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

[RPGuy96]

On 7/25/2024 at 11:20 AM, ping said:

: "Yer headed fer Tahra? Best take this Antitoxin with you, then. If you get stuck with one o' them Venin weapons, just pour that over yer wound and it'll clear right up. I hear lotsa those bandits to the west like usin' poisons... One dose o' the stuff an' you'll be in fer a bad time, so keep that Antitoxin handy."

And waste all that potential healing XP? Madness!

 

On 7/25/2024 at 11:20 AM, ping said:

: "General Hannibal is my lord father, you see. On the off chance we met again, I prepared you a token of my gratitude. here you are. It's a very powerful staff imbued with Warp magic."
: "Thank you! This is most generous...!"

Speaking of healing [staff] XP, there's a couple of maps coming up where Warp is helpful.  I never manage to get Staffi's rank high enough to use it in time, and it's by no means necessary, but if you do get there you won't regret it.

 

On 7/25/2024 at 11:20 AM, ping said:

: "Of course, sire. They can count on me!"

Callion kinda sucks, but I used him on my first playthrough (love me a growth unit with a bad start; relatedly, I'm just finishing up a Binding Blade Hard Mode run with Fir as my runaway MVP.).  Since there's scrolls and terrible stat caps, anybody is useable, and he can use swords inside and out.  But of course Fergus is pretty similar and miles better.

[ping]

On 7/26/2024 at 6:01 PM, RPGuy96 said:

Speaking of healing [staff] XP, there's a couple of maps coming up where Warp is helpful.  I never manage to get Staffi's rank high enough to use it in time, and it's by no means necessary, but if you do get there you won't regret it.

Well, Safi didn't do a single thing on her rejoining map, so I'll say it probably doesn't look too well in this playthrough, either

--

__

Note about the next chapter: Having to capture the boss is rather annoying. I cheated a little and looked up who supports Finn - it's Leif and Nanna, so her being fatigued changes his potential capture hitrate from 90 to 70. Sucks, especially with the time limit on top of that.

Edited July 27 by ping

[BrightBow]

If one if your thieves can still be used, you can have them slip a scroll into the boss' inventory to prevent unwanted critical hits.

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, BrightBow said:

If one if your thieves can still be used, you can have them slip a scroll into the boss' inventory to prevent unwanted critical hits.

I think you can straight up steal his sword, and with him being unable to use his mounted weapons, can then capture him unopposed. Looking at the stats, he has an iron sword if 6 weight and Lifis has base constitution of 6 too. Is stealing Con > weapon weight or Con >= Weapon Weight? I know I've stolen his iron sword before but maybe I got a lucky con level up with Lifis.

[ping]

FE5 Chapter 8: Mount Violdrake

Spoiler

Reuniting with the remnants of the Fiana Freeblades, Leif made his way west. Callion, the knight entrusted to him by General Hannibal, served as his guide through the treacherous mountain range. They now approached the foot of Mount Violdrake, home to Dagdar and his familiar group of brigands...

__

We have battle preparations now! We can finally sit down and do item management... like finally putting all the captured stuff on Osian, Halvan, and Ronan in the convoy or on characters that can actually use the stuff. Among those is Od's scroll (+30% Skl growth) that Ronan has been carrying all this time.

: "I'm... not returning to Thracia, milord. I told General Hannibal of my intentions, and he gave me his blessing."
: "What?"
: "Do you think the General a fool? He knew full well who you really were - as does half the Thracian Peninsula. Rumors of a surviving Leonster heir have been circulating for years. Anyone with sense knew it was only a matter of time until this survivor took up arms and rallied an army to battle the Empire. I always expected - nay, prayed - that this day would come, and now I have the honor of taking part in the liberation myself! The motherland shall soon breathe free again!"
: "Motherland? You... mean to say you're not Thracian?"
: "Indeed. I was born to a sworn knight of House Leonster. My father perished in the war, but my mother and I were taken in by General Hannibal. Ah... But I'm being presumptuous, aren't I? If it pleases you, Prince Leif, I want nothing more than to fight for House Leonster again, and reclaim our sovereign land."
: "I'm... not sure that I'm the liege you seek frankly. I don't know that I have power enough to reclaim Leonster - for the time being, I merely want to aid Tahra."
: "Even so, as long as I fight beneath the banner of House Leonster, I care not what the cause is. If you wish us elsewhere, milord, so be it. Assuming you accept my oath, I suggest we make for General Hannibal's villa."
: "Hm? General Hannibal didn't seem the type to own a lavish mountain villa..."
: "He's not. The villa is a safehouse for those like me: the many refugees of the fallen families of Leonster. There, under the protection of General Hannibal, Duke Dorius trains us in the ways of knighthood."
: "D-did I hear you correctly? Dorius...?! I can scarecely believe it... Duke Dorius is alive...?"
: "See for yourself, milord. Shall we be off?"
: "Of course, at once! Being able to see Duke Dorius again... It's like a waking dream!"
: "Begging your pardon, my prince, but I've a matter of some urgency. The bandits of this area - Dagdar's gang, to be precise - are out in force, and seem to be pillaging a nearby village. What are your orders, sire?"
: "Say no more. I apologize, Callion, but it seems Duke Dorius will have to wait. Will you aid me in defending the villagers?"
: "Hah! You needn't ask - I'd be worried if you DIDN'T want to help them, milord! Still, this is most curious... This is Dagdar's territory, and the villages are under his protection. Why are they attacking...?"

Why indeed.

This map is, in most regards, a bit of a breezer. Only 12 enemies (including the boss), of which only 7 will move from their spot, of which the one promoted enemy is fairly isolated to the west. However, there's a few things one has to be aware of:

__

Most importantly, one of the 7 mobile enemies is Martinius Maximus, waiting to be recruited back into the Good Guys. This can be done by Osian and presumably Halvan, but I didn't check the latter. Leif can't talk to him, unfortunately.

Also very important, because it's linked to Dagdar and Tanja's return, and a lot more annoying than recruiting Marty are the particularities of the boss. I remember that in order to visit the upcoming gaiden, you have to capture and not release Lemay, similar to how Lifis was recruited back in 2x. However, unlike Lifis, Lemay will resist the blue paint, has a weapon equipped to resist insta-capturing, and there is a time limit on it, although I don't know how strict it is. You'll notice that Lemay is a dismounted Dracoknight - at some point, he's going to find his displaced Wyvern (probably left it in his other coat's pocket) and becomes entirely uncapturable, blocking you from visiting 8x and re-recruiting Dagdar and Tanja.

A fun detail is that Lemay is affiliated with an "Unknown Party", although since he doesn't have any leadership stars, I don't think this has an impact on gameplay.

The third unique aspect about this map is less of an issue. Other than Marty (and some of the reinforcements), all enemies use Venin weapons. Since poison isn't the most dangerous status in the world, despite its permanent nature, and Venin weapons seem to be fairly weak, I'd say this actually makes the map a bit easier.

All three of the returning Fiana Freeblades are going to be deployed in this fight, so I'll go over their returning stats and growths real quick:

[HP 85% | Str 30% | Mag 5% | Skl 25% | Spd 35% | Lck 55% | Def 25% | Con 25% | Mov 2%]

Honestly fairly uninspiring growths, with none of the Big Three (Str/Spd/Def) being all that great. He seems heavily carried by his Vouge, although it's possible that he and Halvan have some great promotion bonuses that I'm not aware of.

[HP 80% | Str 40% | Mag 5% | Skl 20% | Spd 30% | Lck 30% | Def 30% | Con 30% | Mov 2%]

Still no amazing growths, but distributed slightly better than Osian's. That said, Halvan's pretty slow, so even without the Vouge, I don't think he wouldn't be significantly better than Osian.

[HP 40% | Str 15% | Mag 55% | Skl 45% | Spd 55% | Lck 20% | Def 5% | Con 2% | Mov 3%]

Funny growths I wonder if a Thracia remake would have a reclassing feature, and if so, if Ronan's second class option would be Brigand. His Skl/Spd is good, at least, although he really needs that Skl growth to kick considering his awful base.

