Overview
Key points listed on each chapter for those who don’t want to feel like they’re missing anything.
Introduction
This is a WIP guide from the perspective of a player who wants to not feel like he’s “missing out on anything” during his playthrough. That means often efficiency is sacrificed in order to get unique things, full recruitment is a given, but also grinding for the sake of grinding is kept to a minimum.
I realized a bunch of chapters in that my chapter details were getting longer and longer and more detailed, so I made the spoiler-free hints and put it at the top in case you do want to play spoiler-free but want a heads up on some things that aren’t obvious at first glance.
Thanks to Aggro_Incarnate for having a lot of this information up to Chapter 11 already.
Spoiler-free hints
I realized while writing other chapters that I get into too much detail, so here’s a quicker, spoiler-free version of things:
Prologue:
– Save the ship for some money
– Visit the village
– Visit the pink flower for some herbs (not really worth it).
– Visit houses if they’re not out of your way.
Ch 1:
– Visit Lucca village with Zade
– It’s okay to kill Haldyn
– Visit houses in the village.
Ch 2:
– Keep Merida alive
– Visit the seashell
– Clear by turn 27
Ch 3:
– Have Cezar or Sheeda visit the yurt
– Have Sheeda and Zayid talk to each other
– Visit the cave above the Yapa Yurt after
– Have Zayid or Sheeda (it matters which one) bring the idol back to the Yapa Elder
– Destroy sentinels with magic/magic weapons
– Visit the Greattree and Pink Flower
Ch 4:
– An axe user can destroy the rock
– There’s a silver key on the skeleton
– There’s an invisible entrance centre right which leads down to the wyrm and chest.
– Have Zayid or Sheeda talk to Barl
Ch 5:
– Have a female unit (preferably Merida) talk to Lost Girl
– Have Nina go stand in range of Marlena
– Visit houses for all sorts of things
Ch 6:
– Deploy Jean, Troy and Dune
– Rout the chapter, then have Jean talk to Hulking Man
– Troy visits top left house (Lilia can too after)
– Visit Pink Flower and Purple Mushroom
Ch 7:
– Don’t kill the mumiya/revenant queen
– Talk to Diabolist with Zade
– Visit cave with Zade after seizing the second thing
– Don’t visit three southwest houses until talking to Diabolist
– Zade talks to Cyltan
Ch 8:
– Don’t bother sending Zade to top yurt
– Visit pink flower, second top yurt, yellow flower
– Baymonk moves and can kill you if you’re not prepared
– First reinforcements are bottom right, then top
– Dulcan leaves if less than 15 HP
Ch 9:
– Don’t raid any yurts
– Deploy Dune
– Scroll through enemy units to find assassins
– Cyltan talks to Ke’mar
– Seeker bow has very few uses, be careful
– Visit pink flower
Ch 10:
– Visit as many yurts as you want, centre one is most important followed by top left, then bottom right and bottom left are optional.
– Don’t agree to the proposal from the bottom left yurt.
Ch 11:
– Don’t poison the river
– Talk to Ma’aya with Yaeri
– Kill Raum at top (he cannot kill your units)
– Ambush wagon when it arrives turn 15 at the top right (be prepared for a lot of reinforcements), then visit the house to the southeast afterwards.
– You can do lots of things to help break the siege.
– Storehouse guards do not move.
– Make sure to have Cyltan equipped, plus a bunch of items in your convoy at the end of the chapter
Ch 12:
– Have Lianka and Hilda both visit house south of where they go, picking up pink flower on the way.
– Have Cyltan go southwest to that house.
– Don’t attack Jamulan or Neira
– Have Cyltan and Hoelun both talk to Siegfried
– Talk to Jemma with Lianka and Cyltan to get the Dragonriders to leave.
– Hoelun or Ma’aya can visit the monument, think about which one you want to use first.
Ch 13:
– Kill guard holding the hostage, then have Zade visit the village
– Save before having Siegfried open the red chest on Turn 10
– Visit the middle leftmost yurt
– Visit the crystal, the skeleton, and any cacti
– Destroy the fort to the east after beating the boss by visiting it with a unit and the village intact.
Ch 14:
– Talk to the abbot with Theodel
– You can get NPC reinforcements in various ways
Ch 15:
– Tower defended by the Toxic Wyrm has treasure
– Cyltan talks to Zoy
– You can talk to the Redessan NPCs with Hoelun/Cyltan, then visit their villages.
Ch 15x:
– Houses all spawn reinforcements with droppable items.
– Cyltan’s side wants: a 3 range item, a Pilum+1, a Ward Ring and a LOT of healing items.
Ch 16:
– The rocks all have treasure, best one is the one due south of the Toxic Wyrm
– Anyone can seize the castles
– Talk to Athol with Zade before every village.
– Don’t kill Samantha or Tabitha
– Visit tower with Zade
– Make sure Athol always visits a village within 8 turns of the last one.
Ch 17:
– Visit pink flowers and purple mushroom
– Visit the cave to the west with a strong unit (Hilda is probably best)
– Send Lyttia and Dune (if you have his personal weapon) over to the tower to the east.
– Don’t let any of the prisoners die.
– Rocks have Bullions, Siurian Thaumites and Gemstones.
– Defeat Jemma with Eddard (the rest of the dragon riders will leave)
Ch 18:
– Visit the seashells and the purple mushroom
– Have Theodel and no one else near the north drawbridge by turn 5, then have him talk to the person who reinforces.
