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Rabbi Raccoon posted:Gonzalez might get jealous of yet another axe user so let's make him happy by voting for him 11 times. The poor guy has been through so much I want my boy Treck to have a similar shot.
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Jul 4, 2023 20:45
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| # ? Jun 3, 2024 17:22 |
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LPer Choice (Thief) The remaining 10 slots hinge on the answer to a simple question: Do we have the ability to promote Sue right now? If yes: Sue x5, Shin x5 (Yes I'm totally jumping on the "MASSIVELY VOTE ONE/TWO PEOPLE" bandwagon, since Lilina and Elffin have been forced up anyway) SMaster777 fucked around with this message at 00:02 on Jul 5, 2023 |
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Jul 4, 2023 21:06
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SMaster777 posted:The remaining 10 slots hinge on the answer to a simple question: Do we have the ability to promote Sue right now? For the record, the answer to this is yes. We have enough orion bolts and elysian whips for literally every character that uses them. We're also fine on hero crests, with I believe six stockpiled. Not surprising, given that we've only used one so far. However, we've only got one knight crest at the moment, and no guiding rings at all.
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Jul 4, 2023 21:17
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Hum. Saul x3, Sophia x5, Raigh x3 Shamans good. Also, a second healer.
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Jul 5, 2023 00:23
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Hmm. Well, if we're doing multiple votes for one character: Thea (x4) Sophia (x3) LPer's choice (x4)
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Jul 6, 2023 03:33
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Alright, I'm gonna go ahead and call it. Voting is closed! Gonzalez: 12 Trec: 11 Sophia: 9 Dorothy: 7 Sue: 5 Sin: 5 Thea: 4 Saul: 3 Raigh: 3 Lot: 1 Wade: 1 Astolfo: 1 LPer's choice: 15 In an interesting turn of events, only 12 people received any votes at all. Hey, it makes it easy for me to tally everything up. Astolfo has a spot by default, which means Lot and Wade are the only ones on the chopping block. The question is, do I want to bring either of them when I can use my votes to bump somebody else up instead? Honestly, not really. Like, I'm looking at the map right now, and they both get ORKOed by basically every enemy except for the heavy cavs. Dorothy does too for that matter, but she can at least poke stuff at range. Wade and Lot don't really have that option, not if they want to hit consistently anyway. That said, I don't have strong feelings about who to replace them with, and this chapter is straightforward enough that bringing a few underleveled units isn't necessarily a problem in and of itself, so in an effort to maintain the spirit of their votes I'm going to bring back another face we haven't seen in a while: Dieck! That gives us a team of: Roy, Lilina, Elffin, Gonzalez, Trec, Sophia, Dorothy, Sue, Sin, Thea, Saul, Raigh, Astolfo, Dieck
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Jul 7, 2023 02:27
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Woohoo! Go team low-level! (Gonzales, Trec, Sophia, Dorothy, Dieck) Level up so that we never have to use you again!
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Jul 7, 2023 06:23
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 Well, of all the teams we could have put together, this... certainly is one of them. I'm not too worried though. Between the handful of heavy hitters we did bring and the fresh recruits we'll be picking up, we should be able to keep things under control.  For once, we don't need to fill Elffin's inventory up with healing items, torches, or keys. The weapons are for Perceval, the boots are for himself, and the whip is in case Thea needs it before the chapter's over.     Elffin's not the only one holding onto stuff for other people, though. Sue needs to promote, and Saul's going to be using what is apparently the only goddess icon we actually have right now.   First things first: Igrene's here. Let's see what she's about, shall we?    pre:Growths HP 60 Lck 30 Str 35 Def 25 Skl 30 Res 0 Spd 35 Incidentally, remember I mentioned that siege weapons can double? For the tomes this is never really relevant, unless you blow all your cash on entirely too many power gloves at the lategame secret shop. Now that we have a longbow, though... I dunno, can anyone think of a bow user that has both solid speed and enough con that the longbow doesn't completely tank it? Hmm.  HMM. After promotion, Bors and maybe Lot can potentially make this work too, but Gwendolyn is the most natural fit. That said, while this is a very fun gimmick, it's not necessarily the most practical. Generally, enemies that are slow enough to get doubled by the longbow are also tanky enough to survive both hits, so don't expect to get a lot of kills with it on its own. And of course, you're heavily limited by the amount of longbow uses you actually have. Still a great feeling when it pays off, though.     Oh, and here's Perceval and his crew. All the generics have elixirs, which is nice insurance for when we have to keep them alive later.  As a reminder, this is what Perceval looked like back in chapter 13. TBH I don't think there's been any actual changes made to his bases to go with the level bump, all he's benefiting from are the extra levels of hard mode bonuses. Which, well, his growths are bad, but not "5 stat ups in 4 levels" bad. I'll still take the free stats, though.     Anyway, let's go ahead and get started. Elffin is heading north to intercept his knight in shining armor, of course, but otherwise I'm just kind of winging it for these opening turns. In theory we could have Gonzalez and Thea embark on an expedition over the mountains and bypass the map entirely, and I did put them in the best starting positions to do that. With it just being the two of them though, not to mention all the low level units we're babysitting, I think it's better to keep the whole army together.  Thea is still set up to lure down this wyvern, at least.   Okay, this is just embarrassing. My dude, we have not fielded Dorothy since chapter 7, and you're still getting ORKOed by her.     Igrene puts both the steel bow and this merc out of their misery with an unexpected crit.   This leaves me wondering what to do with Trec, who I'd originally planned on giving the kill. Currently, that hero on the right can only reach Sin at melee range. He can actually survive a crit from the killer axe, and obviously 10 damage from the light brand is a nonissue no matter who the hero targets. Two killer axe crits does in fact kill Trec though, so we'll have him hang back a space from where he would've been otherwise.         That's the extent of combat for the turn, so all that's left is to handle the inventory management and move everyone else forward.     More crits. Sure, why not!  The hero doesn't even try for one, though. Lame!   Other enemies that aggro include the entire group surrounding the general and exactly two of these horses.   And Perceval, of course. Might as well get this out of the way before we do anything else.   : You're...!! : Have you forgotten my face?: No... I could never. But it cannot be... The prince... is dead.: ...I understand your confusion. A man who was declared dead stands before your very eyes.: Prince Myrddin! It is you...!: I'm sorry to have put you through such trouble. ...It has already been over a year since the attempt on my life.: Attempt on your life?! I thought Your Highness fell off his horse in an accident.Yeah, because that would totally necessitate faking his death afterwards.  : I was hit with poisoned darts. One to my horse... and one to myself...: No...: Douglas was the first to notice and made it public that I had died. A look-alike corpse was placed in my coffin. It was all an act to make it appear that the assassination had been successful. Douglas entrusted me to his daughter and had me escape to the Western Isles.A thought that's just occurred to me: does the king know the truth? The circumstances around Roartz seizing power would suggest no, but like, why would Douglas keep it secret even from him? I don't think this comes up when we talk to him at the end of the next chapter, since Elffin could potentially be dead for real by now. : Sir Douglas knew all this time...: Even after I escaped west, the poison had me ill for many months. I drifted between life and death for so long that Douglas' daughter nearly lost hope.: ......: The resistance force nursed me back to health. Ironic, isn't it? The resistance, enemy of the nobility, saved the life of the prince of Etruria!: ......: My recovery... was slow. I saw the crimes committed by Etrurian nobles firsthand. I felt so ashamed that I had never noticed while I was on the throne.: Your Highness...: As I aided the resistance, I waited for my chance to return to the mainland. Then along came Roy, and I knew it was time. That is how I ended up here.Storytime over. : My prince... I am thankful beyond words that you are alive.: I am now with the Lycian Army, and my identity must remain hidden. However, if I still have the loyalty you pledged to me in the past...: Until the day I die, my prince. I have only one master, and it is you, Prince Myrddin.  As soon as that scene ends, we pop over to the castle.  : ...drat, I knew he wasn't to be trusted. Very well, I'll go lead our troops from the front lines. You stay here. : Yes sir!  So yeah, recruiting Perceval is what triggers the boss shuffle. I'm gonna hazard a guess that it also happens if you kill him. We'll check out what's changed enemy-wise in a second, but first let's take another look at Perceval himself.    pre:Growths HP 70 Lck 25 Str 30 Def 15 Skl 40 Res 5 Spd 35     Raith has relocated to the top of the map, and he's brought a squad of promoted units with him that are honestly more dangerous than he is for the most part.    Taking his place on the gate is generic soldier guy. Depending on who we'd brought with us today, he'd actually be a real pain in the rear end to deal with. Between his high defense and the runesword, wearing him down with physical units can be a struggle, and with all ranged weapons, most mages won't be able to engage him safely. Fortunately, we've fielded both Raigh and Saul, who can handle him easily.   But that's for the future. Here in the present, we're going to try to eliminate all of these enemies. We might need to leave the valkyrie alive, but that's okay; she and her friend are far enough away from the rest of their group that we won't need to worry about ending up in their range, and she's not killing anyone on her own.       Raigh, Sue, and Dorothy handle the bottom enemies.   Something I forgot to mention last turn: for some reason, the game doesn't know how to draw red squares for player units when they have a longbow in their inventory. I don't really understand what the problem is, since it works just fine for siege tomes.    Anyway, Sin pulls off the crit, so bye-bye valkyrie.     Astolfo does too, though it's not nearly as important. Honestly this was mostly just to get him to 20.     And then Trec... also crits? Sure, why the hell not?   Circling back around to the other cavaliers for a moment, I briefly consider moving Thea up to lure this one in. Until I see the weapon he's wielding, that is.   Instead she'll just hang out here to get healed by Lilina.   Somehow I convinced myself that Gonzalez would be able to get this kill with the devil axe? That's OK, we'll just let Roy soften up the wyvern first.   Or he could crit too! Cool, I guess???   So uh, remember those weapons I had Elffin bring along to give to Perceval? Good, because it's going to be several more turns before I do! (Not that it ends up mattering. He never actually sees any combat iirc.)   Last order of business is this village.  : Here, I'll give you this. Please rescue her. Our priest always had this tome with him. ...He was taken to the castle, too, but he never returned.      On enemy phase, Raith and friends start their advance, as do the rest of the southern cavs. Otherwise, it's all the same enemies that were already moving.   With any luck, we can stay far enough ahead of these guys that keeping them alive won't even come close to being an issue.   And it's back around to us. Dispatching the remaining cavs should still be fairly simple, but between the general and the archer, we do need to be slightly careful who we leave in range.   The first two kills go to Gonzalez and Igrene.   Sin could take care of the last one easily, but I'm trying to math out a way to feed him to one of our unpromoted units instead.     This is what I eventually decide on. Thea, for her part, seems bound and determined to never actually gain that last point of speed.     All that's left is to pull Trec out of danger and get him healed up.     Two small pieces of business to take care of while we're moving the rest of the army forward. First is Astolfo's promotion.   Second, Sue is just close enough to reach this house.  : I bet they're all savage killers. They probably have no conscience at all.Wow, what an rear end in a top hat. I could forgive how over the top this is if there was an actual hint here on how to recruit Garret, but nothing about it is really screaming "bring Lilina."       Speaking of Garret...   : What do we do, Boss? : The armies are gonna loot the villages. We better get to 'em first.: All right, Boss!: Just don't hurt anybody who isn't askin' for it. Got it?: Yeah, yeah... : If anything happens to the villagers, we can just say the armies did it....Is Garret missing an eye? How have I never noticed that before?   You'll have to forgive me for not bothering to take a look at the stats on Garret and his... friends? They're not really that big a deal in the grand scheme of things. What is a big deal is all the enemies right in front of us.   There's two main issues at play here. First, the list of units we have that can reliably ORKO the myrmidons (and the general) is quite short. This means we'll need to devote a lot of manpower in order to clear out the whole group. At the same time though, we can't leave too many people exposed afterwards, because Raith and his entourage are lying in wait behind them. There's probably a decent argument to be made for delaying Perceval's recruitment by a turn or two so the waves of enemies are more spread out. What can I say though, I like to live on the edge.     There is one piece of good news. If we have to leave any enemies alive, and we probably will, the two myrmidons in the back are conveniently also the least dangerous ones, weapon-wise.  So let's start making a plan. Step one: Is there anybody back here that can contribute if we have Elffin play for them?     Yes! With his help, Raigh elminates the general.   Saul helps out too, giving Astolfo a little extra breathing room.         Next we're going to go roughly in order of least to most reliable kills. Gonzalez and Sue both succeed, but Dorothy fails extra hard.   Igrene and Lilina clean up the leftovers.   Now for a stretch goal. Sin can't pull it off, and it's only afterwards that I realize Roy could've just handled it on his own.   Which is awkward, because having Sin available to help shuffle people around would be a big help right now. My original plan was to have Thea and Trec rescue chain Astolfo out of danger while also blocking the myrmidon from reaching Lilina, but I didn't bother to count squares beforehand. Not only can neither of them get back to the space next to Lilina after rescuing Astolfo, they can't even get themselves back to safety without also picking up either Gonzalez or Sue.       Maybe we can still salvage this? First let's double check that Roy's okay to stand where he is. I think if all three enemies went for him we might be in trouble, but he's likely to dodge at least once, and just Raith and the great knight aren't quite enough do him in.   On his own, the myrmidon is only really a threat to Lilina. However, she does survive one hit, barely, and as we saw earlier she OHKOs in return. So actually we can leave her alone.     That just leaves Astolfo to worry about. Here's the solution I eventually decide on, with a brief interlude to swap Sue to a lighter weapon. I'm never happy about leaving units rescued at the end of the turn, but it gets the job done.   We still have a couple people left to move in the back, but let's skip ahead and bring on the enemies!   : I don't know why you would attack us.  That's Roy's survival assured.     And Lilina managed to not gently caress things up either. Looks like we're in the clear!  Yeah, nice try buddy.     Here's our new situation. Fortunately Garret is still far enough away that we don't have to worry about him yet, giving us free rein to go all out on Raith's squad.     Perceval's still a bit too far away to reach the action, but he can at least take Astolfo off Trec's hands. (Also I finally remember to give him those weapons.)   Saul continues sticking to what he knows best. He'll get to attack someone eventually, I swear!     First blood goes to Raigh, who gives no fucks about light blades.     Igrene and Dorothy team up to finish off Raith.  : She isn't human... Why... do you seek her...? To use her power...? Gah...!  These are the exact stats she needs to stay vaguely relevant, but some skill would be nice so we're not relying on those incredibly shaky hit rates from her.     Another tag team from Sue and Trec.   While Thea gets one all to herself.       Finally we have the payoff for moving Sophia way back at the start of the turn. Note that I am once again spending a basilisk use on a non-flier to ensure she actually hits.  That leaves Dieck as the only one who hasn't had a chance to participate. Don't worry, he'll get his moment later.     Oh no, they're almost to the village, whatever shall we do.    Sure would be a shame if we flipped their boss...  : What? Who are you? : Why are you attacking the villages?: Excuse me? Who d'you think you are?: I asked you a question. Tell me why you're attacking the villages!: "Why?" I guess it's yer fault, really.It's always a little weird when this series tries to make gestures towards the root causes of theft and banditry. : Our fault?: Yep. You idiots make war, and poor folk like me resort to raidin' to survive.Like, the characters making the point are always basically correct, but it's hard to reconcile that with the way bandits get depicted at literally all other times. : We fight to help people like you.: D'you know how many times I've heard that? This is reality, kid. You all say yer tryin' to help, but it's all hot air and empty promises. If yer gonna say somethin' like that, then prove it. You don't even know what's goin' on. Now get outta my way.Thracia's a fairly notable exception, I guess. That's not really a tangent we need to go on right now, though. : ...No.: Listen, I ain't playin' games with you. If ya don't get outta here, I'll do somethin' we'll both regret...: I won't move. Kill me if you will.Anyway, Lilina's got guts, I'll give her that. : What...?: If I let you pass, then I too have said nothing but hot air. I tell the truth! We fight to help the people.: Heh heh... You... I've never met anyone so naive as you.: Do you... laugh at me...?: Still, you've moved this old raider's heart.: Does that mean...?: Yep. You win. I'll stop lootin'. But let me fight with you. Show me firsthand that yer true to yer words.: Thank you. After being with us for a while, I'm positive you will understand.: Well, ya certainly seem confident at least. I'm Garret. And you are...?: Lilina.: Lilina? It's a pleasure to make yer acquaintance, milady. Have you ever noticed that every potential berserker in this game has a name starting with G? Weird.    