__

[HP 75% | Str 40% | Mag 10% | Skl 65% | Spd 45% | Lck 55% | Def 25% | Con 25% | Mov 1%]
Weapon Levels: Swords (E+40), Lances (D+30)
Skills: -

Finally, our new enthusiastic, monarchy-loving recruit. Maybe it't too early to throw out that term, but he seems very much like an Est. Bases that are quite low for his join time, but seem appropriate for his equally low level, and good growths all-around.

Something that I only notice now is that it seems that his sword rank is active while on a horse. This would've been very nice to know, since he does not have the Con at base to wield lances very well. Unfortunately, both of Callion's weapon ranks aren't very good, so getting to, say, the Brave Sword is a slow process for him. Since I already have a number of low-level characters to train, I don't think I'll bother, but he seems like a fun growth project. No unique skill (heck, no skill whatsoever) is unfortunate, but a FCM of 4 is nice.

__

I think this is the first time I've shown an enemy that leveled Movement? I've come across this in the Stoned Eyvel map, but I think it was in one of the unsuccessful runs.

Most of the map is honestly very straightforward, so I don't think I'll give a turn-by-turn. However, after turn 1, there's another cutscene:

: "Dunno why they're here, but I need you to keep 'em clear of the manor while I'm inside. Once that's done, you'll get every coin."
: "Damn, this was supposed to be a one-time thing... All right, fine - but it'll cost you extra if you want me to stick around."

Mysterious.

A propos Lemay - Jotari brought up that Iron Swords might be light enough for Lifis to steal. I allowed myself to check if the stealing requirement has a > or ≥, and unfortunately it's the latter, so my base-Con Lifis's arms are still too noodly to go for this strategy.

So, that's why Lara is here, instead. If I recall, next map has a lot more enemies than this one, so I'd like to bring the less squishy thief there and Lifis was already at 18/22 fatigue after last map.

Guess who's earning the most XP on this map! Hint: He's carrying three scrolls on him.

____

A bit later, Hicks (who goes below 4 Spd when dismounted, so he doesn't double) pulls Marty and Osian talks some sense into him:

: "Calm down, Marty, he ain't recognized you... Now wait fer an openin' and run for the hills--"
: "Hm? Wait, you're... Hey, Marty, ol' buddy!"
: "What? Marty? Don't know no Marty. Haven't even heard the name before--"
: "Marty, pal, I could spot that chin of yours from a mile away. What are you doing here?"
: "Er, well... It weren't my idea, I swear! It was all Gomez's idea! He made me do it...!"
: "That isn't the problem here! C'mon, Marty! Raiding villages?! You think that's what Dagdar wouldn't want? Or the Commander? If you've seen fit to go against everything they taught you, then you're just another bandit, and I got no choice but to cut you down!"
: "Wait, wait! I... It was wrong of me to go along with this..."
: "...So you're with us, then? You'll help us fight off these bandits?"
: "F-F-Fight off the bandits? Even Gomez?! Er... Well, y'see... I, uh..."
: "Argh! You should be ashamed, Marty! Just man up and say it: are you with us, or against us?!"
: "All right, all right! I'll say it loud and clear: I'm with you! I'll help you fight the bandits! Just... please don't yell at me no more..."

Hurray!

[HP 90% | Str 15% | Mag 5% | Skl 10% | Spd 15% | Lck 50% | Def 40% | Con 75%]

OK, so, Marty actually has a fairly high growth total compared to the rest of out team. Higher than Leaf, Osian and Halvin, for example, at slightly above 300%. But of course, the distribution is just dire. The Con growth in particular is much higher than it needs to be, since base Marty is fairly close to the cap already.

Somebody in this thread alluded to excellent promotion bonuses once Marty gets there, so I'm very much looking forward to that.

Of course, Ronan immediately hands over the Skill Ring and Paragon Manual, and Marty will end this chapter with +4 in Spd and Skl (yay scrolls!) as a result.

__

Once the closer mobile enemies are dealt with, Finn grabs Leif and carries him across the bridge in order to reach the boss. At that point, the first reinforcing Brigand appears in the NW of the map - a couple more come from there, as well as one duo of a Brigand and a Hunter from the top center (bascially across the mountain to the east of the Brigand in the screenshot).

__

Finn kills the Warrior after Lana steals his Vuln...

...and the great chipping of the boss begins.

: "Sorry for your luck, but I need the coin. I got no illusions - I know this is wrong."

I also decide to go for the Scroll Donation trick that BrightBow suggested. This whole affair is already RNG-based enough without the random crit chance.

Unfortunately, I somehow forgot that I only gave the scroll to Lemay and didn't take his Vuln away...

____

...which means that he just undid all my hard work after two turns of chipping. As an added unfortune, I also sent Lara towards the southern village (which is quite out of the way because of the cliff tiles in the village), so it took her two turns to come back and grab the rest of the Vulnerary.

And since I mentioned the villages, here's the one to the north:

: "While Dagdar was away helping the Freeblades, Gomez came along an' started riling up the bandits. His mind's about as sharp as a broken javelin, but he's burly enough to knock folks around, an' that's all that counts 'round these parts. ...Huh? Wait, yer lookin' to give that fool the thrashin he deserves?! By Ullur's Ulcers, that's fantastic news! We poured our blood an' sweat into clearing the land for this village. Take this here medal fer good luck. Earned it years ago fer 'mare-it-orr-ee-yuss service', whatever that means.

[Master Seal received]

Meritorious: praiseworthy, exemplary.

Technically, the villager is wearing a different shirt (it's orange), but I'm not going to upload multiple portraits just for that.

And the other one, which Callion visits after Lara changed direction:

: "I decided that the next person to walk through my door would get a rare gift, and that's you!"

Wait, does that mean you want to gift Callion to whatever visitor will come after him, or...

: "See, a merchant said that this ring would make me happy, and it did... for a while. But eventually, being so lucky at everything gets so... boring. Painfully routine, in fact. The ring made me lucky but I'm nowhere close to happy! Dammit... I got swindled...

[Luck Ring received]

Why yes, I am going to upload a silly portrait that I'm very unlikely to ever use again. Hell, I will even upload a second one that I considered using:

Now, during all this, Leif, Osian, Finn (with a Long Lance, because Brave might one-round), and Hicks try chipping Lemay down again - ideally to 4 HP, since that's how much damage Finn does with a single Brave Lance hit.

__

And during that, Brigands keep coming from the north. Luckily, Hicks can easily keep plug a one-tile choke to keep them away.

...well, Leif does ten damage with the Light Brand, so we'll have to wait another turn.

That next turn, Leif uses the last charge of his Light Brand to... miss Lemay. "Hopefully, Adept can't proc when the weapon breaks, right?", I thought, and it would have been near-perfect had Leif hit here. Alas...

But I'm more lucky with the remaining actions of the turn. Osian connects both throws with the Vauge...

...and so does Finn with the Brave Lance. Phew!

In the end, I spent 7 turns stabbing Lemay, starting on T.7 and finally capturing him on T.13. Out of curiosity, I just checked when he would've found his dragon: T.16, so this was closer than I would've liked.

Now, obviously, I should've promoted Finn to improve the numbers somewhat, instead of contemplating if maybe I should promote Fergus first - especially since we got a third Master Seal during this chapter. But the promo bonuses (+2 Str, +3 Skl, +2 Spd) wouldn't have made it that much better - Finn still wouldn't have quadrupled when capturing, and since those values are halved for such an attempt, it only would've given him +1 dmg and +2 or +4 hit, too.

Overall, this is the silliest gaiden requirement thus far. You don't really get any hints that this boss in particular should be captured - well, maybe that he's specifically dismounted. I don't know how I would've reacted to that if I hadn't known (some of) the details beforehand. But even then, the process of capturing is very RNG-dependent, especially if you don't know about the scroll trick. And this so easily missable gaiden means that Dagdar and Tanja are very easily missable, as well. And to top it all off, the story justification why the next chapter is a gaiden and not just Ch.9 is a bit flaky, too, as we're about to see.