– Save all the villagers by not killing more than 4 enemy units before killing the jail guard (though what you lose if you fail is really not that important).
– Have Zade talk to Beorn
– Black Knights will not attack Athol
– Solvian Dragoons will not attack anyone that isn’t right next to them.
Ch 19:
– Hit both levers.
– Trade away Am Solim from Cyltan and then open the bottom chest.
– Have a unit not carrying Am Solim carry the item you got from the bottom chest outside of the middle green-tiled room.
– When the enemy boss is triggered, have the unit carrying the item walk into the middle room (green tiles).
Prologue
– All the houses get you 100D each
– Southwest village gets you a Cutlass, which is a 2x hit sword. I think it is worth going out of your way to get it.
– It’s probably not worth going out of your way to get the pink flower which gives you the herbs or the jeweled knife thief who you face very low hit rates on.
– Making sure the Thorcian Carrack doesn’t die (survive until turn 10) nets you 1200D.
Zade: Worth using, Edelstern will one-round most things, Commander is a great utility ability.
Athol: Worth using, but can’t promote. She gives some passive bonuses to nearby units which is helpful.
Troy: Probably best unit in the game. Good bases, fantastic growths, mounted. In later chapters he suffers a bit when promoted due to Heavy Cavalry terrain penalties, but so do all your cavalry.
Bonacel: Think of him like Oswin from FE7, great bases but too slow to field later.
Prody: Not worth it, but it’s fine to use him for now.
Chapter 1
– Beeline Zade to Lucca village to recruit a bunch of units.
– Kill Haldyn, don’t worry he won’t die and he doesn’t move.
– You can’t recruit Amundsen or Hooke, they just provide droppable items. Careful Hooke has crazy high damage at a low hitrate, and he will move after you provoke him, so you may want to wait until after a save to engage.
– The southwest houses have items (Liquid Magic and a Service Sword)
Dune: Lots of tough enemies die to a good archer and there are a lot of great bows, but he’s still a footlocked archer – choose whether or not you want to use him and commit to that.
Jean: Pretty decent, it’s pretty easy to double in this game so his low speed is not so bad, and his high strength helps punch through the half damage/high DEF enemies you face later on, and also makes him feel faster than say Ash because he can wield more weapons while losing less speed. Goliath sounds cool but consider 20 HP versus 4 HP, 4 STR, 4 DEX, 3 AGI, 4 PROF, 2 DEF, 2 MOB from the Axefighter (M) promo. If it were even just the MOB I’d wonder if it was worth it, but you get 23 extra stats versus 19 as Axefighter all in places that Jean desperately needs.
Ash: Okay, worse bases than Jean but might be worth it later due to getting Lightfooted. Struggles to double for a long time so ultimately I just ditch him.
Alysia: Will leave in two chapters, so don’t invest anything in her. Do use her as a healer when necessary though.
Chapter 2
– Start with the axe bros positioned at the south and cross the cliffs to Merida to maximise her chance of survival (she’s worth it). You don’t have to talk to her with Zade to recruit her, but you might want to in order to get her leveled sooner. If Merida dies she will rejoin in Chapter 11 but underleveled and you lose a very valuable unit for Chapters 3-9
– Seize port, then the bridge to the cave to the north will open up and the cave will be the new seize point.
– Southwest seashell has a Liquid Defense
– Keep Dune alive and finish before Chapter 27 for a Liquid Dexterity.
– Alysia will leave after this chapter
Merida: Needs a bit of babying at first, but she has a great personal weapon. Use Dandelion liberally to begin with to help get her up to speed, then switch to Cutlasses and Spears when you have the prof for it. Once she gets going she’ll be one of your best units due to 9 move.
Chapter 3
– Jean/Ash/Dune can scale cliffs to help you clear the enemies if you want to access the shop on the cliff, which has Cutlasses, which are the best weapon in the game for the price. Don’t buy any Rambling Roses.
– The shop on the lower right has Wargoddess Swords and Iffyres. I’d buy at least two Iffyres since they will be invaluable for the upcoming chapters. I think the Wargoddess Sword is also worth it.
– Don’t cross the bridge until Cezar can visit the Yapa Yurt
– It’s easier to go left, and wait for Cezar to open the bridge, but you can go up if you like.
– Seizing Thebes will recruit Sheela.
– Visiting the Yapa Yurt with Cezar or Sheela (Cezar is faster) will recruit Zayid.
– Talk to Zayid with Sheela or other way around to get a Rambling Rose
– Visit the East cave entrance with anyone but Zayid or Sheela to get the Old Statue, then bring it to the southeast village for 2000G. You may want to wait until after a save to turn the Statue in.
– Once you have reobtained the statue, have Zayid or Sheela return the Old Statue to the Yapa Elder to get their personal weapon (Zayid is better than Sheela, so he’d be a better choice unless you want to use Sheela).
– To kill the Sentinels, use Theodel or the Wargoddess Sword. The chest contains a Starfall Dagger which is 5x hit but very low Mt.
– Pink flower has an Octavo Herbs (15 healing 8 times)
– Visit the southwest village with anyone other the Theodel, then visit the north cave for a Liquid Vitality.
– Visit the Greattree for a Liquid Strength – two enemies will appear but they can’t kill you.
– Tyron will be able to attack at 2 range if you attack him at two range, so be careful, especially with Theodel who can die due to weapon effectiveness.
