Fire Emblem Three Houses: Reach for my hand, I'll soar away.

[LaZodiac]

Spoiler: I guess this stuff is spoilery

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Did the church route twice
The first time I didn't get the S support I wanted [Rhea] and I died inside
The second time I did and I was so overjoyed at the ending
A game has not done this to me in a very long time...

I don't know how I am going to do Edelgard's route though. The first time I played I was pretty sympathetic towards her, but in the end I sided with the Church. Twice. Against Edelgard. I'm considering Blue Lions or Golden Deer next, but am not really looking forward to doing an actual bleagles run.

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There's a special ending for Rhea in the Church path? That's... really cool honestly.

How does that work given how the church path ends, though?

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In terms of evil individuals in the church, I'm struggling to come up with any other than Rhea herself. Who is sympathetic evil. The only person my verdict is out on is Catherine, and that's just because I don't have her B or A supports yet.

The only people I would class as pure evil in the story are The Slitherers, Hubert, The Death Knight, and a few of the one-chapter-only Generals. Oh, and Nemesis, if you want to go back that far.

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Hubert would be equal parts enthralled and disgusted by being compared to those people and that's why I love him. "I'm EVIL, clearly, but not THAT evil."

[Derjuin]

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There's a special ending for Rhea in the Church path? That's... really cool honestly.

How does that work given how the church path ends, though?

Spoiler: Spoilery Ending Stuff

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Yeah. In the normal path without an S support with Rhea, it's implied she did not survive the final map, as she is never mentioned again after that (I cried a lot here)

In the S support she miraculously survives and there's a LOT of emotion in the S support itself. So much. I cried a lot here too but they were tears of joy rather than sadness

[Rodin]

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Hubert would be equal parts enthralled and disgusted by being compared to those people and that's why I love him. "I'm EVIL, clearly, but not THAT evil."

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Hubert is interesting, because he's an evil guy with STANDARDS. If Edelgard told him to bake all the peasants into a giant chocolate cake, he'd do it and probably enjoy it. But just doing it on his own for the lulz? Nah.

I always got the impression that a lot of his dislike for the Slitherers comes from him thinking they're amateurs.

[Rising Phoenix]

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In terms of evil individuals in the church, I'm struggling to come up with any other than Rhea herself. Who is sympathetic evil. The only person my verdict is out on is Catherine, and that's just because I don't have her B or A supports yet.

The only people I would class as pure evil in the story are The Slitherers, Hubert, The Death Knight, and a few of the one-chapter-only Generals. Oh, and Nemesis, if you want to go back that far.

I agree with all these. Again kudos to the story writers for giving as an actual grey storyline. As Sylvain says post time skin it doesn't matter who's right or wrong, it is those who win that wright the storybooks. (yes he actually thinks about more things that just girls).

[LaZodiac]

Spoiler: Spoilery Ending Stuff

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Yeah. In the normal path without an S support with Rhea, it's implied she did not survive the final map, as she is never mentioned again after that (I cried a lot here)

In the S support she miraculously survives and there's a LOT of emotion in the S support itself. So much. I cried a lot here too but they were tears of joy rather than sadness

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That is actually SUPER cool. Also I'd... argue that since the final fight of that map is AGAINST a crazed, insane Rhea... it's not so much implied as it is explicitly true that you kill her.

I think if I ever play this game again, I'll have to go for that if I do the church route.

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Hubert is interesting, because he's an evil guy with STANDARDS. If Edelgard told him to bake all the peasants into a giant chocolate cake, he'd do it and probably enjoy it. But just doing it on his own for the lulz? Nah.

I always got the impression that a lot of his dislike for the Slitherers comes from him thinking they're amateurs.

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He's only do it if it was advantageous for some way, like if the giant chocolate cake would attract a monster they needed to kill for it's bones or something. Hubert is this uniquely interesting character in that he is entire moral code is centered not around human decency, or even a ideal or goal. So long as it gives Edelgard support, he'll do it with or without prompting.

But yeah no I can definitely see him looking at the Slitherers and going "god, you're so pathetic. Ashen skin and make up and you're still not even half as intense as me, and you're needlessly evil.

[Rodin]

Pffft.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Spoiler: Chapter 12

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Facing down Edelgard at the end of the battle, I gave her a choice of Dmitri or Dedue for her to charge. I was pretty confident either one could tank the hit, and then I'd have Dmitri fight her to see what his line would be.

Instead, she chose to attack the random redshirt Swordmaster that had somehow survived fighting through the heart of the Empire's army. This should have been a sign, but to be fair I didn't see this coming either.

Edelgard whiffs her attack, and the Swordmaster retaliates with not one but TWO crits, dealing around 100 damage and instantly defeating Edelgard. Or at least, they would if the game allowed them to - Edelgard's boss status saved her and she was reduced to 1 HP instead. Dmitri just strolled up and cherry-tapped her with a Rusted Sword for the win.

Felix as a Swordmaster getting a crit with his Crest activation is a clear winner for the coolest battle animation in the game. I've yet to see anything even close to how cool and stylish that was. He's the first Swordmaster I've had, and I'm now regretting that fact. He just learned Astra, so I get to see that in my next session too.

[Battleship789]

Pffft.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Spoiler: Chapter 12

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Facing down Edelgard at the end of the battle, I gave her a choice of Dmitri or Dedue for her to charge. I was pretty confident either one could tank the hit, and then I'd have Dmitri fight her to see what his line would be.

Instead, she chose to attack the random redshirt Swordmaster that had somehow survived fighting through the heart of the Empire's army. This should have been a sign, but to be fair I didn't see this coming either.

Edelgard whiffs her attack, and the Swordmaster retaliates with not one but TWO crits, dealing around 100 damage and instantly defeating Edelgard. Or at least, they would if the game allowed them to - Edelgard's boss status saved her and she was reduced to 1 HP instead. Dmitri just strolled up and cherry-tapped her with a Rusted Sword for the win.

Felix as a Swordmaster getting a crit with his Crest activation is a clear winner for the coolest battle animation in the game. I've yet to see anything even close to how cool and stylish that was. He's the first Swordmaster I've had, and I'm now regretting that fact. He just learned Astra, so I get to see that in my next session too.

Spoiler: Chapter 12

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That generic swordmaster has a tendency to wreck enemies. Iirc, she is Catherine's replacement if you've recruited Catherine into your army.

[Zevox]

Felix as a Swordmaster getting a crit with his Crest activation is a clear winner for the coolest battle animation in the game. I've yet to see anything even close to how cool and stylish that was. He's the first Swordmaster I've had, and I'm now regretting that fact. He just learned Astra, so I get to see that in my next session too.

Really? I was a bit disappointed by the swordmaster crit animation in this one, honestly. Just a pair of swings in a cross shape, nothing particularly fancy.

Personally, I still miss the swordmaster crits from the GBA games, with the afterimages and motion blur effect emphasizing their ridiculous speed.

[huttj509]

Ok, if you're doing Claude's Paralogue, take along anyone with green hair.

Spoiler: A conversation I saw

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"Ah, it is good to see you again after so long Ceth-" "Shut up Uncle." "You look just like you used to Ceth-" "Stop talking, Uncle!"