After some last-minute kills (which goes rather against what Leif is about to say) and Safi repairing his Light Brand, Leif seizes...:

: "Prince Leif, I've brought the man claiming to be in charge of these ruffians.

: "It's no business of yours, junior. Just take my head and be done with it."
: "No. There's been enough blood spilled today. I'll make you a deal: indulge my questions, and you have my word you'll walk free."
: "I could... walk free? Oh, that's a cruel joke! If I accepted mercy from an enemy, I'd bring shame to the Dracoknights!"
: "Just before we arrived here, I also had to choose between my survival and accepting help from an enemy. I... know how it feels. I take it you have a wife? Children, perhaps? If I have to kill you here, they'll be out on the street. Is that what you want?"
: "....."
: "I'm sure you had your reasons for doing this. As far as I'm concerned, I don't even need to know who you are or what your station is. Tell me what I want to know, and I have no reason to pursue you."
: "...Ask your question."
: "The lord of that manor, Dagdar, and his daughter Tanya - where are they?"
: "..... They're inside, and they're not alone. Gomez, the one who hired me, he's makin' his move on 'em. Didn't say exactly what his plans were, but he didn't have to. I could tell he was fixin' to kill 'em both."
: "I see... Thank you. Augustus, see that this man and his dragon mount are freed at once."
: "...As you wish."
. "...Sorry for the trouble, for what it's worth."

Too bad that we don't get a bulky flyer already, but I'm still glad that Lemay isn't a recruitable character, and that Leif makes a reasonable offer instead of asking for fully swapping sides.

However, I have to point out that, after seeing Dagdar's gang pillage a village and then arriving at Dagdar's Manor - Leif needs to hear all this before he arrives at the idea to see what's happening in said manor? Before playing the chapter, I was hoping that Lemay would be part of some other faction in Thracia, maybe personal enemies of Hannibal... but it seems that he's just some Dracoknight For Hire, as we've already seen them in Genealogy.

Next time: Thracia fog. Yay.

The Team:

	  Lv.	    Fat/HP Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Con  XP
Leif	  13.73	    --  37   7   0   5   9  12   6   9  +59	[+7 HP]
Finn	  13.01	    15/ 31  11   1   9  12   7   8  10  +194
Hicks	  9.48	    24/ 32  10   0   6   6   8   9  15  +192
Callion	  1.50	     5/ 24   5   1   5   8   6   5   6  +50

Osian	  5.11	    10/ 31   7   0   8  11   5   5  11  +183
Halvan	  5.32	     6/ 31  10   0   7   7   5   6  14  +64
Marty	  5.16	    11/ 35  10   0   4   4   9   7  18  +216	[+3 Skl, +3 Spd]
Ronan	  5.99	    10/ 23   6   2   4   8   3   2   7  +300

Lara	  3.22	    11/ 14   0   0   1  11   7   0   3  +40
Safy	  5.70	    15/ 15   0   8   8   7   9   0   3  +160

 

 

Edited July 27 by ping

[BrightBow]

25 minutes ago, ping said:

Most importantly, one of the 7 mobile enemies is Martinius Maximus, waiting to be recruited back into the Good Guys. This can be done by Osian and presumably Halvan, but I didn't check the latter. Leif can't talk to him, unfortunately.

I would have expected better from "the man that Dagdar loved", not gonna lie.

I wonder how Marty behaves if he was left with no usable weapons. Will he try to flee?
There is a weapon shop on the map, but since it's occupied he probably can't use it.
 

33 minutes ago, ping said:

OK, so, Marty actually has a fairly high growth total compared to the rest of out team. Higher than Leaf, Osian and Halvin, for example, at slightly above 300%. But of course, the distribution is just dire. The Con growth in particular is much higher than it needs to be, since base Marty is fairly close to the cap already.

Not to mention the highest con growth anyone else has is... 35% I think. 75 to 35 is quite the gap between first and second place.
 

37 minutes ago, ping said:

Overall, this is the silliest gaiden requirement thus far. You don't really get any hints that this boss in particular should be captured - well, maybe that he's specifically dismounted. I don't know how I would've reacted to that if I hadn't known (some of) the details beforehand. But even then, the process of capturing is very RNG-dependent, especially if you don't know about the scroll trick. And this so easily missable gaiden means that Dagdar and Tanja are very easily missable, as well. And to top it all off, the story justification why the next chapter is a gaiden and not just Ch.9 is a bit flaky, too, as we're about to see.

He also carries a Master Seal. And it's not like items ever automatically drop in this game.
I suppose the possibility that your thieves are likely fatigued after so many maps in a row might actually be favorable here, since it would mean you can't just snatch it.
But with how filled his inventory is, he most certainly looks like a good catch either way.

What really bugs me is how he story justification makes no sense. Why wouldn't they check out Dagdar's place when it's right there? And what can the knight tell them that they didn't already learn from Marty?

But at least if you fullfill the requirement, you know what it was that moved the needle. Seeing how it actually ends with the knight being interrogated and all.
It's not like FE7 where you have no idea what triggered the gaidens. Have fun figuring out yourself that what triggered 23x was getting an arbitrary number of exp in 23.
 

57 minutes ago, ping said:

However, I have to point out that, after seeing Dagdar's gang pillage a village and then arriving at Dagdar's Manor - Leif needs to hear all this before he arrives at the idea to see what's happening in said manor?

To add to the weirdness, if Tanya or Dagdar died previously, you will get the survivor at the end of this chapter and you never actually fight Gomez.

It's sorta justified if Tanya is the one you get. The way she tells it, it sounds like Gomez pretty much broke and gave up after he heard Dagdar died.
But in Dagdar's version, the Gomez situation is not referenced at all. Doesn't reference Tanya either. I guess Dagdar just beat the shit out of Gomez off-screen, in that case.

[ping]

37 minutes ago, BrightBow said:

I wonder how Marty behaves if he was left with no usable weapons. Will he try to flee?
There is a weapon shop on the map, but since it's occupied he probably can't use it.

I think I remember seeing or hearing something about Marty visiting the shop, but a quick YT search didn't result in anything and I still don't want to look too hard into how things work in Thracia. But in theory, this shouldn't be too hard to research. Well, unless the game doesn't approve of cheese and gives Marty a fresh axe if the player leaves him weaponless at the end of ch.3.

43 minutes ago, BrightBow said:

Not to mention the highest con growth anyone else has is... 35% I think. 75 to 35 is quite the gap between first and second place.

He is a big boy.

44 minutes ago, BrightBow said:

But at least if you fullfill the requirement, you know what it was that moved the needle. Seeing how it actually ends with the knight being interrogated and all.
It's not like FE7 where you have no idea what triggered the gaidens. Have fun figuring out yourself that what triggered 23x was getting an arbitrary number of exp in 23.

Well, before we praise Kaga too much, neither 2x nor 4x gave any hints about how they were unlocked. A blind player could be forgiven if they thought that Kaga just decided to count chapters in a weird way.

 

[BrightBow]

5 minutes ago, ping said:

Well, before we praise Kaga too much, neither 2x nor 4x gave any hints about how they were unlocked. A blind player could be forgiven if they thought that Kaga just decided to count chapters in a weird way.

But in those cases protecting the houses and the NPCs are obvious objectives. Capturing the knight less so.

Edited July 27 by BrightBow

[ping]

1 minute ago, BrightBow said:

But in those cases protecting the houses and the NPCs are obvious objectives.

NPCs yes, I guess, in particular because you don't get another immediate reward for saving them. Saving houses I don't think is as obvious that it's connected to the upcoming Gaiden. You visit houses/villages all the time in every FE game, including Ch.1 of T776, and this is one of the few examples where you get a bonus for collecting all of them.

That said, it's not that bad, since saving villages is something that the player will attempt anyway, even if they don't know that they'll miss the first thief and first healer if they don't.

