In the past, Verdane’s frequent encroachment of the border earned them the label of barbarians by the people of Grandbell.
fighting along the border.
while pacifying his zealous sons.
King Batou.
Grandbell without warning?
Chapter 1 - Girl of the Spirit Forest
Knight of Agustria
The music changes here to this.
And we're thrown right in.
You may notice that none of our units are on the map. That's because they're garrisoned inside of Evans Castle.
From inside the castle, units can be prepared for battle before being deployed. There's no unit limit in Genealogy, either, so we can deploy every member of the army in each chapter.
I'll usually gloss over the preparations for battle. It's hard to screencap each transaction, and a bit pointless.
For now, I'll just introduce you to the different vendors and services each character can access from the town.
Weapons must be repaired in Genealogy rather than be replaced, which is how it works in other Fire Emblems. The cost of the repair depends on the item's value, as well as the amount of wear the item has been put through.
Most weapons are inexpensive to repair, however, it's best not to repair something you don't need. Every piece of gold counts.
The item shop is where new weapons and items can be purchased. He updates his inventory each chapter. There are a set number of weapons and items in Genealogy, and the item shop only sells one of each listed item/weapon.
The item shop sells items at their full value, but won't purchase any from you.
That's the job of the pawn shop. The pawn shop buys items off you at half of their value, and he'll sell items back to you at their full value.
The pawn shop is how we will move equipment between units. There is no trade function in Genealogy. If you want to move something from one unit to another, it will cost gold.
Characters are limited to 7 held items and weapons, the storage room is where extra items end up if that's exceeded. There are no fees to use the storage room, and I don't think there's a limit to the number of weapons or items that can be stored.
This guy is useless.
The Arena is a peculiar place.
Here units can fight in non-lethal combat for gold and EXP. This is the main source of income for our army, and for a lot of our units it will be where they gain a majority of their EXP.
There are 7 opponents that each character can face. The 7 opponents are always the same, only changing between chapters. The strength of the opponent increases as you win fights, as does the amount of gold received.
It's very tempting to force each of your units through the arena using save states or save/reloading. There is a lot of gold and experience to be had this way. The only reason I don't do this is that it takes forever. It's easy to spend hours trying to get certain weaker characters to clear the arena, and it doesn't make a huge difference in the long run.
The only characters that I spend significant amounts of time trying to clear arenas with are Alec and Noish, and even then I only bother with the first two chapters, and I could easily get by without doing this. I do use save states to more quickly finish sending units through the arena, but I don't really consider it cheating. (Do you?
)
I really like how battle preparation works in Genealogy. Managing the gold of each character is actually a demanding strategic layer of the game that's easy to get caught off guard by, and ultimately there is no one perfect method, a lot will come down to preference. Requiring units to pay for any new item, even if it was already owned by another unit, is excellent. Swapping items around requires forethought here, some chapters you plan everything around certain weapon swaps, an example of restriction creating depth or whatever. Then there's the whole thing of preparation being seamlessly worked into combat... It is pretty cool.
It's like a game within a game, trying to figure out the perfect series of transactions and equipment set-ups for each chapter while figuring in gold calculations for the next 3. The only thing I don't like about battle prep is the Arena. You feel obligated to clear or semi-clear each arena with each character, and it takes forever even when you don't save/reload. Units maintaining combat readiness through competition is a neat idea, though.
Preparations are not yet complicated. We only have a few weapons to buy and swap around.
Alec buys the Slim Sword and the Iron Lance, Fin buys the Javelin, and Lex buys the Steel Axe.
Sigurd swaps Steel Swords with Noish, and Noish buys Sigurd's Iron Lance.
Ardan buys Ethilin's Slim Sword, and Sigurd and Ethlin purchase Iron Swords that Alec and Ardan started with.
And that's all of the preparations for this chapter, glad I could get it all out in 3 sentences. Not going to mention the arena, it took too long, it always does.
Before we start, I want to explain why Noish and Sigurd swapped Steel Swords.
Each kill you make with a weapon is kept track of. Once a weapon has taken 50 lives, it gains special powers. Some say that they simply acquire a taste for blood.
Sigurd has 15 kills on his Steel Sword already, but he's going to be using the Silver Sword from now on and won't be able to increase it's kill count. Noish will build the Steel Sword's kill count easily, as he'll be used mainly to finish off weakened opponents.
There are other actions a unit can take inside of a castle, aside from prepare for battle, but they are not relevant.
About time we got moving.
Cuan and Fin leave after Sigurd.
Fin gains +1STR,+1SKL,+1DEF.
The rest of the army sorties afterward.
It's really cool to order each unit to sortie individually, then see them clustered together like this. Feels like a real army.
Aideen. They were inspired by myth for a lot of the story and plot.
I want to make a section on all the myths and names at the end of the LP. There's a lot of stuff to look at.
Aideen and Dew join us at the start of our 2nd turn. We'll review them a bit latter.
The two of them run away toward Sigurd as they don't stand a chance here.
Meanwhile, we've got troops streaming in from Genoa.
Sigurd will take on the bulk of them alone. He's the only unit that can safely handle them here.
Unlike the battle at the end of the Prologue, there is no advantageous terrain to fight on. It's just not a great idea to send our other units in.
Instead, I'll have them wait just outside the enemy's range. They'll charge in on the next turn and kill whoever is left.
The Brigands all kill themselves on Sigurd.
The Hunters all miss their attacks. They each had a 23% chance to hit for 6 damage.
These Axe Fighters are actually equipped with Hand Axes, but their chance to hit with them is 0, so they attack with a spare Iron Axe.
Finally, Kinbois of Genoa charges in.
The A.I for Kinbois is very strange.
He's attacking Sigurd from close range with a Hand Axe which doesn't make sense. He's equipped with the much more powerful Silver Axe, but doesn't seem to want to use it.
That's enough for now. It's only been two turns but we covered a lot.
Last edited:
