Yes! This is what I was looking for.
Chapter 1-5: Law of the Land (Vision Quest)
This is the most excellent, tightly knit escape chapter I’ve played. It creates a certain thrill other escape maps in the main series of FE can’t recreate. Let’s start with the map design itself.
First, the chapter is split into 3 pathways, with the one on the right being the “Easy” route, the middle being the “Normal” route, and the left being “Hard” route.
The Hard route contains a Wizard Bow, which attacks resistance, which is good since your only Resistance hitting unit until 1-9 is Lera. Speaking of Lera, there is also a Thunder tome as well, along with a Speed Wing. Your supposed to use your flier Natsuko with a Chest key to grab either one of the items, but you would have to play extremely carefully.
The Normal Route just contains some enemies, along with a tough wyvern to watch out for. The Easy route has less enemies then the Normal route, but lots of trees to slow down your army.
What makes this map so much fun to replay is the amount of decisions to make. You could go the Easy route if your army is beat up, or if you want to finish the map sooner, you could go the Normal route and gain more experience, or, if your feeling risky, you could go the Hard route and gain all that juicy loot, but it’s not really recommended, since four cavaliers spawn at the top of the map not too long after the chapter starts. You could even split if you want to!
The map compels you to choose or mix and match based on what the player desires out of the map. If there is one thing a player enjoys, it’s making decisions!
I’ve taken notes from this map, on how to make a linear map, compelling and interesting.