[BrightBow]

35 minutes ago, ping said:

Well, before we praise Kaga too much, neither 2x nor 4x gave any hints about how they were unlocked. A blind player could be forgiven if they thought that Kaga just decided to count chapters in a weird way.

I would also like to point out that I am not praising Kaga, I am bashing FE7.

The system as used here is obviously very dumb. But FE7 taking that system and not only failing to improve on it, but also making it much worse is frankly impressive.

[Revier]

Dagdar's men must be pretty crappy if they could be made to turn on him so easily. I guess he couldn't do better for a bandit gang, but still.

[Jotari]

8 hours ago, ping said:

Mount Violdrake

This is a name we can thank offical localizers for. In the first translation it was Purple Dragon Mountain.

8 hours ago, ping said:

Overall, this is the silliest gaiden requirement thus far. You don't really get any hints that this boss in particular should be captured - well, maybe that he's specifically dismounted. I don't know how I would've reacted to that if I hadn't known (some of) the details beforehand. But even then, the process of capturing is very RNG-dependent, especially if you don't know about the scroll trick. And this so easily missable gaiden means that Dagdar and Tanja are very easily missable, as well. And to top it all off, the story justification why the next chapter is a gaiden and not just Ch.9 is a bit flaky, too, as we're about to see.

I like it as a requirement. It at least tried to do something interesting with the capture system beyond the Lifis recruitment. And it's kind of cool to have a soft turn limit for a Gaiden instead of a hard turn limit. And we get some actual characterization from Leif and Lemi with a cutscene acknowledging him being spared (which is better than all the other bosses get). True, there might not be immediately obvious how to get the Gaiden, but I reckon anyone playing it who gets to turn 16 and sees him mount will consider "what happens if I capture him?" And he has a master seal on him you'd want to capture him for, and some good weapons he's not actively using that your thief probably can't capture from him. So, all in all, even blind, I reckon capturing him is still something a player would be incentivised to do, especially when they learn be mounts and you lose that option part way through.

8 hours ago, ping said:

: "I could... walk free? Oh, that's a cruel joke! If I accepted mercy from an enemy, I'd bring shame to the Dracoknights!"

It's absolutely never going to happen, but I would so love of he showed up as an enemy in Chapter 9 of Genealogy. Because he is still out there flying his dragon around the place and it's rare we have minor bosses actually survive like that. And it's even rarer that they get a post chapter cutscene confirming they survived.

8 hours ago, ping said:

Lemay would be part of some other faction in Thracia, maybe personal enemies of Hannibal... but it seems that he's just some Dracoknight For Hire, as we've already seen them in Genealogy

Oh wait until you hear my thoughts on best boss Dvorak two chapters from now.

7 hours ago, BrightBow said:

What really bugs me is how he story justification makes no sense. Why wouldn't they check out Dagdar's place when it's right there? And what can the knight tell them that they didn't already learn from Marty?

That's a fairly good point. The Gaiden would make more sense if it was "Capture Rumei" or "ReRecruit Marty".  But ReRecruiting Marty is so straight forward and expected it turns the Gaiden from a side chapter to only theoretically skippable. But, as pointed out, maybe it shouldn't have even been a Gaiden to begin with.

6 hours ago, ping said:

think I remember seeing or hearing something about Marty visiting the shop, but a quick YT search didn't result in anything and I still don't want to look too hard into how things work in Thracia. But in theory, this shouldn't be too hard to research. Well, unless the game doesn't approve of cheese and gives Marty a fresh axe if the player leaves him weaponless at the end of ch.3.

Would be awesome if he just traded an axe from on of the enemies, since I think a lot of them are packing two weapons.

57 minutes ago, Revier said:

Dagdar's men must be pretty crappy if they could be made to turn on him so easily. I guess he couldn't do better for a bandit gang, but still.

Gomez brings up a pretty good argument in the form of "We are literally starving to death here".

Also on the subject of Gomez, bring Asvel or Osian to the next chapter. Or even both. Because Gomez is absolutely jacked and you will need a dedicated boss killer who can rig a Crit on him.

Edited July 28 by Jotari

[ping]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

This is a name we can thank offical localizers for. In the first translation it was Purple Dragon Mountain.

Ah. I had thought that it's a bastardised "violent drakes", but the colour also makes sense.

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

I like it as a requirement. It at least tried to do something interesting with the capture system beyond the Lifis recruitment. And it's kind of cool to have a soft turn limit for a Gaiden instead of a hard turn limit. And we get some actual characterization from Leif and Lemi with a cutscene acknowledging him being spared (which is better than all the other bosses get). True, there might not be immediately obvious how to get the Gaiden, but I reckon anyone playing it who gets to turn 16 and sees him mount will consider "what happens if I capture him?" And he has a master seal on him you'd want to capture him for, and some good weapons he's not actively using that your thief probably can't capture from him. So, all in all, even blind, I reckon capturing him is still something a player would be incentivised to do, especially when they learn be mounts and you lose that option part way through.

The Ridersbane is an incentive, yes, but I want to reiterate that capturing any boss that's standing on a gate is really annoying. If it wasn't for the Gaiden, I would've stolen the Master Seal and Finn would've murdered the guy within a turn or two.

If you know about the gaiden requirement, then sure, it's cool that there's an incentive to capture a boss, although again, the imperfect hitrates that everybody has on them and the +10 Def from the throne make this task more RNG-based than I find fun. It would've been nice if there had been a chapter in-between, just so you can bring Nanna for the Charm (and extra +10 support bonus for Finn) and Fergus as a second mounted Brave weapon user. But while I can't be too harsh in that regard, because "it is really cool if you know what's coming" is, like, my first line of defense for BinBla, I'm playing this blind-ish and try to evaluate the game from the perspective of a blind player even when I happen to remember some details.

(I'll also say that "do look up gaiden reqs and recruitment" is always my advice for a new BinBla player, so I don't actually think BinBla is a good game to play blind, either)

5 hours ago, Revier said:

Dagdar's men must be pretty crappy if they could be made to turn on him so easily. I guess he couldn't do better for a bandit gang, but still.

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

Gomez brings up a pretty good argument in the form of "We are literally starving to death here".

If the memes are to believed, then Gomez also has the magical persuasive power of Bolshevik theory on his side.

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

Also on the subject of Gomez, bring Asvel or Osian to the next chapter. Or even both. Because Gomez is absolutely jacked and you will need a dedicated boss killer who can rig a Crit on him.

Yeah, that's another detail I remember, that nobody is safe if they try to fight Gomez head-on.

[Saint Rubenio]

14 hours ago, ping said:

This map is, in most regards, a bit of a breezer.

The game has to account for potentially everyone in the army except for Osian, Halvan, Ronan (who could be dead) and Callion being undeployed due to fatigue.

14 hours ago, ping said:

Most importantly, one of the 7 mobile enemies is Martinius Maximus, waiting to be recruited back into the Good Guys. This can be done by Osian and presumably Halvan, but I didn't check the latter. Leif can't talk to him, unfortunately.

Party boy.

14 hours ago, ping said:

Finally, our new enthusiastic, monarchy-loving recruit. Maybe it't too early to throw out that term, but he seems very much like an Est. Bases that are quite low for his join time, but seem appropriate for his equally low level, and good growths all-around.

You know how you can really tell he's an Est? In the ol' days of Jeigans being considered bad, he was regarded as one of the best units in the game.

...Now people feel he's only a few steps removed from the next chapter's gang, which I do feel is a mite extreme but he certainly has nothing on Finn or any of the prepromoted riders in the game.

14 hours ago, ping said:

A bit later, Hicks (who goes below 4 Spd when dismounted, so he doesn't double) pulls Marty

See, he's already useful!

14 hours ago, ping said:

Of course, Ronan immediately hands over the Skill Ring and Paragon Manual, and Marty will end this chapter with +4 in Spd and Skl (yay scrolls!) as a result.

The party begins.

14 hours ago, ping said:

: "See, a merchant said that this ring would make me happy, and it did... for a while. But eventually, being so lucky at everything gets so... boring. Painfully routine, in fact. The ring made me lucky but I'm nowhere close to happy! Dammit... I got swindled...

[Luck Ring received]

Why yes, I am going to upload a silly portrait that I'm very unlikely to ever use again. Hell, I will even upload a second one that I considered using:

Two seconds after claiming you won't upload extra portraits for color consistency, too lmao

14 hours ago, ping said:

Overall, this is the silliest gaiden requirement thus far. You don't really get any hints that this boss in particular should be captured - well, maybe that he's specifically dismounted. I don't know how I would've reacted to that if I hadn't known (some of) the details beforehand. But even then, the process of capturing is very RNG-dependent, especially if you don't know about the scroll trick. And this so easily missable gaiden means that Dagdar and Tanja are very easily missable, as well. And to top it all off, the story justification why the next chapter is a gaiden and not just Ch.9 is a bit flaky, too, as we're about to see.

He's specifically dismounted and he's decently sympathetic in his two lines so I guess the intent was for you to feel compelled to capture him? Of course, the problem is that you need to hold on to him when, if the point is "let's spare him because he's not as blatantly evil", releasing him and letting him go to his family would be the better option.

And, well, as you said, the map holds stuff that's just too important to hide behind such a silly requirement. Not as much as 2x with its healer and thief, but then again, I suppose 2x is also a lot easier to unlock. Even if you don't know about the requirement the villages are easy enough to save that players are more likely to just get it accidentally.

...On the other hand, Gomez is such a boss that perhaps it's best he's missable.

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, ping said:

Ah. I had thought that it's a bastardised "violent drakes", but the colour also makes sense.

The Ridersbane is an incentive, yes, but I want to reiterate that capturing any boss that's standing on a gate is really annoying. If it wasn't for the Gaiden, I would've stolen the Master Seal and Finn would've murdered the guy within a turn or two.

If you know about the gaiden requirement, then sure, it's cool that there's an incentive to capture a boss, although again, the imperfect hitrates that everybody has on them and the +10 Def from the throne make this task more RNG-based than I find fun. It would've been nice if there had been a chapter in-between, just so you can bring Nanna for the Charm (and extra +10 support bonus for Finn) and Fergus as a second mounted Brave weapon user. But while I can't be too harsh in that regard, because "it is really cool if you know what's coming" is, like, my first line of defense for BinBla, I'm playing this blind-ish and try to evaluate the game from the perspective of a blind player even when I happen to remember some details.

(I'll also say that "do look up gaiden reqs and recruitment" is always my advice for a new BinBla player, so I don't actually think BinBla is a good game to play blind, either)

If the memes are to believed, then Gomez also has the magical persuasive power of Bolshevik theory on his side.

Yeah, that's another detail I remember, that nobody is safe if they try to fight Gomez head-on.

Maybe I'm just privileged with hindsight and the internet, but I think it's kind of fine for a blind player to miss a Gaiden. They are meant to be bonus stuff. Like, imagine the thrill of someone replaying the game blind who captures him and then does get to the mansion. They'd be like "Whoa, awesome! So that's how you get Dagdar back! I was wondering why I fought him in the final chapter."

[BrightBow]

Starting with Gomez the stats of bosses seem to go much higher in general.

Eisenhauer had a higher level, but he is quite a bit weaker than Gomez. Nevermind bosses like Truman or the chapter 2 Warrior guy.

It's just that most of the later bosses are Generals and therelike. You can take advantage of their low speed to punch through them with PCC.

That is not really an option with Gomez. Even a capped speed Asvel can't do it.

[ping]

FE5 Chapter 8x: Dagdar's Manor

Spoiler

The team! Safy just barely stayed inside the Fatigue limit after the last map (literally 15/15) and her access to Physic seemed like it might be useful for this map. Otherwise, we have Lifis as a thief (although I also bring one of my two high-use Chest Keys along), Asbel to fight Comrade Gomez, and Ronan and Marty. We're not quite down to HHM numbers, but this chapter sure has a strict deployment limit.

: "You stick around here, you'll just be a burden. Now just listen to yer old man and don't give me lip!"
: "I... I know I wouldn't be much help, but-"

: "Naw, it's too late fer you to be makin' excuses, Dagdar! The soil itself don't want us here! Nothin' grows! Tryin' to till a field is like sawing through rock! All I wanted was a full belly, but you let that wench Eyvel cheat you outta the good land! She's got you wrapped around her little finger! You so desperate you'd let everybody starve just to get lucky? Shame on you, old man!"
: "What'd you say?! Hmph, you talk big fer a glorified errand-boy! You ain't never known real hardship - just my petty chores! You know why? 'Cause I knew I could never trust you with more! Fact is, I could barely trust you with my laundry, junior! Fine! You want yerself a fight so bad, you got one!"

I've seen more convincing defensive pleas than Dagdar's, to be honest.

I'm also not entirely sure what exactly Dagdar's backstory is. Bandit chief who aligned himself with Eyvel? Why exactly do we meet Dagdar in Fiana while his gang is operating all the way in western Thracia? Maybe I missed some crucial convos that explain this, but I find his whole character a bit vague.

What's also vague is the map, since even with a torch, you can only see about half of it. ...eh, 6/10 transition.

Thracia Fog makes its return, but overall in a manageable fashion, I think. Because so much of the map consists of one-tile hallways, Leaf's group can't really be swarmed by enemies (with one exception, but you'll see), quite contrary to Dagdar and Tanya in the middle of the map.

[HP 15% | Str 10% | Mag 5% | Skl 10% | Spd 10% | Lck 30% | Def 10% | Con 5% | Mov 1%]

Low growths, so I suppose that Dagdar will need some scroll-shaped attention if you still want him to be one of your best units in the lategame.

For the record, back in Ch.3, Dagdar gained 36 XP and a +Str level-up.

[HP 60% | Str 35% | Mag 15% | Skl 55% | Spd 70% | Lck 60% | Def 15% | Con 5% | Mov 2%]

Honestly fairly decent growths for an Archer, who doesn't care as much about her defenses. But even ignoring the problems of her class, she does have weak points in Str (since both base and growth aren't good) and potentially Con? But I don't know how relevant being slowed down is long-term.

14 XP in Ch.3. And one of the villages, it seems.

__

Starting the map, Leif's team obviously isn't big enough to split up. So, appropriate for the communist undertones of this chapter, everyone goes hard to the left. ...and I'll stop with those memes now. They must literally be decades old at this point.

____

Dagdar can remove quite a few of the approaching Brigands - maybe it could've been even more, but I didn't want to be too aggressive.

__

With a Physic and his daughter readily swapping him back to the Brave Axe, he can get rid of another one on player phase without exposing Tanya to more than one attack.

This entire map is honestly an exercise in careful advancement.

____

And although I failed the test on this particular turn, Lifis manages to avoid a 7.22% chance of death here.

After this turn, a thief escapes through some stairs in the northwest. It's a bit odd that this is a thing - it's not like you can do anything about it, and chances are that you don't even see anything of it. Maybe you just get a mysterious [Unit Escaped] message if it happens in the fog? I believe you do hear the Thief open a door at the end of the first enemy phase.

__

Some dead enemy archers...

...and passing this next room is where some swarming actually happens to Leif's group, or, more specifically, to Asbel.

Enemies in that room have 1-2 range, so they can attack through the wall. Two attack Leif and Ronan, respecitively, who don't one-round in return...

__

...but then four or five enemies (iirc) can reach Asbel, who can murder them rather easily. Probably some chance of death here, but their hit rates are all pretty bad.

Afterwards, we get close enough to take a look at Gomez's throne room (why does Dagdar have a throne in his house?), as well as the man himself:

Pretty scary. And also carrying a Lockpick which seems very difficult to get... Well, I admittedly didn't feed as much XP to Lifis as I probably could've and should've done. It might be entirely realistic for him to outspeed Gomez.

__

Dagdar plugs the entrance to that room and Tanya gets a kill. She's being useful! (And not just for the support bonus she provides Dagdar with, as I think I remember from dondon's playthrough)

____

Dagdar is, once again, very efficient at clearing a mass of enemies.

