The Sattelaview game? Some other source?

[ping]

FE3 Book 1 Chapter 7: Port Town Warren

Spoiler

Because of General Minerva's sudden retreat, the allied army was able to enter the Akaneia region safely. To allow the soldiers to rest, they stopped at the famous merchant and port town of Warren. This town had paid lots of gold to the Empire so that they could freely rule, and were friendly to the allied army. At this town, surrounded by the sea and mountains and protected by many mercenaries, the soldiers were happy to get a much needed rest.

...But, as if to mock their feelings, news of an enemy ambush suddenly comes.

On the plus side, this map definitely captures the description of a town protected by sea and mountains. But on the flip side... this really doesn't make for a great map gameplay-wise. I complained about it in FE1, and I shall repeat it here: There is a one-tile choke point that a beefy unit can defend indefinitely, completely trivialising the map. If you want to play more quickly, you have to slog through the entire enemy force at once. And since almost half of those are bow users, as soon as you send somebody past the choke point, it's difficult to prevent them from being attacked by three or more enemies at once.

This unit formation is not what the eventual fight will look like, by the way. I realised the errors of my ways - specifically that Banutu spawned way back with Raddy and Caeser, so I reset and swapped positions a bit. And then Marth died because the Rapier doesn't deal bonus damage vs. Horsemen. Third time's the charm, I guess.

I wonder if this map is actually supposed to be a warp skip - the positioning of the enemies, not guarding the boss from that kind of tactic, is explicitly deliberate:

: "Prince Marth, we are mercenaries guarding Warren town. The Grunian knights have gathered from the western forts and have us completely surrounded. Right now, we are in a very dangerous situation. Luckily, the eastern castle is weakly guarded, so we should be able to subdue it easily. We will also aid you. Please hurry and escape to the eastern castle."

But, of course, fully warp-skipping a map is the coward's way (or the way of the returning player who knows and loathes the map, I guess).

[HP 80% | Str 30% | Skl 30% | Spd 20% | Lck 10% | WLv 30% | Def 10%]

Caesar gained +3 HP in the transition to the SNES, but lost his glorious Roman name in the fan translation, as well as 10% of his Def growth, which he seems to have transferred to Raddy, oddly enough.

As Caeser combines unimpressive bases (overall worse than Oguma's back in chapter 2) with weak growths, I suspect that he suffers from the move away from class base stat promotions - you used to train up an unremarkable Merc to get an unremarkable Hero, now what you get for the same effort is a rather bad Hero. In FE1, I thought that he might be better (if less interesting) than Raddy, but here, I think he might be the worst of the Merc bunch?

[HP 90% | Str 50% | Skl 40% | Spd 70% | Lck 40% | WLv 50% | Def 20%]

Raddy only gained +2 HP, but as I mentioned, also increased his Def growth by 10% (although +1 per 10 levels obviously isn't a gamechanger). His bases are really quite bad (4 Str...), but his growths are great - clearly the true originator of the Est archetype. Doesn't make him a great unit, of course, but I'd say that he comes early enough that he can get somewhere without unreasonable amounts of favouritism.

However, I don't plan on using either of the two in this playthough, so they just hit the shops and then hang out around the town. I end up buying a couple Silver Lances, a Killing Edge, two Heal staves, and some basic magic spells.

__

Meanwhile, everybody else moves up. Sheeda grabs the Pirate kill (who drops a Silver Axe! Silver! Axe!) and Banutu transforms a bit prematurely because he needs the +2 Move to reach the chokepoint next turn.

Map design!

...and I can see this being a problem. Banutu's accuracy is not good, even against enemies with zero AS.

That said, his damage is amazing, even against enemies with 1000 Def. Firebreath being armour-piercing (unless it just hits Res, I suppose I haven't been able to rule that out just yet) seems pretty powerful, and 22 dmg is amazing now, one-shotting everything but the Horsemen and the boss on this map, and should still be very strong for a good while.

Speaking of the bird man... I mean boss man - he's weaker than what we've already seen sitting on thrones. He still two-shots everything with his Silver Lance, though.

I wanted to say that one of the good things about this map is the lack of Crossbows, i.e. Killer Bows of another name. But then Hardin got crit. I guess he did survive, though, so that means that the only thing making this version of the map worse is the absence of any Sheeda simps.

Overall just not a very fun map, I'm sorry.

