Part 55: Pirate Ship
If you remember from Eliwood's story, he and Fargus were off having a chat. So let's check up on what Lyn and Hector were doing at the time.
: If you're looking for Eliwood, he's talking with the captain.
: Oh. I won't bother him then.: …Do you need something?: I'd like you to stop pouting. This pirate ship is the only way for us to get to the Dread Isle. I thought you understood that. Was I mistaken?: How I feel or what I think is no concern of yours!: Eliwood told me…about your parents and those bandits. But these pirates? They don't seem like bad fellows.: It wasn't just my parents! My entire tribe! Everyone was killed! They poisoned our drinking water… My people were in such pain, they could hardly stand… That's when the bandits attacked! They waited until we were defenseless!: …: My father put me on his horse, and I escaped… Just me. My poor father… The pain must have been terrible. He lifted me up…his arms shaking…with his last breath… Now do you understand? I was found unconscious by another tribe…and I awoke ten days later. When I awoke… What I felt… The bodies of my people had already been buried. I never even had the chance to say farewell. My last memory of my father… He was…broken…dying. I can still see the axes rising and falling. It… It's not…
: Hey! What--What are you doing?: You're a strong woman, Lyndis. I thought you would not want anyone to see you cry.: You're such a fool! If you think that's what I want, then why not just leave!: I… I lost my parents, too.: You…: It was illness that took them. Nothing like what happened to you. Still, I wanted nothing more than to cry like a little baby. And yet, I couldn't cry… Not in front of others. And when I was alone, I found I still couldn't. So…I simply thought… I don't know…: You really are a fool. That's no way to… You can't just…: …
From there, we jump back in to join Eliwood and Fargus when they find Ninian. Now, the Pirate Ship.
This is the chapter I was wishing for more units on, even moreso than last chapter. 11 turns feels like a lot longer than it is given the sheer numbers you have to deal with. For reference, HNM allows 11 units here, compared to the 8 HHM gives you.
There's not that many more enemies, but they start a lot closer to you.
What that means in practical terms is that you get an additional turn of being wailed on to deal with, plus you can forget about setting up a defense on the right hand planks (which are a much nicer defensive spot than the stairs you start on, especially when the AI can't grasp the concept of going around), because you just get swarmed too quickly.
Not many surprises given how the level went down last time. THe usual peg knight additions, but that's about it.
Oh wait, no, that would be a merciful approach to this chapter. Let's go over the ways that IntSys hates you. First, most of the enemies have had equipment upgrades. About half of the shamans are packing Nosferatu tomes, almost all the mercenaries and archers are using Steel weapons, and this is the first chance you have to pick up Steel weapons of your own. And that's only if you have any money, which you probably don't (or at least not nearly enough).
3 HP, 3 Mag, 1 Skl, 2 Spd, 1 Res. As if we needed any extra reasons to stay far away from Zoldam. Except we can't, because instead of the useful, but still skippable Speedwings to steal, he now has the Guiding Ring we would normally get from one of the shamans. The shaman from before now simply gives you his Flux tome.
Plus, the Luna tome = fuck your resistance blessings.
And this bitch?
She's got an Elysian Whip ripe for the taking. That is, provided that she doesn't kill herself going after Raven, or not stopping on the ship because she wants to go after Merlinus instead of your bait unit.
Other things being equal, the AI will tend to prioritize units who would take the most damage from a hit, regardless of hit odds. Since Merlinus has low defense, the AI likes attacking him, despite his high evasion. To bait the AI away from him, you need a unit with less defense than him. This usually means sword users... whose high evasion gets kinda kicked aside when they have to face pegasus knights. TL;DR: Fire Emblem AI: Asshole.
Are you feeling the love yet? Let's get started.
Oh for fuck's sake. Turns out Florina, with her Speed growth having done some amazing work, gets doubled by the Steel Sword mercenaries. Which works out to about 11 damage a hit, tried twice per battle at about a 60-70% accuracy. This one didn't even get off the first turn.
And then we have Peg knights. Motherfucking peg knights. This was a turn 2 death, and came after Florina had just gotten an HP/Str/Skl/Spd/Def level.
It takes the AI maybe a few milliseconds to analyze every single combat option to spot KO opportunities.
And then Florina manages to shit the bed a second time on turn 3 of the next recording.
You know what, fuck this. We need someone sturdier, and capable of actually doing something.
Right then. Let's try this again.
If you have a copy of Eye of the Tiger kicking around somewhere, put it on now. Start scrolling down when the main drum loop kicks in.
Well, it's a better start than the last couple tries.
Well, one objective down.
God, can you imagine a Fire Emblem version of a training montage? How many dramatic shots of "+1" do you think can be produced?
I don't know, but we need at least 7 of them.
Hey, look at that. We're almost down to something that resembles being managable.
Oh yeah, those pegs have steel lances too, which almost makes them the most dangerous thing on the map. Those Steel Lances hurt like hell, but they're so heavy that the peg is almost guaranteed to be doubled in response. Kill one, and the next one can come right in to do the same. It's a very quick way to lose a strong, but squishy unit.
Times like this also make you very thankful that the AI has absolutely no grasp of pulling out unsuitable units from chokepoint assaults and sending in better suited ones (see: the mercenaries crowded around Oswin)
Case in point. Even Canas is fast enough to double them.
Oh yeah, here we go. Reinforcements come in a rough schedule of mercenaries and shamans on one turn, and then a wave a pegs on the next, and it continues right up until the very last turn of the chapter.
The key to keeping everyone alive here is defense. Going out onto the main deck will get you quickly overwhelmed by sheer numbers. I wanted to bring Raven out to kill a few guys here, but he'd be swarmed on the enemy turn, and I'm not taking any chances I don't have to here.
Hey, look at that. It's almost like we finally have control of the deck.
I like how the just-offscreen peg knight sprites resemble shark fins in this screenshot.
I like this.
But not so much this.
A very Canas level.
Gotta say, Canas could be doing a lot worse two levels in. He's not behind in anything, and ahead in magic, skill, defense, and resistance, none of which are at all bad things for a shaman to be ahead in.
And that area was completely empty not a turn ago...
Goddammit Guy, if you insist on getting one point per level, the least you could do is make it something useful like strength or defense
Last turn. Hector is fine out on his lonesome, because no one can do more than 2 or 3 damage to him at a time anyway.
And now we wait.
Goddamn Kent, stop leeching from everyone else.
And that's a wrap. Zoldam's Guiding Ring was lost, but not a whole lot we can do about that. It's just way too risky to try and cut through the shamans, because no one really has any resistance, plus they'd have to deal with the pegs and all. Maybe if you had a Florina blessed in Def/Res or something like that, but I simply don't have the units to safely work down to Zoldam, especially since it would mean the rest of the crew would be shorthanded in dealing with everything else. I don't think we'll need a Guiding Ring for a while anyway, and we get another one in Dragon's Gate.
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Resets this chapter: 3
Total resets: 8
Goin' up!