__

The rest of the map, i.e. excluding Gomez, is honestly more or less just clean-up. It's a bit annoying, since there's chests all over the place:

...and I hope I didn't miss any. As the effect of the torch recedes, it becomes more and more difficult to thoroughly search the map.

Since that's the order in which things happened ingame, I'll do the boss fight before going over the treasure:

__

The end. Who needs to double, anyway? Asbel has 78 hit and 60 crit with Leif's support, and got lucky directly on the first try. Gomez seems very reminiscent of Henning: a brigant boss with rather overtuned stats, options for 1- and 2-range, and the possibility to play around his weapon swap with rescue/drops... but instead of Lugh, Kaga gave us Asbel.

Oh, and also before getting any treasure, I did check for a Leaf/Dagdar convo:

: "Sorry fer draggin' ya into my mess... So where's Eyvel? She head back to Feana, or is she with you?"
: "....."
: "Prince... What happened?"
: "Eyvel is... still in Munster. We... didn't have the forces to rescue her. I couldn't save her..."
: "Wh-What?! Dammit, Leif! Are you a real prince or just a child?! How the hell could ya just leave her?!"
: "There was nothing I could do! I... I wasn't strong enough, wasn't fast enough, I... With my meager strength, what good am I to anyone? What should I do? What CAN I do?"
: "....."
: "If... If I'd just been a little stronger... If I had done things differently, maybe-"
: "Dammit, Prince! Yer puttin' too much of the blame on yerself."
: "But-"
: "Look, I'm sorry fer yellin' at you just now. I... I wasn't expecting things to go so wrong, an' I took it out on you. Truth be told, Prince, yer tougher'n most. You tried to rescue her, right? Ya made the effort, and it ain't yer fault it didn't work out."
: "D-Dagdar..."
: "Sure, you kids are goin' through some rough times right now, no doubt. But quit yer worryin', cause I'll be helpin' ya from now on! It ain't like anybody can replace Eyvel, but you still got a long way to go before this war is lost. An' hey, captured ain't dead, right? We'll get Eyvel back - together."

Good on Dagdar to recognise and admit that he was reacting irrationally out of emotion. Understandable that Leif couldn't bring himself to tell him what exactly happened to Eyvel. I assume he'll rectify that later offscreen.

Now then, treasure!

• Pure Water - nice to expand the supply.
• Nál's Scroll - [+10% HP/Str/Def/Con | -10% Skl] Looks kinda like it's made for Tanya, since it precisely addresses her worst stats. But of course HP/Str/Def is useful for anyone.
• Wrath Manual - ...Marty Party? Although "wrath" seems rather out-of-character for someone as laid-back as him.
• Devil Axe - I'm sure it's strong; I don't know how the backfire rate works in this game.
• Hammer - OK. Dagdar hasn't used his a whole lot, but effective damage is always a nice option to have.
• Leg Ring - Probably going to be boring and give this to Leif. He is a lord without a horse.
• Steel Bow - Marty spent the last two or three turns trying to whack an enemy Hunter on the head to grab this. I just wanted to mention that.

In the end, I spent 9 turns beating the map and then another 10 turns grabbing the chests, which isn't the greatest ration of actual gameplay over busiwork. Bit of a shame, because until then, I liked the map - as I said, the narrow hallways mean that enemies can't gang up on you very much, and because you only bring 6 characters in addition to Dagdar and Tanya, it's not too bad to move your team through these hallways, either.

I can imagine that the map becomes more luck-based if you didn't leave the Brave Axe on Dagdar, though. I didn't do any math, but I expect that he'll be hit a lot more often if he needs an Accost proc to kill the Brigands swarming him and Tanya immediately.

: "Many of these men were children of Thracian farmers. Abandoned by their parents, they turned to banditry out of sheer necessity. Their choice was simple: steal or stave."
: "Then they had cowards for parents, to have forsaken their children so!"
: "And how would you know? You've been on the run for your whole life, true, but you've never known the pains of hunger. Just where do you think your food came from during all those days you were fleeing from the Empire?"
: "Where my food came from? I... don't know. I never had to worry about hunger."
: "Then you were fortunate to have had such loyal allies and retainers, but it has left you lacking the perspective to truly understand how the common folk suffer. South Thracia is a land dominated by mountains - steep, imposing crags dot the landscape, and a cliff lies around every corner. By nature, the land demands severity and discipline from all who live in it. Farmers work themselves to the bone to cultivate what few crops the land will provide, but even so, it is not enough to survive on. And thus they are left with a terrible dilemma: for every one person who gets fed, two others must go hungry. Dagdar's men, abandoned in their youth, are the result of this ruthless arithmetic. This is the reality of living in South Thracia."
: "Th-Then they should just import food from elsewhere! In North Thracia, cities had an abundance of crops - buy their excess!"
: "Ah, but the whole of North Thracia - the old coalition of Munster - resolved long ago to prohibit trade with South Thracia. Food, especially, was closely guarded."
: "..."Wh-Why would the North do such a thing?!"
: "Historically? Recall the war between Njörun and Dáinn's children, 100 years ago, that led to the province of Munster declaring independence from the rest of Thracia. The two have considered each other enemies ever since, and this hostility persists because they are mutually unwilling to communicate. The noble houses of Munster, in particular, remained stubborn and selfish for a century afterward."
: "I... had been told that Thracia was all but a military state, that it was an infamously belligerent kingdom. But if they are merely the product of such wretched conditions... How did things all go so wrong? The North and South were a single kingdom once..."
: "It all returns to the Tragedy of the Gáe Bolg, to the misfortune that seems to befall all those who wield either of the holy lances. North Thracia has been plagued by selfish and short-sighted rulers. You must learn from their example - learn how not to govern. If nothing else, you must learn enough to not repeat your father's mistake..."

That last line is rather ominous. As far as we've seen in Genealogy, Quan's big mistake was to be entirely blindsided by Travant targeting him and Ethlyn, but that wouldn't have any connection to the sustained hostility between North and South Thracia.

Overall, the parallels to Fateslandia are quite obvious (Quan's death wasn't even Travant's best trap), with the seemingly good side leaving the seemingly bad side to hunger, which motivates Nohr / South Thracia to subjugate them. T776 is a lot better at setting up some shades of grey, though - this chapter here actually *shows* a glimpse ot the hardships that South Thracia suffers, and Travant was pretty reasonable as far as villains go even back in Genealogy. Augustus's presentation of the conflict smells a bit of overcorrection of Leif's rather biased education on the matter - in particular because he leaves out any details on *why* Munster rebelled those 100 years ago, and because he also doesn't quite mention that Travant is still rather hungry for personal power, despite what else Augustus was saying. Still, it's an interesting scenario that Kaga is drawing up here.

The Team:

	  Lv.	    Fat/HP Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Con  XP
Leif	  13.97	    --  37   7   0   5   9  12   6   9  +24	[+7 HP]
Dagdar	  */8.49    21/ 43  15   1  11   9   2  10  15  +117
Marty	  9.40	    26/ 40  12   0   6   5  12   8  20  +424	[+3 Skl, +3 Spd]
Lifis	  7.77	     5/ 22   5   1   4  12   2   2   6  +60

Ronan	  8.98	    21/ 24   7   3   6   9   3   2   7  +299
Tanya	  3.98	     3/ 22   3   1   7  11   8   2   4  +74
Asbel	  10/3.33   11/ 35   0  14  15  20   8   6   6  +125	[+7 HP, +2 Mag]
Safy	  7.10	    27/ 16   0   9   8   7   9   0   4  +140

 

 

11 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Party boy.

 

11 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Two seconds after claiming you won't upload extra portraits for color consistency, too lmao

Glad somebody caught that.

 

Edited July 28 by ping

[Saint Rubenio]

9 minutes ago, ping said:

I've seen more convincing defensive pleas than Dagdar's, to be honest.