Theodel: Fantastic combat, and his Zade support + Commander makes him incredibly accurate. Get Iffyre ASAP since Raecryst weighs him down and you won’t see any cavalry for a while, and Iffyre is effective on infantry. His move is a bit low though.
Cezar: Your only lockpick unit for a while. You can also put him next to Athol once per chapter if you’re under 1000D to get a Cezar’s Lucre which sells for 1000D. His combat is terrible though.
Sheela: Lightfooted is nice but ultimately her base strength is just the pits. If you do want to use her you’ll probably need her personal weapon and will need to rely on that for a while.
Zayid: Great bases and still usable later but will fall off compared to where he is now. His 6 move cliff scaling will probably be handy in a bunch of upcoming chapters.
Chapter 4
– Deploy Zayid or Sheela, and Cezar
– Talk to Barl with Zayid or Sheela for a Liquid Agility and he will leave the map (you can’t recruit him)
– Examine the rock on the left with an axe user to get to the chest for a Multichance Tome
– The Skeleton has the silver key to open the middle chest for a Thunderlight Sword
– Firewyrm is defeatable with a few units who can take a hit. Raecryst might be helpful here, as will bows. Chest has an Iron Duke, which is great.
– The reinforcing thiefs from the top will mostly ignore you if you ignore them.
– The top centre cave ambush reinforcements sometimes have a Crooked Axe and can one shot your units if you’re unlucky, so you might want to place someone on that cave to stop the reinforcements.
Chapter 5
– Lots of ways to approach this map, but it’s very confusing to the blind player. Here’s one strategy that I used:
– Merida talks to the little girl for a Ring of Bliss.
– Have Cezar unlock the bridge near the southern house from the left, bring Theodel nearby.
– Bring Troy, Merida, Cezar and Zade or Zayid to the southern house.
– After a Turn 5 save, visit the southern house to warp 4 units to the other side, then have Merida do a double Wargoddess Sword hit on the Grand Guard. If she misses you can either try Troy with a Thunderlight Sword or Zayid with his personal weapon. Then finish off with a Raecryst hit from Theodel from the other side of the bridge.
– Unlock the right side of the bridge with Cezar and bring over the rest of your army.
– Have Rubina fly down to block the reinforcements from the fort.
– Bring Cezar to unlock the bridge to the Northern Village.
– You can now talk to the middle house to get past the Grand Guard for the Harpoon and get a jump on the initial enemies by the gate for the Seriatim bow. Since most of them don’t move a cavalry unit can very safely take all of them out (careful for Nim’s 2x strike though).
– Bring Nina over into the range of Marlena to make her and Beorn into NPCs,
– Bring everyone through the village and over to where the pegasus sisters started.
– When Zade crosses the bridge (you may want some other units to be close to the drawbridge first), the drawbridge to the Concio lowers and reinforcements spawn
– Defeat boss and seize.
Another maybe easier option is to talk to the little girl with Merida, beeline her and Troy down to the south house, ferry over and then head up to the middle house to bypass the Double Pilum guard altogether, then hit the lever to bring all your units across from the initial area once you’ve dealt with Marlene and Beorn.
– The door to the enemies on the left will open on Turn 2 enemy phase, so be prepared.
– When Zade crosses the bridge to where the pegasus sisters start, you have to act fast or else all the NPCs will start dying. You still have a bit of time, but don’t dawdle. Do cross the bridge before Turn 30 though, or else the same will start without you.
– Left shop has Pilums and Hurlbats which are nice, ignore the Rapier since magic weapons deal much better with Grand Guards.
– The village to the north has a bunch of shops with goodies, I’d suggest blowing a bunch of cash on Cutlasses, Spears and a Raezer tome or two. You can also get a Champion’s Mark and Golden Axe from the houses on the right, and Tisane from the northernmost house.
Aslanne: Feel free to use her on this chapter, but grab her weapons before she leaves until Chapter 20.
Yaeri: The best of the pegasus sisters due to her better bases over Rubina and Multichance. Having only 6 move sucks but flying over terrain is still worth it and Doyenne is a nice 1-2 range option before promotion.
Rubina: Probably also worth it but I can only baby so many units with abysmal strength bases and there are a lot in this game. A secret to making her better is to give her something that isn’t the Estoc.
Chapter 6
– Deploy Troy, Dune and Jean for personal reasons. If you don’t want to use Dune or Jean later though then it’s not important. Zayid and fliers also help with the terrain in this map.
– Beeline Jean to the end of the map and then rout the enemies. Talk to the Hulking Man for his personal weapon. Once you rout the map the wain gains 3 move so you’ll have to move fast before the map ends.
– Deploying Dune in this map and Chapter 9 will get him his personal weapon.
– Visit the left house with Troy for a Slice of Tasha’s, which only Troy can use but gives him +5 max HP.
– Visiting the left house with Lilia gets you a Bottle of Tasha’s which is basically a regen potion. Not really worth it since you really have to hurry to get her there in time.
– Right house gives a Herbs
– Pink flower gives an Octavo Herbs
– Purple Mushroom gives a Liquid Vitality
Lilia: A decent healer though her low move can be a pain. Just deploying her though gets you a bunch of Herbs though which can contribute significantly to your funds if you sell them and eventually keeps people more topped off than fielding another healer. Promoting gives her 2 move and a Light Tome to use.