[goodpeople25]

Ok, if you're doing Claude's Paralogue, take along anyone with green hair.

Spoiler: A conversation I saw

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"Ah, it is good to see you again after so long Ceth-" "Shut up Uncle." "You look just like you used to Ceth-" "Stop talking, Uncle!"

Spoiler: A conversation I also saw

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Huh that seems pretty much the same as in Leonie's and Linhardt's paralogue. Don't mind it being repeated since it provides more opportunities to see it and I think that conversation is hilarious.

[Zevox]

So, Serenes Forest now has more detailed recruitment information than we've had before. Interesting note, apparently a B support does not guarantee recruitment. Instead, it gives the character a random chance to request to join your house during a weekday, regardless of your actual stats - but it is random and can't be completely relied upon. You can get automatic recruitment at A support, but since all A supports are time-locked to past the time skip you can only use that via New Game+, and only with characters who you got A support with in previous files. Also, everyone has different levels they want your skills/stats at, it's not uniform across the board, and the amount by which a support rank lowers it varies depending on how high the requirement was to begin with (so a C support will hardly lower the easiest requirements at all, but has a more appreciable effect on the strictest).

Also, Hilda apparently can be recruited in Black Eagle, but only if you

Spoiler: Obvious time skip spoiler

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side with the Church.

She's also apparently one of the pickiest recruits in the game, the only one who wants you to have a stat (Charm in this case) at 30 if you have no support with her. Makes it understandable why she might be tough to get even for the Blue Lions.

Evidently the jury is still out on Gilbert, he's the only one they don't have all the details for yet, just a note that he may only be available on the Blue Lion path.

On my own progress, I'm rapidly approaching the time skip now - just finished

Spoiler: Chapter 9

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the mission where Jeralt dies,

and have started promoting everyone (sans the Pegasus Knights...) to advanced classes. I find it amusing that Lysithea and Marianne got a +8 to defense for entering Warlock and Bishop respectively - pretty sad that their growths are so terrible that the minimums to those classes are that much higher than they got naturally. Lysithea got a good +5 resistance, too - poor girl just does not have any durability at all, even in her area of expertise. Ignatz got a nice +4 to his strength for promoting to Assassin too, so that plus swordfaire is going to be a nice boon to him. And Leonie has fortunately had the law of averages catch up with her and gotten some solid strength growths the last five or so levels, plus I got her an energy drop, so she's actually getting decent there. Sucks that she has to wait an extra 10 levels to pick up lancefaire while everyone else is getting their -faire skills now though.

Looking forward to seeing the story finally properly diverge, rather than just getting vague ideas of what Claude's up to as he snoops around.

Oh, and holy cow, having Petra go into axe classes rather than sword ones has made her a one-woman murder machine. She has a higher strength score than even Rafael or Hilda, and of course her speed is nuts because she's just naturally one of the fastest characters in the game. She might end up almost as crazy a Wyvern Lord as Leonie did in my Black Eagle run at this rate - ending up just as strong but moderately less durable is the track she seems to be on currently.

[Rodin]

So, Serenes Forest now has more detailed recruitment information than we've had before. Interesting note, apparently a B support does not guarantee recruitment. Instead, it gives the character a random chance to request to join your house during a weekday, regardless of your actual stats - but it is random and can't be completely relied upon. You can get automatic recruitment at A support, but since all A supports are time-locked to past the time skip you can only use that via New Game+, and only with characters who you got A support with in previous files. Also, everyone has different levels they want your skills/stats at, it's not uniform across the board, and the amount by which a support rank lowers it varies depending on how high the requirement was to begin with (so a C support will hardly lower the easiest requirements at all, but has a more appreciable effect on the strictest).

As noted upthread, some students (like Caspar) have timeskip locked B supports, meaning that you cannot recruit them at all if you are doing pure reputation. Means I'm still missing out on that one Paralogue I'm really interested in, and it will have to wait for my final run.

I have a save where I was going to pick up, but on reflection my students had terrible level-ups that game and it would be difficult to recruit the characters I want from where the save is. So I think I'm going to go full New Game+ cheese - spend all my renown on Support conversations and try to recruit EVERYBODY. Get the entire school together apart from the House leaders and other unrecruitables.

Evidently the jury is still out on Gilbert, he's the only one they don't have all the details for yet, just a note that he may only be available on the Blue Lion path.

I would be surprised if he's available on any other path. He's VERY tightly associated with the Kingdom, and even his supports with non-Blue Lions characters are him talking about his relationship with the Kingdom. He also joins Blue Lions automatically as part of the story, similar to Flayn.

On my own progress, I'm rapidly approaching the time skip now - just finished

Spoiler: Chapter 9

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the mission where Jeralt dies,

and have started promoting everyone (sans the Pegasus Knights...) to advanced classes. I find it amusing that Lysithea and Marianne got a +8 to defense for entering Warlock and Bishop respectively - pretty sad that their growths are so terrible that the minimums to those classes are that much higher than they got naturally. Lysithea got a good +5 resistance, too - poor girl just does not have any durability at all, even in her area of expertise. Ignatz got a nice +4 to his strength for promoting to Assassin too, so that plus swordfaire is going to be a nice boon to him. And Leonie has fortunately had the law of averages catch up with her and gotten some solid strength growths the last five or so levels, plus I got her an energy drop, so she's actually getting decent there. Sucks that she has to wait an extra 10 levels to pick up lancefaire while everyone else is getting their -faire skills now though.

I recommend putting her through the Paladin class while she waits for Falcon Knight. It gives her Lancefaire for those 10 levels and Aegis is an excellent class skill to pick up for Pegasus Knights since it reduces Bow damage. I put Ingrid through that path (Pegasus Knight into Paladin into Falcon Knight) and it turned her into a monster. The last mission I did (chapter 17 or 18 I think?) she flew into a group of 6 enemies - a Grappler, a Warrior, two Paladins, and two Bow Knights. She does not have that shield that reduces Bow damage, so she would be taking around 50 damage from the bows.

After she Canto'd away the following turn, there was one Bow Knight alive and she was at full health. The Bow Knight got his shot (which would not have quite killed her) and she Aegis'd the damage, then went in and finished him off the following turn. I think the highest hit rate any of the enemies had was the Bow Knights at ~40%. I'm surprised the Warrior even attacked, since his to-hit was all of 2%.

She's bloody fast, she flies, she dodges almost everything, she ignores Magic damage (since Paladins have high Resist growths too), and she has enough HP/Defense to off-tank anything else. Once I get her protection from Bows she'll be unstoppable.

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As I mentioned, I'm closing in on the finale of Blue Lions. I've been enjoying the story GREATLY so far, and it complements the Golden Deer path very well. I'm gonna save a full write-up of my thoughts on the plot until after I've finished.

Edit:

One non-story note.

Spoiler: Blue Lions Chapter 19

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Holy CRAP saving Hilda is hard! She can die as early as turn 3 or 4, and if she gets hit by a Gambit she can get straight up one-rounded from full HP. I had to restart (not Dragon Pulse, but an actual restart from deployment) and go full balls-to-the-wall mad dash with my cavalry to reach her in time, and it still required weird shenanigans like Ashe pulling off a 7-range Deadeye shot, then Smiting Gilbert so he had the range to Rally Defense on him so Ashe could survive the retaliation the next turn. Even so I still had to kill Arundel with half the enemies still on the field and none of the gates secured because he would have ridden over and massacred her.

