Chapter 21: Clash in Macedon
Having subdued Grust, we proceed to Macedon, where Macedon's dragoons are waiting to waylay us. Macedonian reinforcements will be arriving by air, and we'll need to get through this gauntlet to proceed.
I preview the map. There are a lot of promoted units, three generals and a sniper guarding the path to 5 paladins, plus the general who is also a paladin. Six dracoknights wait at the back of the map. Two mages and two bishops finish off the foe's forces. The sniper of course has a terrifying Killer Bow, and one of the paladins has a Killer Lance. Critical hits from the enemy are a threat, because I cannot plan for them except to try and avoid them. The rest of the enemies are armed with either javelins or silver weapons, so they'll hit hard. Behind the enemy general (Orridyon)'s castle are a line of 8 forts, which I'm sure will send waves of dracoknights at me.
I also know there's a secret shop on this map, so I'm giving Julian the VIP card so he can access it and I'm looking up it's location so I don't have to leave him on every square of the map trying to find it (a single plains square in the midst of the mountains to the east of Orridyon.
Orridyon drops a single Master Seal, so I'll get another promotion at the end of this map. I'm going to leave Palla behind in favor of Minerva this time, to see if there's another dialogue with Est. I admit I'm not sold on Beck except to take out other ballisticians, and I want to see if Tiki can use the Firestones as well as the Divinestone she came with, so I'm bringing her along.
Units for this map: Marth, Abel, Cain, Barst, Caeda, Julian, Linde, Athena, Est, Xane, Lena, Catria, Wolf, Draug, Tiki and Minerva.
Fight!
Oh I'm extra glad I brought Minerva, she's having a conversation with Marth at the start of the chapter. Marth informs her we are about to reach the Macedonian border, and he offers her an out in case she feels uncomfortable fighting people from her own country.
She says she has no reservations about this. But while she wishes she could simply forgive her brother and country for seeing things differently, she feels it is important that "history remember that when Macedon went astray, it was a Macedonian who set things right."
As far as her brother Michalis is concerned... she followed behind him her whole life, reading the books he read, learning to fight when he learned, and some part of her loves him still.
 |
| Harsh, but I understand the sentiment. Sometimes when you love something gone bad you have to end it yourself. |
Yay, Est can talk to Minerva!
 |
| I love the relationships amongst the Whitewings. |
Marth told her, and Minerva praises Est's bravery.
"You should have seen it, the arrows whooshing by left and right, but I'm a Whitewing so I swooped down and let them have it! Just watch though. I'll find some way to top it." Seriously where is my Est game?
Minerva: "I don't doubt it. I expect great things from you Est." Est: "Hee hee, you mean it?" Awwww.
I position Minerva and Athena to lure out the three generals. Minerva counters the first, and levels up to 8, gaining HP, Strength, Skill and Luck. Athena gets a critical hit killing the third general after fending off the second, and levels up to 4, gaining luck. Two of the paladins come towards me too.
Xane imitates Barst and kills one of the Paladins.
Hey, Tiki can use the firestones! That means she has a lot of possible attacks. She kills one of the generals, and levels up to 2, gaining HP, Skill, Speed and Luck. Barst kills the last general. Marth kills the second Paladin and levels up to 21, gaining HP, Skill, Speed and Luck. I position everyone else just outside the Sniper's range. I'm hoping to charge him with my cavalry next turn so he can't use his killer bow on me.
Hmm, if I rush the sniper, I will leave myself exposed to the paladin with a killer lance... I could try and make sure I only push forward with units with high luck... luck decreased critical chance, and Caeda already has a massive 25 luck, for example. Catria and Minerva fly up the right flank, I'm going to try rushing both killer weapons in the same turn. This will pull the dracoknights who haven't come at me already though. Speaking of, Linde kills a Dracoknight and levels up to 3, gaining Speed and Luck.
Oof, Minerva gets hit by a mage and is left on 5 HP, but I get lucky and the dracoknights go after Wolf instead. Xane levels up to 4 taking out another Dracoknight, gaining HP, Strength and Skill.
Minerva pulls back for healing from Lena, and I put the rush off a turn, and then it's go time! Cain rushes the sniper, and turns the tables by getting a critical hit right off the bat! Level 3 Cain gets HP and Luck. Catria rushes Killer Lance paladin and wipes the floor with him, even with a critical hit her massive defense of 18 reduced the damage she took to 3. Two each enemy cavaliers, pegasus knights, and dracoknights spawn on the forts. Caeda takes out one of the remaining Paladins, and Minerva fights the last paladin but leaves him on 8 HP.
Two dracoknights and a cavalier attack Est but she dodges every hit, and kills one of the Dracoknights in return. Catria kills the second dracoknight and levels to 2, gaining Strength, Skill, and Luck. Abel kills the enemy general pretty easily, and levels up to 4, gaining HP and Skill. Barst hits level 2 taking out the last paladin, he gets HP and Skill. Lena levels up to 16 when she obliterates a cavalier who tried to attack her, and gains Resistance. Tiki goes to level 3 after she kills a pegasus rider, gaining HP, Strength, Skill, Speed and Luck. Nicely done Tiki. Linde gets to level 4 killing the last bishop, gaining HP, Luck and Resistance. And the map is cleared, should I wait a turn or two to see if reinforcements show up? Well I haven't gone to the secret shop yet...
Victory! Maybe I shouldn't have killed the general so soon, and there would have been more reinforcements. Anyway, I bought out the Secret Shop, so they can stay in business awhile longer.
After the fight, the hologram of Gotoh shows up to talk to Marth. Gotoh says he's in a village north of the Macedonian aerie which is their castle. He wants me to bring both the Starsphere and the Lightsphere. He also says Elice is unharmed, that's good! She's in Thabes, the city of illusion, where Gharnef fled too.
-----------------------
Chapter 22: A Knight-Filled Sky
Minerva and Maria remember a Macedon at peace, famed for the flying beasts favored by their dracoknights. But then their brother succumbed to his thirst for power, and swore allegiance to Dohlr despite opposition from both Minerva and Maria. Now Marth advances on the Macedonian Aerie, and dracoknights fill the air, ready to attack us.
This map is a giant walled area on top of a mountain, filled with enemy units (most of them flyers). Michalis himself awaits, wielding Iote's Shield (I remember someone saying that if Minerva had that shield along with her legendary axe she would be unstoppable). Inside the walls are three forts, as well as the main castle where Michalis waits. A village is in the northeast of the map, outside the mountain. The entrance to the walls on top of the mountain is directly north, and some shops are in the northwest.
The village must be the one Gotoh talked about. I'll have to run Marth up there ASAP with the Lightsphere and Starsphere so Gotoh can make us the Starlight spell. I double checked and it doesn't look like there is a secret shop on this map, so that's one less thing to worry about. I have one Master Seal from last map, I think I'll give it to Est so she can promote. I know there should be three more at a secret shop in the next chapter or two, and those can go to Draugr, Palla and Merric to be my final promotions this game, I think. I also take a fresh Silver Lance and forge it into a much more powerful version I name the Holy Lance for Est, because she deserves all the good things.
I'm going to leave Xane behind this map, because his specific ability means that giving him levels is a little pointless, and I think it appropriate to bring Palla so all the Whitewings can participate in conquering their homeland. II almost said liberating, but technically Michalis is the rightful ruler, he's just chosen to be a power hungry jerk, so...)
I also have a lot of stat increase items, and I think I want to use some of them now. Wolf still has single digit luck, so I give him a goddess statue which increases his luck by 2 up to 11. Draug, while an absolute tank with his maxed out defense of 20, is lagging a little in strength and skill. So I give him an Energy Drop for strength and a Secret Book for skill, bringing both stats up to 11. Minerva, as a prepromoted character, lags in several skills. I give her speedwings to bring her speed up to 16, a little more inline with the people who started as pegasus knights, bring her skill up a little bit to 13, and bring her strength to 15 so she has a stand out feature.