I feel like that's the point. Gomez raises a good point and all Dagdar can do is yell at him and get angry. He's not a perfect guy (something also showcased by his talk with Leif) nor is Gomez a cartoonishly evil badman to sit on the throne of the chapter.

9 minutes ago, ping said:

I'm also not entirely sure what exactly Dagdar's backstory is. Bandit chief who aligned himself with Eyvel? Why exactly do we meet Dagdar in Fiana while his gang is operating all the way in western Thracia? Maybe I missed some crucial convos that explain this, but I find his whole character a bit vague.

You got it in the first one, pretty much. He led Mt. Violdrake's bandit gang, then met Eyvel and she caused him to have a change of heart, and he began to try to turn his bandits into a bunch of Robin Hood-esque noble rogues. To uh, questionable success.

14 minutes ago, ping said:

Low growths, so I suppose that Dagdar will need some scroll-shaped attention if you still want him to be one of your best units in the lategame.

Even then, barely, to be honest. Or so the pros say. Despite me being me, I've never really used Dagdar all game long. First run he got ambush-spawned and then every run after I just sort of phased him out eventually.

15 minutes ago, ping said:

Pretty scary. And also carrying a Lockpick which seems very difficult to get... Well, I admittedly didn't feed as much XP to Lifis as I probably could've and should've done. It might be entirely realistic for him to outspeed Gomez.

I love the fact that he's technically spareable. What kind of insane nutcase do you have to be to try to capture this guy? For a couple of steel weapons, too!

33 minutes ago, ping said:

__

The end. Who needs to double, anyway? Asbel has 78 hit and 60 crit with Leif's support, and got lucky directly on the first try. Gomez seems very reminiscent of Henning: a brigant boss with rather overtuned stats, options for 1- and 2-range, and the possibility to play around his weapon swap with rescue/drops... but instead of Lugh, Kaga gave us Asbel.

Yeah, Gomez's one weakness is that Asbel is broken and potentially promoted by now. Without Asbel this boss is absolutely horrible.

40 minutes ago, ping said:

As far as we've seen in Genealogy, Quan's big mistake was to be entirely blindsided by Travant targeting him and Ethlyn, but that wouldn't have any connection to the sustained hostility between North and South Thracia.

Well, without the sustained hostility between North and South Thracia, there wouldn't have been a Travant to skewer Quan and his wife out in the desert.

41 minutes ago, ping said:

Quan's death wasn't even Travant's best trap

He even went "you are my child now" immediately afterwards, I can't believe I never drew the connection. I knew I liked Travant for a reason!

42 minutes ago, ping said:

Augustus's presentation of the conflict smells a bit of overcorrection of Leif's rather biased education on the matter - in particular because he leaves out any details on *why* Munster rebelled those 100 years ago, and because he also doesn't quite mention that Travant is still rather hungry for personal power, despite what else Augustus was saying.

Also the part where he goes "I know you've lived your entire life on the run but Finn gathered food for you so you haven't really suffered." It feels like it's only there to address the inevitable "hey why is the game treating Leif like he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he was literally carried out of his burning castle when he was like 2 years old" response.

1 hour ago, ping said:

Glad somebody caught that.

It's okay, I get it. Memes are always a worthwhile usage of effort that could be spent on less vital things such as consistency and professionalism.

[BrightBow]

1 hour ago, ping said:

I'm also not entirely sure what exactly Dagdar's backstory is. Bandit chief who aligned himself with Eyvel? Why exactly do we meet Dagdar in Fiana while his gang is operating all the way in western Thracia? Maybe I missed some crucial convos that explain this, but I find his whole character a bit vague.

We are not in Western Thracia just yet. We are still East of the Center. The distance between Fiana and here is shorter than the distance between Fiana and Manster.
Probably still a bit longer than it should be, for Dagdar to have operated in Fiana. But who knows? Not like we have a reference point for the scale we are dealing with here.
 

1 hour ago, ping said:

Oh, and also before getting any treasure, I did check for a Leaf/Dagdar convo:

There is also a Tanya / Othin one, just like on the first map.
Not that you are missing much. Just Tanya being a tsundere and Othin being an asshole. Nothing you haven't seen a thousand times, I'm sure.
 

1 hour ago, ping said:

: "Ah, but the whole of North Thracia - the old coalition of Munster - resolved long ago to prohibit trade with South Thracia. Food, especially, was closely guarded."

It "prohibits" trade? In the old translation he said that North Thracia imposed large tariffs. Nothing about trade being forbidden altogether.

Phrasing it that way leaves out that whole aspect of Lenster nobles just being plain greedy.
 

1 hour ago, ping said:

That last line is rather ominous. As far as we've seen in Genealogy, Quan's big mistake was to be entirely blindsided by Travant targeting him and Ethlyn, but that wouldn't have any connection to the sustained hostility between North and South Thracia.

His father was also still alive at the time of his death, so it's not like he was in charge in the first place.

Quan was very much all about helping out his brother in law. I don't think we have anything to really go by in regards to how he related to the politics between North and South Thracia.
 

1 hour ago, ping said:

Overall, the parallels to Fateslandia are quite obvious (Quan's death wasn't even Travant's best trap), with the seemingly good side leaving the seemingly bad side to hunger, which motivates Nohr / South Thracia to subjugate them. T776 is a lot better at setting up some shades of grey, though - this chapter here actually *shows* a glimpse ot the hardships that South Thracia suffers, and Travant was pretty reasonable as far as villains go even back in Genealogy.

Honestly, I don't think any of those parallels are obvious at all. I played through most of Conquest until I couldn't stomach it anymore, and none of this stuff is ever brought up.
And somehow I don't think this was suddenly going to become an issue after Ryoma's death. This all very much sounds like fanon to me.

Edited July 28 by BrightBow

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, ping said:

I'm also not entirely sure what exactly Dagdar's backstory is. Bandit chief who aligned himself with Eyvel? Why exactly do we meet Dagdar in Fiana while his gang is operating all the way in western Thracia? Maybe I missed some crucial convos that explain this, but I find his whole character a bit vague.

I don't think we get any clarification, but I don't think he's quite as far away as west Thracia. Mount Vilodrake is just on the other side of the valley of the Hannibal chapter. And Fianna is just on the other side of that valley to the east. Granted, that's still a mountain range and a half of distance still making the alliance a bit questionable in the logistics department, but it's not the other side of the country.

3 hours ago, ping said:

(why does Dagdar have a throne in his house?),

Gomez would certainly be a lore more manageable if this were a boss kill chapter without the throne. Stupid Dagdar and his ego.

3 hours ago, ping said:

Nál's Scroll - [+10% HP/Str/Def/Con | -10% Skl] Looks kinda like it's made for Tanya, since it precisely addresses her worst stats. But of course HP/Str/Def is useful for anyone.

+10 con? Screw Tanya, that's made for Lifis.

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I love the fact that he's technically spareable. What kind of insane nutcase do you have to be to try to capture this guy? For a couple of steel weapons,

Given this is inside, which means no mounts, the only way you're capturing him is if you've seriously power levelled Marty in the early chapters. There was someone posting a few months back about a Thracia playthrough trying to save every named enemy. I wonder if they managed to spare him.

 

 

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

7 hours ago, ping said:

Afterwards, we get close enough to take a look at Gomez's throne room (why does Dagdar have a throne in his house?), as well as the man himself:

Maybe it's just his favorite Lazy-Boy chair? That's what makes a throne - the boss who sits upon it!

7 hours ago, ping said:

Dagdar plugs the entrance to that room and Tanya gets a kill. She's being useful! (And not just for the support bonus she provides Dagdar with, as I think I remember from dondon's playthrough)

Haven't talked about it yet, but I really appreciate systems that give at least some support boosts between characters with pre-existing relationships from the start of the game. Like the innates in Echoes, or the bond supports in Tellius. It provides an offset to earlygame difficulty, while also creating more distinctions by character.

7 hours ago, ping said:

That last line is rather ominous. As far as we've seen in Genealogy, Quan's big mistake was to be entirely blindsided by Travant targeting him and Ethlyn, but that wouldn't have any connection to the sustained hostility between North and South Thracia.