Still, having a tiny girl (Annette) smash his smug face in with a huge hammer is something I've been waiting to do for a long time. Immensely satisfying.

[GloatingSwine]

In other news, I am now sure that Cyril took a wrong turn and thinks he is in an X-Com game, the number of times he misses at 80%+ accuracy and takes hits with under 20% back.

[Rodin]

In other news, I am now sure that Cyril took a wrong turn and thinks he is in an X-Com game, the number of times he misses at 80%+ accuracy and takes hits with under 20% back.

I had to kill Caspar because our IDIOT PRINCE managed to take a 20% Blaze gambit to the face, which meant my team couldn't outrun him. Should have come to my house, bro.

Fortunately Linhardt slept through the first half of the battle so he's still the only Black Eagle I've managed to avoid killing in all runs.

I think the final Blue Lions missions might be the hardest in the game. I'm not sure if it's because they're inherently harder or it's just because the level scaling has gotten so absurd (I'm at level 44 for both my squad and the enemies) that we're starting to hit really dangerous levels of crit and damage on both sides. Outleveling the content doesn't seem possible - with my New Game+ Renown rewards giving me at least 40% bonus experience I should be massively outleveling the enemies, but that doesn't seem to be the case. It just scales up. I'm struggling much more so far and just looking at the final map makes me want to weep.

Spoiler: Blue Lions final map

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RANGE 1-30!?!?!? With two actions per turn, her own Gambit with infinite uses, and a Barrier that is unbreakable!? I thought the final boss of Edelgard's route was scary, but it was NOTHING compared to this! I have characters like Flayn and Lysithea that I can't even DEPLOY into that nonsense.

Enbarr was rough with the artillery all over the damn place and constant waves of reinforcements, but the palace just looks terrifying. I assume we'll be getting more tons of reinforcements here too, though at least I can keep my whole army together.

[Zevox]

As noted upthread, some students (like Caspar) have timeskip locked B supports, meaning that you cannot recruit them at all if you are doing pure reputation. Means I'm still missing out on that one Paralogue I'm really interested in, and it will have to wait for my final run.

Yeah, apparently there's two that are like that - Ferdinand and Caspar. So if you want them in other houses, you're either going to want to Black Eagle first and use New Game+ methods, or focus on learning the skills they want (heavy armor and brawling respectively).

I would be surprised if he's available on any other path. He's VERY tightly associated with the Kingdom, and even his supports with non-Blue Lions characters are him talking about his relationship with the Kingdom. He also joins Blue Lions automatically as part of the story, similar to Flayn.

My one question is if recruiting Annette has any affect on his interest in joining the other houses, due to his relationship to her. But I've never done that, and I'd kind of expect it to have been found out and be on Serenes Forest by now if it were that easy, so I'm guessing you're right.

I recommend putting her through the Paladin class while she waits for Falcon Knight. It gives her Lancefaire for those 10 levels and Aegis is an excellent class skill to pick up for Pegasus Knights since it reduces Bow damage. I put Ingrid through that path (Pegasus Knight into Paladin into Falcon Knight) and it turned her into a monster.

The problem is that would require a major skill detour to get riding skill up to B, which I only have at E+, and she already still needs to get her sword skill up to C to qualify for Falcon Knight when I haven't developed that at all yet. So I don't think that's practical.

In other news, I am now sure that Cyril took a wrong turn and thinks he is in an X-Com game, the number of times he misses at 80%+ accuracy and takes hits with under 20% back.

I had that experience with Rafael early in the game. Well, the first half of it, anyway - no one ever has an only 20% chance to hit Rafael.

[Rodin]

The problem is that would require a major skill detour to get riding skill up to B, which I only have at E+, and she already still needs to get her sword skill up to C to qualify for Falcon Knight when I haven't developed that at all yet. So I don't think that's practical.

Ah, true. I had my route planned out from the start with Ingrid so she started on the riding skill the instant she hit rank D in Flying.

[LaZodiac]

On my first go of things I trained Petra up as a pegasus knight into Falco Knight and by end game she was literally untouchable. The final boss of my route had a 4% chance to hit her.

[Rodin]

On my first go of things I trained Petra up as a pegasus knight into Falco Knight and by end game she was literally untouchable. The final boss of my route had a 4% chance to hit her.

Honestly, it may come down to that the way things are going. Just Ingrid battering away turn after turn. I used her so much in the last mission I broke all her weapons, and then Byleth got MVP because reasons.

[Zevox]

So, I just saw Lorenz and Catherine's C support, and suddenly I like Catherine a lot better.

Spoiler: Support spoiler

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She tells him off for his elitism hard, way more bluntly than anyone else I've seen. And after a certain point, he just kind of shuts up and has nothing to say in response. Pretty satisfying to watch.

Spoiler: Black Eagle/Edelgard spoiler

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Actually, given her remarks there, I honestly think that if she knew what Edelgard was trying to accomplish with abolishing the nobility, she might be more sympathetic to her cause. She does not seem to have much higher an opinion of nobles than Edelgard herself. Granted, she seems so loyal to Rhea personally that I doubt it would sway her anyway, but still, interesting to see their thoughts align a bit like that.

[Rodin]

Aaaand....done! Blue Lions GET!

I'll write up my story thoughts later, I need time to process. I was pretty blown away by it though - I'm highly impressed by the storytelling on display here.

First things first, to address my earlier comments about the final stage:

Spoiler: Blue Lions final stage

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Well, that was easy. Almost no reinforcements, the enemies on one side don't pursue you, and you can take a Fire Orb away from the enemies and use Cantoing Mages to fire multiple shots per turn. Edelgard focused her attacks on Dmitri (who she couldn't hit) and Mercedes (who was full healing for free every time she healed somebody else). Her final form was intimidating, but ultimately even easier than the Black Eagles final boss. Her barrier says "No risk of armor break", but all that means is that she doesn't get stunned. So I pinged her barrier down with weaker units and then melted all her health bars over a couple turns. Final stage of Black Eagles has been supplanted as hardest mission, but not by this one - the fight in Enbarr was exponentially more difficult.

As for the enemies, I just ran into one of the side rooms and bottlenecked them with Ingrid dodge-tanking everything. I didn't even really need half my squad.

My MVPs this time were not a surprise. Mage Byleth works well, but he takes a long time to get going and isn't noticeably better than following a more standard path for him. He was a bit more versatile but noticeably squishier. I don't think it's worth the effort unless you just feel like being wacky like I was.

As result, Byleth only picks up a couple MVPs. The clear winner is Goddess of Destruction Ingrid, Reaper of Worlds. Strongest character I've had in the game so far, with the possible exception of Claude, but that was on Normal so it doesn't really count. Her supporting cast were Ashe, Annette, and Dmitri, in that order. Ashe got a few MVPs just by sniping everything, and Annette picked hers up during a brief period when Ingrid was still working her way through Paladin.