Chapter 7
– Don’t kill any of the initial enemies (Revenant Witch or Revenant Knights). Unequipped Bonacel might help here. I don’t think the Revenant Witch even attacks if you leave her alone.
– You can talk to all the southeast villages immediately, but wait on the southwest villages.
– Talk to the Diabolist with Zade, after this the initial Abbey will spawn a boss and a bunch of reinforcements, so you may want to be prepared/saved before doing that. Killing the new boss early will be helpful since he can revive Mumiya. This also recruits Accorte if you didn’t kill the Revenant Witch
– After talking to the Diabolist you can visit all the houses again for a bunch of medium items. (Southwest villages give nothing if you killed the Revenant Knights)
– Once all the enemies are taken care of start to beeline all your units except Zade over to the yurt on the top left. Most foot units can cross the bridge but cavalry cannot. You need to protect at least one little yurt from the enemies to avoid a game over.
– Zade can seize and then walk up to the cave for a Far Healing Staff, then beeline to the Yurt to talk to Cyltan
– Yellow Flower has a Bellflower Leaf, which can be useful later in the game.
– The Devotionist shop sells Thief’s Repeaters, which are pretty nice. Nothing else is worth it though.
– The shop on the left has Light Spears, Altium Axes and Iffyres, which can all be helpful but are all situational or just decent.
– You may want to keep the Masudian Brand you get from the one Mumiya for a cheese-kill on enemy boss mages.
Accorte: If your Theodel is already up and running I don’t really see a reason to deploy another low-move mage. She’s probably mostly fine but since she comes a bit late and underleveled I’m not a fan.
Chapter 8
– Instead of dealing with all the reinforcements, it’s probably easiest just to beeline to the boss and his contingent since all the good item drops are there anyway and then the yurts will be safe for 3000D at the end of the chapter.
– You may want to leave a couple of low move units near Cyltan since he’s a bit of a sitting duck on Turn 6.
– Don’t bother visiting the top yurt with Zade since he’ll disappear for 10 turns by which point the map is probably already over.
– Be careful of Baymonk, who does move unlike most of the boss contingent, and his Euphoria can one-round most of your units. Use a bulky unit like Troy to bait him out.
– Try to plan out in such a way to kill most of Dulcan’s contingent, and then Dulcan, since they have a lot of great drops. If you get Dulcan under 15 HP, he’ll leave and you won’t get the Siurian Thaumite.
– Second uppermost yurt yields a Tisane
– Pink flower yields a Liquid Mobility (!) (I’d give to Zade, but it can also patch up a flier who often needs one more move to outrange an arbalest or siege tome)
– Yellow flower yields a Bellflower Leaf.
Hoelun: Again abysmal strength, but probably the best Rambling Rose user. Mounted lockpick is situationally useful. Once she gets her personal weapon she can start one-rounding for a while but will probably drop back to decent chip damage after that. There’s a lot to be said for a mounted bow-user though since it’s easy for her to contribute while keeping safe, and she’s forced deployed a lot anyway so you may as well use her for something.
Chapter 9
– Don’t kill any of the yurts that drop things
– Looking at an enemy units’ information, and then scroll through all the enemies to see the position of all the invisible assassins.
– Deploy Dune if you did in Chapter 6 for his personal weapon.
– I’d beeline Merida and Yaeri down to Cyltan and Hoelun to help them out, then escort him over to the rock. A lot of the enemies that are stationed near there don’t move, so you can hit and run the rock with your mounted units (though the healer will heal it which is funny).
– None of the named Eagle Riders will move or attack you, so just ignore them. Talk to Ke’mar with Cyltan with all small yurts intact for a Seeker Bow, which as far as I can tell is the only way to beat the boss. Then have Hoelun, Cyltan and Dune all attack the boss with the Seeker Bow on the same turn to kill or else he will Tisane up and you could run out of Seeker Bow uses.
– When Zade seizes you’ll need to beeline everyone to the signpost to the south and Ku’than will reinforce soon after and chase you down. You can cliffwalk with infantry and Dune, and Zade/ministers can use the ladder but it’ll be very slow, and then your cavalry can take the long way and still be faster. Luckily a bunch of the horsemen will head the wrong way since they’ll be confused by your units stuck on the ladder so you’ll probably be pretty safe.
– The Siurian Thaumite chest at the bottom is a bit out of the way and guarded by a strong assassin, so I’d just skip it.
– It may be tempting to kill Ku’than for the Adept Sword but you probably won’t get someone with Prof 18 until later when you get the next one anyway, so you can decide whether it’s worth the risk and effort.
– You can buy more spears and cutlasses at the shop which is nice. But it’s probably worth it to save some cash for the next chapter.
Cyltan: Again he can be pretty safe as a mounted bow user except in this very chapter when he puts himself into a silly situation. Use Am Solim liberally to get his strength to the point where he can do something with other bows. Lightfooted is nice, especially since he needs to seize some things.
Chapter 10
– You’re down to just Hoelun and Urven for this chapter. Keeping them beside each other will make them pretty tanky since Athol will heal both of them to full at the beginning of each turn if you do so (as opposed to only Hoelun if she’s alone).
– You might want to buy a couple more items for this chapter from the store since it’s a long one if you visit all the yurts.
– If you accept Dolstoy, the Ulav Chieftain to the southwest’s offer, you will get 3000 and some NPC troops but Urven will leave forever after this chapter. If you refuse, the units there become enemies and will reinforce the enemy when you attack. It may be worth it just to ignore this yurt entirely.
