Isles A and Ilia are pretty distinctly the most popular choices. You get 11A, one of the best maps in the series, and Echidna, who’s a unique (at least in FEGBA) and cool unit as a female axe-focused hero. Meanwhile, Ilia lets you avoid the utter suffering that is Sacae. (Seriously, a giant ring of ambush spawn nomads with 5% crit short bows? Whoever thought that was a good idea should be fired.)
kel can average 80+ avoid taking into account the gate and the fact that the light brand doesn’t weigh him down, he also has at least 30 base crit because of being an fe6 swordmaster, unless you have a really strong 1-2 option (you probably won’t) you’ll be in danger of being crit.
The reason why most people don’t really use triangle attack strats is the fact that generals are five move, three deployment slots taken, and all but barthe start out with miserable bases. Although I will admit it is a funny thought that the worst units in the game can wipe the floor with one of the hardest bosses if they’re trained.
I’ve only played FE6 twice, and I’ve never been to Illia. Shanna got benched in both playthroughs because of her appallingly low strength. I distinctly remember in my first playthrough, I trained her to level 18 without a single gain in strength. And I’ve never recruited Thea before she got herself killed. Meanwhile, FE6 is very stingy with promotion items outside of getting a bunch from the Chapter 16 secret shop, but I can remember having fairly easy access to two Orion’s Bolts to use on Sue and Shin.
I’ve done both versions of the isles and don’t remember enough about either to have an opinion on them, though I remember that Elphin starts with a bunch of useful items and Larum doesn’t. And the time I was on the route with Echidna, I remember her spawning and dying to the enemies around her before the game went into Player Phase and allowing me to even check her stats, though I didn’t think I was missing much after seeing her “performance.”
I generally prefer 10A and Ilia route over the others, mostly because the other routes just aren’t as fun to play.
Also, fun fact! The 10B and Sacae routes were likely added later in development, at least based on what I can see in FEBuilder. The order of the maps places these two routes immediately after the battle with Idunn, likely making 10A and Ilia the planned/default routes in the game. After that are the Gaiden Chapters in chronological order, which may explain why these chapters have some… questionable decisions in terms of gameplay.
Hmm, maybe I should make an entire post with other oddities and theories I have about FE6…
I actually prefer Sacae over Ilia because Sacae has more open map design whereas Ilia feels like a glorified hallway. No, I’m not biased because Sin is my favorite unit to use in FE6, I swear.
Just go B route so you don’t have to deal with recruiting Echidna. And you get Bartre, who is obviously the best character in the entire SRPG genre, FACT.