I was a bit wasteful and transformed Banutu a second time, even though I don't think it was entirely necessary at that point. But it gave him opportunity to gain some XP and even get a nice

empty level-up.

The boss portraits on the stat screen do lack that snazzy picture frame...

Not difficult to solve, mind, but that's, like, half a minute of extra work.

For the boss kill, Navarre (w/ Armourslayer on enemy phase) and Sheeda (w/ Silver Lance) do the grunt work...

...so that Biraku can bask in glory.

#worth

(and another grunt to make up for a miss by our glorious leader would've been Marth or, if he had missed too, Marich)

: "Glory to Grunia... Urgh..."

"Prince Marth, I am Katua of Macedonia's White Knights. I've actually arrived in secret to request for help from your highness. Our princess Minerva is preparing to rebel against the Durhua Empire. But because her younger sister, Maria, is still in Durhua's grasp, she has been unable to act. Please, rescue Princess Maria."

(whoops, forgot her portrait)

Catria out. Unlike in FE1, we're going to immediately oblige her - the trip to Pyrathi is going to be cancelled. Which is fine, I don't think they like foreigners there anyway.

The map took 10 turns in total - fairly comfortably before reinforcements become a problem, which I believe arrive starting on turn 13.

The Team:

	Lv. 	   HP Str Skl Spd Lck WLv Def Res  +XP
Marth	8.37	   25  10   8  12  10  11   8   0  +64
Sheeda	7.01	   19   6  10  17  14  11   8   6  +112
Jeigan	2.24	   22   7  10   8   1  10   9   6  +4
DOGA	4.71	   21   8   4   5   1   5  11   0  +60

Hardin	9.31	   26   9  10   8   5  11   8   0  +106
Biraku	4.50	   21   6   4   6   2   6   7   0  +94
Navarre	6.63	   22   7  11  12  11  10   6   0  +62
Maji	7.53	   22   7   5   9   7   6   6   0  +36

Banutu	2.04	   18   2   3   4   1   2   3   1  +104
Kashim	4.73	   22   8   4   7   3   6   4   0  +63
Gordon	6.61	   21   5   7   5   7   7   6   0  +74
Rena	6.58	   16   1   9   8  10   8   3   6  +80

Wendel	2.62	   23   3   2  13   1  10   5   6  +28
Marich	2.90	   21   1   3   6   4   6   5   3  +92
Caeser	3.00	   20   5   8  12   6   6   7   0  --	(base)
Raddy	1.00	   18   4   8  10   1   6   6   0  --	(base)

 

 

Answers

Spoiler

On 11/8/2023 at 1:56 PM, Interdimensional Observer said:

With one little game I was playing finished two days ago, I decided to slip in a Civ5 match yesterday myself. Ultimately rolled a Byzantium Emperor Pangaea Plus, low sea level, with the seven AIs who ignore religion the most chosen.

I played as the Ottomans, does that mean I win?

For no real reason they were the only civ that I never finished a game as. Like, they are one of those incredibly whelming civs, of course, but it's not like they're the only ones *coughfrancecough*.

To make it a more unique playthough (for me with my Four City Tradition habits, at least), I decided to pretend that I'm playing Europa Universalis and went for a world conquest, as that is the one challenging thing you could do in EU4 as the Ottomans (until they added a really rough achievement with a time limit on a recent patch, at least). The imperative word being conquest - not "decimation". Razing cities is what you do if you play as a Mongol successor state in EU4. So, basically, Domination victory, but I was not allowed to burn down any cities, nor to snipe capitals and leave the rest, so I had to be rather careful about happiness (and, occasionally, cash). The most successful AI was Brazil on another continent, and things got rough for a while when they managed to inflict -15 happiness from ideology pressure; although they then became a lot easier when the World's Fair culture bonus reduced their influence on me back to "unknown". The conquering part itself wasn't too rough, since only Brazil was somewhat competitive in tech, and even they did not have any answer yet to a few airplanes on a carrier.

And a screenshot from my Maya game a little while back that I forgot to post. Nice try, Korea.

17 hours ago, Jotari said:

I've never even heard of recruiting characters in Fates. Doesn't that game just give you all the  characters between chapters with no effort on the player's part to actually get them?