– Visit the northwest Yurt to make Kukuma accessible, defeating Kukuma and revisiting will offer NPC troops and a Liquid Fortune
– Visit the middle Yurt to spawn an Errant Firewyrm. Save before visiting, since Hoelun has a shaky matchup against the firewyrm. I would hit it and then canto back onto the yurt for the evasion bonus, but it’s not the most reliable. Winning yields NPC troops and Hoelun’s personal weapon.
– Visit the southeast Yurt to spawn enemies near the Monument to the east. You’ll need to bring Hoelun to the Monument and then visit the yurt again for NPC trops and a Liquid Dexterity. This is by far the most annoying part of the map if you choose to undertake it, since the enemies all have a chance to paralyze Urven and Hoelun and you just have to wait it out by standing beside each other and hoping one of them gets out of paralysis to kill a unit and move forward – and mumiyas continue to reinforce all the while. Also, if you go too fast some of the mumiyas start to ignore you and head over to fight the NPC troops who won’t fight back and so will die if you don’t go save them, so you need to fight all the ones behind you before heading to the monument. All that for a Liquid Dexterity which is not that great.
– Pink flower yields a Royal Jelly
– After you have recruited as many NPCs as you want, you can bring Hoelun to the sign to signal the attack, and then seize the Nyman greatyurt to win.
Urven: Okay bases and 1-2 range at base is not bad, but his speed is a bit lacking to begin with. Once he does get up to speed though it is nice to have another unit besides Troy and Merida who can just tank 5 units and kill them all at 1-2 range so he does eventually pay off. Not a great bosskiller though like the other two due to lacking swords.
Chapter 11
– Deploy Yaeri
– Again there’s a lot of ways to approach this chapter – each thing you can do is a way to make the eventual entry into the walls of the city easier. Some are worth it, some are not.
– You can get poison for the river by paying 200D at the centre left yurt which will kill some distance archers – don’t do this as then you can’t recruit Maaya.
– You can destroy all storehouses to get recruits outside the fort to ditch. The guards do not move and will not attack you if you are not in range and don’t provoke them.
– You can give a herb to the north left yurt and 1500D to the centre right yurt to get the townsfolk to kill the Penelope’s Bow distance archer and open the left door.
– You can pay 1200D to the mansion on the hill at the bottom right to get all the assassins to ditch
– You can destroy the gold wagon that reinforces from the top right at turn 15 to get all the siege mages to ditch and get 6000D
– You can kill the Raum at the top to remove a +3 Def/Res buff to all enemy units on the map (which is why none of your units are one rounding) and to get a Nightmare Blade
– After destroying the gold wagon, visit the bottom right house for a Hatchet.
– Talk to Ma’aya with Yaeri to get her to leave the map and recruit her the next chapter. The Eagle Knights do not move even when you’re in attack range.
– The chest on the top right has a Holy Vestment, a mage-class promotion item.
– Blue gem holds a Siurian Thaumite
– Yellow flower holds a Bellflower Leaf
– Cyltan must seize (not Zade!)
– The shops in town sell lots of good stuff. A Folgore will be helpful for the upcoming desert map, as will Pilum+1s that your cavalry will start to be able to use when promoted.
– You will not get a battle preparations for the next chapter. Dump a bunch of gear in to the convoy and make sure Cyltan and the 3 other units you choose are equipped. You can choose (if I remember correctly):
– Troy, Bonacel and Prody
– Jean, Ash, Dune
– Sheela, Zayid, Theodel
– Accorte, Merida, Haldyn
– Personally I think the easiest way to win this chapter is to head straight up and hug left to avoid the reinforcements, then head over to kill the Raum since he actually can’t kill your units. So just attack him with effective weaponry until he dies. Send Rubina to the bottom right to pay off the assassins and grab the Hatchet later (Yaeri will be busy recruiting Ma’aya). Then, cross the forest, kill the bandits on the top right, grab the Holy Vestment and defeat the wain and mercenaries at that reinforce at Turn 15. Then, enter the city from the top entrance and the world is your oyster.
Chapter 12
– On turn 3 when Lianka and Hilda appear, have Lianka grab the pink flower, and then beeline both of them down to the house to their south. Make sure Cyltan is also prepared to visit the house on the other side of the river soon after to recruit Siegfried.
– Do not engage Jamulan (just run away, it’s easier)
– Have Cyltan talk to Siegfried to warp Neira closer, and have Hoelun talk to Siegfried too if you don’t want to promote Ma’aya.
– Talk to Neira to get both her and Jamulan to leave, and to deaggro every red unit.
– Place Ma’aya near the seize point so that you can quickly occupy the seize point when the boss is gone and prevent a game-over from having the Norden Dragonriders occupy the seize point.
– Have Lianka and then Cyltan talk to Jemma to get the Norden Dragonriders to leave.
– Either Hoelun or Ma’aya can visit the Monument at the centre island:
– Hoelun can promote to Tarkhan, reclass to some other classes, or get an Argent Saddle (“Cyltan needs more help than me!”) I suggest either Tarkhan or Argent Saddle since you probably want to promote Merida, Urven and Cyltan.
– Ma’aya can get an Empyrean Wings or reclass to Dragon Knight. I don’t know the exact answers you need to all 5 questions for this, so maybe save and try until you get it (sorry).