You fool! You've fallen for one of the classic blunders! The most famous of which is, never start a holy war in Jugdral. But only slightly less known is this: never travel the desert on a mount, when Thracian dragoons are about!

6 hours ago, BrightBow said:

It "prohibits" trade? In the old translation he said that North Thracia imposed large tariffs. Nothing about trade being forbidden altogether.

Phrasing it that way leaves out that whole aspect of Lenster nobles just being plain greedy.

August recognizes that onerous tariffs represent a de-facto tax on one's own citizenry, and at their worst, function as a bar to all trade in practice.

What I'm saying is, he was an Econ major, and now he won't shut up about it.

[ping]

8 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I feel like that's the point. Gomez raises a good point and all Dagdar can do is yell at him and get angry. He's not a perfect guy (something also showcased by his talk with Leif) nor is Gomez a cartoonishly evil badman to sit on the throne of the chapter.

Yeah, absolutely. Not a critique of the writing, but of Dagdar as a person, that he has absolutely no retort to a simple "you were only thinking with your dick".

8 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

You got it in the first one, pretty much. He led Mt. Violdrake's bandit gang, then met Eyvel and she caused him to have a change of heart, and he began to try to turn his bandits into a bunch of Robin Hood-esque noble rogues. To uh, questionable success.

So is this elaborated upon in some dialogue I missed, dialogue that's yet to come, or all part of the manual?

8 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Well, without the sustained hostility between North and South Thracia, there wouldn't have been a Travant to skewer Quan and his wife out in the desert.

But Quan is, like, 20 at the start of Genealogy and only a few years older when he dies. He didn't even have the time to perpetuate the conflict between the Thracias before Travant was crowned, unless he's been a particularly mischievous 8-year-old.

8 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

He even went "you are my child now" immediately afterwards, I can't believe I never drew the connection. I knew I liked Travant for a reason!

I'm looking forward to the sneering advisor whose only purpose in life is to make Altenna's as miserable as possible.

8 hours ago, BrightBow said:

We are not in Western Thracia just yet. We are still East of the Center. The distance between Fiana and here is shorter than the distance between Fiana and Manster.
Probably still a bit longer than it should be, for Dagdar to have operated in Fiana. But who knows? Not like we have a reference point for the scale we are dealing with here.

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

I don't think we get any clarification, but I don't think he's quite as far away as west Thracia. Mount Vilodrake is just on the other side of the valley of the Hannibal chapter. And Fianna is just on the other side of that valley to the east. Granted, that's still a mountain range and a half of distance still making the alliance a bit questionable in the logistics department, but it's not the other side of the country.

Ah, got the geography a bit wrong then, I think because Hannibal starts at Castle Kapathogia in a more central location of Genealogy's Ch.9, so associated that location with Meath when he reappeared in T776.

8 hours ago, BrightBow said:

There is also a Tanya / Othin one, just like on the first map.
Not that you are missing much. Just Tanya being a tsundere and Othin being an asshole. Nothing you haven't seen a thousand times, I'm sure.

Are you accusing me of watching anime? I'm deathly offended!

8 hours ago, BrightBow said:

It "prohibits" trade? In the old translation he said that North Thracia imposed large tariffs. Nothing about trade being forbidden altogether.

Phrasing it that way leaves out that whole aspect of Lenster nobles just being plain greedy.

I would've preferred that, yeah.

8 hours ago, BrightBow said:

Honestly, I don't think any of those parallels are obvious at all. I played through most of Conquest until I couldn't stomach it anymore, and none of this stuff is ever brought up.
And somehow I don't think this was suddenly going to become an issue after Ryoma's death. This all very much sounds like fanon to me.

I mean, I'm not going to dig into Fates' scripts to prove it, but I'm pretty sure I remember some "Ah, you see, it's not always as black and white as you'd think" dialogue popping up. Probably in BR, since it would be more necessary to humanise the Nohrians in that route. Not saying they succeeded, but I do think they were going for a similar dynamic as Thracia.

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

Given this is inside, which means no mounts, the only way you're capturing him is if you've seriously power levelled Marty in the early chapters. There was someone posting a few months back about a Thracia playthrough trying to save every named enemy. I wonder if they managed to spare him.

Well, my Marty has 20 Con and I only gave him minimal investment like the first Speed Ring and the Paragon Manual.

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

Maybe it's just his favorite Lazy-Boy chair? That's what makes a throne - the boss who sits upon it!

Maybe it's his porcelain throne? ...well, pit latrine, but it'd still be considered rude to stab somebody doing his business there, so that's where the Def bonus comes from.

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

August recognizes that onerous tariffs represent a de-facto tax on one's own citizenry, and at their worst, function as a bar to all trade in practice.

What I'm saying is, he was an Econ major, and now he won't shut up about it.

Don't forget that the flat price increase caused by tariffs hits the poor harder than the rich business owners! No wonder the rich and powerful prefer them over a progressive tax system! ...although the stereotypical Econ major is probably opposed to higher tax rates for the rich, too.

[Revier]

One of the few times a Fire Emblem level actually deals with very real problems, like resource scarcity and political tensions causing misery to the common folk. Still don't get how a poor state like Thracia can maintain such a big army of wyverns though. 😛

[Jotari]

45 minutes ago, ping said:

Ah, got the geography a bit wrong then, I think because Hannibal starts at Castle Kapathogia in a more central location of Genealogy's Ch.9, so associated that location with Meath when he reappeared in T776.

Yeah, I actually mentioned that earlier. They swapped Hannibal's castle for the sake of the fan service. By all rights Leif should have been asking for help from this guy

But he's not as photogenic as Hannibal.

1 hour ago, ping said:

Well, my Marty has 20 Con and I only gave him minimal investment like the first Speed Ring and the Paragon Manual.

Giving Marty a single level is power levelling him XD Though, really, if I remember he starts with 16 con and a 75% growth, so minimum to get him to capture Gomez is four levels of you're lucky. On average it should be six levels.

[BrightBow]

1 hour ago, ping said:

I mean, I'm not going to dig into Fates' scripts to prove it, but I'm pretty sure I remember some "Ah, you see, it's not always as black and white as you'd think" dialogue popping up. Probably in BR, since it would be more necessary to humanise the Nohrians in that route. Not saying they succeeded, but I do think they were going for a similar dynamic as Thracia.

Oh, Corrin was whining about everything being oh so gray in chapter 8.

Corrin: There's such a fine line between friend and foe, war and peace. It's all so...gray.

...when of course the situation couldn't have been written to be more black and white if they tried.

Reminds me of a quote of the Deep Space 9 episode "Waltz" where Sisko said:

"Sometimes, life seems so complicated. Nothing is truly good or truly evil. Everything seems to be a shade of grey. And then you spend some time with a man like Corrin, and you realize that there is really such a thing as truly evil."

Or something like that. Point is, the avatar allying himself with evil does not automatically make things "gray". That just means the avatar is a piece of shit too.
 

1 hour ago, ping said:

Well, my Marty has 20 Con and I only gave him minimal investment like the first Speed Ring and the Paragon Manual.

Btw, mounted units count as units with 20 Con for the sake of rescue and capturing. So it's no longer possible to carry Marty around. It also means some enemies flatout cannot be captured.
 

11 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Even then, barely, to be honest. Or so the pros say. Despite me being me, I've never really used Dagdar all game long. First run he got ambush-spawned and then every run after I just sort of phased him out eventually.

Yeah. I don't exactly like putting up with Thracia Charge.

Can be a real pain here too, because those bandits swarming in can often get two hits in on Dagdar if he fails to kill them in a single round.
So having Dagdar keep the Brave Axe is actually more useful than one might think, since it pretty much prevents any chance of Dagdar letting an enemy survive until the 2nd round.

Fortunately Tear Ring Saga fixed it by making Charge a Command skill. And Fire Emblem fixed it by... getting rid of any skill that doesn't have an entirely random chance of activating.
Woho!