Maria is level 19 and only has 5 magic, so I'll feed her Spirit Dust until I bring that up to 11 for her. I may bring her along instead of Lena this map, for theme reasons, even if she may not make the cut for the final team. Finally, while Wolf has a really good growth rate he also started out as a promoted unit, so at this point his stats are lagging behind a bit. I'll give him my last energy drop to bring his strength up to 13, bring his speed up to 16 with speed wings, his luck to 13 with another goddess icon, and his resistance to 3 with my only talisman (so he's less hard hit by enemy magic, he is a ranged unit primarily).
I still have a few stat increase items, but I'll save them for before the final chapter when I decide on my final final team, so I can max things out a little bit before my inevitable fight with Medeus.
With all that done, I'm saving my game.
Fight!
Michalis visits Gotoh in the village before the battle.
 |
| A not blue-hologram of Gotoh! |
Michalis asks that Gotoh move somewhere safe until the fighting is over, but Gotoh asks why Michalis just doesn't end this folly. Michalis does not know what folly Gotoh speaks of. Gotoh says if Michalis and Minerva had worked together, they may have made Macedon a kingdom even greater than Archanea. Instead, Gharnef tricked Michalis into destroying his family.
Iote's shield protects Michalis from our arrows (so he's a flyer without the vulnerability to archers). Too bad I'm allowing Minerva her desire to fight Michalis herself... Gotoh asks what happens if Michalis wins, but Michalis has not thought past gutting Marth.
 |
| I feel like the patricide might be worse than the turning on you for already killing your father... |
 |
| Did I just only ever catch Gotoh blinking, or does he not open his eyes? I didn't notice until I edited the screenshots. |
Interesting, the walls surrounding the Aerie are too high for my units to fly over.
And in case I missed that Gotoh was in the only village on the map that Michalis flew to in that cut scene, a villager tells me about a great sage living in the village to the north who is not very sociable. Thanks! Mar-Mar is running as fast as his legs can carry him.
My army rushes along the northeast path towards Gotoh's village, as enemy forces leave their stronghold to meet me. Incoming are two Pegasus Knights, one with a Killer Lance, and three Dracoknights, one with a Ridersbane. Slower around the mountains come three paladins and a horse archer, one of the paladins has an armorslayer. Behind that force is a thief, intent on destroying Gotoh's village I'm sure. Three Pegasus Knights, two Dracoknights, a paladin and a horse archer remain behind, not yet rushing to the attack.
Wolf takes the first shot, shooting the killer lance pegasus knight out of the sky with his Silver Bow. He levels up to 9, gaining HP, Strength, Skill and Speed. Est flies in next, easily killing a dracoknight while dodging the counter attack. She attains level 20, and gains a point of strength. I send Palla in to surgically remove the threat of Ridersbane to Cain and Abel. Again, my Whitewings prove their use as Palla nimbly dodges the counterstrike and removes the threat with little trouble.
Athena can't quite reach the remaining Dracoknight hiding in the mountains, but I gave her one of my Levin Swords last map, and she uses its magical range now. She doesn't do much damage with it, but the animation is of her holding the sword aloft and summoning lightning to strike her foe from afar, and it is fantastic. Catria finishes the job, and Abel takes out the last pegasus knight. One group down!
The remaining enemies begin moving towards me. One of the leading paladins rushes Abel but is struck down for his trouble. On my turn, Palla takes out a second paladin and also reaches level 20. She only gains a point of luck, and has effectively benched herself from the rest of the fight as I want to save the experience for people who can still accumulate it.
Est uses the Master Seal and promotes to a Dracoknight, gaining 4 HP, 4 Strength (17 strength on a flying unit!!!), loses her one point of magic and three points of resistance, but gains 5 Defense and 2 movement. Fantastic.
