Art_Dealer

Lots of questions haha. Emma is mostly helpful for reliability, but not strictly necessary for anything off the top of my head. Pretty helpful for baiting/countering mages, but you'll have Matilda soon. I still recommend sending a javelin to Alm's side if you haven't started his chapter 3 maps yet. I did go for Emma and Randel because I realized Alm's party is pretty bad early chapter 3 (mainly due to lack of good swords before forging). The extra map helped get everyone promoted and Python caught up a bit too. You would be able to 3 turn the third boat map (cantor map) with a heavily rigged Mae getting a double thunder crit. Although I think I had the benchmark for it, i didn't even try since that was just too unlikely to happen. I never thought to rig 15 strength/Skill onto saber. I did villager Mae for that map who did have those benchmarks. The blessed sword's added crit would have added reliability, but it seems like you got through it regardless. I didn't try for 2 turns, but I kind of wish I did now. It's actually possible to only do one skirmish, enter the village, do forges, and then leave and head east; if you head north, Palla, Catria and Atlas will leave. Once again, I'd recommend sending over a javelin. The reason I went with Emma and Randal to Alm's side was because he doesn't really have any strong characters to hard carry his maps until Matilda joins (who doesn't have great durability). I highly recommend you go this route as well for Jedah and Rudolf as well (Matilda will not hit the benchmark's you need). You should also have a forged brave sword for enemy phase use in certain maps. You can grind for silver very easily on Celica's route. Frankly, Sonia is probably not much worse. Pretty much anyone without mage ring/archer, dreadfighter or pegasus status stopped being used except for shove/swap during chapter 4. Deen is not worth the investment if you already have Saber/Kamui along with the pegasus sisters. Genny with expel would have potentially saved a turn on Jedah's swamp because I needed someone besides Celica with sepharim. Expel would have helped a lot with some of the forced skirmishes in Duma's tower. For exp wells/golden apples I recommend you allocate them so that at the very least Saber, Catria, Palla and Genny are able to promote by the end of chapter 3 (although if you can get Leon to Bow knight instead of one of the pegasus sisters, I'd prioritize him instead). No, there's not enough Exp for Rescue!Atlas. I'd Just make him an Archer, as a cavalier he's pretty much just Est, but worse. If you can, I would just send a golden apple to Alm's side from one of the chapter 4 merchants. It's actually really difficult to get Tatiana to warp. Honestly thundersword is enough to carry you until you can forge at the forest village. Rapier might be somewhat useful more useful in chapter 4-Alm's side, although it' really doesn't shine unless fully forged.

Yeah, actually the 2 speed investment was needed for the 3rd boat map (cantor), I ended up trying to go for the double thunder crit which ended up not happening d/t being too unlikely. Although the initial speed investment helped Uber pegasus Mae remain ahead of the curve during chapter 3, especially being able to double the high speed mercenary line. Although doubling Grieth is not strictly necessary, it is helpful to take him out on enemy phase to save phase phases for uncounterable enemies (like the cantor). Otherwise not sure who would benefit from those speed wells. Celica would benefit from at least one though to help stay above the curve early on. You could consider saving them for Leon or Saber (although rigging speed is good enough as well) or even Catria down the line. I ended up grabbing Yuzu and Shade after I recruited Catria and Palla. Their map cost 4 turns. Neither really made much impact turnwise although an extra physics and healer made a lot of my strategies more reliable (e.g. Mae died less often). My team by Duma's tower was Celica (learned Excaliber at the final battle), Uber Mae, Genny (never got to expel which was a huge mistake that ended up costing 1 turn in Duma Tower), Shade (never reached level 10 for rescue), Catria, Palla, Leon (fully forged killer bow), Saber with a 2 star brave sword, Sonya (who was filler), Yuzu (who was also filler). My biggest regret was wasting one of the EXP fountains on Shade (since she never reached rescue) instead of Genny and extra enemy kills that could have gone to Saber on Kamui who ended up needing the other fountain to promote to dread fighter for chapter 4. I noticed on a few maps, having two extra deployment slots actually gave me a better position to reach enemies earlier which probably saved a turn on the archer fort map. Turncount for Celica's chapter 3 and 4 for comparison: 3- Recruited Palla and Catria 2-Graveyard 5-Archer fort (Pegasus Mae could reach enemies on turn 1 due to the 2 extra deployment slots) 3-Deen; attempted Sonya's map, but found Deen's map more reliable to complete 5-Grieth 2-Graveyard (I forced a paladin skirmish onto this map) 5-Mila's temple; Sniper Leon with Killer Bow was kind of clutch 4-Mire; needed a dread fighter to reach one of the enemies on the final turn and a Saurion so Falco!Mae could counter the Mire users 1-Necrodragon skirmish (Mae can 1RKO necros with any lance at this point without a crit although Alm sent over the blessed lance) 4-Dolph; Catria promoted after this map 4-Jamil, I needed a forged javelin since Saurion is 2-3 range only. 2-Jedah's swamp; My Mae reached 43 attack with a forged lance and was able to 1RKO Jedah. If I had Catria, Palla, and Genny promoted at this point, the chapter would've been 1 turn. I mailed the rion shield (since I needed 10 range warp for one of the chapter 4 maps, an almost fully forged brave sword, and one of the golden apples). Leon and Palla promoted after this map. Expel would've helped in Duma's tower but I didn't think of it at the time. Duma tower: 2 -Fiend 2- Necrodragon 2- Bowknight; Needed Leon to be a bowknight at this point with a fully forged Killer bow to work 3- Mogall; promoted Genny could have saved a turn I did a really poor job of allocating EXP to Saber, Genny, Leon, Palla, and Catria because Mae kept killing everything. Boey had both shove and swap, Valbar, Est, Mae, Sonia all had swap which were pretty helpful. It wasn't so much I wanted to use 2 mercenaries, more like I needed Kliff to be a mercenary and I wasn't sure what to do with Gray. In the end I took my 6 turns and went with it although I realize there could've been improvements. Mage Tobin would have been able to replace Kliff's job on the left side and a second mercenary would just mean having to pass around the thunder sword more and I think a 5 turn probably would have been possible. I don't think a second archer would have saved me any turns in chapter 3. Randal kind of is amazing in maps with cavalry, he definitely saved at least the 4 turns it took to grab him (Emma is kind of helpful as well); Alm's side has very few competent fighters and limited access to good swords early on. The main bench mark's for him is to have enough AS to double Berkut each time he shows up, which isn't hard since Randal's growths are easy to rig. Mainly 13AS in chapter 3 for Berkut and then I think 15AS for Lawson if I remember correctly. In chapter 4 he needs 16AS to double Berkut the second time. He'll need 25AS for Rudolf. Matilda might be able to replicate this role, but I not sure if she can snowball fast enough. Alm's chapter 3 and 4: 3- Emma and Randal helped speed things up since Claire and Clive are not good and no one else is good at fighting besides Alm and Kliff (who had to be warped up kill the boss by turn 3) 3- Mages in a forest are annoying, the javelin sent from Celica's side helped a lot. Emma's base resistance helped bait mire mages safely 2- Berkut, if I didn't trigger reinforcement due to map movements, this would've been 1 turn since Randal could've 1RKO'd all the cavalier line enemies 4-Desaix 2-Randal had enough speed to double Lawson 3-Bowknight boss was unremarkable, needed the furthest witch to warp toward me on turn 1 or 2 though. 4-Tatarrah; Silque had 9 range warp which was just enough; Faye learned Rescue sometime in this map; Kliff and Randal promoted after this map. Javilin was once again clutch for the 4 turn. Chapter 4: 3-Border, Randal had to be able to 1RKO Berkut again, starting to try to train Delthea since I suspect ranarok might be important at some point. Alm promoted before starting this map. This is probably the last map that the thundersword is still useful 2-Xaixor- needed 10 range warp on this map for Kliff to lure the boss on turn 1 enemy phase while simulateously killing one of the witches that might ruin my strategy. Needed 22AS to double although not strictly necessary since I had a brave sword to force critical hits to happen reliably. Tobin has shove and Clive/Luthier has swap 5-Fear mountain, I think I can improve this so I'm still working on it when I have time I've been investing in Kliff and Randal mostly. Faye has 6 range rescue and Silque has 9 range warp, rion shield is applied for an extra range as needed. I'm trying to invest in Delthea although it's a slow process to ragnarok (although her bases and growths are great). Tobin is level 9 at this point, but he's been pretty helpful for the most part since the only way to 1RKO armors are with excalibur crits. Matilda, Alm, Clive, Gray, and Emma are pretty reliable at killing mages with the right weapon. Python was rigged speed on every level up and has 9AS with 2 star killer bow and he is able to stay ahead of the curve for enemy mages and archers for the most part.

