Part 39: Interlude 3 (Checking Progress Before the Endgame)

Interlude the Third:

Now that the need to train certain people to unlock Linus's version of Four Fanged Offense or Jerme's version of Pale Flower of darkness is over, I can focus on just gathering enough XP in general.

This chapter is a good chance to take stock of where you really are with regard to each ranking category so you can make sure you stay ahead of the curve as you enter the final stretch of the game. I explained how to check your funds in detail in the battle preparations for Crazed Beast and also went over the proper way to check your XP gained and that you should keep careful track of how many turns ahead of schedule you are chapter by chapter.

Here's where I stand just before Battle Before Dawn:

Survival: Obviously doing fine
Combat: No good way to check this, but I'm presumably doing great here since almost all enemies have died in one or two rounds.
Tactics: I'm running a 19 turn surplus. This looks great on paper, but bear in mind there are 3 survival chapters coming which will each eat up one of those turns and there are also two 0 chapters left. Plus there's only one or two chapters left on which I can actually boost this up. I'll need to save as many turns as I can feasibly manage on Night of Farewells and Cog of Destiny.
Funds: I'm currently ahead by 27120-27145 gold in assets. That should be good enough really, particularly since I don't need to promote anyone else and there are still two 0 chapters coming. I think I might actually be able to use the boots pretty feasibly.
Experience: I totaled this one up carefully, and I believe I'm 7552 XP ahead of where I need to be right now. Wow, that's great, right? A whole 75 levels ahead! No! Don't be fooled. The XP requirements for many of the late game chapters are absolutely insane. There are 9 chapters left to the game and I need to get another 11,348 XP in those 9. That's 12.6 level ups per chapter. And some of those chapters are things like Battle Preparations or others where you're just not getting anything like that. More problematically, a lot of the low-hanging fruit has already been plucked. Ninian is nearly max level, almost all of my bad characters have actually been trained to level 20 as have most of the good ones. My only remaining people who are actually low level are Wil, Rebecca, and Kent (Soon to be joined by Nino).

If you are not well AHEAD of all your budgets at this point, you probably lose. Don't let that happen to you.