pre:Growths HP 80 Lck 50 Str 50 Def 20 Skl 40 Res 0 Spd 20 I actually kind of suspect it might have been deliberate? This way you don't feel so bad about skipping him, in case you haven't been using Lilina and don't feel like trying to drag her through this chapter. By the same token, I imagine part of the reasoning behind Lilina's insane promotion bonuses is to make sure she can pull her weight here, even if she's relatively untrained or hasn't been turning out.         Garret's former companions go down without any trouble. Also, a special shoutout to Thea for finally capping her speed, with style.     : But so have the hearts of the people. I only hope they don't have to fight against each other...Now that we have some downtime, let's finish checking in on the villagers.    : It can repair your weapons, spell tomes, and staves. Just about the only thing it can't repair is itself. It'll wear down every time you use it, so wield it wisely. I wonder... If you hacked yourself a second hammerne, could they repair each other and give you infinite durability?!?    Gonna be honest, we don't really need any of this. Heck, we can't even use the divine we already have! I think I pick up a mend staff or two, but that's it.     Now to move everyone up and end the turn, with Garret positioned to lure down one of the remaining wyverns.   My intent was just to soften him up, but I may have momentarily forgotten that Garret is, in fact, a berserker.      In other news, look how nicely this group of horses lined up for us!   I think we can kill them all. First though, Sue is going to rush past and take out the other wyvern. He may have thought he was safe, but 3 range bows say otherwise.   Alright, here goes. Horses 1 and 2 fall to effective damage,   3 to an unnecessary crit,     4 to a team up,   and 5 to more effective damage, not that Roy really needed it.  All that remains now are the enemies immediately surrounding the castle. They're still a fair distance away, so we're going to skip ahead ~one and a half turns.   With a quick pause to get this conversation out of the way.   : General Roy. I wish to join your cause. Will you accept me? : Absolutely! We're honored to have someone of your ability. But why the sudden change of heart?: ...Must I answer that question?: No, I won't force you if you have reason not to tell.: Forgive me. I shall tell you when the time comes.We know Roy already at least suspects the truth, but it's nice of him not to break kayfabe.    And we're back! So basically, I've been having Elffin play for Dieck every turn in an effort to get him up to the action. Ideally I'd like to have stalled another turn or two, but hanging out at the edge of the enemies' range was enough to get some of them to aggro, so we need to make our move now. Dieck still can't reach anyone as is, but Elffin solves that problem.     The other problem is making sure he doesn't die afterwards. The two paladins stayed put, which means our options for dealing with them are limited. The left one only has a light brand for a ranged option, and conveniently there's spaces Dieck can attack from where that's all he has to worry about. The right one, however, is more of an issue.  Thea's the obvious solution here, but she can't quite get the kill on her own. And even if she could, from her current position she can't reach him with the wing spear without also putting herself in range of the boss. I didn't run the exact numbers, but I'm guessing she can just barely take a hit from him. Which would be great, if it weren't for the other paladin.     This is where our handy dandy longbow comes in. I actually slightly messed up the order of operations here in the moment; I had wanted to try and feed the kill to Dorothy instead.   After seeing her hit rate though, I'm glad I didn't. It would have sucked to commit Thea to the plan only for the paladin to end up surviving after all.     Anyway, now we can turn our attention back to the top of the map, where you might be wondering why I wasted Garret's turn on a coinflip.       It's because he and Astolfo specifically needed to go first in order to make room for Dieck and Elffin. There, now everyone has contributed. (except Perceval  )    As for the rest of the enemies... Well, I'm sure there was probably still a way to kill all of them, but I hosed up the math and that mercenary gets to live with literally one HP as a result.     Does this ruin Dieck's chances of survival? Surprisingly, no! He too gets to live with literally one HP.   Next turn, Thea finishes clearing the field with an unexpected crit.     It's actually pretty annoying, and not just because I wanted to feed the kill to someone else. Look at all that wasted experience! ...And the level's bad too I guess, but you can't be picky when you have that many capped stats already.   Fast forwarding again a bit, it's time to deal with the "boss." I'm... kind of surprised we haven't seen any more reinforcements, there's some awfully conspicuous forts on the map. Maybe we're just ahead of the pace? Whatever.   I don't bother doubling back to sell this, so I guess whoever gets to go to the secret shop next chapter is bringing it with them.   Saul... doesn't fare quite as well as I'd like tbh, but Raigh's got a pretty good matchup. We'll park him here and let the general make the first move.     Meanwhile, we do have one other piece of business to take care of. That sure is a loving statline!    Have an Elffin level too, why not?     All according to plan so far...     You'd better believe it's another surprise crit! Raigh just can't resist the urge to show off.   We're out of guiding rings right now btw, so uh, maybe don't vote for him next time.  And that's it! See, this chapter wasn't so bad.    : I believe you owe Lord Roy a thank you, young lady.Wait, what were we doing again? Oh right, Fae's here.  : Easy, Merlinus.  : I just wanted to see the outside world... : Do you know how much trouble you've caused?Merlinus kinda sucks for real, ngl. : But... but... I'm never, ever allowed outside! The elder says I have to remain hidden... I'm always alone... locked up in my room...: ......: Lord Roy, what shall we do?: ...You could have been killed. Do you understand how much worry and trouble you've caused?: Yes... I'm sorry...: Truly?: Yes... Sniff...: All things considered, I think we have no choice but to take you with us.: Really?!: Are you sure?As usual, Igrene no longer gets any input because, you guessed it, she could be dead! : The enemy might already know about her now. If that's true, she'll be safer with us than returning unguarded to Arcadia.: Hurray! : You mustn't run off alone anymore. Do you promise?: Yes! I pinky swear!We have officially obtained our murderchicken.   : We shall prepare for further attacks from the revolutionaries.: Yes, please do.: We found this in the castle. Please take it. General Perceval, please... Save Etruria.: I will. Count on it.: Yes, sir!  Normally this is where things would end, but we've got another hack original scene coming at us in 3... 2... 1...   What could we be doing back in Pherae? And who is this mysterious great knight approaching the castle?     I'll come right out and say it: I really don't like the dumb chinstrap beard they gave Lowen. It's probably the only portrait edit in Project Ember that I'm not a fan of.  : I have some off days, but overall I think I've been feeling better. : I see. I'm confident that it will only get better from here. That aside, what have you requested my presence for, my lord?: It's about Roy. I've received word of his army's latest movements. I believe he is on his way to Aquleia to contend against Bern's forces, as well as the corrupt Etrurian nobles. I'd like for you to go to his aid.Script has a typo here in "received", btw. They forgot the all important "I before E, except after C."  : Aquleia, the Etrurian capital? It sounds like that will be a fierce battle...: Exactly. It's a difficult situation. We do need to maintain our defenses over here in Lycia, but still, I want to help my son as much as I can. I'm sure that a veteran knight experienced as yourself will be more than enough.: Understood. You trust in me will not be misplaced, my lord! On your leave, I shall make my way over there immediately!: Thank you, Lowen. Now, go and show them the power of the knights of Pherae!I'll be honest, If I was coming up with another FE7 character to add to FE6's campaign, Lowen probably wouldn't be my first choice. He makes a decent amount of sense though, especially if the goal is to add another great knight to the roster.  : I believe that's somewhat far to the northwest. I'd better hurry so I can make it on time!  Next time: He does not, in fact, make it on time.