Nice going. For chapter 2's pirate fort map, the boss moves onto the healing tile on turn 1 so the only one who can attack him is Mae with Thunder in the first 3 turns. That said, a 3 turn is very easy with a thunder crit (I think Mae needs 12 attack +4 from thunder; although she will have 3-6 critical at most). I recommend giving 2 speed to Mae and 1 to Celica at the priory. Rigging str is easier than speed. If you reach 12 speed for Mae by the cantor map you can complete it in 3 turns with a double thunder crit from Mae, though it probably isn't worth your sanity at that point. As for the sea shrine map: Saber probably needs to promote if you want to do the final map in 3 turns. Getting Leon to Sniper is kind of important as well. If you're willing to use a villager fork (if you decide to do this) to turn Mae into a pegasus knight right away, you can save at least 1-2 turn on every single map in chapter 3 and 4 (after rigging almost every level for attack, speed, and giving her all the stat up items and spring bonuses; you need at least 21 AS to double Grieth in chapter 3). Sea shrine is also the main source of silver mark's for Celica and getting a brave sword on the first visit to the mountain village. For reference my most recent turn counts when restarting my LTC attempt for chapter 2: Graveyard 4 turns (Got Mae 1 level up so that I didn't have to feed her a str fountain; the rest went to Genny and Celica) Boat 1: 3 turns Boat 2: 3 turns Pirate fort: 3 turns (needed a 4% thunder crit from Mae) Boat 3: 4 turns (Didn't attempt a double thunder crit from; Celica reached level 5) Sea Shrine: 3 turns (Gave Celica two points of resistance; grinded up enough silver/coral fragments to made a brave sword from the iron sword; Mae promoted to villager; fed the kills to Saber and Kamui) Boat 4: 3 turns (You might want Leon to proc at least 1 str in this map to neutralize the boss in the next map). Boat 5: 3 turns (Saber, Leon, and Kamui promoted afterward; Mae promoted to Pegasus knight; Boey learned Thunder); Kamui's promotion doesn't necessarily save any turns, but helps make the first 3 maps in chapter 3 more reliable) Zofia Castle: 3 turns (Saber needs to reach the boss by turn 3 player phase and crit at least 1/4 of his attacks; Celica learned Thunder during this map; picked up the steel lance that Alm's side left behind afterward) I'm working on Fear Mountain in chapter 4 now, let me know if you have any questions about stat benchmarks up through there.

Unfortunately your Faye is in a tough spot. So I'm not sure what to say. If you saved one of the speed lion wells it might be worth giving it to her? You need at least 4AS to double knights in desaix's fort I think. You can weaken all 3 units on the first map with berkut to low enough HP. Faye can get 3 kills on enemy phase...and there's always the forest shrine wells I guess... For tatara's map you need to use the lightning sword's second skill twice. He also take a lot of damage from casting death as well. The second skill also adds about 30 hit so it's pretty accurate pretty sure the loss of hp from 2 casts of death and 2 hits from Kliff kills him (Mathilda with javelin can help by hitting through the wall as well). You do need both warp and rescue to reach him in time if you go with this strategy tho. 4 turns might be improvable with a fully forged killer bow. You need like 400 silver just to get an unmodified killer bow and rapier which isn't worth it (and probably impossible without silver grinding) on your first visit there. Though Backtracking after the forest shrine to get the blessed lance to Celica, picking up the killer bow is probably worthwhile. Definitely, never felt a need for a rapier in chapter 3 since magic deals with knights better and ridersbane deals with horses. Unforged lightning sword will still 2rko knights, just don't expect any critical hits. If you can wait for Celica to finish her side, have her send over the shadow sword which has a very cheap path to rapier. For 3-6 with 9 (or possibly 8) warp range and a swap on a dreadfighter can reach the bow knight boss on the first turn and KO him the next turn with the second lightning sword skill. The rest of the army basically baited the enemy downward. This map took me 4 turns. That said, a fully forged killer bow is possible at this point due to Alm having 4 gold and backtracking after the forest shrine. I think even python can reach 7 AS with enough rigging since his growths are reasonable to work with. The killer bow strategy might shave at least 1 turn. no idea on how to rig the skirmishes, but I did alm's side first. Had one skirmish before desaix's map. And two on the way to tatara after backtracking back to the forest village to send celica the blessed lance and forge a javelin for Mathilda. Celica had 2 by the archer fort and another one that joined grieth. On the way to mila's shrine I encountered a cantor spawn and also a paladin spawn. The cantor spawn took 1 turn since I could reach him on turn 1 with my Pegasus knights. The others all took 2 turns. For the dragon shrine map you don't need dLC for a 3 turn. Have Celica with rigged strength and steel sword or Mae with at least 7 AS with fire counter the first dragon (which is necessary for the cantor map anyway) Then have celica hit with sephiram, use Leon, mae, and everyone else to chip at the dragon and it should be enough. Make sure you use genny to invoke for an extra point or two of damage from her soldiers. And yes Mae does end up frontlining for boat maps to clear the bridge. However celica never has trouble getting to level 5 if you make sure she gets all the boss kills in all prior maps. I try to feed the dragon