Ma’aya – A great shopper due to haggle. Very underleveled by this point but if you reclass her to Dragon Knight she does get very sizable bonuses to help her out. Not great but maybe helpful during Chapter 17 to fly around with Eddard and actually contribute.
Helme – Okay base stats, and can contribute if you leave the Zweihander on him since your better cavalry probably do just fine with a Cutlass. With the Zweihander he’s just good enough to one round pretty much everything, and his bulk is pretty decent.
Tallan – Can slowly repair items over the course of the map, which is a perk of fielding him you may as well take advantage of. Especially when Athol isn’t around to take advantage of Cezar’s Lucre, he’s probably a better overall lockpicker. Later on in the game you’ll get some busted staves like the Prayer Staff, which heals every unit on the map to full. You can then trade that staff to Tallan to have him repair it so you can use that ability once per turn, which is pretty incredible.
Lyttia – Dancer who can avoid being hit due to her personal tome, making her versatile and safe. Obviously good but her low movement gets her left behind since there’s no rescue or movement staves. She does benefit from cavalry being able to canto back to where she can reach them though. Keep out of range of Distance Archers who she’s totally defenseless against.
Chapter 13
– Have Theodel/Accorte go and slaughter all the grand guards, then when the hostage is freed visit the southwest village with Zade for a Champion’s Mark.
– Have someone quickly run up to the leftmost village which will spawn a wain that if arrives at the arrival point will give you 3000 gold.
– Equip the Ward Ring on a thief (not Hoelun) and have them head up to the treasure above. They’ll be able to grab probably two of the three blue chests safely. There is: a Gemstone worth 2200D in the left chest, Raecryst in the middle chest, Thalavin in the right chest. A firewyrm will reinforce from the cave above the red chest before they have a chance to escape, so the Ward Ring will help them escape. If you use Tallan to do this he can access the convoy for healing items to survive.
– When Siegfried reinforces, beeline to the red chest, and move Zade, Lyttia and a good Axe user with the Morning Star to the Old Fort, then on Turn 10 save and then open the chest. He and Hilda will disappear and a boss will appear on the Old Fort. The Morning Star will do effective damage and if you can hit up to 4 times with Lyttia’s help the boss should go down, disappearing the demons who are otherwise too hard to really deal with. You could also use the Euphoria to kill the demon in front and then cheese kill the boss with a Masudian Brand. Alternatively, you can wait 5 turns for them to leave but then you have to deal with the boss reviving enemies and rewarping enemy ministers to attack you. Then, seize with Zade to recruit Hilda, Lianka and Siegfried.
– Send a couple of troops to help out the village to the southeast, then kill the fort enemies and destroy it for a Francisca and Masakari from the boss. I believe you need the village intact to get the Francisca. I like to send Troy and Merida who otherwise struggle to get around the desert.
– Visit the bones for a Zephyr Sword, the blue Crystal for Siurian Thaumite and Cacti for Tisanes.
– Theodel’s Raecryst and Jean’s Axe of Amity are both great against Firewyrms.
Neira: Mounted healer and bow user. Too little strength to be a real combat unit and low magic for healing but the horse is nice. Not in this chapter though.
Jamulan: Okay bases. Filler cavalry. Don’t field in this chapter.
Lianka: Her base prof and strength are horrible but her personal weapon is good. She’s a bit too fragile to be really great but a decent delete button on archers and such and she can bypass defence and First Blood does help her survivability.
Hilda: Great personal weapon and skill but a bit underwhelming bases. You might want to promote ASAP if you want to use her since the bonuses will give her the headstart she needs to be decent.
Siegfried: Formalinthe is a nice option to buff units and he can do a nice chunk of damage with Halidal. Worth using.
Aynellia: Incredible base speed and existent magic which makes her a decent user of magic swords and she has a decent personal weapon, but she struggles to one-round anything. Best thing about her is the +3 atk to adjacent units, which can help your morning star user this chapter to beat the boss.
Chapter 14
– Talk to the Abbot with Athol for his personal tome.
– You can pay 800 in the left yurt to bring 2 NPC axe users, who are not very good.
– You can visit the tent above Garland to have your choice of NPCs to join the fight for 5 turns.
– You can buy more cutlasses at the shop. Ma’aya is nice to field here to buy and ferry items around between parties.
– Send Yaeri, Cyltan and Merida up to help out Athol and Hoelun, and then Yaeri can head over to the wain to grab two gold bullions. Careful though, there are archer ambush reinforcements that come from the top right so Yaeri does face a chance of death if you position her poorly. Hoelun can grab the Adept Sword from the chest.
– The Wyrm that reinforces has an Empyrean Wings.
– The most dangerous reinforcements come from the bottom left, as there’s an Adept Bow archer that can one-round a lot of your units and a bunch of Distance Archers. Be careful on that side. Bottom right is pretty dangerous too, as all the enemies are mounted and one has a Seriatim Bow.
– On Turn 20 enemy phase, all enemies retreat and won’t attack you.
Slayne: A distance archer is always worth having around, if only for safe chip. He does get to doubling quickly too, and can one round some of the soldiers you will be facing this chapter.
Chapter 15
– Tower with toxic wyvern has a Holy Vestment. It seems if you hit it with an Arbalest it won’t move, but if you hit it from 1-2 range then it will move.
– Talk to the Harold with Hoelun/Cyltan, and then visit the village for 3345D
– Talk to Jake with Hoellun/Cyltan, then visit the village for passage to the other side of the bank
– Talk to Zol with Cyltan to get the Vermil Ring
– Bottom right shops have some promo items, Vorthes, Mettle Tomes and some nice swords. Middle left shop has Pilum+1s and Knights Brands.