Athena takes out the horse archer, and Barst uses his hand axe to remove the last paladin. Amusingly (to me at least) they didn't change the weapon graphic for Barst's hand axe throw, so he hurls this giant two handed axe, which boomerangs around for him to catch and throw again.
An enemy horse archer approaches, and now I need to be careful not to leave a flyer in his range, he could still take them out with his triple bow damage to flyers despite their impressive stats... I move Wolf and Abel to block the entrance to the village so the thief can't get in, since I'd need to move a flyer in range of the archer to take him out this turn.
Sometimes I wonder about AI choices. The horse archer goes after Wolf, who can shoot back, instead of Abel, who can't. And the paladin goes after Athena, who takes 4 damage from the paladin's lance and then double attacks back to kill the paladin outright. Athena goes to level 5, gaining HP, Strength, Skill, Speed and Luck. And then the thief doesn't even attack Wolf, who was weakened from the enemy horse archer. Weird stuff. Well mister Horse Archer, turns out Est has a Ridersbane that's particularly good against you, so she's just going to kill you now.
Mar-Mar visits Gotoh, and Gotoh turns the Starsphere and the Lightsphere into Starlight, a tome with 13 uses, in order for us to defeat Gharnef. Thanks mister sage!
 |
| You could actually miss the spheres, one's in a chest and one's on a thief who flees that map. Apparently if you do, the Falchion you get isn't as good. |
The thief takes a fire blast from Tiki, who doesn't quite kill him, and then on the enemy turn the Thief decides death by Abel is better than death by Dragon, and attacks Abel. Abel obligingly kills him, and levels up to 5, gaining Strength and Defense. I move my people in front of the stairway leading up the mountain, but hold position. I'm sure enemy reinforcements are coming, and I want to feed Draug and Tiki some experience if I can...
Cain I was trying to have you WEAKEN that dracoknight, not kill him! Cain gets a critical hit on the dracoknight on his second attack, killing it and leveling Cain up to 4, gaining Luck. Sorry Tiki!
Tiki takes out the next Dracoknight, who rushed in and attacked her. He left her on only 7 HP, but Linde arrives with a heal staff just in time. Julian then weakens the Dracoknight into range for Tiki to finish him off, and she levels up to 4, gaining Strength, Skill, Speed and Luck.
An enemy paladin and an enemy dracoknight spawn on the forts.
Ooh, I can buy ballista ammunition here! Julian! Go buy tons of it now!
The paladin attacks Julian, who dodges and hits back, wounding the foe. The dracoknight also goes for Julian, who takes the hit this time but then gets a critical hit on his second strike, eliminating the enemy. Good job Julian! Now go buy stuff.
Draug and Tiki team up on the paladin, and Tiki levels up again to level 5, gaining HP, Strength, Skill, Speed and Luck. She's getting good levels at least. But now she's in danger of the new paladin and dracoknight getting to her, so I need to block access with some faster people. I surround her with Catria, Cain, Athena and Est. This finally brings out the last original Pegasus Knight, and Cain breaks his silver lance killing her.
Dammit Minerva you were supposed to weaken the paladin not get a critical hit with your hand axe! I'm so sorry Tiki and Draug. And also the enemy reinforcements, who keep showing up. I'm just going to have to keep killing you until I can feed the CORRECT PEOPLE THE EXPERIENCE POINTS. *grumble*
At least Draug and Tiki team up to take out the Dracoknight. The new paladin runs at Est, who is holding Ridersbane, which does exactly 32 damage to him, which removes exactly 32 of his 32 hit points. Est levels up to 2, gaining Skill. The Dracoknight hits Est, who retaliates for 15 damage, and doubles that with a second damage, removing all 30 of the dracoknights total HP. *Sigh*.
This turn, two more dracoknights, a horse archer with a killer bow, and a bishop with swarm join the regular paladin and dracoknight. Good, targets!