My paired endings were a big pile of WHAAAAAAAAATTT??? Byleth's supports with the girls weren't as good as the other pairings I had lined up, so I paired him with Gilbert. I see why there was controversy here (especially given the lack of gay options for male Byleth in general), but as presented in the story I rather liked it as a deep personal friendship.

One other note of disappointment - if Byleth doesn't pick a girl for the Goddess Tower (and I explicitly chose "Nobody comes to mind" by speaking to watchman), the game just picks whoever you're closest to and gives you the full romantic treatment as if you chose them. Give me an non-romantic option, please.

Spoiler: The rest of the paired endings

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I spent ages lining up Mercedes and Annette, since I had heard they could have a paired ending and they had A-rank support with each other. I checked even before the final mission to be sure that they were each other's closest allies.

No dice. Mercedes wound up ALONE, which boggled my mind.

I also spent a while setting Ashe up with Catherine, since that seemed like a neat pairing. No luck there either - Catherine basically married Rhea, which I guess is unsurprising but disappointing under the circumstances. Ashe and Annette finding themselves alone decided to get married despite not really spending all that much time together.

Felix and Lysithea were utterly adorable together, so I arranged for them to get a paired ending. Nope! Lysithea wound up alone...again. Which makes 2 out of the 3 times I've had her in my house, although to be fair in Black Eagles I only took her in because the other choice was killing her. I did try to do right by her though.

Having failed to get one gay ending, I was utterly shocked to effectively get one by accident - Felix and Sylvain didn't get married, but they DID have a Laurel and Hardy bromance that lasted their entire lives. I was not aiming for this at all, but now that I think about it I paired them at dinner often as a "safe" pairing that wouldn't screw up my endings. Little did I know. Considered further, Sylvain had utter disdain for most women and Felix was utterly uninterested in romance. So, honestly, despite my promise to get Sylvain a happy ending after his bachelorhood last run, I'm actually pretty pleased with how this one turned out.

After being rejected by Sylvain in favor of his Hardy, Ingrid did manage to get her happy ending by snagging Dmitri on the rebound. Her father should be happy about that, and Dmitri is used to standing behind her and watching her pile up corpses so it's the best of both worlds.

The one paired ending that I was going for and actually GOT was Dedue and Flayn. Which was utterly sweet and adorable and I'm glad the big teddy bear got a happy life. Given how my paired endings were going, I'm surprised I managed to prise him away from Dmitri. Flayn as a top-tier chef is also inherently funny to me for some reason. Gordon Ramsay she ain't.

[Zevox]

Sounds like my method of only keeping A-rank supports between the pairings that I want is a good call, then, based on that.

Anyway, I have hit the time skip in Golden Deer at last! Will post more thoughts on it tomorrow, but something that surprises and confuses me is that, well, Ashe seems to have gone missing from my roster . I had wound up recruiting everyone (though I had to spend some extra reknown getting A support with Lindhart and some extra Faith to recruit Annette at the last minute to do it), and everyone else seems to be there, but Ashe is just absent. Never lost him in battle or anything (I've actually never used him outside of a paralogue that required him), and I'm playing on casual so even if I had he should still be there, but nope. Story thing they haven't explained because I'm Golden Deer rather than Blue Lion? Bug? Anyone have any idea?

[goodpeople25]

Sounds like my method of only keeping A-rank supports between the pairings that I want is a good call, then, based on that.

Anyway, I have hit the time skip in Golden Deer at last! Will post more thoughts on it tomorrow, but something that surprises and confuses me is that, well, Ashe seems to have gone missing from my roster . I had wound up recruiting everyone (though I had to spend some extra reknown getting A support with Lindhart and some extra Faith to recruit Annette at the last minute to do it), and everyone else seems to be there, but Ashe is just absent. Never lost him in battle or anything (I've actually never used him outside of a paralogue that required him), and I'm playing on casual so even if I had he should still be there, but nope. Story thing they haven't explained because I'm Golden Deer rather than Blue Lion? Bug? Anyone have any idea?

He should show up in a few chapters as an enemy I believe, just "kill" him and you'll get a persuade or kill choice. (while I haven't played golden deer myself I've played a similar route where that happened.)

[Rodin]

I haven't seen that happen for any characters I've successfully recruited - they just showed up in the monastery. The only time I got given a choice to capture instead of kill was Lysithea, who I had zero support levels with and was not a magic user. The game just gave me the option. I think the reasoning there was

Spoiler: Black Eagles and Lysithea

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her connection to Edelgard through shared trauma.

I can't imagine the Golden Deer path having anything specific that Ashe needs to be available for either. The only thing I can think of is if you've recruited the entire House out from under Dmitri then maybe he needs an extra character to hold dialogue with? Did you manage to recruit Dedue? If anyone were to go missing to provide dialogue, I would have thought Dedue would the number one suspect.

By the way Zevox, what method did you use for the recruiting? Were you able to do most of it without spending renown? I'm looking at doing a full recruitment drive myself and I'm curious about the best way. My first thought was to push the professor level up early so I can spend lots of time in the dining hall, but I'm worried that I wouldn't have enough food. Pushing the level up early to get flowers has the same problem, as it takes several chapters before you start getting the seeds available. I know that just doing lost items and selecting the correct conversation choice isn't enough to C-rank with anybody other than Rhea, because I experimented with that last run.

Pushing up professor level and then spending it all on private instruction also seems like a possible path. Train with everybody, at all times, and get as many skills up as high as you can as fast as you can. Even so some people seem difficult. I'm going female Byleth because Sylvain's requirements otherwise are HAHAHAHA NO.

I am also curious about how having a ton of people you don't use will affect the mission levels. The levels are set prior to going in, and the weekly missions at the very least are level scaled. Is it average class level? Byleth's level? Hmmm.

[Zevox]

Okay then, so, assorted thoughts on Golden Deer Time Skip event, and comparisons with Black Eagle version:

Spoiler

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So, some things that stood out to me even before getting to the real meat of the event. One, in the tomb, they don't reveal that Edelgard is the Flame Emperor until after the battle, unlike on the Black Eagle route where you learn this as soon as she shows up in the tomb. Doesn't matter much, but neat, leaves that tension about "his" identity a little while longer for the route(s, I assume) that have less connection to her. Two, Rhea was already ranting about raising the Church's army to destroy Edelgard as soon as she escaped the tomb, well before she actually declared war on them, which rather validates Edelgard's view that a war is inevitable if you're opposing the Church. Three, Edelgard has some clearly regretful dialogue when you fight her in the final pre-skip mission, particularly if you do so with Byleth, saying that she wishes you were someone who could be moved by her words or deeds, because she'd have done anything to convince you to fight by her side if so, which... damn, made me sad that the only route where I can side with her is Black Eagle.