– Garland is really fragile so keep enemies well away, but don’t provoke them since their boss sends them in one group at a time in the worst battle strategy of all time unless you hit them first which triggers group AI.
Chapter 15x
– Pink flower yields a Royal Jelly
– Each of the houses triggers a bunch of enemy reinforcements with varied weaponry that give a LOT of EXP
– Bottom left – Axe fighters and a Champion’s Mark drop
– Top left – Thieves and a Cerberus Knife drop
– Top right – Rangers and a Thaumakuchen drop (basically pure water)
– Bottom right – Soldiers and a Villain’s Purse
– Helpful things for Cyltan’s route:
– A francisca will help you take out siege units in Chapter 17
– Give Ma’aya a Pilum or two to hand over to Eddard for Chapter 17.
– The Ward Ring would be helpful too.
Chapter 16
– Talk to Athol with Zade sometime before she visits every village (missing one will lose you the rest of the conversations) for stat boosters.
– On the enemy phase after you have passed the second town, Merida will get kidnapped and sent to the tower, defeat the invisible assassins blocking the way to the tower and visit with Zade to free her. I believe once you visit the tower the rest of the assassins just disappear.
– Anyone can seize a castle. Send a flyer far ahead to the upcoming forts and seize them early.
– Bellflower Leaves can help you deal with the thaumaturge spamming 15 sleep staves at you.
– Getting Athol to the first village within 8 turns will get you 3200D, and if you get to the last village within 8 turns of the one before you will get a Ring of Vows.
– The rocks near the Toxic Wyrm have treasure in them. If you want, you can send flyers to hit and run outside of the Wyrm’s range, but they’ll take 5 damage a turn on the Toxic Swamp. You can get money and siurian thaumites, a lightning axe (northwest of wyrm), Harperia (south of poison dragon). It’s extremely time consuming as you can only use Yaeri and Rubina to dig them out.
– Choose to fight the pirates for for a lot of unique things like the Bhuj, Butterfly, 2187D, but the enemies are tough and have good weapons, and your only options to hurt the boss are Arbalests and 2 range flyers.
– If you do so, and don’t kill Tabitha and Samantha, you will get a Veldlands Accolade in your Stockpile… which confers +10 DEF/RES growth when held, and you won’t be able to use it until Chapter 18…
Chapter 17
– This chapter is a huge bump in difficulty, there is a 12 range silence that you can’t really avoid and a gauntlet of siege tomes/arbalests that Cyltan will have to run to get to the gate.
– When you’re struggling with anything for this chapter usually the answer is to have Eddard take care of it.
– Visit the flowers for a Royal Jelly (nearest and furthest north), Liquid Resistance (near east), Liquid Magic (far east) and the purple mushroom for a Liquid Vitality
– Visit the tower to the east with Lyttia to save Tallan before Turn 12. If Dune has his personal weapon, Dune will also have to visit the tower and will face a tough fight.
– To get Cyltan and friends past the gate you have to run a giant gauntlet full of distance archers and a mebilis mage, and worse you have to get past a strong grand guard while surviving all that with limited healing due to the 15 use silence staff with 12 range. The way I got people past was by using Formalinthe and running through spamming Octavo Herbs. You can also 2-range the siege units with Eddard or a promoted Ma’aya with a 2-range spear, or use a Francisca to take care of them.
– To save Lianka, you need to kill Jemma with Eddard by Turn 20. I believe only Eddard will work, or else someone will need to be nearby to catch it seems? If you kill Jemma the rest of the Dragon Knights will leave. The easiest way to get this to happen is to position Eddard three squares below Jemma, then attack the Dragon Knight below Jemma, and canto back all the way down as far as you can go. Then only Jemma will be able to attack you. Saving to scum for a multichance/crit proc will help.
– To get access to the top left part of the map, you need to raid the cave and visit the nearby house. You will get a Greataxe for your efforts. Hilda’s Justicia is effective on the raid boss, so she’s helpful. To make this part easier, bring Eddard over proc the reinforcements, and then sit him or Maaya on the cave to prevent further reinforcements. As you approach the cave Children of Nature will start to appear from it which are tough enemies who paralyze you, so it would really suck to have to face more than one.
– You can pretty much just bypass the castle on the left. The 2-range enemies are pretty weak and die to your 1-2 range, but they will ambush reinforce continuously until you seize the castle. It’s best to just stay out of their range as much as possible and pass through with whoever you need to pass through. I don’t think there’s a reward for seizing it.
– Under the warden is a barrack that you have to raid, there’s another enemy in here so make sure you’re prepared, you will get the Gate Key which will unlock both gates in the compound.
– On Turn 25 if you haven’t opened the gate, a very strong Executioner will reinforce with a ton of abilities, regen, first blood, and 31 attack, and he will head over and start killing prisoners (if 5 die you lose). Again Hilda’s Justicia here is very helpful. Also, her Critical Reprisal still works event against his Critical Avoid skill.
– When you open the final gate, a whole bunch of enemies will reinforce and start to charge you. The units with a face have a bunch of powerful skills, but are all 2 range only and are limited by the terrain. It’s tempting to use a the choke point but it’s actually better to retreat a bit since then you can actually pretty easily outrange them. Eddard especially can dance circles around them. You really don’t want to actually face them at 2 range though since they have first blood, critical reprisal, etc. Make sure to save since some units have Second Wind and have a 15% chance of screwing you over.