Ok, so the swarm mage has to go, and so does the killer bow horse archer. Draug is able to one-shot a dracoknight who had a ridersbane, and levels up to 19, gaining HP, Speed and Luck. Excellent. Catria flies in and kills the horse archer, leveling up to 3 and gaining HP, Skill and Speed. Cain levels up to 5, gaining Speed and Luck when he gets a critical hit again with his Darkness sword. Barst cuts down the bishop with ease. Marth grabs my second and only other Levin Sword from the convoy (he's special and can access the convoy in battle) and teams up with Athena's Levin Sword to bring the other dracoknight down to 21 HP, in range of a finishing blow with Tiki's Divinestone. Tikie levels up to 6, and gains HP, Strength, Skill, Speed and Luck.
 |
| I like that the form she takes depends on the stone she uses. The firestones make Fire dragon Tiki like we saw with Bantu way back when, and this is Divine Dragon Tiki! |
The same enemies join the fray again, as the paladin goes for Linde, who dodges but does not kill. Catria again removes the horse archer, and goes to level 4, gaining HP, Strength (21 strength!!! I think she's my strongest character period!!!) Skill and Speed. Tiki can attack the Swarm bishop without a counter attack, so she kills him with firestones, going to level 7 and gaining HP, Strength, Skill, Speed, Luck and Defense. Linde reaches level 5 finishing off a Dracoknight, and gains HP, Skill, Speed and Luck. Est reaches level 3 killing a paladin, and gains HP, Strength, Skill and Speed. Barst takes out one of the enemy bishops, even though Michalis can throw a javelin at him next turn, and levels to 3, gaining HP.
 |
| Do you though Michalis, do you? |
Enemies keep coming, but I'm surrounding their forts now. And the poor saps don't get to attack after they spawn, so it's a bit of a slaughter. Still, it means people are leveling up. Tiki gains level 8, gaining HP, Magic, Skill, Speed and Luck. Catria hits level 5, gaining HP, Skill, Speed and Resistance. Draug at level 20 gains Strength and Luck, and pulls back as he can gain no more experience this map. Barst gets to level 4, gaining HP, Strength and Defense. At 21 strength, he's just about even with Catria now. Way to show people up Catria, good job~
Est reaches level 4, gaining HP, Strength, Skill, Speed and Defense. Athena reaches level 6, gaining HP and Luck. Maria levels up to 20, gaining Luck and Resistance. And then they stop coming. Alright, time to finish this. Tiki moves around the castle and removes the final bishop. And I send Minerva against Michalis. Wielding Hauteclare, she hits him once, dodges his counter, and kills him.
 |
| This could have been avoided if you'd just learned from every other unstoppable foe we've bested and surrendered... |
I'm sorry it came to this Minerva, but I know you didn't want anyone else to do it. (Game, that's a little insulting to have Minerva level up from killing her brother. At level 9 she gains Skill, Speed and Defense.)
Finally Marth seizes the throne.
 |
| Yeah, it's a shame, but they did try to conquer the whole continent. |
He mourns the times that caused men of talent and promise like Camus and Michalis to die in a war like this. Malledus says it was the rashness of youth that did in Michalis, but Marth points out that was only when Gharnef found his weakness and exploited it. If we don't defeat Gharnef, this cycle of misery will continue. Malledus says we need to go to Thabes, an ancient city in the heart of the desert north of Khadein. None in recent memory have gone to Thabes and returned alive. Gotoh believes Gharnef is harnessing the power of many devices in Thabes crafted from long forgotten magic to wield such power as he has over the continent.
 |
| Let's do this Marth. |
I almost feel like Gharnef has been the real villain in all this, even if it was Medeus the shadow dragon who kicked it all off. Medeus has just been a name, spurring Dohlr to conquest, but Gharnef has been the one to cause all our previously friendly nations to turn on each other, Grust and Gradivus and Macedon all.
Next time, it's time to end Gharnef.
No comments:
Post a Comment