Pretty much. The map I reset the most on was probably actually the prologue (well I probably had even more resets in total on the boat map because I tend to skip dialog & forgot about the hint, and I completed the map 2 times without recruiting Obelich… )
Fog Map was pretty consistent, biggest variable is probably Agnessa’s crit. Francis not having 100% accuracy was annoying at times since I don’t really think you can do anything if he misses in the first few turns, though that rarely happened.
The boat map for me was probably the most consistent, though I distinctly recall that depending on whether the Fighter with Sword Reaver in the beginning had 25 or 24 attack, my Francis could tank and ORKO him as well as surviving against the Monk with 1 HP (not sure if this is level up dependent though as I don’t recall if Francis got any extra HP/Def/Res. I had given him +1 speed with stat booster though).
That’s very insignificant though since all it’s really for is to just feed him some EXP instead of having Agnessa kill the sword reaver.
Before I realized how to recruit Obelich I’d also use Camian with a handaxe to chip the Mercenary on the left, which if it hits could potentially save Skylar some HP by not having to take retaliation. That didn’t really matter since I’d go right afterwards and have a turn to use a Vuln and even if it did matter there was never a need for it after getting Obelich as he has 100% hit rate against the same unit and dealt enough damage for Skylar to finish him off with one hit.
Besides the prologue I think the 4th chapter (Karkos Mountains) was my most inconsistent, despite having battle preps. I don’t really think this one had much to do with enemy stat RNG though.
I actually liked that one a lot and it could’ve been my favorite, but the enemy AI with physic and sleep staff made the Mage Knights act inconsistently/weirdly.
Well, I’d say they do act very consistently, they pretty much always Heal and Sleep whenever they can regardless of anything else, but in particular having the first Mage Knight use Physic or not changed depending on if there was a target to heal, and that would depend on RNG, Agnessa would get a crit and suddenly there’s nothing to heal cause the unit died. The unit I was gonna reduce the HP of to get her heal it wouldn’t get hit had thus have full HP, etc.
Though the first one didn’t really matter cause I just eventually decided to ignore her and go the way around, and then finish her off from behind over the snag bridge.
And after not having to deal with the Physic Shenanigans it wasn’t really inconsistent anymore, and it’s easy enough to bait her out while most of the units stand around doing nothing (well they’d be blocking and/or killing the reinforcements from the forts I guess) and a few units deal with the villages.
Also, I think rescuing the villages was pretty easy, though actually visiting them was harder, because you only need to stand within range of the Brigands for them to attack your units instead of destroying the villages.
Being able to visit the village for the Zanbato and send it directly to convoy made it super nice and easy for Skylar to get his hands on it and kill the Paladin.
The actual Boss didn’t act inconsistently, but it did act weirdly (at least for me who tbh haven’t that much experience with playing FE GBA) and became trivially easy to kill because of it.
First of all it turned out that in GBA units with an existing status condition (e.g. Poison, which there’s quite a bit of on this map) don’t get targeted by status staves, and the unit I tried to bait out Sleep Staff uses with happened to be poisoned. (Well, more experienced GBA players would’ve known this, so you might’ve as well.)
I thought that would be a bad thing but as it turned out having the boss conserve sleep staff uses was only a good thing, because later when I went for the boss I used the wrong weapon with Agnessa which meant Skyler was 1 dmg off from finishing off the boss with the Zanbato.
And Agnessa was at 1 HP from the retaliation, so I was about to reset the game, but as it turns out the Boss actually used the Sleep on Agnessa instead of killing her even though Agnessa stood right next to the boss and had 1 HP.
So in hindsight I think this chapter might be a lot easier to beat than expected.
Anyway, I don’t really suggest changing anything, the map layout and enemy placement is as usual in for this hack really good.
Well the enemy reinforcements really took their sweet time so I had plenty of time to get all objectives, I even ended up stealing the Guiding Ring with Skylar since he had 1 dmg too little to finish the boss off…
I’m assuming that the condition of “crossing the river” for the General to appear (many turns later) is because if one were to go across the snag they’d save a lot of turns, thereby making the reinforcements be turn dependent might not be great.
But maybe you could have both (and for all I know you already have that), as in if the player “cross the river” OR take too many turns the Boss will call for reinforcements. Though honestly just having the villages as is is enough, cause if the General shows up too early that might just be an even worse problem than feeling like the Reinforcements are too late.
If it’s somehow possible, I’d definitely make the Boss prioritize killing over using the sleep staff though.
p.s. also since I am resetting quite a lot, doing a lot of trial and error to get perfect/close to perfect wins I might just be brute-forcing wins so since I’m not sure exactly where I’d rank on player skill (though I’d like to think I’m pretty decent at least ) my feedback might be a bit too biased.
p.p.s also I realized I never mentioned this, but I’m playing Eligor’s Spear version 1.31.
Edit: Forgot to reply to this part
Ah yeah I’ve got it. I believe the only item/secondary objective I haven’t gotten is the Red Gem from the 2nd map as I prioritized the cave instead.
Though if I replay this map I’ll try to get both by sending Avanni to the cave, haven’t tested it though.
I think I mostly didn’t think about giving Agnessa the Hoplon Guard because she’s the one that I’ve really had to struggle with inventory issues, as I’ve been trying to conserve Silver Lance uses but Steel Lance slows her down a lot, so I also gave her an Iron Lance as well (As the Guard Lance is often just too low Might).
But yes, forgetting about the hoplon guard was a complete oversight by me.