7 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Not exactly. A lot of characters are just handed to you, but a few do need to be spoken to by Corncob. Then Rev does have... exactly two more exotic recruitments: Benny and Charlotte, who need to be spoken to by Elise. I mean, Elise joins in the same map so it's no Xavier, but still. Good effort.

Note that at least some of the characters that are just handed to you still talk a lot while the battle is ongoing. The recruitment I've seen (or heard) that criticism about are Elise's entourage, as well as Benny and Charlotte, who both enter the fray a few turns into the map.

But since I don't really seek out Fates discussions, that might just have been some fringe opinions that I just happened to stumble upon. I dunno.

4 hours ago, BrightBow said:

(and effectively gives him double the gains from an Angelic Robe too. Give him one and he has 50 HP)

I do have an Angelic Robe, come to think of it... That sounds like a fun investment.

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

Also, maybe I missed the original context for this discussion, but who is speaking the name "Narga"? Are we talking the old OVA? The Sattelaview game? Some other source?

The translation patch (or rather pre-patched ROM) that I'm using and that is certainly not the newest fan translation uses Narga.

@Saint Rubenio Apologies if I missed you mentioning it, but what does the Spanish Project Elitist use?

 

[BrightBow]

I think this map was not as bad in the original. You could be more aggressive there, from what I recall.
I'm pretty sure enemy Horsemen were a lot weaker in FE1. Bows were also buffed. The basic Iron Bow has more might than FE1's Bowgun.
In FE3 they definitely take bigger chunks out of Draug's 11 defense. And Roger's 13 defense ass is absent, so now there is definitely a lack of bulky units who can take those guys on directly.

Btw, just in case you don't know, Silver Axes are worth 10.000 gold.

[Shaky Jones]

1 hour ago, ping said:

On the plus side, this map definitely captures the description of a town protected by sea and mountains. But on the flip side... this really doesn't make for a great map gameplay-wise. I complained about it in FE1, and I shall repeat it here: There is a one-tile choke point that a beefy unit can defend indefinitely, completely trivialising the map. If you want to play more quickly, you have to slog through the entire enemy force at once. And since almost half of those are bow users, as soon as you send somebody past the choke point, it's difficult to prevent them from being attacked by three or more enemies at once.

Despite how often I defend FE3, this is the map that made me stop playing B1, which is pretty darn early. I'll get back into it one day, but man is this map just ass. Just look at that Genealogy ass formation. There's nothing happening here, but also too much happening. Like, I can tolerate it enough in DSFE, but it's just mega boring here and you probably will lose units if you play aggressively because there's simply too many of them. That and the layout is also just a nothing burger. I only remember enjoying this chapter in FE1 for being a giant xp fest for Roger and me realizing how OP Bantu was, but the map wasn't good.

1 hour ago, ping said:

[HP 80% | Str 30% | Skl 30% | Spd 20% | Lck 10% | WLv 30% | Def 10%]

Caesar gained +3 HP in the transition to the SNES, but lost his glorious Roman name in the fan translation, as well as 10% of his Def growth, which he seems to have transferred to Raddy, oddly enough.

I don't know who you are or what you've done with Caesar, but your portrait looks so cool, so I won't call you a fraud.

I'd like to use him when I actually resume B1, since I have a habbit of using Caesar in the DS games and have him pop off like crazy, although his growths are a bit sad here.

1 hour ago, ping said:

[HP 90% | Str 50% | Skl 40% | Spd 70% | Lck 40% | WLv 50% | Def 20%]

because all of it apparently went to this redhead. I'll say, Raddy's a name I like saying way more. It makes me giggle. Shit man, those growths though. For bases not too far off Cheeserr, Raddy seems like the better unit of the bunch. 

1 hour ago, ping said:

However, I don't plan on using either of the two in this playthough, so they just hit the shops and then hang out around the town.

There has to be at least 4 gay jokes I can make here.

1 hour ago, ping said:

...and I can see this being a problem. Banutu's accuracy is not good, even against enemies with zero AS.

Main problem I had with FE12 Bantu. Can't forge stone hit. This really should be much higher.

1 hour ago, ping said:

Speaking of the bird man... I mean boss man - he's weaker than what we've already seen sitting on thrones. He still two-shots everything with his Silver Lance, though.

There he is! Kannival the Canni-

Ah, I mean Canaris. Canaris the-

Fucking dammit Kaga.

1 hour ago, ping said:

The map took 10 turns in total - fairly comfortably before reinforcements become a problem, which I believe arrive starting on turn 13.