kills to saber and kamui since they both will almost get a level up out of it. Between the golden apple and 2 exp wells. Saber, kamui, and Leon can probably all promote in time as well...barely. Genny can probably catch up eventually, but having her as a saint is pretty helpful in chapter 4 due to expel and having 5 movement. i concur skipping the sea shrine is a bad idea since you'll be essentially be stuck with at least one of 4 move saber, kamui, and Leon without the speed to double the faster enemies for chapter 3 which is pretty unworkable. Once again. Saber does need to promote by the end of chapter 2 to finish the last map in 3 turns (and he needs to critical the boss or have Celica double with thunder). Blessed sword is a big boon as well and not worth skipping. Kamui might not be worth it, especially if you get Deen. Are you thinking of doing Pegasus!Mae at all? Or are you just banning all DLC? I think you mentioned not using villager forks because they costs turns, but I can confirm that it does not cost any turns to reach Pegasus for Mae if you reclass her right after the cantor boat map. I'm definitely not convinced by rescue atlas now that I think about it. He won't be getting to mage until just the end of chapter 3 since otherwise he forces 4-8 turns of skirmishs minimum due to backtracking required to promote him. Catria, Palla, Genny, kamui, and Deen if you have him kind of really need those exp fountains and extra golden apples to promote in time as well. Your fliers also kind of suck without promotions since they really want the durability boost. Kamui and Deen (if you have him) really want the extra 2 move. 3-5: you can have Matilda solo the left side with riderbane and and have alm with the royal sword and support from the thunder sword mercenary take the right side if you haven't been neglecting him (have silk warp and someone swap her forward as needed) I have Clive block the fort so the low hp cavs will suicide on enemy phase. Doable in 3 turns reliably. Possibly 2 with the right tools and well timed critical hits. For Celica' maps, if you forgo Deen, you can probably get a killer bow before archer fort on Leon without losing turns on grieths fort. Granted Leon need to be speed rigged or he has a tendency to die really fast because he'll be getting doubled since a drop in 4 AS is pretty significant for him.

So for chapter 3, I'm starting to get the impression there are multiple ways to approach. The issue is there's no way to know for sure which works best/with the lowest turns without research by doing the chapters themselves with the different strategies, which I guess is the purpose of the thread to bounce around some ideas. For Alm's side I prefer having rings on the healers so that they can use Warp and Rescue every turn without having to waste a turn for healing/eating food. Worst comes to worst, you still have the leather shield and the (rusted) steel shield. Faye usually has enough of a durability lead that that leather shield is plenty when you're not using it for swap on someone less useful. Joshca, could you please post your turncount total for each map (especially chapter 3)? It could be helpful to help decide a baseline for optimal LTC playthrough turncounts by chapter/Acts to determine the best exp allocation; please include turns put into skirmishes as well. The problem I had in chapter 1 with archer Kliff (or any villager archer) was he didn't have the speed or power to snowball and get the stats necessary to contribute much for 1-7 since silque has to take too much exp. However, if you are able to get him enough levels, I can see him being useful for killer bow use in chapter 3. To clarify, I've only talked about the forge's I've done before, and I don't want to claim them to be optimal, since I personally am still trying to theorycraft what to optimally do. Last time I attempted to LTC chapter 3, I didn't go all in on a killer bow and rapier. Personally, I'm not fully convinced that the rapier is worth it in chapter 3. Chapter 4, you can turn Celica's shadow sword/brave sword into a rapier if needed. Lightning sword and especially the third skill is enough to 2RKO all the enemies that need to be assassinated. I don't disagree that early killer bow could be a good idea, Python without rigging won't have the necessary speed to double with it, but Kliff might be able to. A killerbow is definitely a good idea earlier (my iron bow idea was just a cost efficient choice), you probably won't have the money to get one without SOME silver grinding though. Only 1 dreadfighter is necessary for later chapters in Act 3; especially Tatara's map where magic deals heavy damage to everyone. A second one is helpful because dreadfighters are helpful in general, but probably won't promote til chapter 4. I'm not sure about Rescue Atlas, but if Shade ends up working out, then I'm sure it could be useful in a non-DLC run. I'm more convinced a rigged pegasus!Mae might be the biggest key investment for Celica's maps at this point. Kliff as a dreadfighter with the lightning sword, cleared the Tatara room; Python was not needed as much there. That chapter was done in 4 turns, but I'll have to redo it to remember the exact strategy. It did require Faye to have Rescue at that point though. I'll post my chapter 3 turncounts once I get there again in my most recent playthrough. I have a list, but it's unclear what chapters are the actual chapters and which ones are skirmishes so we can have a baseline to compare. I don't claim my methods are the optimal for LTC, but the only way to figure them out is with verifiable data and turncounts that are associated with the strategies that are being used.

