Oh hey, someone with eyes! She must be recruitable!
{Go get reinforcements!}
...Bets we have to bail these guys out? Anyone?
OSHI-- That’s a critical, guys. Be very afraid of these.
(Green units are neutral characters, by the way. You can’t control them unless you recruit them, but sometimes you’re just supposed to protect them. Yes, there are escort missions in our future. Not for a while yet, though.)
Oh, Tana. Your heart’s in the right place dearie, but...
Her brother, by the way, is my favourite character in this game. We’ll meet him later.
Standard Female Grab Area strikes again.
I love this game. There’s always at least one character who points out the smart thing to do...
{We must help them!}
...so you can sigh when the other suggests Honor Before Reason and it works. To be fair, Seth is a knight*, and that’s a pretty good guilt trip.
*Not a Knight, the in-game class. The capital is important here. Yeah, this is confusing sometimes.
How do you plan to retake a castle with two people, Princess?! It’s a good job this is a Fire Emblem game. Don’t try this at home kids!
CHAPTER START!
Here’s a look at Seth, as promised. Notice how he’s kinda godly compared to Eirika? That’s because Seth is a “prepromote”. There are two levels of “classes” in this game -- ‘Lord’ and every other unit we’ll get for a good while or so will be of a lower-level class. When a unit reaches Level 20 of a lower “class”, they can “promote” into a higher one using special items.
A prepromote is, well, already promoted. They’ll gain exp a lot slower, but they’re guaranteed to turn out at least decent. Seth can match most other characters for the rest of the game because of this headstart, and he’ll a big help if we get stuck in the early chapters. (He does tend to turn out worse than the other cavaliers available though, so eh.) However, relying on him steals exp from other units, so it’s best to avoid that whenever possible for a while.
Notice also the weapons he has. Silver is the best kind of weapon in the game (yes, I know how much sense that makes), but you can’t buy them until later. This one here is strictly for emergencies. Also, you need to be rank ‘A’ in Lances, so Seth is the only guy who can use this now anyway.
That’s what the third screen is, btw: weapon levels. Seth starts off with an A in lances and swords. Other characters who use two or more weapons aren’t likely to get high in both until near the very end of the game, if then, making Seth pretty versatile here.
The highest weapon rank is S. There are only a few S-rank weapons, but getting an S rank gives a +5 bonus to critical and hit, so it’s worth paying attention to. You can’t S-rank your weapons until after promotion, though.
Anyway!
You can see I’ve moved Eirika here, as she’s helpfully greyed out. If you have the cursor over an enemy and press the A button, you see their attack range, like this (they can get anything in the blue or red squares). Normally I would be worried that Eirika is in range of this guy, but he doesn’t move, so she’s safe. Under other circumstances you can assume I’m checking these religiously. If someone dies, it’s probably because I didn’t check them enough.
The “visit” option allows us to enter houses and villages. If you’re new to the game, you can get helpful information from these guys, like this one here. Villages tend to give out items and gold instead. I know all this stuff already, so I’ll only visit places with loot from now on. This is just an example.
Also shown here: blue movement squares! Mounted units (wyverns, horses or pegasi) can move after some actions. Attacking isn’t one of them, unfortunately. Still, it can be helpful under some circumstances.
The enemy’s turn starts automatically when you move all your units, but all that happened was that Eirika killed this axe dude (a Fighter).
Before it’s our turn again, these guys show up! Now we can take on a castle with
four people!
...Or we could just have the guy on the right glare them into submission...
Now our party’s going to start getting bigger!
Gilliam here is a Knight, and also a knight. He doesn’t say Ni. Knight are armoured units, and as you can probably tell, they have incredible defence -- seriously, nothing physical will bother this guy. Their strength is pretty good too, but they don’t tend to do well in offence because their speed is awful. They also have lower Move than other characters, so they can fall behind quickly. I tend not to use them because my strategy’s nearly always offensive.
That said, Gilliam is a lot better than most knights in terms of speed, and he has the option to promote into a class with good movement later in the game. (Or you can tell me to stop rushing so much.) He also looks pretty badass, which is always a plus point. If you guys want to use him, don’t let me stop you. He can also be pretty funny in some of his Supports. [Extra conversations that boost stats: more when it comes up.]
There are some weapons designed to do extra damage to these guys, but they’re rare enough that it’s not an issue.