 

It's like you don't want Biraku to level up to 20/20.

On 11/8/2023 at 12:47 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

"Resting bitch face" Minerva is indeed best Minerva

We need more of that. Not a lot more, mind you. We need more old people the most.

On 11/8/2023 at 12:49 PM, Saint Rubenio said:

I did. That was like, what, 13 chapters? The game played itself throughout to the point where I didn't even need to read the numbers, I just moved units forward and won. If anything I'd say I was quite generous with it.

You're already over halfway done. Just beat the fucking game already.

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

6 hours ago, BrightBow said:

Definitely not. That 15 base defense is not going to last him throughout the whole game, especially with his meager HP and Speed. He is gonna be torn apart after a while. He also can't deal any damage in return.

FE3 Bantu's increase in HP not only makes his bulk much more reliable (and effectively gives him double the gains from an Angelic Robe too. Give him one and he has 50 HP), he can also retaliate just fine because his dragon breath ignores the defense stat of anything that is not another dragon unit.
Which also makes Bantu an excellent answer to enemy dragons too. Until Tiki, he is the only one who can easily wall them. Especially since his stats are actually higher than those of generic dragons.

You don't have to keep him at base. You can throw a Dracoshield on him. And yeah, stat boosters in FE1 are busted and can make anyone amazing (though Dracoshield is actually pretty modest only +3 defense), but what Bantu uniquely has over everyone else is that Dracoshields on him let's him actually exceed the defense cap.

We really having Bantu debates. This truly is the "To Become An Elitist" of all time.

[Saint Rubenio]

2 hours ago, ping said:

I do kinda like his portrait here, though. Look at that mop of hair.

2 hours ago, ping said:

The boss portraits on the stat screen do lack that snazzy picture frame...

Not difficult to solve, mind, but that's, like, half a minute of extra work.

Now fix the dialogue cloud arrow being visible on the side. That should be another half a minute!

2 hours ago, ping said:

@Saint Rubenio Apologies if I missed you mentioning it, but what does the Spanish Project Elitist use?

Fairly certain it just used Naga or something close. I don't remember anything particularly noteworthy, like Meißen. His game may be over but the ß spirit lives on

18 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

Despite how often I defend FE3, this is the map that made me stop playing B1, which is pretty darn early. I'll get back into it one day, but man is this map just ass.

What the fuck, Shaky. You were on my case for not finishing Book 1 and yet quit earlier than I did?

19 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

Ah, I mean Canaris. Canaris the-

Fucking dammit Kaga.

I didn't know this one. Should've fucking guessed with Shouzou "let me put Goebbels in my game" Kaga, though.

19 minutes ago, Shaky Jones said:

You're already over halfway done. Just beat the fucking game already.

I'm not bored enough to do it.

[Interdimensional Observer]

2 hours ago, ping said:

I played as the Ottomans, does that mean I win?

For no real reason they were the only civ that I never finished a game as. Like, they are one of those incredibly whelming civs, of course, but it's not like they're the only ones *coughfrancecough*.

If this were Civ6, then yes, where they literally named the Ottoman CUA "Great Turkish Bombard" and get siege bonuses. Civ5, sadly no.

I getcha though, Civ5 Ottomans look pretty bad. Much cheaper navy with the innate ability to steal ships, not very useful. Unique Units are Not Mounted Archers/10, which means they're of limited use as far as I'm concerned.

Also, I'd rather take 🇫🇷 over 🇯🇵 in Civ5. Getting one themeable midgame Wonder (Louvre, Globe, Uffizi, Sistine) or maybe two ought to be possible, that plus Hermitage, Oxford, Broadway (comes late enough to be reliably after you'd caught up to the AI in tech), and a Museum all themed are some Tourism bonuses, plus a couple Chateau. By contrast, how many times have you even one atoll in any of your cities? And the combat side of Bushido is weak too.

2 hours ago, ping said:

I decided to pretend that I'm playing Europa Universalis and went for a world conquest, as that is the one challenging thing you could do in EU4 as the Ottomans (until they added a really rough achievement with a time limit on a recent patch, at least). The imperative word being conquest - not "decimation". Razing cities is what you do if you play as a Mongol successor state in EU4. So, basically, Domination victory, but I was not allowed to burn down any cities, nor to snipe capitals and leave the rest, so I had to be rather careful about happiness (and, occasionally, cash).