So on Alm's chapter 3, archer's speed benchmark's aren't super high. They mainly just need to be able to double the mages and archers that no one else can counter, that usually ends up having 4-6AS as the chapter progresses; usually Python just barely passes these benchmarks, but it's rarely a deal-breaker if he fails; it's not too bad to rig his 50% Spd growth as necessary though. Double archer's should be viable, they will promote by forest shrine and then chapter 4. There is plenty of EXP to go around especially in 3-2 (mage forest map). However, you definitely want to get Faye to Rescue during chapter 3 as well, ideally by Tatara's map at the absolute latest due to how enemies won't aggro and are uncounterable except by archers (who die in 1-2 hits) so you probably want to fish for dread fighter critical hits on the boss. For silver farming I arbitrarily did enough until I had enough to get the tools I needed to complete chapter 3 efficiently (e.g. about 100 silver+100 or so from food/ale farmed from the thief shrine). Going nuts I'd aim for maybe 300 silver pieces between food items/silver pieces. So even if you take it to extremes with a maxed out killer bow and thunder sword as soon as you hit forest village, you still have to deal with the fact your movement is limited by Slique's warp range and your archer and Mercenary can only take so many enemy phase hits. So I think it's important to recognize that the lowest possible turncount is still capped by movement limitations and manipulation of enemy AI. For forges, the first visit to the forest village I prioritized upgrading the iron bow since it has 2 weight and high hit. The rest of the money went into upgrading the steel sword 2 stars for the raw might (to be turned into zweihandler for tigerstance lategame on the return visit); if there's enough silver to make it into a brave sword that's of course useful as well (and then later a rapier). I also eventually turn a steel lance into a javelin, though that isn't high priority until Tatara's map, because 1-2 range is kind of important. Upgrading the riderbane is of course also important. I just grinded enough silver to get these things. IDK if there is a better way to prioritize. A killer bow is a heavy investment that I believe can wait until the end of ACT 3 since python won't be able to double with it anyway since it brings his AS to 0 at base (which is where a very rigged archer!Kliff might be better). A big part of chapter 3 gets into finding clever ways to get Faye to level 10 to rescues ASAP so it's there when needed. She's actually a good candidate to get warped in desaix's map since the armor knights have low resistance and base speed. Her good base defense over Silque and somewhat reliable Nosferatu from Alm support is really helpful in training her. Shove and swap isn't AS important on Alm's side, because Silque and Faye can warp and rescue each other and other units. My thought process in giving more shield's to Celica's side was that since Alm has Warp and Rescue, the extra iron shield gives another shove to the group; since shove takes 10sp, it's kind of important to have enough time to develop it. Having two swap/shove with Boey and Mae I believe saved 1 turn in each of the desert maps and 1 turn in Mila's temple since my primary strategy ended up just being have Saber destroy everything with a brave sword. For chapter 2: I'm also more seriously considering turning Mae into a pegasus this run now to see if it can actually lower the turncount for Act 3 and 4, however, I'm also worried that getting her there will cost Kamui promoting by the end of Act 2. Since I'll have to prioritize Mae>Saber>Leon>Kamui>Celica>Genny (I'll probably have to give up on getting Genny to physics by chapter 3 as well). Even moreso having to rig Mae's stats to make it worth it to begin with is a massive pain (though her offensive growths are very solid at 65%/45% for mage; 60%/40% for villager; 55%/45% pegasus); I'm tempted to see if I can get away with not giving Genny that speed well in the priory so Mae can get a second one; villager/pegasus Mae with 13/13 attack/speed can basically 1RKO almost every enemy on the boat map immediately after the seashrine. She ends up getting most of the initial pirates anyway since only Celicia even has the potential offenses at that point to 1RKO pirates on enemy phase (13 attack +4 from steel sword). I feel like I hit a wall with Celica's chapter 3/4 maps because the pace often becomes how fast can I get Saber to the most distant enemy since no other unit in her map really has any enemy phase presence (Catria and Palla get doubled by the actually threatening enemy sword users and their base durability is not good except against witches Catria) so maybe an overpowered flier is the answer to the lack of warp on her maps. If not, Mae just becomes a shove/swapbot for the rest of chapter 3/4 and occasionally chipping at enemies for the pegasus sisters to kill. Which MIGHT be a missed opportunity with her bases/growths. Celica route forges chapter 3 include the blessed lance, the possibility of killer bow and saunion if I consider the free 5 gold to be "time saved" from hours of farming (i.e. 2500 silver or 500 silver). If I end up taking Deen's route, I'd have to have a forged brave sword because it's almost vital for grieth's fort.