Franz here is the first Cavalier we’ll get. Like Seth, he’s mounted and can use both swords and lances, so he’s pretty versatile. His strength and speed tends to come out pretty good, so he’s a good offensive unit. His luck and resistance, however, are horrible. Luck contributes to avoid, so he won’t be as good at dodging as other characters. That said, his defence and HP are normally pretty decent, so he can soak up damage.
Franz is the newcomer knight in-story, but even though that’s a pretty worn out trope, I think his supports are fun. He also gets some really heartwarming Supports with a certain other character. :3
Like Gilliam, there are some weapons designed to do extra damage to horse-units. Also like Gilliam, they’re rare enough not to be a problem.
Now that that’s out of the way... see first cap, bottom right? More terrain bonuses. Forts give the best terrain boost and they restore some HP at the beginning of a turn, so they’re pretty awesome.
The last cap is also a sort of “attack preview”. You can see how much damage you do here and how likely you are to hit without committing to an attack. The “x2” here means that Eirika double attacks and she literally can’t miss this guy, so he’s definitely dead. In general, 80+ is reliable in terms of hit. 70s you’re likely to see a few misses, 60s and especially 50s you better cross your fingers. You will ALWAYS miss at the worst possible time.
Nothing unexpected here...
Not as good as the last level up, but still got some strength. I’ll take that.
Aha! Weapon level up! This means she can use stronger swords now. Not very well, mind you, but still. I probably won’t screencap these all that often; it’s not that exciting and for most of the game, the highest ranked weapons we’ll be using are Cs.
For the record, Soldiers like this guy are pure mook-troops. They tend to have Attack Speed of 2 or less, sometimes 0. (I’ll get into Attack Speed [AS] in more detail later, but for now if your AS is 4 or more higher than your opponent’s, you’ll double.) So that Gilliam can’t double this guy is pretty pathetic. He’ll get better later though.
Gilliam’s Level 4 right now, so weakening this guy for Franz works to our benefit anyways.
Time to explain the weapon triangle! Axes beat lances beat swords beat axes. Don’t worry about remembering that, though, because the little arrows are a pretty big hint. Lances beat swords, so by using a sword here, Franz gives the soldier +1 Attack and +15 hit. Franz also loses -1 Attack and -15 hit. This means the soldier is fifteen percent more likely to hit him. That’s a pretty big number at this point in the game.
[The second screencap here, by the way, is Franz’s raw stats with the Iron Lance equipped compared to the Iron Sword - he gains attack and loses hit, hence the arrows. We’re focussing on the first and third here though.]
Franz CAN gets axes when he promotes, but he doesn’t have them now. Weapon triangle neutral is the best we can go for.
Of course it doesn’t matter very much here, because Franz was going to kill him anyway -- since he initiates he gets the first attack and it’s kinda hard to counter when you’re dead.
However, this marks the end of our turn, so...
I missed screencapping it, but you can see that Franz lost a couple of HP here. Doesn’t matter so much on a level with such a low ratio of enemies:allies, but later in the game giving him the weapon that’ll do best against the most enemies might be important. This is also why characters like Eirika, who are stuck with one weapon type, are at a disadvantage. Gilliam... not so much, since his defence is so high, and he can get other stuff when he promotes.
That was Franz doubling, by the way. That axe guy moving up is a bit of a problem for lance!Franz, but we’ll be fine.
Our turn again! Eirika heals that 1 HP she got from the level-up by glowing, as you do. You can see those enemy reinforcements down in the corner there. Forgot to screencap them when they arrived, but they won’t be much trouble. Sometimes these guys can appear in the worst places, though, and on defensive levels you can get a
lot of strong reinforcements constantly coming at you.
Check the Soldier and Fighter attack ranges...
Move Franz so he’s only in the Fighter’s range, equip sword FOR SCIENCE! And I’ll end the turn there. Slow and steady wins the race and all that.
[NOTE: Sorry if I come across as a bit patronising with things like this. I’m trying to get you guys used to the sort of tactics/mechanics of the game, so you can suggest strategies later when there’s more opportunity to plan for this stuff. I’m also shamelessly advertising the Fire Emblem series here, hence me explaining about things you don’t need to know about. Er, apologies if it’s a little boring.]
On the enemy turn, the Fighter hits Franz anyway.
Move Gilliam so those reinforcements can’t get at Franzy-boy, and have Franz finish off that Fighter.
Well... okay... could have been better, but since he doesn’t get Res all that much, it could’ve been a lot worse too.
And on the enemy turn, Eirika kills all of the reinforcements. :-| Missed capping Soldier, but she did get that guy too.
THIS MEANS
...a pretty meh level up, apparently. We won’t be seeing magic units for a while and Eirika tends to do okay at Res, so this is comparatively
worse than Franz’s despite being the same stats. :/
Our turn again! Franz here can’t reach the forest. Since the enemy AI tends to target units with low HP, I don’t want to give that soldier opportunity to attack him from the forest, so he’s two spaces away instead.
Demonstrating the Talk command! Seth has somehow ended up as Mr. Exposition here, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles. [There was more to this conversation, but it’s not important.] Here it’s just to add a bit more to the characters, but later you can use this to recruit people.
(By the way, Franz? You had this guy
and Mister Peerless-Warrior-King on your side.
You still lost the war.)
Checking the Soldier’s range because I don’t want Eirika to killsteal...
Back to our turn again -- Franz is low on HP so we’ll move him out the way and have Gilliam weaken the boss. Eirika’s Rapier is super-effective on this guy, but she doesn’t receive the “it’s not very effective...” in return. I also want to conserve uses of that Rapier, because it’ll be a long time before we get another and it’s already looking quite low. (Every time you hit an enemy, your weapon loses 1 use. Magic tomes lose uses just by
missing.)
Two turns’ worth here. (‘End’ can be used to end a chapter without telling every. Single. Unit. To just ‘Wait’. Not so helpful here, stops you dying of boredom in later chapters.) Gilliam can’t take any more damage without dying and I don’t want to use a vulnerary at the very end of the chapter. Boss should be weakened enough now anywa--
...Oh, for Pete’s sake. 1 point off? Really?
Franz, my man!
I forgot the boss would recover HP from the castle. Normally this wouldn’t make much difference, but since Franz MISSED with his second strike (told you 50s aren’t ones to rely on), we’re right back where we started, and this whole turn was pointless. That’s my fault for trying to be a miser with the Rapier, I guess.
With a 60ish chance of hitting, and having to hit twice, I’m not risking attacking on my turn.
Wait.
Eirika missed her first attack, proving me right. But then she criticalled, making all my manoeuvring of the last turn very, very pointless whilst achieving precisely what I wanted.
So yes, Boss Guy. Those were my exact thoughts.
The Random Number God points and laughs at me sometimes, I swear.
All that’s left is to seize the castle, the goal of the chapter. Even though you have two Lords later in the game, only your main one can do this. This makes no sense, but. Mechanics.
Now for more talky-talky! ...Am I going to hit the image limit soon? >_>;
That’s the problem with these knights, they never say: “Well Excuse Me, Princess!”
Sometimes it just needs to be said.
Tana, if you can’t even recognise your best friend, maybe you shouldn’t be out at the border when your country is being invaded. Just sayin’.
Thanks for worrying about Eirika, though. It’s good to know I’m not the only one.
Oh no wait, she just wants to know how
Ephraim is.
S-Sometimes I think you don’t care about me at all, Tana! :sad:
Random path appeared!
...I just think it’s cute how the sprites walk! :D
Oh boy, I sense story time!
Wait, so you’re using our
survival to get yourself out of trouble with Daddy?
...I don’t know whether to admire that or not.
“Does me more good than the digitalis!” 8D
I’m starting to wonder what qualifies a guy for ‘peerless’ around here.
Let’s hope he doesn’t put Tana in charge of this.
What the--? :-| Okay, how come this guy knows more about Ephraim’s movements
than his own country?
At least there’s one guy around here who doesn’t confuse ‘valiant’ with ‘invincible’.
I’m with the old guy. Your Defence? Remember that? It’s
three.
Then why don’t you have his stats?!
Stop it with the guilt tripping! ;-;
Give in?
Sounds like a plan!
Wait, who?
Moulder the Boulder!
Vanessa the Pegasus... girl... rider... thing.
And Gilliam, who you’ve met.
H-He keeps glaring at me...
Presents? :eek:
PRESENTS!!
Well I don’t know Tana, why don’t
you tell her?
Not anymore. His Dad kinda killed my Dad, you know, it’s just awkward now. :-|
Let’s face it Tana, you don’t want Ephraim to die either, right? (Any bets on what kind of unit she’ll be?)
...
What do you
mean, “you can’t recruit Tana yet”?!
...But we just saved her from Grado soldiers!
B-But she has a crush on my brother!
BUT she’s not suicidal! Anyway, Daddy’s mad at me, remember? Laters~
Well played, Tana. Well played.