Even with razing, Happiness is something of a struggle when Dominating already. That sounds like it was rather difficult.

2 hours ago, ping said:

And a screenshot from my Maya game a little while back that I forgot to post. Nice try, Korea.

Beautiful.😃

2 hours ago, ping said:

The most successful AI was Brazil on another continent, and things got rough for a while when they managed to inflict -15 happiness from ideology pressure

Brazil and ideological pressure? That recalls the Russia Frontier match I did yesterday when I got tired of the prior Byzantine one.😆

Spoiler

Started so isolated I thought I had a continent to myself. Turns out I didn't. The continent was roughly Africa-shaped with a big west where Ethiopia lay beyond two city-states, Carthage in the northeast around a big inland sea, and Brazil was directly south of them. I began at the southern tip, with a five sea resource riverine capital, pretty nice. My second city was good riverine desert ...with the Fountain of Youth.😄 Got plenty of Russian +1 Production Iron and Horse in my cities.

I ran 5-city Tradition, managing to settle in excellent central territory that probably should've gone to Brazil. But without the Deity-level second settler, it seems Brazil was ruined by its Jungle start just as a player would be, and made the stupid decision to plop its second city very close to the first in yet more Jungle. Dido took advantage of Brazil's weakness and went to war on Pedro, razing Brazil's second city, which created enough open space that I decided to plop down a nice 6th city that got me some Cocoa. 6-city Tradition was an unexpected situation.🙃 Later, Dido razed a new city Pedro had built, which allowed my sixth city to pick up an opportunely-placed Brazilian Manufactory in its third ring. Pedro was like the only one to open Tradition besides me, so with him hindered I got the Hanging Gardens. Dido delayed for no reason but later exterminated Brazil altogether.

Later went I with Order, b/c six cities and Russia.⚒️ Owing to a wholly-desert city, I had plenty of Faith saved up that I used alongside a Tower of Pisa Great Engineer (I was one turn too slow to then nab the Globe from Ethiopia) and an accidental one for Order spaceship Great Engineer-rushing to work. That's the benefit of the unorthodox Trad-Order combo that the usual Liberty-Order setup can't do. On another continent, Germany, America, and the Aztecs lay; and Arabia had a little continent to itself which Germany later lightly colonized. Germany led on tech over there, but Washington was first to ideologies and picked Autocracy. Germany went Freedom but Washington forced Autocracy as the World Ideology and which forced Germany out of Freedom and the laggard Arabia suffered the same fate (it spent like only two turns in Freedom if that). Only my good comrade Carthage defied autocratic American propaganda and chose Order. Dido also kept Ethiopia militarily distracted and in doing so, any thought of Ms. Deception backstabbing me *remembers the falling-out between Russia and another C-country during the Cold War* went away. Everyone else was too far away to bother me. Washington in particular never ever hated me, signing Research Agreements no problem (I hated how much he and Ethiopia obsessed over City-States though), he started fighting Bismarck after he revolted into Autocracy instead, by which point the Aztec had lost their capital to America and had been exiled to a rump city on a little nearby continent. Won in about 320 turns, my usual.

...Still have a craving to try something else. Order Cultural Victory? Autocratic Cultural or Diplomacy?😅

...But that's enough of a digression!😅

2 hours ago, ping said:

And then Marth died because the Rapier doesn't deal bonus damage vs. Horsemen.

Oh yes, Fire Emblem!🔥

That I know was something that remained true in Binding, I guess they didn't want Roy trivializing Sacae too much. 

2 hours ago, ping said:

On the plus side, this map definitely captures the description of a town protected by sea and mountains. But on the flip side... this really doesn't make for a great map gameplay-wise.

Considering the narrative, maybe it would've been slightly more interesting had it been an Escape -not that that objective existed at the time. Though the map would've needed a few tweaks even then.

2 hours ago, ping said:

...and I can see this being a problem. Banutu's accuracy is not good, even against enemies with zero AS.

That said, his damage is amazing, even against enemies with 1000 Def. Firebreath being armour-piercing (unless it just hits Res, I suppose I haven't been able to rule that out just yet) seems pretty powerful, and 22 dmg is amazing now, one-shotting everything but the Horsemen and the boss on this map, and should still be very strong for a good while.