You actually only lose 1 turn in Act 1 not 17. The strat for getting 1 kill for both Kliff and Faye is just as good for getting them to level 3 before 1-3 if you take the TS skirmish w/o Fernand's lance. You can definitely do 1-1 in 2 turns without FL as was already posted...but let's say you get that coveted +spd on Tobin and then Kliff misses the ~90 or the second brigand goes for Faye again. Then it's another reset. With FL, the chapter will go the same way barring ALM stealing EXP with a crit. Kliff and Faye can both reach level 2 with one kill each on 1-2; BXP from Post 1-2 and thief shrine bring them to level 1 kill from level 3. In 1-2, you can use Tobin to weaken the archer after Gray brings it down to half health for Kliff to be fed the kill instead of Lukas, the only issue is that you just have to hope that the rightmost brigand attacks Alm from the right instead of above. Pull then pull 6 brigands in TS for both of them to reach level 3 (they need one kill each) with a side benefit of taking pressure off leveling Silque. I don't think a level 7 Merc before 1-7 is possible while getting Silk to Level 7. Though it might be possible to get Gray there if you take the TS skirmish and you neglect Kliff instead (Kliff and Gray would switch roles for my 1-7 strat). Though Gray's growth's are not ideal at all and you'd have to rig more dodges when he baits the cavaliers and he takes 6 more damage from the mage (you need 3 speed procs and as many defense procs as possible). You can also just go with mercenary Kliff who might start at level 5 instead by 1-7 (it's just rigging defense and speed is already enough of a pain even with Kliff's good growth's of 65%/35% let along hope for Slique to get Str 40% and Alm to get good levels as well; Gray has 35%/20% which I believed is just unworkable as a mercenary). I think Kliff and Faye promoting one chapter earlier is worth 1 turn lost personally, while still letting you get 2 myrmidons before chapter 3 easily. A second Merc line is pretty helpful at times probably. You can get one to dread fighter before Tatara and another sometime in chapter 4 to help do side objectives. I personally invest more into Kliff first before Gray because his growths are easier to rig than Gray's are and has better base resistance, especially since chapter 3 is just helpful to have more competent units. If I allocated EXP a bit better both Kliff and Gray can promote after 1-7. Otherwise, I suspect early Randal and Emma might just make up for the 4 turns they costs during chapter 3, 4, 5, since they are just optional as Tatiana and Zeke, but I've done Alm's side chapter 3 without them already and just wanted to see if they are game changers. Once again the rise of the deliverance chapter rewards don't save any turns and are strictly done because I wanted to see how they can be LTC'd as well (you have to use preset teams anyway; and the side objectives are actually kind of fun/challenging and well put together) and serve as additional "story maps"-kind of like an extended prologue. The rewards I figured were fair games, but you can do the same strategies without them (python's bow and clive's lance for example are at best filler; Fernand's lance doesn't save any turns just adds reliability for 1-1 and 1-2 and TS skirmish to feed kills, but can be replicated without easily and then becomes filler. Clair's lance is helpful to weaken kills for your Mercenaries in a few maps in chapter 2, it's also useful in Mila's shrine so Catria doesn't have to dodge both Mire and the Sniper, but they both have ~70% hit so it doesn't really change much). But I've done the game without them before as well, so they aren't really tools to save turns IMO. Without Lukas' shield/Clive lance you'd definitely want to save both the iron shield/steel lance in Zofia castle for Celica so they have it for an extra 2 chapters to get shove faster.

I figure I'll give my input with LTCing game as well; my caveat is that I allowed non-grinding DLC that added game content (i.e. Rise of the Deliverance and Cipher and the free Mila blessing 1-5); I know it's kind of arbitrary, I listed those turns as well, but it made the game feel more complete and are strategic in their own right. That said, the boots, village forking a rigged Mae to pegasus knight, and 5 gold to Celica (to super forge a killer bow which saves time grinding sea shrine in chapter 3) with Shade's Rescue for chapter 4 and 5 as well as getting Randel and Emma at chapter 3 might break the game. Yuzu adds an extra healer to Celica's side early doesn't hurt. Though the 5 gold just cuts down on grinding. Unfortunately the benchmarks in this game are really strict so even with all the stuff the game gives you, level up rigging is necessary especially for 1-7. My turn-counts are: RoD1: 6 turns (Need to get lucky and reach Slayde with Clive by Turn 2; Clive can solo the right side with some assistance from one of the cavalier if his javelin gets traded for bread; Fernand and the other blue units can