So, anyway, actual story developments. I'm surprised by how much things have diverged, honestly, though also by one thing that didn't. I was expecting that, with you fighting on the Church's side in the battle at the monastery, your side would be victorious and the monastery would be held. Nope, things still play out much the same - Rhea becomes the Immaculate One, you're knocked out just by Edelgard's uncle rather than Rhea, and the Empire still wins in the end. Huh. Which, uh, leaves me very confused why the Empire didn't occupy the Monastery in this version of events? As Claude points out, is in a pretty strategic location, central between the three nations, and well, they did do that in the Black Eagle route. Kind of silly that they just conveniently abandon it for no reason on the other route(s, I assume). I was expecting to have to retake it in the first post-time-skip missions after I saw that the Empire still took it in the first place, but I guess if they did that they couldn't have the silly "everyone keeps their promise to return to the monastery five years later and that's how they meet back up with you once you reawaken" moment. (Speaking of which, Claude was surprisingly nonchalant about you just showing back up alive after being missing for five years in that scene...)

Not sure why the Black Eagle route didn't get a big animated cutscene fighting the Immaculate One then getting knocked out by her the same way Golden Deer (and I assume the others) do for fighting alongside her and getting knocked out by Edelgard's uncle. Seems strange that they skimped on that. I will say though, I was happy that the actual battle had you fighting down from the top of the same map that you fight up from the bottom of on the Black Eagle route - a minor point of disappointment for me with the earlier inter-house battles (chapter 1 and the Battle of the Eagle and Lion) is that your side always starts in the same place regardless of house, so glad to see the more logical arrangement here.

But anyway, after the actual time-skip, I was quite surprised to learn that in this version, the Kingdom Capital had already fallen during the five years, and the Kingdom itself has little more than a small remnant left. And I think Dmitri was captured? They said he was "sentenced," as if he'd had a trial or something, but didn't elaborate on that, which is weird. Was not expecting that big of a divergence from the Black Eagle route, where the war was mostly a stalemate until post-time skip, and you wind up focusing on the Alliance first, then the Kingdom. I guess perhaps Rhea going missing leaves the Kingdom in a weaker spot, both because of her personal absence and because the Knights have been focusing their efforts on finding her more than on fighting the war, which is interesting.

Very curious to see what Claude's actual plans are now. He's made it pretty clear that he's suspicious of the Church, but he's fighting against the Empire and with them nonetheless, so it'll be interesting to see how that plays out.

Also, gameplay-wise, kind of disappointed that Claude's unique class loses the range+1 of archer/sniper. I guess the extra mobility helps make up for it, but damn, I miss that longer range already, and it almost makes me wonder if I shouldn't have planned to go Bow Knight with him instead. On a happier note though, the time-skip level bonus was pretty kind to Ignatz, boosted his strength a fair bit. Sadly didn't do as much for Leonie, but she wasn't struggling as much as Ignatz anymore, so that's not a disaster.

He should show up in a few chapters as an enemy I believe, just "kill" him and you'll get a persuade or kill choice. (while I haven't played golden deer myself I've played a similar route where that happened.)

I see. Well, I guess I'll find out then. It wouldn't be a huge deal if I didn't get him back, since as I said I wasn't using him anyway, but it was strange and confusing to find someone just gone without a word about why.

I can't imagine the Golden Deer path having anything specific that Ashe needs to be available for either. The only thing I can think of is if you've recruited the entire House out from under Dmitri then maybe he needs an extra character to hold dialogue with? Did you manage to recruit Dedue? If anyone were to go missing to provide dialogue, I would have thought Dedue would the number one suspect.

Dedue is unrecruitable. Too loyal to Dmitri, like Hubert is to Edelgard, I figure.

By the way Zevox, what method did you use for the recruiting? Were you able to do most of it without spending renown? I'm looking at doing a full recruitment drive myself and I'm curious about the best way. My first thought was to push the professor level up early so I can spend lots of time in the dining hall, but I'm worried that I wouldn't have enough food. Pushing the level up early to get flowers has the same problem, as it takes several chapters before you start getting the seeds available. I know that just doing lost items and selecting the correct conversation choice isn't enough to C-rank with anybody other than Rhea, because I experimented with that last run.

Pushing up professor level and then spending it all on private instruction also seems like a possible path. Train with everybody, at all times, and get as many skills up as high as you can as fast as you can. Even so some people seem difficult. I'm going female Byleth because Sylvain's requirements otherwise are HAHAHAHA NO.

I am also curious about how having a ton of people you don't use will affect the mission levels. The levels are set prior to going in, and the weekly missions at the very least are level scaled. Is it average class level? Byleth's level? Hmmm.

Well, let's see, from memory...

Spoiler: Listing each, spoilered for space only.

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Ferdinand: Got his C support legitimately, used renown for B, he requested to join quite a while later.
Lindhart: Got his C support legitimately, used renown for B, he never asked to join so used renown for A at the last minute.
Caspar: Got his C support legitimately, used renown for B, he asked to join a few weeks later.
Bernadetta: Got her C support legitimately, used renown for B, she asked to join a few weeks later.
Dorothea: Used renown for instant B support early, she asked to join almost immediately.
Petra: Used renown for instant B support early, she asked to join almost immediately.

Felix: Got his support to B legitimately, had the appropriate stats for him from there. One of my last recruits, since I was focused on lance and flying, not swords, until quite late.
Ashe: Skill he wanted happened to line up with what I was training (lance), so I recruited him with no support levels at all.
Sylvain: Female Byleth, freebie.
Mercedes: Got her support to B legitimately, she asked to join a few weeks later.
Anette: Got her support to B legitimately very late, she didn't ask to join so I used renown to boost my Faith stat to where she wanted it at the last minute.
Ingrid: Skill she wanted happened to line up with what I was training (flying), so I recruited her with no support levels at all.

So, a fair amount of renown spent on the Black Eagles, partly because I wanted Dorothea and Petra early to actually use, and partly to make sure I could save the rest, but I was able to save on spending any for C supports besides Dorothea and Petra. The Blue Lions were a mix of a few that were easy because of going Pegasus Knight Byleth, one (Mercedes) that I deliberately focused on raising support with early because of her paralogue, and the last two that I just focused on grabbing late because I was so close to having everyone at that point.

As far as getting the supports that I didn't spend renown for, that was mostly a mix of lost items, meals, the occasional hymn recital in some cases, and in Mercedes' and Bernie's cases cooking with them once a month (started doing that with Mercedes as soon as it became available, switched to Bernie once I recruited her). I did gift-spam Felix and Anette to get their B supports near the end, since renown wasn't an option for them because I'd never had their supports in my first file, and I think I used a couple of gifts to help get Lindhart and Ferdinand's C supports, but not many. I do use the dining hall a lot (though I always prioritized using it for motivation on the characters I was actually using first, then for raising supports with prospective recruits second), and don't have a problem maintaining enough food for it. Since I never use Rest or Lecture, just Explore whenever I'm not fighting, I'm able to do a lot growing in the greenhouse, and of course fish a fair amount. Also, I did use renown to bump up my Professor rank early, but not by a huge amount - I believe I had it start at D+, because I was worried about making things too easy if I just jumped it way up right out of the gate. I'm sure that helped though, it would put my activity points 2-3 ahead of the curve at most points in the story.

