Part 46: A Detailed Explanation of the Lover/Generation System

A Detailed Explanation of the Lover/Generation System

I figure since we now have a female unit (other than Ethlin) and there's been so much discussion about it already, I should explain how all this love system business works. First we'll talk about how people actually fall in love. Every pair of male and female characters has a hidden stat that measures love points (except for Cuan, Ethlin, Sigurd, and Sigurd's plot related lover). Once a pair gets 500 love points, they become bound to one another and will have children for the second generation. In addition, after every 100 love points the fortune teller will update two characters' love status (X is fond of/has feelings for/is in love with/is bound to Y). Each pair has a distinct love base and growth with one another. For this example we'll use Aideen (since she's our only female at this point) and Midir, as well as Aideen and Arden/Alec/Noish/Fin for contrast. Aideen and Midir start with a love base of 120 and a love growth of +1 while Aideen and those other guys have a base of 0 and a growth of +2. What this means is that Aideen starts with 120 points with Midir and gains 1 point per turn, while she starts with 0 points with Arden, Alec, Noish, and Fin and gains 2 points per turn. Now with that it seems like it'd take forever for people to fall in love at such a slow rate, but if you leave two units adjacent to one another at the end of the turn, they gain an additional +5 love points.

Next we'll cover something called Predestined Lovers. When two characters have a conversation that gives them love points (like Azel and Midir have with Aideen) then they are predestined lovers. Characters are also predestined lovers if they have a special conversation in the last chapter of the generation. All this really means is that they're ones suggested by the game, but they aren't necessarily good (though they often are) and non-predestined pairings aren't necessarily bad (though predestined ones are often better). But it helps to kind of give an idea of what characters have existing relationships with one another.

Now as I mentioned before, when two people fall in love, they'll have children for generation 2. Now, children are determined entirely by the mother. This means regardless of who Aideen is paired with she'll always produce the same children who will join at the same time and place in generation two and will have the same classes. However the father and mother will pass down whatever skills they have to both children, with a few exceptions. Certain classes will not pass down certain skills. For example, Sword Fighters won't pass down Pursuit. This is because these skills belong to the class and not the actual character. They are called "Class Skills" as opposed to "Citizen Skills". Now so far, none of our units have Class Skills, meaning every skill we have is a Citizen Skill, meaning any unit out of the ones we have right now will pass down all their current skills. Aira, however, who we'll recruit in the next update, being a Sword Fighter, has Pursuit as a Class Skill. This means that she will not pass down Pursuit to her children. Of course, on the other side of this, any child who is a Sword Fighter will have Pursuit as a Class Skill, regardless of their parents.

Everything else that is passed down is dependent on gender. Every mother births a daughter and a son. For almost all cases the father passes down to the son primarily and the mother passes down to the daughter primarily. Cuan and Ethlin (as well as one other mother) are the exception to this. Ethlin and the other mother pass down to their sons, while Cuan and the other mother's lover pass down to their daughters. A child inherits their growth rates and base stats from their parents with the majority coming from the dominant parent and half as much coming from the non-dominant parent. They also inherit a portion of their parents' money and their dominant parent's inventory (if they can use the weapons their dominant parent uses). Lastly parents pass down their holy blood. If a parent has major holy blood it'll be passed down to their dominant child while minor holy blood will be passed down to the non-dominant child. If a parent has minor holy blood both children will have minor holy blood. If both parents have the same type of holy blood (major or minor), both children will have major holy blood of that type.

So for example, let's say we have a Mother, a Father, a Daughter, and a Son. Say the Mother has Continue, Ambush, 20,000 Gold, and a 30% Strength growth. Then let's say the Father has Charge, 40,000 Gold, Major Hezul blood, and a 50% Strength growth. Both children will inherit skills from both parents, so both children will have Continue, Ambush, and Charge. For the hell of it, we'll say the daughter is a Sword Fighter, so she'll have Pursuit as well. Now then, both children will inherit 2,000, plus 10% of the combined total gold of their parents. So they'll both have 8,000 Gold. The father will then pass down his Major Hezul blood to the Son, and Minor Hezul blood to the Daughter.

Now the formula for inheriting growth rates is [Child's Growth Rate] = [Dominant Parent's Growth Rate] + .5[Non-dominant Parent's Growth Rate] + [Holy Blood Bonus]. Now we'll just look at the Strength growth rate in this example. Minor Hezul blood will increase Strength Growth by 30%, while Major Hezul blood will increase it by 60%. So the Daughter's Strength Growth will be 30%+25%+30%=85%, while the Son's Strength Growth will be 50%+15%+60%=125%.

Children's base stats are also affected slightly by the final stats of their parents, but that's a much more complicated formula involving preset class base stats, and it barely affects anything (generally plus or minus 1 or 2 points in any given stat at most), but just in case anyone is really curious, I'll post it here:
Child's starting stat = [( { [(Main parent's stat addition x 2) + Secondary parent's stat addition] / 10 }+ Child's stat addition) mod 15] + Child's class base stat.
Parent's stat addition = (Parent's stat - Parent's class base stat, take as 0 if negative).
The formula varies slightly for HP and Luck, but it's not a huge difference. If you're still interested, class base stats can be found here: http://serenesforest.net/fe4/class_base.htm

So that's pretty much it, I think covered just about everything about love and inheritance. If there are any questions, feel free to ask them.