Thracia 776 Playthrough - Chapter 5
Chapter 5 - Mother and Daughter
Turns: 26 (106)
Resets: 6 (11)
We escape the prison, but this is not the end of the Escape Arc. Eyval and Nanna are thrown into a coliseum because Reydrick wants to put on a show for his Loptian Order sponsers in Veld, the Dark Bishop who has juristiction over Northern Thracia. The start of this chapter is rough, after KOing one of the starting enemies in the coliseum area, Mareeta is thrown into the arena area as an enemy being controled by a cursed sword. The Shadow Sword is a brave sword, and Eyval will not fight back against Mareeta, so if you take too long she'll make quick work of Eyval and Nanna. Especially Nanna. In order to handle this, Leif and his group must move as quick as possible to the door to the Coliseum and open the door. This will trigger a cut scene in which Veld uses Stone on Eyval, followed by Veld, Reydrick and Mareeta retreat. Due to Mareeta showing up after an enemy unit is taken out, it's ideal for Eyval NOT to kill anything on the first turn, however she also needs to keep herself in range to be attacked by enemy units otherwise Nanna will get cornered. Even if you don't get to buy an extra turn, it is still possible to make it to the door before Mareeta gets close enough to start attacking Eyval or Nanna.
After opening the door to the coliseum, Leif will automatically move right to the door. However, the area around the door ends up being a hectic spot to be in by the time I reach there. Since I usually have one of my Thieves move ahead to open the door, the rest of my forces are trailing behind by at least a turn before they can really catch up. In front of the door there's a small squad of 5 enemies, in addition to this, I'm being attacked by any remaining promoted units that are still in the Coliseum area, finally there's also a squad of mages that have been marching towards me from the far end of the map that engage with my forces within a turn or two after I reach the door.
It takes several tries at the opening of this chapter before I can make a breakthrough. Half the resets were to figure out a good plan of movement to reach the door consistently, and then the other half of resets, were due to bad accuracy rolls happening, leading to an enemy getting escaping away with a captured character. Eventually I am able to catch a break and get through the first part of the map. I am able to deal with the mages without too much issue as they can be fairly easily dealt with with a 2x hit from Macha or Karin. Afterwards I need to deal with a squad of archers and a boss general unit. I was originally intending to try to capture the boss, but in the end didn't get the opportunity.
Once we get past this point in the map this go relatively smoothly. I have Fergus go way out of the way going through a door and along the right side edge of the map all the way to get a treasure box for a Magic Ring. For better or worse, doing so wastes a good 4 or 5 turns at the end of me sitting around waiting for Fergus to catch back up to me. In the mean time, I take my time advancing, capturing and taking a Meteor, Physic, and Silver Bow. I have Asbel Grafcalibur to slice through the Sorceror and Dark Bishop in order to pick up a Skill Ring and additional Lockpick.
Since we have a bit more time before Fergus hauls himself over to the meeting point, I'll take some time to talk about two more FE5 mechanics. Enemy stat variance, and status effects.
Enemy stats can vary a lot in this game. And I mean a LOT. Enemy stats all feel like they can be +/- 2 or 3 points from their average value. Also, movement stats can also vary on generic enemies, which can lead to some enemies having longer reach than you may think. This can be seen with noticeable effect when it comes to fighting early game armors, where they can have anywhere between 8 and 12 defense, making it a difference between being able to damage them reasonably with most weapons to making it so even steel weapons will barely scratch them without a crit.
As for status effects. Status effects do not wear off. You either need to overwrite it with another status, or use a Restore staff, which obviously I do not have at this point in the game. I'm mentioning this here because the standard Dark tome in this game, Jörmungandr, will cause your units to be poisoned a unit is hit by it. And that poison does not wear off. This will be more of a thing of concern later when we get to enemies with Sleep, Silence, and Berserk staves.
Anyways, Fergus is here, so let's get out of this chapter.