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Aug 18, 2023 00:05
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Okay Project Ember is officially awesome. Lowen, my man. He better be good.
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Aug 18, 2023 01:30
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I’ve always wondered if it’s pronounced Ha-murne, Hammer-nay, Hammer-nuh, or Ha-mare-nay. Or some other pronunciation, even! I think in JP it’s just the Hammer Staff, if I’m reading the wiki’s katakana right, so that’s no help. That chinstrap is pretty bad, though, I agree. It’d probably look less bad if he had a more natural hair color, but thin beards in anime hair colors are rough.
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Aug 18, 2023 08:17
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Pegasus Knight with capped strength, jesus christ
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Aug 18, 2023 13:18
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I think Beard Lowen predates PE; I remember it in like, Elibean Nights and such.
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Aug 19, 2023 04:59
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Nihilarian posted:Pegasus Knight with capped strength, jesus christ Did we feed her stat boosters? We must have, I remember her suffering the usual "no strength" pegasus knight problem with her first few levels.
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Aug 19, 2023 05:04
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Faillen Angel posted:I think Beard Lowen predates PE; I remember it in like, Elibean Nights and such. Oooooh that's another good hack. I had a lot of fun with that one
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Aug 19, 2023 05:18
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Torrannor posted:Did we feed her stat boosters? We must have, I remember her suffering the usual "no strength" pegasus knight problem with her first few levels. Nah, she's been pretty much dead on her strength average the whole time we've had her, that's just Thea for you.
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Aug 19, 2023 05:43
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I like Sue’s new hat after promoting. Also dear god Thea is a beast now
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Aug 19, 2023 21:47
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  Aquleia is also the largest and wealthiest city on the continent. Strap in folks, we've got a lot of dialogue to get through today.  the revolutionary forces are fortified in Aquleia.  the revolutionaries, forcing them inside the castle.     Good, gently caress that guy.      : How have they come so far?!I don't know why you're surprised by this, you specifically told Flaer you didn't actually expect him to stop us, and haven't taken any direct action against us since then.   : Head Wyvern General Murdock is here!: He is?! Th-then posthaste! Send an escort! Ensure he receives every hospitality...: He is already here...Murdock's literally about to chew you out for blowing us off, even.  : S-Sir Murdock... What a pleasant surprise! What brings you all the way from Ilia?  : I want an explanation for this embarrassment. : Then allow me to explain. Princess Guinivere has escaped yet again. Flaer, your lieutenant, has failed in the Western Isles and is dead. And finally, perhaps most egregious of all, you have neglected your mission to capture the village in Nabata, despite your specific orders directly from King Zephiel's mouth! This is inexcusable, Narcian! Explain yourself!Yeah Narcian, explain yourself!  : Oh, th-that... Well, you see, sire, there have been many complications, so I took it upon myself to-Choosing to post through it is a bold strategy, I'll admit. : Hold your tongue. That's enough. I've orders from the king. I am to revoke your title of Wyvern general.: What?!: You are to be replaced by Galle. : Allow me one more chance!!: ...The Lycian Army approaches fast. Show your worth and stop them in their tracks. If you succeed, perhaps the king will reconsider.: Sir Murdock...: Narcian... Don't fail the king, or me, again. Oh no! The consequences of my actions! : And I'm to be replaced by Galle of all people...! Never! I will not allow it! B-but what is left for me to do...? No...! My status and reputation... Everything is crumbling down!  : ...Wait. Melady's younger brother is stationed in this castle... And Melady's the one who helped the princess escape! Ah-ha! I can say he was leaking information to the enemy! What a flawless plan! Hm hm hm hm...Ah yes, when posting through it fails, there's always the backup plan of pinning the blame on someone else. The master of delegation strikes again! : I'm sorry General Narcian... What was that?: Hm? Oh. You know Melady's younger brother, don't you?TFW you're so busy scheming you forget there's someone else in the room with you. : You mean Sir Zeiss?: That's him. Zeiss. I have reason to suspect he's leaking information to the Lycian Army. Bring him here.: What?! I can't believe that Sir Zeiss would ever do such a thing... : Do as you're told and bring him before me!  Jeez, this castle is just crawling with assholes, isn't it?  : If we're captured, we will be tried as traitors! Not you though, Douglas, you're cool.  : If you had eliminated the Lycian Army at the Isles as you were supposed to... : B-but Lord Roartz...! ...No! This is neither the time nor place to argue, my lord! We must make our escape quickly!I like how even these two literal traitors are more capable of not pointing fingers than Narcian is. : But escape to where...?: ...Let us turn to Bern! This was all their plan to begin with...: Y-yes, of course! We have proved ourselves useful. They're sure to repay the favor.This is a great plan that cannot possibly go wrong. /s  : Er... Well, Bern probably won't harm him. King Zephiel's mother was an Etrurian, after all. Douglas, I suggest you flee as well... : And I suggest you shut your mouth. I only fought alongside you because King Mordred's life was at stake. I do not intend to go along with your plans to the end.: Hmph! Unbending as always. Suit yourself. Arcardo, we escape now!  And so they gently caress off to... well, we don't actually know where yet. Depends on how the route split shakes out.  : Fleeing with their tails between their legs... I can't imagine it took much for Bern to seduce them. They'll meet their end at the hands of the Lycian Army before long... When Prince Myrddin returns... Etruria will be whole again. But until then... I shall continue to fight for the king. My loyalty and honor as Great General depend upon it!This is a dumb sentiment that's barely a step removed from Camus style bullshit, but I do like how it sets up a contrast in where the loyalties of the three Etrurian Generals ultimately lie. Cecilia's are with Etruria as a nation, so she never goes along with the coup in the first place. Perceval's are with the prince, so all it takes to turn him is learning that Myrddin is alive. But Douglas's are with the king, which has led us to the current situation. Anyway, we can finally check in with Roy now.   : Our information says that the revolutionaries are stationed inside.I mean, where else would they be? : I thank you for your help, Father Yoder. Thanks to the church, we were able to avoid a battle in the city.: No, it is I who must thank you. The church has been persecuted by the revolutionaries. Were it not for you, we would have been forced out already.: Persecuted? Why?: That is most likely because of our investigation into Bern's dragons. Before she ascended to heaven, our founder, Saint Elimine, said these words: "Allow not dragons to return to this realm, for that would bring suffering to many." That's why we must do everything we can to send the dragons back to their world.In a rare reversal, FE7 actually makes this line make more sense. It does beg the question of exactly how common knowledge of the Dragon's Gate is, but Yoder certainly seems like someone who would know about it. : ...The revolutionaries are with Bern, so that explains the persecution of the church.: Indeed. We have discovered something interesting as well. The return of the dragons is tied to the Fire Emblem, Bern's greatest treasure. We don't yet know how, so that's why I sent Saul and Dorothy to investigate.: Hmm.: Lord Roy, you must stop the revolutionaries. If you would allow me to give you one more piece of advice, try talking to some of the troops. I'm certain many of them were forced into the army against their will.Weird advice imo, at least in the context of gameplay. Out of the several recruitables in this chapter, it only really describes Douglas, and that's already been made abundantly clear even without Yoder pointing it out to us. Hell, talking to him doesn't even do anything! In vanilla. : Of course. Thank you again.: Saint Elimine's blessings upon you, Lord Roy.Speaking of gameplay:   This map feels like a bit of a step back, difficultywise. The enemies are fairly scattered, and relatively few of them are promoted compared to the last couple of chapters. It's kind of similar to chapter 8 in that we'll be spending a lot of time walking rather than fighting.   