'Book 'em!😉

Glad you've already gotten a little use out of Bantu. Looking at SF, you have coinflip chance of extending his transformation duration by three turns if you throw him a Goddess Icon (5 + randomly-chosen 0 or 1*(Luck/2) determines the Manakete transformation duration).

Edited November 9, 2023 by Interdimensional Observer

[Jotari]

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

Wait, can't you use a promotion item on Bantu in FE1 to buff his defense, without actually consuming the item? I assume that anyone who wants to use Bantu long-term would be exploiting this mechanic.

That is probably what I'm thinking of instead of feeding him ever dracoshield.

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

Well, one question to ask is - if the name they originally had in mind was "Narga", then how would they write that in katakana? Something like ナルガ (na-ru-ga) could hypothetically work, but that would be flawed, on account of creating a middle "ru" syllable, where it's not supposed to exist. As for ナーガ (naa-ga), while it's missing a "hard r" sound, that's not something that was necessarily even intended. The sound of a long "ahhhh" is probably closer to how English-speakers would say "ar", than going with "a-ru".

Also, maybe I missed the original context for this discussion, but who is speaking the name "Narga"? Are we talking the old OVA? The Sattelaview game? Some other source?

If they wanted to call them Narga is a bit of a weird trend to go down since Japanese writer likely wouldn't want to call them that as it's just not something you can really say in Japanese. Plus it's not a word Kaga came up with himself. Naga are a popular snake monster psuedo religious thing across wider East Asia (unless those Naga are pronounced in no way like the word is rendered). And even then, if it is what they were going for, I would not go with the vowl extender = r if I were reading it. Maybe some transliterations do go that route, but for me at least, if I see the vowel extender then in going to read it as an elongated vowel and not tier any more sounds into it that aren't there. It's really a problem with both English and Katakana. English letters don't know what an actual phoneme is and are just masquerading as an alphabet, meanwhile in Japan they went to the trouble of creating an entirely new script for foreign words but made zero effort to actually use it to create the sounds foreign languages use -_- making the thing more or less pointless. I low-key hate katakana.

1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said:

There he is! Kannival the Canni-

Ah, I mean Canaris. Canaris the-

Fucking dammit Kaga.

I hear he's friend with Heimler over in Archanea. And pen pals with Rudolf in Valentia. And second cousin if Gobbels in Berwick Saga. I've also decided that the Book 2 boss popular rendered as Lumel is probably actually meant to be Rommel.

1 hour ago, Shaky Jones said:

We really having Bantu debates. This truly is the "To Become An Elitist" of all time.

I don't know what video it was I saw recently on YouTube, but one characterized Elitist players as being the ones who argue over who is better, Bantu or Radd. So guilty as charged.

3 hours ago, ping said:

FE3 Book 1 Chapter 7: Port Town Warren

  Hide contents

Because of General Minerva's sudden retreat, the allied army was able to enter the Akaneia region safely. To allow the soldiers to rest, they stopped at the famous merchant and port town of Warren. This town had paid lots of gold to the Empire so that they could freely rule, and were friendly to the allied army. At this town, surrounded by the sea and mountains and protected by many mercenaries, the soldiers were happy to get a much needed rest.

...But, as if to mock their feelings, news of an enemy ambush suddenly comes.

On the plus side, this map definitely captures the description of a town protected by sea and mountains. But on the flip side... this really doesn't make for a great map gameplay-wise. I complained about it in FE1, and I shall repeat it here: There is a one-tile choke point that a beefy unit can defend indefinitely, completely trivialising the map. If you want to play more quickly, you have to slog through the entire enemy force at once. And since almost half of those are bow users, as soon as you send somebody past the choke point, it's difficult to prevent them from being attacked by three or more enemies at once.

This unit formation is not what the eventual fight will look like, by the way. I realised the errors of my ways - specifically that Banutu spawned way back with Raddy and Caeser, so I reset and swapped positions a bit. And then Marth died because the Rapier doesn't deal bonus damage vs. Horsemen. Third time's the charm, I guess.

I wonder if this map is actually supposed to be a warp skip - the positioning of the enemies, not guarding the boss from that kind of tactic, is explicitly deliberate:

: "Prince Marth, we are mercenaries guarding Warren town. The Grunian knights have gathered from the western forts and have us completely surrounded. Right now, we are in a very dangerous situation. Luckily, the eastern castle is weakly guarded, so we should be able to subdue it easily. We will also aid you. Please hurry and escape to the eastern castle."

