I also played chapter 13, and I’ve gotta say I like how you buffed the scrub squad in the Ageless Palace. I do think Midia might deserve some slightly higher bases but getting a leadership star, a solid skill, and an automatic A support is still very good.
I do think the non-magical reinforcements on the map are a little bit too weak though. I get the enemies near the prison cell being weaker, but the soldiers each had like 4 speed and defense on hard mode. The thunder mage reinforcements were a decent challenge though, and I like that they sort of protect the thief that tries to steal your boots.
Also this is a side tangent but I feel like giving a sword unit a magic stat would be a really good way to make them stand out. Good magic sword users are very rare in this hack, so I feel like giving weaker units with sword access a decent magic base/growth would be a fun way to reward the player for training them. For example, maybe this would work for a unit like Roshea who even in this hack seems to have basically nothing going for him. In this specific example, it would also work well with his skill, letting him keep his HP high during player phase by attacking from range. If this happened though he probably should start with D swords instead of D lances.
I’m going into chapter 14 now, and I noticed that when Astram talks in the start of battle cutscene he uses what I assume is Camus’ portrait. I saw that you’ve talked about a lot of strangeness with Astram but I didn’t see this specific bug mentioned.
Game is finally fully playable with an ending. The only big thing left to do is write supports. The game has been balanced a bit more, with some maps like Chapter 24: Dark Pontifex getting complete overhauls. There’s also a new secret route that you can get, with significant story changes, if you kill Minerva in chapter 10. Big thanks to @Blueiscuteio for helping with map design, story design, and just overall being a soundboard for ideas! Thanks so much!!
Also, I have a discord server now! Link in the top post if you want to join that!
Changelog v1.0
1/08/2025
Fixed a glitch that caused Gharnef not to load in Chapter 24
Messed with some bases and growths, particularly Bord and Est, also gave Athena a few more points of HP, Str, and Def to improve her survivability on her join map
Changed around a few chapter objectives:
Chapter 7: Lefcandith Ambush is still a kill boss map, but the boss no longer starts moving once Minerva retreats. He still moves to attack units in his range
Chapter 19: The Sable Order is now a kill boss map, and the boss only moves to attack in his range.
Chapter 24: Dark Pontifex is now a kill boss and then seize
Changed the Gharnef spawn in Chapter 20 to start on player phase (this has been untested of as yet, so I’m not sure how well this all works. there was some weirdness going on with that chapter, broken events and whatnot. will playtest eventually to see.)
1-2 range physical weapons no longer have Wary Fighter. They just weigh you down like you’re Atlas holding up the world now.
Fixed an error where Matthis would spawn in Chapter 5 with a wing spear even if you killed him as an enemy in chapter 4 (you heartless monster, no longer shall you be rewarded for your misdeeds)
Nerfed some of the siege tome enemies in the lategame so they don’t have like, a bajillion magic
Added some more deployment slots to the lategame
Changed around a few skills
Changed the AI of some units in Chapter 23: A Knight-Filled Sky
Changed Minerva’s death in Chapter 10 from a Game Over condition, making it possible to miss recruiting her if you kill her. This also starts a chain of events that causes the missed recruitment of several characters, including Maria and the Whitewings, and drastically changes the events of the story.
2/08/2025
Added several new weapons to the game, including the “Master” weapons, a series of one-of-a-kind S-rank weapons with high might, 1-2 range, and brave, with only 20 uses. They’re spread throughout the game and obtainable through various events.
Reworked Chapter 24: Dark Pontifex
General balancing/bug fixes
Got rid of all Rescue staves (as they’re supposed to be Yulia’s prf in Book 2) and replaced them with other staves.
The secret route sounds super cool. I’m still early on in my playthrough I started a while ago, and I have to decide if I want to do that first, or in a second playthrough, but I’m thinking it will be in a second playthrough
This looks like a pretty great Romhack, only because the Archanea games are my favorite in the FE game, totally going to put this on my “To play FE Romhacks list”.
The secret route is supposed to be a fair bit more challenging, as you lose out on several powerful units because of it. I’d recommend it for a second playthrough haha.
I was pleasantly caught off guard by the different Roger recruit chapter. It was a lot more fun then the original “Go in a straight, narrow through a horde of enemies” I didn’t even realize it was where I recruit Roger until he almost killed Draug
I kind of want to try this just for the secret route, because secret routes are always cool… but Shadow Dragon already has so few female characters that
Summary
I really don’t know if I want to go through with missing out on what amounts to nearly 50% of the game’s female cast.
Oh, I have an idea for my ultra-hardcore secret route playthrough (when I get there)
Summary
Female only + Marth
Which amounts to… I think 9, maybe 10 people by Endgame?
Yeah that was an unintended but unfortunate consequence of the secret route lol None of it was intended, the secret route just came about from me being like “what would happen if you missed the Minerva recruitment but by killing her”
Just started playing, the prologue auto-clears by itself if I move anyone on turn 1 which I don’t think is intentional?
Might be worth considering adding a boss or something just to make sure it doesnt happen