Also like chapter 8, there's been some adjustments made to the map, though they're not nearly as impactful here. Both of these cracks are new. The first one would be more interesting if 3 range bows didn't exist, but as is we can easily snipe both the starting bolting mage and any reinforcements that might pop up from the stairs. As for the second one, I guess it gets you into the throne room a couple turns earlier? I dunno how useful that really is, though.    On the throne, of course, is Narcian, in all his smarmy glory. Dealing with him is mostly just a matter of remembering to steal the Delphi shield. Good loving luck outpacing his healing if you don't.   His entourage honestly aren't all that interesting. One of the generals does have a runesword though, letting us do a side by side comparison between the garden variety and Narcian's souped up version.       Outside of the throne room, the most noteworthy enemies are the three bishops. They all have long range capabilities, whether it be damage, healing, or status effects. We'll need to keep an eye on them.     There's a few more stealables out there in addition to Narcian's loot. Conveniently they're all more or less on the same path, so we can get by with just one thief and some keys if we need to. A second one might help depending on where Cath appears though, and I genuinely don't know where that is.     Douglas and the two assholes are up in this corner, and their inventories aren't even trying to pretend that they'll be sticking around. ...We'll come back to Douglas later.   It's been a while since we've seen any soldiers! If you're wondering how their stats stack up these days, well. They're big sacks of HP that hit fairly hard, but otherwise they're still pretty terrible.    Last thing I'll note is that even though the only bows on the map are the two snipers in the treasure room, there are quite a few aircaliburs running around, so we still need to be cautious with any fliers that we bring.  However, we have another matter to attend to besides perusing the map. Fae is unique in FE6 in that she's just dumped into your roster between chapters rather than joining after you start. That means you do need to vote for her if you want her to come along on this one.     pre:Growths HP 130 Lck 80 Str 60 Def 60 Skl 55 Res 60 Spd 50 That said, Fae being overpowered doesn't bother me the same way it does with the likes of Trec and Thea, because it's not like Fae is really directly competing with other characters. This is true both in the sense that nobody else is using her dragonstone, as well as that she's literally required for endgame. And I don't just mean "must be alive" like in vanilla, she's actually a required deployment for chapter 24 and final now. That being the case, we should probably use her, and I reserve the right to force her in every once in a while if she starts falling behind too much. Which gives us a perfect segue into... ________________________ Vote   Current Stats Today's vote is going to be somewhat... complicated, but most of it only matters on my end. Here's our list of relevant concerns: Hugh: A Roy recruit. I'm just mentioning him to be thorough. Zeiss: For whatever reason, the hack adds a conversation for Roy to recruit Zeiss, so we don't necessarily need to bring Melady. It might still help if Roy's occupied elsewhere, though. Thieves: As mentioned, we only really need one, but I wouldn't say no to both. Douglas: It's hard to find good information on how exactly Douglas works, even in vanilla. For instance, afaict Serenes Forest makes no mention of the fact that he won't attack Larum/Elffin. I'm not even sure if that courtesy is reserved only for those two, or if it also extends to everyone else that can talk to him. That list includes Perceval, Cecilia, and Klein. (Yes, Klein. Serenes doesn't mention this either!) Technically all that matters is that Douglas survives the chapter, so we don't need any of them, but I'm going to require someone from that list regardless so I can show off a specific change the hack makes. This is going to operate by the same rules as thief requirements; i.e. vote for whoever you want, and I'll bump someone up afterwards if necessary. Route split: This is the big one. As a reminder for how it all works, whether we go to Ilia or Sacae is determined by the total experience gained by the relevant characters while under our control. Absolute level does not matter. That means we need to look back at what levels everyone joined at in addition to where they're at now:         As things stand right now, the nomads are ahead by about five levels (six if promotions count as a level's worth of experience). Which sounds like a lot, but depending on how votes go, Thea could still easily make up that ground if we let her. So let's not leave anything to chance. Here's how this is going to work: in addition to your normal deployment vote, pick a route. If Ilia wins, Shanna and Thea will be required for both this chapter and the gaiden following it, while Sue and Sin will be banned for the same. And vice versa if Sacae wins. (Obviously in that case it'd be overkill, but keeping everything symmetrical makes it easier for me to keep track of.) This is of course going to subtract two slots from the deployment vote, and it goes without saying that you shouldn't use any of your votes on these four characters. Am I going to regret opening the door to having to bring Shanna along at least twice more? Probably. TL;DR: DO vote for 14 slots (including a thief and someone to talk to Douglas, if you care) DO vote for either Ilia or Sacae DO NOT vote for any of Shanna, Thea, Sue, or Sin 48 hours, as per usual Cattail Prophet fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Aug 24, 2023 |
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Aug 24, 2023 02:20
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LPer Choice (Thief), LPer Choice (Douglas Recruiter), Sacae. Lilina x6, Fae x6. ...I think that adds up. (I was totally gonna vote up Sue and Shin again, so consolidating them into Sacae sorta works out there.). If the math is off then whatever's left after Thief/Doug/Sacae, its 50/50 Lilina/Fae.
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Aug 24, 2023 02:59
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Both Thieves, all the Douglas talkers, Melady, Fae. Any remainder is LPer choice. As for route split, I'll toss a coin... Ilia.
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Aug 24, 2023 03:24
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Elffin, Bartre, Astolfo, Garret, Cecilia, Fir, Debias, Lilina, Dorothy, Treck and the rest LPers choice and lets see what changes Project Ember made to Sacae
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Aug 24, 2023 03:39
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NyoroEevee posted:Both Thieves, all the Douglas talkers, Melady, Fae. Any remainder is LPer choice. voting the same for all of this. my coinflip also came up as ilia!
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Aug 24, 2023 04:03
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Both thieves, Cecilia, Melady, Fae, Lilina, Clarine, Gwen, Gonzales, and sure, here you go, have some votes cause barely anyone in this cast is memorable. Let's go to Ilia.
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Aug 24, 2023 07:27
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Lillina, Elen, Gonzales, All else INCLUDING ROUTE LPer’s choice I don’t really have a preference on route, I’m just happily along for the ride (presumably on Merlinus’s wagon somewhere.)
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Aug 24, 2023 08:14
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"Fuckin' Nomads everywhere" has lived rent free in my head for far too long for just this moment so I'm voting for Sacae
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Aug 24, 2023 14:13
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Gonzalez, Geese, Garrett, Treck, Wade, Lot, Bartre, Zelot and let's go Sacae!
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Aug 24, 2023 16:23
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All lpers choice. But Sacae for route, please
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Aug 24, 2023 17:08
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Debias, the fist of Ostia, Bors, Barthe, Wendy, chad, astolfo, Geese, Gonzales, Klein, Sophia, Cecilia, Percival, Clarine, Miledy. Nomads everywhere
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Aug 24, 2023 17:12
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Both Thieves, Fae, Elen, Wendy, Saul, Cecilia, Lilina, Gwen, Gonzales, Geese, Astolfo, Fir, Clarine. Off to Sacae with the gang is my vote.
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Aug 24, 2023 17:32
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All your choice. No route preference.Cattail Prophet posted:
Obviously you want the Delphi Shield regardless, but couldn't you just smack him with a Wyrmslayer for a relatively easy kill if you couldn't steal it for whatever reason? Or Fae, for that matter?
