Lajos - Vision Quest
I think an important thing about unit design is not just how they feel in terms of fun and what they can bring to the table, but also what their individual jobs are and when you can use them effectively. Esfir was already mentioned, I think VQ does an excellent job in giving thieves a purpose. It definitly makes the game harder not to use and train her even if it doesn’t seem like that at first.
But for this thread I want to focus on a Prepromote that is not just there to be a better archer than your starter. You can train him of course but in my case, I didn’t, which gave me a neat insight into Lajos.
This next bit is borrowed from my big “Vision Quest Review” since I phrased my feelings towards the units I used already:
Lajos was prolly the best Prepromote in the game for me. He did a very well job. I began cycling around my army depending on who is useful in certain missions and Lajos was always someone I could pick to do certain jobs for me. He never required much grinding to do what he’s supposed to do and when he eventually hit Level 5 he got a nice Crit Bonus. Because there are quite some fliers in this game it’s always nice to have a strong archer that you could use. And while he won’t gain much Exp for a long time he doesn’t really need it to be useful. Which, for me, is good enough to call him one of the best units – For certain jobs. He can replace an eventually dead Vagelis. He will be outclassed by either him or the archer you get in Part 3-1 (don’t remember her name because she died). But just because someone outclasses a unit doesn’t mean this unit magically becomes useless if you need one of his role. (Not to mention that he should start getting good ammount of Exp this late in the game, especially if “low leveled”…) Swap gives him a good second option next to shove. And his shots become very reliable due to Certain Blow. Once he hit S-Rank he and Vagelis could trade around the Boogjacht for maximum damage.
Definetly a unit I could always count on if needed. Usually a second pick if I needed to fill guebs. But a no brainer if I was sure I’d encounter many fliers.
This is how my Lajos ended up with.
Compared to his bases
You can see that mine didn’t grew much, yet still managed to give me the feelings above. Keep in mind that it wasn’t until late midgame or even the early last part that he reached around Level 5 though the exact details I forgot. He was always fieleded when there was a ballistae though and when there was sign of bunch of fliers that might come at me.
Aaaand I think this is a good lesson. A unit does not need to be an allrounder or a beast in combat. Just like a Jagen, it is good enough to be very useful in certain situations rather than be one of the overall S Tier characters. Though cycling units is something few people do since FE is all about unit growth. Even when forced to cycle like in Thracia. Have a map with fliers? Use your archers. Have something to transport or far away villages? Use fliers. (You probably use some fliers anyway lol.) Just make sure the player profits from using them if they have a reason to.