But, of course, fully warp-skipping a map is the coward's way (or the way of the returning player who knows and loathes the map, I guess).

[HP 80% | Str 30% | Skl 30% | Spd 20% | Lck 10% | WLv 30% | Def 10%]

Caesar gained +3 HP in the transition to the SNES, but lost his glorious Roman name in the fan translation, as well as 10% of his Def growth, which he seems to have transferred to Raddy, oddly enough.

As Caeser combines unimpressive bases (overall worse than Oguma's back in chapter 2) with weak growths, I suspect that he suffers from the move away from class base stat promotions - you used to train up an unremarkable Merc to get an unremarkable Hero, now what you get for the same effort is a rather bad Hero. In FE1, I thought that he might be better (if less interesting) than Raddy, but here, I think he might be the worst of the Merc bunch?

[HP 90% | Str 50% | Skl 40% | Spd 70% | Lck 40% | WLv 50% | Def 20%]

Raddy only gained +2 HP, but as I mentioned, also increased his Def growth by 10% (although +1 per 10 levels obviously isn't a gamechanger). His bases are really quite bad (4 Str...), but his growths are great - clearly the true originator of the Est archetype. Doesn't make him a great unit, of course, but I'd say that he comes early enough that he can get somewhere without unreasonable amounts of favouritism.

However, I don't plan on using either of the two in this playthough, so they just hit the shops and then hang out around the town. I end up buying a couple Silver Lances, a Killing Edge, two Heal staves, and some basic magic spells.

__

Meanwhile, everybody else moves up. Sheeda grabs the Pirate kill (who drops a Silver Axe! Silver! Axe!) and Banutu transforms a bit prematurely because he needs the +2 Move to reach the chokepoint next turn.

Map design!

...and I can see this being a problem. Banutu's accuracy is not good, even against enemies with zero AS.

That said, his damage is amazing, even against enemies with 1000 Def. Firebreath being armour-piercing (unless it just hits Res, I suppose I haven't been able to rule that out just yet) seems pretty powerful, and 22 dmg is amazing now, one-shotting everything but the Horsemen and the boss on this map, and should still be very strong for a good while.

Speaking of the bird man... I mean boss man - he's weaker than what we've already seen sitting on thrones. He still two-shots everything with his Silver Lance, though.

I wanted to say that one of the good things about this map is the lack of Crossbows, i.e. Killer Bows of another name. But then Hardin got crit. I guess he did survive, though, so that means that the only thing making this version of the map worse is the absence of any Sheeda simps.

Overall just not a very fun map, I'm sorry.

I was a bit wasteful and transformed Banutu a second time, even though I don't think it was entirely necessary at that point. But it gave him opportunity to gain some XP and even get a nice

empty level-up.

The boss portraits on the stat screen do lack that snazzy picture frame...

Not difficult to solve, mind, but that's, like, half a minute of extra work.

For the boss kill, Navarre (w/ Armourslayer on enemy phase) and Sheeda (w/ Silver Lance) do the grunt work...

...so that Biraku can bask in glory.

#worth

(and another grunt to make up for a miss by our glorious leader would've been Marth or, if he had missed too, Marich)

: "Glory to Grunia... Urgh..."

"Prince Marth, I am Katua of Macedonia's White Knights. I've actually arrived in secret to request for help from your highness. Our princess Minerva is preparing to rebel against the Durhua Empire. But because her younger sister, Maria, is still in Durhua's grasp, she has been unable to act. Please, rescue Princess Maria."

(whoops, forgot her portrait)

Catria out. Unlike in FE1, we're going to immediately oblige her - the trip to Pyrathi is going to be cancelled. Which is fine, I don't think they like foreigners there anyway.

The map took 10 turns in total - fairly comfortably before reinforcements become a problem, which I believe arrive starting on turn 13.

The Team:

	Lv. 	   HP Str Skl Spd Lck WLv Def Res  +XP
Marth	8.37	   25  10   8  12  10  11   8   0  +64
Sheeda	7.01	   19   6  10  17  14  11   8   6  +112
Jeigan	2.24	   22   7  10   8   1  10   9   6  +4
DOGA	4.71	   21   8   4   5   1   5  11   0  +60

Hardin	9.31	   26   9  10   8   5  11   8   0  +106
Biraku	4.50	   21   6   4   6   2   6   7   0  +94
Navarre	6.63	   22   7  11  12  11  10   6   0  +62
Maji	7.53	   22   7   5   9   7   6   6   0  +36

Banutu	2.04	   18   2   3   4   1   2   3   1  +104
Kashim	4.73	   22   8   4   7   3   6   4   0  +63
Gordon	6.61	   21   5   7   5   7   7   6   0  +74
Rena	6.58	   16   1   9   8  10   8   3   6  +80

Wendel	2.62	   23   3   2  13   1  10   5   6  +28
Marich	2.90	   21   1   3   6   4   6   5   3  +92
Caeser	3.00	   20   5   8  12   6   6   7   0  --	(base)
Raddy	1.00	   18   4   8  10   1   6   6   0  --	(base)

 

 

Answers

  Reveal hidden contents

I played as the Ottomans, does that mean I win?

For no real reason they were the only civ that I never finished a game as. Like, they are one of those incredibly whelming civs, of course, but it's not like they're the only ones *coughfrancecough*.

To make it a more unique playthough (for me with my Four City Tradition habits, at least), I decided to pretend that I'm playing Europa Universalis and went for a world conquest, as that is the one challenging thing you could do in EU4 as the Ottomans (until they added a really rough achievement with a time limit on a recent patch, at least). The imperative word being conquest - not "decimation". Razing cities is what you do if you play as a Mongol successor state in EU4. So, basically, Domination victory, but I was not allowed to burn down any cities, nor to snipe capitals and leave the rest, so I had to be rather careful about happiness (and, occasionally, cash). The most successful AI was Brazil on another continent, and things got rough for a while when they managed to inflict -15 happiness from ideology pressure; although they then became a lot easier when the World's Fair culture bonus reduced their influence on me back to "unknown". The conquering part itself wasn't too rough, since only Brazil was somewhat competitive in tech, and even they did not have any answer yet to a few airplanes on a carrier.

And a screenshot from my Maya game a little while back that I forgot to post. Nice try, Korea.

Note that at least some of the characters that are just handed to you still talk a lot while the battle is ongoing. The recruitment I've seen (or heard) that criticism about are Elise's entourage, as well as Benny and Charlotte, who both enter the fray a few turns into the map.

But since I don't really seek out Fates discussions, that might just have been some fringe opinions that I just happened to stumble upon. I dunno.

I do have an Angelic Robe, come to think of it... That sounds like a fun investment.

The translation patch (or rather pre-patched ROM) that I'm using and that is certainly not the newest fan translation uses Narga.

@Saint Rubenio Apologies if I missed you mentioning it, but what does the Spanish Project Elitist use?

 

R.I.P Pyrathi T.T Such disrespect. And even in the reality where Marth doesn't invade Pyrathi, he still can't control himself a kills an innocent pirate minding his own business just so he can loot the expensive silver axe.

Though I should note Marth obliges Carriage right away in the originals too, as her appearance happens in Pyrathi (it's not like Marth was going to actually speak to any of the natives and give me a character to use at the end of that chapter).

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Fairly certain it just used Naga or something close. I don't remember anything particularly noteworthy, like Meißen. His game may be over but the ß spirit lives on

Imo we should all move over to IPA post haste. It is the metric system of written language.

 

 

 

[BrightBow]

I suppose I could see Pyrathi being cut for time. Especially if they wanted to give it a larger overhaul to properly tie it into the lore. A kingdom of humans being ruled by a dragon seems certainly strange, so they might have wanted to elaborate on that.

In general the story Malledus tells in FE3 about the manakete is very different from the one he told in FE1.
In FE1 he told Marth about the different dragon tribes and that the divine dragons were protecting humanity from the other tribes. Until Medeus appeared and wiped out the divine dragons, at which point they were free to conquer humanity.
FE3 Malledus only knows "the dragon tribe". And that they were punished by God into human form and became outcasts. Until Medeus appeared and united the scattered dragons against humanity.
He makes no mention of a "divine dragon tribe" in this version. And as the opening crawl and later dialog shows, the humans think "Naga" is a giant (and very much human) warrior god from heaven who banished the "evil dragons" and was the one who forced the rest into human form.

Also F for Salamander and Basilisk, who I don't think are actually mentioned anywhere in this game.