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Aug 25, 2023 04:01
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Sure, and with overwhelming enough offense it'd work decently well. (The wyrmslayer anyway, getting Fae enough levels before the end of the map that she doesn't get exploded on the counter is by no means a sure thing.) Bows just streamline the process since you don't have runeblade hits slowing down your progress. E: Going for a wyrmslayer kill presents other challenges too. The usual method for mitigating draining weapons is to let the enemy make the first move so you can get in 2-3 attacks before they can heal any of the damage. Because PE's wyrmslayer reverses the weapon triangle though, doing that here opens you up to getting wrecked by Narcian's brave axe. In essence, you really need your wyrmslayer user to be fast enough to double Narcian so you can make progress on player phase alone. Our only characters that can do that atm are Roy and Chad. Now that I think about it though, Lilina probably comes pretty close to nuking him in one hit with Forblaze, lol. Double edit: Yeah, checked the numbers and that's a clean OHKO as long as she doesn't miss. Same goes for anyone wielding Forblaze, for that matter. Even a Lugh that somehow never gained magic all the way to promotion would still have enough. Cattail Prophet fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Aug 25, 2023 |
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Aug 25, 2023 04:35
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We should go to Ilia because Shanna needs training. We'll bring along everyone who wants to talk to Douglas and Zeiss Perceval, Klein, Cecilia, Elffin, Melady Thieves are convenient, and we should show off Fae. Fae, Chad, Astolfo For the remaining 6 votes, we should baby up some of our lower level people. Let's go Lot x3, Wade x3! Lot 12.17 Wade 12.70 Sophia 13.45 Dorothy 13.77 Rutger 13.79 Noah 15.79 Bors 15.82 (Everyone else is level 16+, or Shanna 14.78)
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Aug 25, 2023 05:54
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Voting is closed! Fae: 11 Lilina: 10 Astolfo: 8 Cecilia: 7 Chad: 6 Melady: 5 Gonzalez: 5 Elffin: 4 Perceval: 4 Klein: 4 Gwendolyn: 4 Wade: 4 Lot: 4 Clarine: 3 Geese: 3 Bartre: 2 Garret: 2 Fir: 2 Debias: 2 Trec: 2 Elen: 2 Dorothy: 1 Zelot: 1 Bors: 1 Barthe: 1 Sophia: 1 Saul: 1 LPer's choice: 62 And as for the route split: Ilia: 4 Sacae: 7 LPer's choice: 2 That part's easy at least, we are officially going to Sacae. This is gonna be new content for me too, so that should be fun. As for the rest, there's a little bit of love for almost everyone, but the votes have fallen squarely on the side of MAXIMUM TALKING. Wade and Lot also managed to sneak their way in again, and hell, why not, I'll leave the results alone this time. Between the soldiers and the knights, this is a relatively decent map for them. I do need to pick between Clarine and Geese for the final spot, though. We're kind of axe heavy already, and Wade and Lot will need to hog most of the good ones to keep up, so it's gonna be Clarine from me. (Also she apparently has battle dialogue with Narcian, which sounds hilarious. I can't promise we'll see it, but I'll certainly try.) That gives us a team of: Roy, Sue, Sin, Fae, Lilina, Astolfo, Cecilia, Chad, Melady, Gonzalez, Elffin, Perceval, Klein, Gwendolyn, Wade, Lot, Clarine
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Aug 26, 2023 03:46
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Thank god I can finally stop voting up Sue and Shin every single map to try to influence Sacae now, lol. (It'll be nice to see an LP actually do that for once)
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Aug 26, 2023 07:58
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Ilia would've been a great place to bust out Sue and Shin. Now we're likely to draft Shanna in the middle of Sacae.  3 cheers for Lot and Wade!
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Aug 26, 2023 09:46
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  Fair warning: I've been sitting on these screenshots for like a month and a half before even starting to work on the update, so some of my thought processes might be a bit hazy at this point. I'll try my best though. Anyway! I asked for at least one person to talk to Douglas, and the thread has given me literally all of them. I'm especially glad that Elffin specifically made it in, because truth be told I wasn't 100% sure going into the chapter that the thing I want to show off actually works for the rest of them (it does, fortunately), and it would've sucked to have to come back here after the voting and say "um, actually..." Also, it didn't really dawn on me until a couple turns in, but between that and picking Sacae, this is by far the highest number of promoted units we've deployed so far, with only Gonzalez and the axebros bucking the trend.   One nice thing about Fae is that much like Elffin, she can serve as a repository for any miscellaneous items we need to bring in. For this chapter though, that mostly means empty slots, so the thieves have room to dump the stuff they steal.   The only other inventory management worth noting is that our stock of bows is once again running low, to the point that Sin is actually carrying more swords and the majority of Klein's inventory is down to single digit uses.     Jumping in, here's how our troops are divided, plus a preview of the kind of numbers Fae puts up.   We're not actually doing that, though. Instead this kill goes to Gonzalez, who has three very sad levels in his future now that he's capped speed.   Another reason I'm glad Elffin made it in: if he hadn't, and also Ilia had won, then we wouldn't have been able to immediately kill this bolting mage. Not that letting him attack would be the worst thing in the world, but it's very funny that he gets to do literally nothing.   Entering the castle proper triggers a scene that I'm fairly certain is new. : Go inform the troops waiting in the bottom floor to come out on my signal!: Yes sir! : As soon as they enter the throne room, my brilliant trap will spring! I can already imagine their faces when they're completely surrounded!Thank you for the warning, kind sir! Incidentally, this is why I'm not super enthused about the new crack on the side of the throne room. You really want to have all your ducks in a row before you go rushing in.     But that's still pretty far off. For now, this is the only other enemy in range on this side, so we'll just swap Sin to a sword, heal Gonzalez, and get everyone else moved up.     Likewise, only this mercenary is nearby for the other group. I'm going to be looking for any opportunity I can for the axebros to contribute, and it looks like with a swordreaver/slayer they can both just barely go a round against him.     Neither of them can actually reach the merc, even with Elffin's help, but we can at least put Wade in range, and he's a tempting enough target that the merc might even go for him over Gwendolyn or Roy.   Aggro on this map is kind of weird. This knight moves immediately, as does the merc he's not currently trampling over, but because the door is locked they have to go the long way around, putting themselves farther away from us than if they had just stood still.   Success!   ...Thanks, Wade.   This guy is also here.  This is Douglas. He has to go the long way around too, but at least he's not making negative progress.     All of the promoted magic users also aggro immediately, which is... kinda surprising, honestly? You'd think at least the two in the throne room would stay put, but if they want to break ranks and make themselves easier to kill I certainly won't complain.   Zeiss time!    : Why did you summon me? : Zeiss, you must hide.: ...What do you mean? The enemy is before us!: Listen to me. General Narcian has given the order for you to be taken prisoner.: What?! Does he think that I have betrayed Bern?!: He needs a scapegoat for his failures. He says that you worked with Melady to leak information to the enemy.To be fair, we have been using the power of video games to know about things we shouldn't. Like the trap Narcian set! : With my sister? I don't even know where she is.: Melady has apparently joined the Lycian Army alongside the princess.: Melady turned to the enemy?! I don't believe it for a second...: Ask her yourself. She is apparently here. Would that I could go with you, but General Murdock ordered me to observe the outcome of the battle. Zeiss, get out while you still can. Talk to Melady.: Sir Galle! I...: I will not make a move until I hear Melady's story.: ......  As per usual, Zeiss is waiting patiently in the corner for us.   Sue!!!    I'm sure there was a reason I didn't try to feed this kill to Wade. Maybe his accuracy was too shaky?     Oh wait, it was probably because of this mage!   True, he can't actually reach the spot where Melady's standing, but I do vaguely remember miscounting squares and thinking he could, even with Astolfo in the way.   I would love to kill this guy with someone else so Sin can actually advance, but alas.   Perceval could've done it I guess, but that's not really any better. Anyway, no more silence staff.   Here's Fae's actual debut. Training her is kind of weird, because you don't necessarily want to feed her kills? She already gets like half a level just from chip damage, especially on promoted units, so it's a bit of a waste compared to letting someone else get the kill instead.     