deal with the north side and reinforcements; javelin is helpful for countering the mage with fernand who can double and has decent resistance) RoD2: 10 turns (reward completely not helpful, but nice story; minimum turn count if you count spaces needed for lukas to rescue the right soldier and retreat) 1-1: 2 Turns; with Fernand's lance, managed to get Kliff 1 kill and Faye 2, the last 3 went to Tobin to level up speed. Can be done without FL, but less reliably because Kliff wouldn't get a kill if the last brigand goes for Faye (not sure what affects this). I ended up getting Fernand's Lance before 1-1 which added reliability for feeding Kliff and Faye kills since Lukas can now chip brigand down to 4 HP and let Gray block off the village. Theoretically, this allows either Kliff or Faye to promote at Thief Shrine. 1-2: 3 Turns; baited the archer with Kliff. Alm and Tobin went north (so that if the brigand on the rightmost side blocked Alm's path, Tobin can eliminate it). Lukas weakens the archer so Kliff levels up Speed and Defense and Faye got a random kill to level up to Level 2 (+str). Tobin got 2 kills to get +Speed again. Alm got +str (and Speed/Def) to one turn TS with a crit. Lukas got +1 Speed which is helpful for reliability in 1-4, but not necessary. I went with mercenary Kliff because on top of having to rig Silque for magic every level, Kliff's speed and defense growths are more reliable for 1-7. Benchmarks are mercenary with 13 speed to double Desaix and 9 Defense to not need to be healed the entire map; Kliff's 8 base resistance helps him tank the mage well and counter with the lightning sword. TS: 1 Turn; Silque got +2 Speed. Tobin promoted to 8 speed mage for 1-4 and Gray promoted to Mercenary. The rest of the game becomes more reliable since hit rates are less an issue with Mila's turnwheel, especially since Celica gets 5 uses in her chapter. TS Skirmish: 1 Turn; ended up deciding to take this extra turn to add reliability later. Pull 6 brigands to appear on the left side. Allowed Kliff (+Def) and Faye (+Def) to reach level 3. Silque and Gray and ended at 1.99 with 3 kills. Kliff promotes to mercenary (archer doesn't save turns in chapter 1) and Faye to cleric. Faye gets the remaining speed. Alm keeps getting +str, speed, and defense. Due to this extra skirmish, the Fernand's lance doesn't actually save turns, it just makes 1-1 and 1-2 less of a headache and makes it easier to feed Silque the level 3 brigand (so she doesn't have to connect both hits). This also helped get Silque to warp in time since I couldn't quite figure out the Exp allocation as tightly as I would have liked. 1-3: 5 turns; Tobin went through the mountain to kill the mercenary. Fed Silque the boss kill and she reached level 3.81 with +1 strength and +2 speed. Gray leveled to 3 as well and Kliff was at 1.99 at the end. 1-4: 4 turns; Silque had enough speed to double everything so she took the right side to weaken the steel bow archer and soldier coming from the right. Tobin with 8 speed severely weakens the initial soldier on turn 2 and both soldiers that attack him on enemy phase and baits the soldier out of Alm's way to bait the boss for the 4 turn clear. Faye and Gray pick up a kill for a level (+strength) from the soldier's that Tobin weakened; Lukas weakens the archer for Kliff to take the kill. Silque starts working on the steel bow archer on turn 3 while Tobin works on the soldier on the left side. On enemy phase the soldier on the right side gets weakened by Silque and the boss is brought to almost half HP by Alm. On turn 4, weakens the boss to take the kill, Faye finishes off the steel bow archer and Kliff or Gray finishes off the soldier that Silque weakened and Tobin kills the last soldier. Silque is at level 5 at this point and has 11 magic. Kliff is 2.99 with 11 spd/6 defense. Alm is level 3 with 12 strength, 8 speed, and 7 defense. 1-5: 3 turns; Fed Slique enough kills to reach level ~6.30 (2 soldiers and the boss). Gray leveled to 4 here as well. Kliff was fed 2 soldiers, 1 archer, and 2 cavalier and leveled to 4.62. Faye got a kill as well and hit level 3. Silque is at 12 str and 10 speed (which was not necessary, but nice for reliability). Kliff has 12 speed/7 defense. Gray has 11 speed and 4 Defense. Started to try to get swap on Tobin. 