As far as mission levels go, hard to say for sure, honestly. The main story ones definitely don't budge, and I don't think the paralogues do either, and that's the majority of what I did. I did some of the regular ones early on, but later I stopped, partially because I had so many paralogues to do, and partially because I was worried about over-leveling. Honestly, despite using some characters I wasn't trying to use as main party members for some of the paralogues just to avoid over-leveling my main team, I still felt like the last four months or so of story missions were pretty easy for the most part, aside from specifically dealing with the Death Knight. Seems that might change post-time skip though, the first mission after that was surprisingly rough compared to those last pre-time skip ones.

[tonberrian]

Aside from time-locked to post-timeskip supports, it's really easy to raise everyone to b support with gift spam. Month 11 is plenty of gifts to get everyone aside from time-locked supports, if you buy the whole lot every month. Remember that b rank supports also reduce the requirements to just recruit the student outright - I think you still need to meet the stat requirement, but the skills are reduced to the point that a D rank should work for any student.

This leaves Caspar and Ferdinand, though, who are apparently time-locked until after the time skip.

Edit: Apparently Serenes has the exact effects of supports now. I was wrong, though D does cover most skill requirements with B supports.

[Zevox]

Aside from time-locked to post-timeskip supports, it's really easy to raise everyone to b support with gift spam. Month 11 is plenty of gifts to get everyone aside from time-locked supports, if you buy the whole lot every month. Remember that b rank supports also reduce the requirements to just recruit the student outright - I think you still need to meet the stat requirement, but the skills are reduced to the point that a D rank should work for any student.

This leaves Caspar and Ferdinand, though, who are apparently time-locked until after the time skip.

It's not quite that easy. B support gives you a chance that the character will ask to join your house during a weekday, regardless of whether you meet their requirements, but it's random. And how low the requirements are once you have a B support depends on how high they started. Someone like Ashe, who only needs a C in lances to begin with, would get down to only needing a D at support rank B; but someone like Felix, who needs you to have a B+ sword skill to recruit him with no support ranks, only gets down to requiring a C sword skill at B rank support. Serenes Forest has the info (tucked away in a set of tables you need to click a link for under the "Lowering the Requirements" header).

Edit: Ah, you noticed, cool.

[Rodin]

I think I will officially have no problem getting my support levels up. I started game with around 8000 Renown, and that's with all 4 statues fully completed. Doing a New Game Plus inside your New Game Plus (dawg) has it's advantages, I guess. I immediately B-ranked half the students using the Serenes Forest guide and I already recruited Raphael before recruiting even officially opened up. I also put my professor level up to C immediately for giving out lots of meals and training up skills to snag people. I think even with just the renown you get from normal play I would have enough to simply A-rank the entire school.

Okay then, so, assorted thoughts on Golden Deer Time Skip event, and comparisons with Black Eagle version:

Spoiler

Show

So, some things that stood out to me even before getting to the real meat of the event. One, in the tomb, they don't reveal that Edelgard is the Flame Emperor until after the battle, unlike on the Black Eagle route where you learn this as soon as she shows up in the tomb. Doesn't matter much, but neat, leaves that tension about "his" identity a little while longer for the route(s, I assume) that have less connection to her. Two, Rhea was already ranting about raising the Church's army to destroy Edelgard as soon as she escaped the tomb, well before she actually declared war on them, which rather validates Edelgard's view that a war is inevitable if you're opposing the Church. Three, Edelgard has some clearly regretful dialogue when you fight her in the final pre-skip mission, particularly if you do so with Byleth, saying that she wishes you were someone who could be moved by her words or deeds, because she'd have done anything to convince you to fight by her side if so, which... damn, made me sad that the only route where I can side with her is Black Eagle.

So, anyway, actual story developments. I'm surprised by how much things have diverged, honestly, though also by one thing that didn't. I was expecting that, with you fighting on the Church's side in the battle at the monastery, your side would be victorious and the monastery would be held. Nope, things still play out much the same - Rhea becomes the Immaculate One, you're knocked out just by Edelgard's uncle rather than Rhea, and the Empire still wins in the end. Huh. Which, uh, leaves me very confused why the Empire didn't occupy the Monastery in this version of events? As Claude points out, is in a pretty strategic location, central between the three nations, and well, they did do that in the Black Eagle route. Kind of silly that they just conveniently abandon it for no reason on the other route(s, I assume). I was expecting to have to retake it in the first post-time-skip missions after I saw that the Empire still took it in the first place, but I guess if they did that they couldn't have the silly "everyone keeps their promise to return to the monastery five years later and that's how they meet back up with you once you reawaken" moment. (Speaking of which, Claude was surprisingly nonchalant about you just showing back up alive after being missing for five years in that scene...)

Not sure why the Black Eagle route didn't get a big animated cutscene fighting the Immaculate One then getting knocked out by her the same way Golden Deer (and I assume the others) do for fighting alongside her and getting knocked out by Edelgard's uncle. Seems strange that they skimped on that. I will say though, I was happy that the actual battle had you fighting down from the top of the same map that you fight up from the bottom of on the Black Eagle route - a minor point of disappointment for me with the earlier inter-house battles (chapter 1 and the Battle of the Eagle and Lion) is that your side always starts in the same place regardless of house, so glad to see the more logical arrangement here.

But anyway, after the actual time-skip, I was quite surprised to learn that in this version, the Kingdom Capital had already fallen during the five years, and the Kingdom itself has little more than a small remnant left. And I think Dmitri was captured? They said he was "sentenced," as if he'd had a trial or something, but didn't elaborate on that, which is weird. Was not expecting that big of a divergence from the Black Eagle route, where the war was mostly a stalemate until post-time skip, and you wind up focusing on the Alliance first, then the Kingdom. I guess perhaps Rhea going missing leaves the Kingdom in a weaker spot, both because of her personal absence and because the Knights have been focusing their efforts on finding her more than on fighting the war, which is interesting.

Very curious to see what Claude's actual plans are now. He's made it pretty clear that he's suspicious of the Church, but he's fighting against the Empire and with them nonetheless, so it'll be interesting to see how that plays out.

Also, gameplay-wise, kind of disappointed that Claude's unique class loses the range+1 of archer/sniper. I guess the extra mobility helps make up for it, but damn, I miss that longer range already, and it almost makes me wonder if I shouldn't have planned to go Bow Knight with him instead. On a happier note though, the time-skip level bonus was pretty kind to Ignatz, boosted his strength a fair bit. Sadly didn't do as much for Leonie, but she wasn't struggling as much as Ignatz anymore, so that's not a disaster.

Spoiler: Black Eagles and early Golden Deer

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Essentially, Edelgard's route is a "What If?" story. That's why I wound up complaining so much about the lack of animations - the route is SO different from the others that no animations could be re-used and they opted to provide no unique animations for it other than at the very end. I watched the Immaculate One animation carefully again, and it shows both Claude and Dmitri fighting - so they could use it for both. That doesn't work for Edelgard's route, so you don't get one.

As to Rhea declaring war, I find it EXTREMELY difficult to look dimly on her for that. Edelgard was revealed to be behind multiple attacks on the Church (including inciting rebellion in Lord Lonato's land), and outright led an army to attack the most sacred place in the entire church including attempting to assassinate both the archbishop and the equivalent of Jesus (a.k.a Byleth). Edelgard had already committed multiple acts of war against the Church. At that point in the story, Edelgard is also considered to be responsible for Remire Village, the murder of Jeralt, turning a bunch of students into monsters, kidnapping Flayn, trying to steal Seiros's body...

