Alright, here's that present I promised you guys. I went into the config of the game and switched off the terrain HUD, and then meticulously took screenshots of every point on the map, and then crudely stitched them together in MSpaint, creating one, very large map of the entire chapter. Enjoy it, even if it's a tad big and awkwardly put together.
The castle in the very south-western portion of the map is Alster, our home castle. North of that is Lenster, where Leaf, Nanna, and Fin have taken the liberty of preemptively jumping up to guard. In the north-eastern corner is Conote. Below that is Manster castle, and below that is Mease Castle. You can clearly see all the enemy units hanging out around Conote, ready to charge Lenster's position, and the circle of armours is Muhammad's battalion, charging onto Alster.
As always, pursue every conversation as soon as you can. Alot of very useful stat gains are there for the taking. Also, be sure to compete in the arena until you have as many characters advanced as far as you can take them. I do this every chapter, but it's especially worth mentioning now that all your teenage heroes are getting competent enough to make serious progress, and gain alot of gold & experience.
In fact, Skasaha manages to get to level 20, and thus can be upgraded. He upgrades from a Swordfighter to a Forrest. He gets stat gains and blah blah blah same as Holyn.
Now, one thing you WANT to do is take whomever may have the leg ring (you did have a character inherit that beautiful, gorgeous item, right?) and have Fee purchase it, so now she has one more ring! This serves a vital purpose though.
Just start by having her fly straight north.
Let's take a look at the enemies we have to contend with right off the bat.
We have Muhammad (who has the EXACT same sprite as King Shagaal from Chapter 3. Lazy.) and his armour battalion stationed perilously close to our home castle. Then we have Ovo, a MageKnight with the most unique sprite thus far, who has a javelin brigade descending on Lenster castle. Also, Fetra, Eliu, and Vampa are back and are also going to Lenster. They're a bit slower though, and will take an extra turn or two to get to our position.
Now, normally, this chapter is excruciatingly difficult. Why? Because, at chapter start, Leaf, Fin, and Nanna will abandon Alster, and take defensive positions around Lenster Castle. They do this by themselves, right as the castle is about to be hit by Ovo's javelin brigade. Now, intuitive thinking dictates that you handle this problem by dividing up the remaining units in Alster, have some venture into the forest to fight Muhammad while the others rush northward to fight Ovo. Now, put simply, this line of thinking is WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG! You're party is GREATER than the sum of it's parts, and dividing it up is akin to suicide. You'll have your units all over the place, each trying to handle it's own problem, basically fighting a war on two fronts.
How do I intend on fixing this problem? Easy, FUCK Lenster!
Have Nanna teleport Leaf and herself back to Alster with the Return staff she SHOULD have, and then just have Fin start traveling southward back to Alster on foot. Let that bastard Ovo have Lenster if he really wants it, because while the story makes a big stink about how important Lenster is, you can let the enemy take it and it won't hurt you one bit. The way the scenario is set up, you're expected to fight on the enemy's terms, and that's something I refuse to do.
With the distraction that is Lenster out of consideration, we can turn all of our attention to Muhammad's Battalion. Also, be sure to keep Fee traveling straight north.
After a few turns, we get a small cutscene taking place at Conote Castle:
King Blume calls in an unassuming Bowfighter, Faval, and offers him a big wad of cash for Celice's head. He accepts, if with some coercion concerning his sister Patty's tough luck in life.
Well, shit, he has the Ichival. This isn't going to turn out well. Good thing he's all the way on the other side of the map.
Back at Muhammad's location:
Muhammad himself isn't that hard, but his group is full of mages, armours with steel spears, and BowArmours, the first two being high damage units, and the bowarmours being a serious nuisance. Don't get carried away and get somebody killed, but with your full force at your disposal, it shouldn't be that hard.
Now, during the combat with Muhammad, Celice himself finally got to level 20, and can now by upgraded!
He goes from JuniorLord to LordKnight, and receives a significant upgrade in stats. What's really cool though is that Celice get's the 'dismount' and 'mount' abilities with the upgrade. This allows him to, whenever he wants, to get off his horse and return to being his JuniorLord self, but it also allows him to get right back ON his horse, and continue being the Lordknight that he upgraded to. This is a really cool feature, even though there's practically no reason to use it since being mounted is inherently superior to being unmounted in every way, since a mounted unit has more movement points and can behave as a mounted unit (being able to move, attack, and move; instead of just move and attack like unmounted units).
It's there if you want though, because you might be like me and just dismount so that Celice can go back to using his older, MUCH cooler critical animations. Also, while it's an insignificant point, I feel it's necessary to mention that the unmounted Celice can move more easily through forests and other sloggy terrain, since the movement penalty on mounted units is much harsher than on unmounted units. This'll practically never come in handy though.
Back at Lenster:
Dawww, Lenster's destroyed. Good thing it doesn't matter though.
Once you kill all of Muhammad's guys, have them all start moving northward to intercept them.
BUT WAIT! ANOTHER CUTSCENE!
Apparently, Blume calls on his own daughter, Ishtar, to help fight for him. She gets the Torhammer off him and then embarks from the castle. Now, her nickname IS the "Goddess of Thunder" but I'm sure she's isn't that hard.
My bowels have just rescinded that statement. Goddamn is she scary. Besides her absolutely amazing stats, she one-ups her father by having the Continue AND ambush abilities. This means that she can attack TWICE in a single combat, consecutively at that, and if she's at 50% or less HP, she ALWAYS get's to attack first. With as much firepower as she has, she is unbelievably intimidating, and is BY FAR the most dangerous enemy we've come across thus far. Good thing she only has so much movement, and it'll take awhile for her to get to my position.
While she's far away, Ovo's right here, in our face! Let's take him out!
Well that was easy. For as much trouble as Ovo gives us, for an upgraded unit of his level, he has pretty miserable stats, and isn't that difficult if you're smashing his squad with everyone you got.
Anyway, remember how we had Fee travel northward? When she hits the top of the map, have her travel East and kill the pirate thief that's pillaging the village near Conote. There's an item there, but we aren't going to collect it just yet.
Well, we have the triplets to deal with again. Will they be harder than last time?
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Topic: Let's Play Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War! [COMPLETED!] (Read 69181 times)