Sometimes her giant crit rate means she ends up with it anyway, though.     And uh, that's it! Chad's set up to counter those fighters, but otherwise we're done.    : What about my money? I haven't been paid yet!Before enemy phase starts though, another new arrival! Unlike Raigh, who for all intents and purposes still started on the map, just in a way that gave him hard mode bonuses, we do in fact have to wait a bit for Hugh to show up now.  (Don't worry, I'll talk about it when we have control again.)     Thief combat!   Bishops being assholes!   Okay, we're back. Pardon me while I quote myself from way back when Lilina joined, sans spoiler bars this time: Cattail Prophet posted:Oh, one more thing. This is a genuine spoiler not just for Lilina but for multiple other characters: There is no way to promote to sage in Project Ember. This is a statement that was phrased very carefully, because as is now obvious, it is not the same thing as saying that there are no playable sages, period. Hugh here starts as one, as does [REDACTED]. And since it's looking like Lugh's not getting promoted this run, I'll be nice and reveal that he goes mage knight instead. Probably not a huge surprise after the class itself showed up, but still. (Watch him start winning votes now just to prove me wrong.) Anyway, I don't think Hugh moves, but we'll be giving him a wide berth regardless out of an abundance of caution.   ...I think I completely forgot about this crack while going over the map last update. Oops. It's much more impactful than the other ones that were added, since it lets us skip this twisty hallway. It also means all the enemies currently trekking over to the right side would double back though, and while I don't care much either way about the generics, personally I'm more than happy to let Douglas keep walking rather than try to deal with him this early. That's just me though, if you approach the chapter differently it could easily be worth it.   Last thing, then I promise we'll start doing stuff again. Remember how I said that longbow doubling usually isn't very practical? There's one notable exception to that: it's great for deleting opposing siege weapon users before they have a chance to start being a nuisance. We aren't in a tough enough spot right now for this to be necessary, but it's something to keep in mind for the future.     Kicking off the turn for real is Astolfo, who doesn't crit, doesn't dodge, and gets a bad level for his trouble. You hate to see it.   Sue crits though! Good for her.     In order to take on this knight, Astolfo needs two things: healing, and a swap to his lancereaver.   And sure, Sue can poke at him too.     On the other side, another kill for Fae, and literally nothing else.   Not amazing damage, but I'll take it.   Purge rear end in a top hat two shots Elffin btw, so this is Lilina's next few turns spoken for unless he pulls off a dodge.   First order of business: Lot's never going to reach the action at this rate, so Melady's going to lend him a helping hand.   The physic bishop has foolishly left himself exposed. Only one left now.     Moving Sue (and Astolfo) lets us finish the rescue chain and feed the knight to Lot. Doing exactly enough damage to kill always feels weirdly satisfying for some reason.     And a second rescue chain lets Lilina do the thing I said she was going to do. I believe this is A staves, so warp is now on the table.     Still no combat on the right side, but the sage and druid are starting to close in. Thanks to some more creative rescuing, everyone is more or less ready to meet them.     Still no dodge, but this time purge rear end in a top hat has made a fatal error.   He put himself in range of Sue. Save the crits for when you actually need them, please!     This does leave her rather exposed, though. Not a huge deal, but I'd like to save this soldier for one of the axebros if I can.   While moving everyone else up, I catch myself before ending Lilina's turn. The other side's in a bit of a hairy situation, and it'll be good to have her on standby to drop a physic if necessary.  The biggest issue here is that the sage has a visible crit rate against... basically everyone, and iirc nobody is quite strong enough to one shot him. Obviously Sin and Klein don't have to worry about that, but if we're avoiding counters, I'd much rather avoid them from the druid's nosferatu and the manakete.   Speaking of manaketes, we've sadly already missed the window where Cecilia can survive a round against them, and Fae very much isn't ready to fight them yet either. Maybe if y'all had voted Cecilia in sooner she'd have gained some bulk by now.   Fae does have one of the best matchups against the sage though, and Gonzalez breaks out the devil axe for some extra accuracy to finish the job.  Avoiding the nosferatu counter... Yeah... If only there was room...  Didn't get the crit I was fishing for, but dodging works too.   Perceval moves in for the kill while also blocking the knight from reaching... Fae, I guess? Nobody else has taken damage, so.     Finally the manakete goes down. Kind of a risky hit rate to be banking on from Cecilia, but meh, it's still early.   Turns out we didn't need Lilina after all.   Ohhh, he had a horseslayer, now it makes sense. Yeah, this could have been bad news if Clarine or Cecilia had ended up in range.   In other news, Douglas is starting to get close. All according to plan.  Okay, now for Astolfo to open this door and- oh right, Elffin still has the lockpick.       What follows is entirely too much shuffling people around to fix that while also letting Gwendolyn advance far enough to tank this whole pack of enemies.   And whichever axebro this is is ready to bait out the soldier.   Meanwhile... look, even if Hugh doesn't move, I'd feel a lot more comfortable entering this hallway if those two generics weren't there.     The easiest way to accomplish that is to snipe them from the other side, and I spend quite a while trying to decide who should attack which target. Both options require two crits to get both kills...   ...but this way gives us higher odds on those crits, plus we would've gotten one kill even with no crits at all.   More Fae chip. HP and speed are the main things we care about on her right now; they're the two stats the dragonstone doesn't boost (plus luck I guess), and the sooner she gets a reasonable HP pool and stops getting doubled, the sooner she can tank reliably.   I could've had Chad start opening chests now, but I didn't, for two reasons. One, my best guess for where Cath spawns is one of the staircases on either side of the throne room, and if it's the one right in front of us I want him nearby to steal her lockpick ASAP.     And two, giving someone else the kill would've prevented us from completing both of these rescue drops. Now everyone is safely out of range!         Gwendolyn laughs at your feeble attempts to kill her! Also I was not expecting Lot to be able to double the soldier. Would've been nice if he'd actually hit both times, but still.   Can he finish the job?   Yep! Although looking at his stats, I'm realizing now that this Lot isn't just underleveled, he's genuinely pretty bad. This is literally the first point of defense he's gained, and that's supposed to be his thing!       I kind of remember putting way more thought into clearing these guys out than I really needed to, considering how easily they went down. Anyway, Roy is breaking away from the group to go talk to Hugh.   Speaking of talking, we're spoiled for choice up here. Let's start with Perceval. : Perceval... I see in your eyes that you have no more hesitation.: Yes, Sir Douglas. That is thanks to you. Once I learned that you saved Prince Myrddin, I regained the will to fight.: Then you fight with the prince. I'm glad to hear it.: What are you going to do, Sir Douglas?: The king is still in the hands of Bern. If I turn to the Lycian Army now, they will take his life.My dude, there is no scenario where this matters. We're in the middle of a battle, nobody's got time to go kill the king. And the battle is literally taking place inside the castle. If the Lycian Army wins, the threat is over. If you switch sides and they lose, you're probably dead without anyone of consequence knowing about your betrayal. Sure, at that point the king is useless as leverage and Bern probably kills him anyway, but get this: that's still true if you die without switching sides. : ......: If you indeed fight with the prince, then that means he has returned. I have no more regrets. If the Lycian Army kills me here, so be it.: Just the answer I expected, Sir Douglas.: You will walk the same path as I, Perceval. Please watch over the prince... and over all of Etruria.: Of course. That is what I live for. Sorry to disappoint you if you thought I was hinting at Douglas now being recruitable just by doing one of these conversations. He's still red and still an idiot. But hey, at least these two seem to understand each other!   Time to ruin that mood.  : Sir Douglas... Why is someone of your stature fighting for the revolutionaries...?: The king's safety takes priority over all. There is nothing more to it than that.: If this continues, Etruria will become a mere puppet of Bern! The king must have dominion over this nation for us to serve him. The path you are on will only lead to Etruria's destruction!: If the nation is doomed to collapse, then so be it. But I will ensure the king's safety!: What...?! Our loyalty is to our people, to our nation! The Etrurian Army exists for the people. The soldiers are not the king's personal bodyguards!: ...... Perhaps you are right, but I do not agree. Cecilia, you must follow your beliefs, as I must follow mine.  Klein is unfortunately just slightly too far away, so he'll have to wait until next turn. Now we're all gonna hang out in this corner. Huh? Run away? Put Douglas to sleep? Why would we do that?   Here he comes! ...Oh. He didn't attack. Weird. Alright, enough playing coy. Back in 14x, I mentioned offhand that the eclipse druid seemed to have his AI set to not be able to move and attack on the same turn. The reason I know that's a thing that can happen is that in Project Ember, talking to Douglas on this map flags him to have the exact same AI. His heart just isn't in it, you know? It makes dealing with him way easier, enough so that putting him to sleep would honestly be overkill.     That's literally it for enemy phase, minus some reinforcements. They're fairly unremarkable, but the hero near Roy's group does have a brave weapon in her back pocket. Maybe they both do, actually? I forget.  Anyway, none of them are Cath, so gently caress it, Chad can start opening chests now... after undoing the inventory shuffling I did offscreen last turn.   Perceval and Sin make short work of this guy. This leaves them open to being attacked by Douglas, but it's fine, they can take it.   Klein can too, which is good, since he can't canto away like the others once he's done talking. : Klein. I have known you since you were but a child. I never expected to fight you like this. : General Douglas, please reconsider! You are the Great General, the highest rank in the Etrurian Army! How can you align yourself with these traitors...?!: ...Klein. I am a soldier.: What...?: Our king's life is at Bern's mercy. I cannot cast away my loyalty and turn to the enemy.: But...: ...There are those who toss away their honor for riches and power. I will not do the same. My loyalty to the king will never falter.: ......: I am an old man, and my time has come. The Etrurian Army belongs to your generation now. I only ask that you lead it as our ancestors have.: General Douglas...: ...Go.  One thing you do need to keep in mind with Douglas is that if you are leaving people in his range, you want to make sure you give him someone to attack that's not at risk of counterkilling him, since he doesn't have the option of moving to find an easier target. Klein, of course, can't counter at all, so we're all clear on that front. This is also where I would've started moving people forward if i were 100% sure that Hugh doesn't move, but whatever.  Speaking of Hugh, we've got a bit of an annoyance on Roy's end. See, this spot is just close enough for Roy to recruit him next turn, and it's even outside of his range just in case he does move.   It is not, however, outside the range of these two generals, and together they can in fact kill Roy. He's probably got a reasonable chance to dodge, but still, not a risk I'm interested in taking.     Instead let's have Roy bait out the manakete with the bullion. There's very limited space for doing this without aggroing these two great knights at the same time, and they also make trying to send a thief in from outside the manakete's range to steal it... difficult, we'll say.   Sue!!! Again!!!   Still, you did your job, which was to give Elffin something productive to do that puts him closer to Roy.       Just clearing out the rest of these reinforcements.   And that's magic capped for Lilina. End turn!   So uh, apparently Douglas has a huge death wish and went for Cecilia instead of the sniper at melee range. Klein's barely even any bulkier than she is! ...Actually yeah, that tracks.   Oh, and the manakete doesn't move. Cool, I guess? There's also another round of reinforcements, but they're exactly the same as the first set.   Anyway, thanks to the power of song we can still recruit Hugh this turn. Huzzah!  : You lead the army that's attacking the castle, right? Do you have any need of an extra mage?: Huh? Well, I guess we could always use more...: You don't say! Then today is your lucky day. Here's a mage for hire. How about it?: You know a mage? Where is he? And not inaccurate, if we were playing base FE6. Vanilla Hugh is pretty dire.  : ......: Hey, don't look at me like that! I'm no slouch with a spell tome. I'm all yours for 10,000 gold!: 10,000?! That seems pretty steep...: Come on, you're breakin' my heart here! I need the money for my grandmother...: What? Is your grandmother sick or something? : Anyway, I need the cash. Come on, pal! If for some godforsaken reason you actually want to use Hugh in vanilla, he really needs every stat he can get, but here I can at least theoretically see an argument for getting him at a discount that isn't grabbing the member card and then immediately benching him. I like the guy enough that I want him at his best though.  : You betcha! She's so sick you don't even know. She always gets these headaches on her back...: Huh? Headaches on her back?Learn to quit while you're ahead, Hugh.  : That's just one of her many symptoms, each worse than the last... ...OK, all the money seems to be here. You won't regret this. I know what I'm doing!: ...... I have to admit, it's a pretty funny joke that FE6 swindles you out of 10,000 gold for a bad unit who spends his whole recruitment conversation holding up a giant flashing sign telling you how bad he is. I probably wouldn't even mind if he were still bad here...     pre:Growths HP 50 Lck 20 Mag 35 Def 30 Skl 45 Res 25 Spd 45 Speaking of which, polaris... exists? I really like the flavor of it, both in how it continues Hugh's whole schtick of “gently caress dark magic, actually,” as well as how its icon suggests that rather than any one particular element, it's channeling anima energy in its purest form. As a gameplay tool though? Sadly it's in kind of the same boat that soulsteal was for Raigh; the unit it's attached to is good, but it's a bit too niche to be much of a selling point on its own, especially when Lilina and Cecilia can both use shine to get essentially the same result. Polaris is better than elfire across the board though, so you can just use it as Hugh's general high damage option if you really want.     We'll see Hugh in action... eventually. Right now we've got cleanup to do, as well as Fae's first foray into enemy phase. They grow up so fast! We could've also rescued Klein out of the way, but I'd rather have Douglas stay put for the time being.  First chest of the map! It's just gold. That's good though, we've got a secret shop to visit after all.   This other sniper had a hunting bow, by the way. Good thing we didn't try to fight him with Sue!   I knew I was going to pay for those unnecessary crits eventually.   How far can this guy reach again? Okay, here's the plan.   Gwendolyn comes over here to help out Sue.     And these three will sneak right past the warrior. Except for Lot; he can't quite make it far enough. That's okay though, he can take the hit! Barely, but he can do it!   See? He even dodges, and hits on the counter!     Some more general violence (  ) and a perfect level* later...*not actually perfect because Fae's HP growth is over 100%  Wait, you show up down here? Weird.  : This is the most extravagant palace in Elibe... I bet the treasure's nothing to sneeze at, either. It was all taken from people like me anyway, so I'm just reclaiming it!  Hi Cath! And bye Cath, because I think I'm actually gonna call it here for now. It's not a great stopping point, and I could maybe get the whole chapter into one post after enough editing passes, but with how long it's been since the last update, I'd rather just get something out the door sooner. Till next time!
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Oct 27, 2023 20:10
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Gonzalez is the exception to my "promote only at 20" rule. He's gonna slam into his HP, Strength, and Speed caps hard no matter what, and he REALLY wants that insane Skill boost he gets at promotion (although I don't know if they kept that in Project Ember).
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Oct 27, 2023 20:40
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Is this the time we recruit Cath?
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Oct 27, 2023 23:08
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I agree that Gonzales is ok to early promote. He will cap HP and has already capped Str/Spd. 3 more levels of restricted growth start to represent wasted XP. For Cath, I think we chose to wait to recruit her. This was the last of the Project Ember maps I played, so I'm looking forward to what's coming up next!
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Oct 27, 2023 23:37
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Seeing Fae combat “pretty wings! …oh right chicken dragon”. Also her dragon head is making me think of Pokémon but for the life of me can’t remember which one in particular it reminds me of.
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Oct 28, 2023 05:10
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Greenking77 posted:Seeing Fae combat “pretty wings! …oh right chicken dragon”. Also her dragon head is making me think of Pokémon but for the life of me can’t remember which one in particular it reminds me of. I'd hazard a guess at Goodra.
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Oct 28, 2023 12:08
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