Yes, I realize the truth is more complex than that, but Rhea doesn't know that. As far as she's concerned Edelgard is just straight up working with Kronya, Solon, etc.

Now, I'm not saying you're wrong that unilaterally seceding from the Church would have gone down poorly. Rhea isn't exactly sane at this point in the story either, after all. But in the context of that scene, the person I put the blame for the war on is NOT Rhea. Regardless of what you think about Edelgard's philosophy and moral justification, she absolutely owns the responsibility for starting the war.

On why the monastery was abandoned - they go into it a bit on the Blue Lions route. It's not really a spoiler so I'll say it here: The Monastery is in a generally strategic point, but it's also far away from the battle lines. It's useless as a supply depot, and between Rhea going ham and other siege damage it's not that useful as a fortress. In all routes other than Edelgard's, neither the Kingdom or the Alliance are united enough to hold the monastery, and the Empire is having enough difficulty fighting a war on two fronts that they don't have the troops available. In Edelgard's route specifically, Rhea and the knights of Seiros shore up the Kingdom forces enough that the Empire is unable to push deeper in, making the monastery more reasonable as a staging point.

At the end of the day, it's just an excuse to put all routes in the monastery post timeskip. But it's one that I at least find believable.

As far as mission levels go, hard to say for sure, honestly. The main story ones definitely don't budge, and I don't think the paralogues do either, and that's the majority of what I did. I did some of the regular ones early on, but later I stopped, partially because I had so many paralogues to do, and partially because I was worried about over-leveling. Honestly, despite using some characters I wasn't trying to use as main party members for some of the paralogues just to avoid over-leveling my main team, I still felt like the last four months or so of story missions were pretty easy for the most part, aside from specifically dealing with the Death Knight. Seems that might change post-time skip though, the first mission after that was surprisingly rough compared to those last pre-time skip ones.

I just find it weird because I have a 40% experience bonus coming from the Renown statues, and I hit the final mission of Blue Lions at around level 44, and the enemies were matching me throughout. I have never been above the recommended level of a Story mission by more than a level or two, and given how absurdly easy it was to out-strip the story mission requirements in Awakening that has me deeply suspicious. What makes me even more suspicious is how low level the "Go fight bandits" quests were in comparison. Those looked like the ACTUAL level I should be at, which was pretty consistently 7-8 levels lower.

It's really irritating that I can't do proper Google searches on this stuff because the Google search result ranking is so abused. It's a popular game, so any search on anything related to it immediately gets drowned out by dozens of "These 10 simple tricks will let you beat Three Houses!" articles. I had to actually MANUALLY go to Serenes Forest to find them amongst all the trash.

Anyway, I'll be interested to see what happens with full New Game+ abuse offset with having to field the entire school. If it's some sort of average across your entire class things could get wacky.

[Zevox]

Spoiler: Black Eagles and early Golden Deer

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Essentially, Edelgard's route is a "What If?" story. That's why I wound up complaining so much about the lack of animations - the route is SO different from the others that no animations could be re-used and they opted to provide no unique animations for it other than at the very end. I watched the Immaculate One animation carefully again, and it shows both Claude and Dmitri fighting - so they could use it for both. That doesn't work for Edelgard's route, so you don't get one.

As to Rhea declaring war, I find it EXTREMELY difficult to look dimly on her for that. Edelgard was revealed to be behind multiple attacks on the Church (including inciting rebellion in Lord Lonato's land), and outright led an army to attack the most sacred place in the entire church including attempting to assassinate both the archbishop and the equivalent of Jesus (a.k.a Byleth). Edelgard had already committed multiple acts of war against the Church. At that point in the story, Edelgard is also considered to be responsible for Remire Village, the murder of Jeralt, turning a bunch of students into monsters, kidnapping Flayn, trying to steal Seiros's body...

Yes, I realize the truth is more complex than that, but Rhea doesn't know that. As far as she's concerned Edelgard is just straight up working with Kronya, Solon, etc.

Now, I'm not saying you're wrong that unilaterally seceding from the Church would have gone down poorly. Rhea isn't exactly sane at this point in the story either, after all. But in the context of that scene, the person I put the blame for the war on is NOT Rhea. Regardless of what you think about Edelgard's philosophy and moral justification, she absolutely owns the responsibility for starting the war.

On why the monastery was abandoned - they go into it a bit on the Blue Lions route. It's not really a spoiler so I'll say it here: The Monastery is in a generally strategic point, but it's also far away from the battle lines. It's useless as a supply depot, and between Rhea going ham and other siege damage it's not that useful as a fortress. In all routes other than Edelgard's, neither the Kingdom or the Alliance are united enough to hold the monastery, and the Empire is having enough difficulty fighting a war on two fronts that they don't have the troops available. In Edelgard's route specifically, Rhea and the knights of Seiros shore up the Kingdom forces enough that the Empire is unable to push deeper in, making the monastery more reasonable as a staging point.

At the end of the day, it's just an excuse to put all routes in the monastery post timeskip. But it's one that I at least find believable.

Spoiler: Part 2 Black Eagles/early P2 Golden Deer

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Oh, I didn't expect them to use the same animation for the Black Eagles route, clearly. But I don't know why they'd skimp on making another for it, when it's clearly appropriate, and would help make the transition there a bit less abrupt.

As for Rhea and Edelgard, yes, Edelgard is clearly the one responsible for starting the war here, no question. My observation is merely that Rhea's behavior validates the view that such a war was unavoidable if she wanted to achieve her goals. Rhea's ranting wasn't about how she couldn't believe all of the awful things she thought Edelgard was connected to, after all, just outrage that she'd disrespected the goddess so as to attack the tomb - that act alone was enough for her to be talking about raising an army against her. Moreover, this was before she knew that Edelgard had become the new Emperor so early - as far as she was aware at that point, she could have been working with a small group of conspirators, not the weight of her whole nation behind her. But nope, still, army-raising is right where Rhea's mind goes. Much as we saw throughout part 1, opposition to the Church is to be stamped down with extreme prejudice as far as she's concerned, every time.

As for the monastery, there was mention of it being away from the Empire's front lines in Golden Deer, though not quite so many details. Still, it feels wrong for the Empire to completely abandon it like that given the strategic location - they could have at least left a token force so that they had control of it should it prove useful, especially if the Kingdom and Alliance weren't in any shape to threaten to take it from them. Leaving it empty just leaves the possibility of their opponents taking it and using it against them later.

I just find it weird because I have a 40% experience bonus coming from the Renown statues, and I hit the final mission of Blue Lions at around level 44, and the enemies were matching me throughout. I have never been above the recommended level of a Story mission by more than a level or two, and given how absurdly easy it was to out-strip the story mission requirements in Awakening that has me deeply suspicious. What makes me even more suspicious is how low level the "Go fight bandits" quests were in comparison. Those looked like the ACTUAL level I should be at, which was pretty consistently 7-8 levels lower.