– Near the seize point there’s a Devotionist (dark tomes for Accorte, Dark Axe for half damage ability), as well as a Commissary (All Heal Staffs – which heal all units – would have been really useful for this chapter).
– If you save every prisoner, a Prison Accolade appears in your Stockpile (+10 Str/Mag growth when held – in Chapter 17!?)
– Make sure Ma’aya doesn’t have anything you would want in Chapter 19. She’s not present for that chapter.
Eddard: Extremely strong. Doubles everything and has a good personal weapon and 1-2 range (if you hand him a Pilum), and 8 move flying canto is just absurdly versatile. He sort of laughs off Arbalests too because they’re only 50% bonus in this game. He won’t be back until Chapter 20 though.
Chapter 18
– To open the northern drawbridge, you need to press the southwestmost switch under the Maiden NPC. To get to that island by land, you need to press the switch in the building just north of it to lower that drawbridge.It is mostly not worth it to save all the prisoners, since you need Yaeri to go save Calliera and the Grand Guard has a 6x hit Spear who is easiest killed by a Folgore/Thalavin from range. In doing so you can get a Maiden’s Favor (+3 LUK when held) and a Frallian Accolade (+10 DEX/AGI growth when held… for who?) However, if you do want to send Yaeri and Rubina down, equip the stronger one with a Stun Pilum and a Wargoddess Sword/Wind Spear so you can disable him and then attack and avoid his healing. The weaker one should have a door key for access. If you do the much more leisurely route of sending down Troy/Merida/Promoted Zade you probably will lose one or two of the prisoners but you will still get the Maiden’s Favor.
– Visit the second red house just below the eastern part of your starting position for a Catholicon.
– Visit the seashells on the beach to the east for a Liquid Defense
– Visit the Purple Mushroom to the southeast for a Liquid Strength
– Bring Theodel down to the northern bridge in time for Turn 5 and have no one else nearby. Emil will ambush reinforce and will attack anyone but Theodel, and then you can talk to him to get him to leave.
– The red treasure chest nearest to your starting position has a Hammer
– To save Calliera, basically the only way is to send a flyer over to kill the ruffians and protect her from thieves, since she has a terrible matchup against them. The Dragon Knights will not attack you or Calliera so long as you don’t sit right beside them. After Calliera escapes, the enemy black knights will still reinforce and go to attack you, but will retreat after ~4 turns.
– If Calliera dies you can actually choke the north bridge with Athol and bring everyone inside the castle and the black knights will not attack her.
– When Beorn and Marlena reinforce, talk to them with Zade. You can hire them or get them to leave by paying 2000D. I suggest doing this unless you really feel like dealing with mid-teen hitrates on Marlena since you’re probably not that strapped for cash by this point.
– The two chests inside the throne room have a Mother’s Necklace and Father’s Sculpture.
Chapter 19
– Chests starting counter clockwise from the top right: Fell Bow, Prayer Staff, Staff of Impetus, Ring of Bliss/Withered Bow (whenever you open a chest you spawn a bunch of reinforcements) The Withered Bow is very important if your Dune/Cyltan aren’t crazy strong, you only get this if you open the chest when Cyltan is NOT carrying Am Solim.
– DO NOT overwrite your turn 1 save. If you send 5 units into the right side of the map and can’t reach the lever before they all die, you can softlock the game. I like Urven here with the Double Pilum you just got. Same goes for the single unit you send into the left side. Better hope you have a good promoted unit who can handle those dragons (Ward Ring, Formalinthe, Thaumkuchen can all help here if you’re struggling).
– To make this chapter much easier, have Siegfried and Tallan stand side by side, have Siegfried spam the Prayer Staff and trade it back to Tallan to repair for a full heal of your whole party every turn.
– To beat the Netherdrake Boss, you’ll need a strong bow user. Hopefully your Cyltan or Dune or both are strong enough at this point, Tarkhan Hoelun may also do okay but her strength is so bad it might still be trouble. The game has the Ceddica’s Will questline in this chapter to help you out. Boost your holy bow units with Formalinthe and Aynellia’s passive and hit the Netherdrake’s Viscera (middle tile) with Ariadne, Am Solim, Bow of Aragoth, and Ceddica’s Will. You can hit and run with Cyltan/Hoelun and have Lyttia Taskmaster them and/or a staff user (Neira who is otherwise pretty useless) use the newly acquired Impetus Staff to get up to 3 turns.
– To make Ceddica’s Will:
– Have someone loot the bottom chest when Cyltan is not carrying Am Solim.
– Proceed through the chapter as normal, but have a unit stay outside of the green-tiled middle section carrying the Withered Bow but NOT carrying Am Solim.
– When you kill a Margulite and trigger the netherdrake summon, bring your unit carrying the Withered Bow onto the green tiles. A yellow flash will occur on your screen, and it will have changed to Ceddica’s Will.
– When you beat the Netherdrake, Zweiras will turn into a strong demon. He has a teleport item but doesn’t seem to use it, so you can wall him off of your weaker units to set up for a bit though he will sleep one of them per turn. Chip him down at 1 range where he can’t attack back (Justicia/Halidole work great here) and then when he’s in range to die from a double Ceddica’s Will hit, go for it with Cyltan/Dune.