It's really irritating that I can't do proper Google searches on this stuff because the Google search result ranking is so abused. It's a popular game, so any search on anything related to it immediately gets drowned out by dozens of "These 10 simple tricks will let you beat Three Houses!" articles. I had to actually MANUALLY go to Serenes Forest to find them amongst all the trash.

Anyway, I'll be interested to see what happens with full New Game+ abuse offset with having to field the entire school. If it's some sort of average across your entire class things could get wacky.

Interesting. I've often been 2-3 levels above the recommended level of story missions, and could probably have been more if I'd not deliberately tried to avoid over-leveling further, and I only had the 20% experience bonus from the statues (stopped spending renown on them when the last rewards left were more bonus xp and +5 to stat caps). Meanwhile, the random bandit missions have often been closer to my level than that - I've got one right now with a recommended level of 29, and a "rare monster sighting" one with a recommended level of 31, where the recommended level of my next story mission is 27. Not sure how that's working, then.

[Rodin]

Interesting. I've often been 2-3 levels above the recommended level of story missions, and could probably have been more if I'd not deliberately tried to avoid over-leveling further, and I only had the 20% experience bonus from the statues (stopped spending renown on them when the last rewards left were more bonus xp and +5 to stat caps). Meanwhile, the random bandit missions have often been closer to my level than that - I've got one right now with a recommended level of 29, and a "rare monster sighting" one with a recommended level of 31, where the recommended level of my next story mission is 27. Not sure how that's working, then.

There's a definite distinction between Story missions, Quest missions, and random Auxiliary missions (including the "monster sighted" missions which are simply Auxiliary missions with a beastie added).

The story missions have always been "around" my level - so either a couple levels below or at my level. The Quest missions are more variable, but I think they're static. I can say for certain that they do not change in level once you accept the quest, meaning you can hang onto them for months at a time so you can send in weaponless people to farm skill points. I'm also pretty sure I've seen quests that are 4-5 levels below right from first accepting them.

The Auxiliary missions are definitely set to be higher level. They are consistently either my level or higher, and I've seen them scale within the same month. So story mission level 27, bandit mission 29, I do the bandit mission, then the following week the bandit mission is level 31. I had a terrifying one where the entire enemy squad was Swordmasters before I'd even started seeing Advanced classes in the Story missions.

Paralogues are 100% level scaled, because unlocking them has Support requirements that the game cannot know when you will unlock. I have never seen these be anything but around the level I am. That's something to check actually - look at the level of a Paralogue when I first acquire it, then check it week on week to see if the level changes.

I still have this nagging feeling that I'm crazy though. That somehow, I've just coincidentally always been within level range (with a level cap of 50, I don't consider 2 levels to be out of range) despite totally different decisions on how many battles I do, how many characters I recruit, how much experience I'm earning...etc, etc. I just wish I had official confirmation somewhere.

On your spoilered stuff, I'm about to go to bed so I'll just say that I largely agree but have some quibbles. I have a large post I want to make about Rhea and the Church that's going to have to wait until after I finish the final path.

I still have that review of the Blue Lions path to do, too. I'll probably bore you all to death with pages of thoughts, but I do feel a need to get it written down.

[Zevox]

There's a definite distinction between Story missions, Quest missions, and random Auxiliary missions (including the "monster sighted" missions which are simply Auxiliary missions with a beastie added).

The story missions have always been "around" my level - so either a couple levels below or at my level. The Quest missions are more variable, but I think they're static. I can say for certain that they do not change in level once you accept the quest, meaning you can hang onto them for months at a time so you can send in weaponless people to farm skill points. I'm also pretty sure I've seen quests that are 4-5 levels below right from first accepting them.

The Auxiliary missions are definitely set to be higher level. They are consistently either my level or higher, and I've seen them scale within the same month. So story mission level 27, bandit mission 29, I do the bandit mission, then the following week the bandit mission is level 31. I had a terrifying one where the entire enemy squad was Swordmasters before I'd even started seeing Advanced classes in the Story missions.

Paralogues are 100% level scaled, because unlocking them has Support requirements that the game cannot know when you will unlock. I have never seen these be anything but around the level I am. That's something to check actually - look at the level of a Paralogue when I first acquire it, then check it week on week to see if the level changes.

I still have this nagging feeling that I'm crazy though. That somehow, I've just coincidentally always been within level range (with a level cap of 50, I don't consider 2 levels to be out of range) despite totally different decisions on how many battles I do, how many characters I recruit, how much experience I'm earning...etc, etc. I just wish I had official confirmation somewhere.

If Paralogues scale, I'm guessing that they scale to the level of the character(s) who they're for. The last pre-time-skip paralogue that I did was Felix's, since he was a very late recruit, and he joined me a few levels behind my main force. Sure enough, his paralogue was similarly behind my level, and wound up be pretty easy to breeze through because of that, even though I used a fair number of characters who weren't on my main team.

On your spoilered stuff, I'm about to go to bed so I'll just say that I largely agree but have some quibbles. I have a large post I want to make about Rhea and the Church that's going to have to wait until after I finish the final path.

I still have that review of the Blue Lions path to do, too. I'll probably bore you all to death with pages of thoughts, but I do feel a need to get it written down.

Fair enough, though anything you write that depends on knowledge of the Blue Lions or Church route I'm afraid I won't be able to read for a while. Currently my goal is to finish Golden Deer by the end of the month, when Astral Chain releases. When that comes out I'll certainly be playing through it at least once before coming back to do my next (Blue Lion) run through Three Houses.

Edit: So, about to do the Caspar/Mercedes paralogue, and a thought occurred to me that I want to get down before I do it.

Spoiler: A guess about the Death Knight's identity.

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If he's not actually Jeritza, I think he's most likely Caspar's father. Explains why Caspar is connected to the paralogue, and Caspar's father has been set up as having a reputation for being a very strong warrior in some supports, plus he's known to be an ally of Edelgard's in the war (as opposed to Bernadetta and Ferdinand's fathers, who were the two major nobles who she put under house arrest since they wouldn't support her). All seems to fit.

Edit 2:

Spoiler: After the Paralogue

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So, wrong guess, mostly - I think he is supposed to be Jeritza, though it's not entirely clear. But his secret is that he's actually Mercedes' hitherto-unmentioned brother? Uh, that's a less impressive reveal than my guess above, I have to say. Though I don't know, maybe if I'd seen more of Mercedes' supports he'd have been mentioned somewhere and it wouldn't be quite so out of left field, but as-is Caspar summed up my reaction right at the start of the paralogue: "You have a brother?" (Also, Caspar was involved in this paralogue why? He and Mercedes don't even have a support, and he didn't do anything special...)

Also, what the hell does he mean by "my soul departed long ago?" Is that supposed to be metaphorical, or literal? In either case, it kind of needs more explaining than it was given - particularly since he is indicated to be primarily in Edelgard's employ, not the Slitherers' (since the Flame Emperor gave her uncle permission to use him in an early cutscene). And his attitude there doesn't seem to square with Manuela saying on the Black Eagle path that when she spoke with the Death Knight after joining Edelgard he offered her a sincere, heartfelt apology for injuring her. Just... all very weird and feels quite incomplete.