1-6: 5 turns; baited the boss and another cavalier with Alm on turn 4 while Silque tanked the other two on enemy phase. Silque accumulated enough exp at this point to only need 2 cavalier kills and some exp from healing and enemy phase combat at every opportunity possible. Kliff took the boss kill and 3 cavaliers. Gray, Alm, and Faye took what they can get. Tobin is one hit away from swap Silque reached 7 for Warp with 13 str; she was then given 3 str for 8 range warp Kliff reached 6 for 13 speed (very important to double Slayde) and 9 defense (helpful for survival since Faye doesn't have physics yet) Gray is level 4 with 12 strength, 11 speed, and 4 defense (unfortunately; ideally he'd have 5 or 6) Alm is level 4 with 13 strength, 9 Speed Faye is level 3.99 1-7: 6 turns; Warp Kliff upwards and he kills one of the archers on the right side. Move Tobin and Clair leftward to deal with archers on the right side; ideally Clair gets a speed level. Python, Lukas, and Forsyth head the long way on the right side to bait the archer that Kliff didn't kill on turn 3 and weaken the soldier there as well for someone to kill eventually. Turn 2, I warped Alm in to provide 5 Hit and 3 Crit for Kliff just in case I needed to get lucky. There is one space that forces one of the archers to attack Kliff from 2 range if he moves upward a bit; ideally he would one hit some of the cavaliers once so that they won't retreat. Turn 3, warp Gray in, have Kliff weaken Slayde and have Gray trade for the lightning sword and grab the kill. Since Gray has the worst defense between Alm and Kliff, all the cavalier's will attack him; the ones that Kliff hit to 15HP can suicide on him. My Gray could take 3 hits without dying. The iron bow archer prioritized Python for some reason and was chipped down to low HP. Clair and Tobin kept working on the archers on the left side the rest of the battle. Faye was warped up turn 4 to heal Gray. Alm and Python helped clean up some of the weakened cavaliers and Gray healed up, Kliff moved into position upward. Turn 4 enemy phase had Kliff bait the mage, the knight, 2 archers, and the sole cavalier that retreated, he only managed to kill the cavalier. One of the cavalier attacked Python which brought him in range for Clair, Lukas, Forsyth to gang up on. Turn 5, Clive was warped in and helped Gray, Python, and Alm clean up remaining rabble and start baiting that soldier on the far right side; Faye managed to kill the archer that kept attacking Python through the wall. Kliff killed the knight and baited the mage to suicide on him on enemy phase. Turn 6 was just dealing with the 4 enemies still remaining 2 archers, 1 soldier, and 1 weakened cavalier. Ended with Faye reaching level 5, Kliff reaching level 8, and Alm level 5. Level up didn't matter since I would have Emma and Randel to carry through. Gray reached level 6.60; Tobin reached level 3 with 9 strength, and speed which is helpful for the cipher DLC. Cipher DLC 1: 4 turns; Promoted Kliff can solo the top left side to deal with the distant mage and paladin reinforcement with thunder sword and can be warped up there by turn 2 with 16 str Silque. Faye reached level 6 for physics, Forsyth helped set up enough kills for Gray to reach level 7. The mages on the lower left could be soloed with Silque and Python with 1 speed proc reliably. Clive rushed upward to bait the mage attacking Randel close enough for Alm, Clair, Tobin, and Faye to take out by turn 4 before reinforcements force another 2 turns to be taken. Kliff ended up a level 3.99 Myrm with 13 defense. Python proc'd 2 speed. Emma and Randel look like they're game breaking for chapter 3 so yeah...end up abusing the thief shrine for the silvers so I can consider not backtracking and proc reinforcements in chapter 3 since I didn't give. ---- For chapter 2: I grab Clair's lance to improve reliability on the zombie dragon and mage boat map; Lukas shield is helpful for a second swap/early work on shove. Boots went to Celica to 5 turn the pirate fort and make 4 turning the cantor boat more reliable and helps her snowball faster for necessary benchmarks. +1 Speed for Celica (needs 8 by Pirate for the 5 turn clear); +1 Speed for Genny (reliability in nosferatu tanking pirate fort-need 7 speed); +1 Speed for Mae to more reliably double the cantor with fire (needs 10 speed). Graveyard: 4 Boat 1-3 Boat 2-4 Pirate Fort-5 Cantor boat-4 Zombie Dragon-3; +2 Res went to Celica to help with her final map; +3 Skill went to Celica to help with opportunistic critical Boat 4-3 Mage boat-3 (probably want Leon to get +1 str at this point to help with reliability on baiting the boss) *Leon, Saber, and Kamui are barely able to promote with help with the 2 exp shrines at this point (tried to rig 2 speed levels for Leon and as much strength as possible for mercenaries) Conrad map-3 (needs Celica to have thunder +12 speed at some point in this map or rig a critical kill with Saber on the boss) Celica reaches level 9 usually, Genny and Mae usually end at level 6-7, Boey at 3 for thunder. Ideally, Mae and Genny reach physic and Aura with better Exp allocation somehow. I still have the golden apple to mess around with as well.. I'm not sure when to recruit Shade and Yuzu, but ideally earlier so I can start working on Rescue for Celica's maps. Might have to pick up Palla and Catria first though. A very rigged Pegasus!Mae can have up to 14-16 str and 14-15 speed without costing chapter 2 turns...which might be enough to shave some turns in chapter 3 and 4 (theorycrafting); doing an extra 9 thief shrine skirmish might be worth it in this case if Saber, Kamui, and Leon don't reach promotion d/t losing out on EXP. Especially in Cipher 2, Archer fort (7 turns), Sonya/Deen map (5 turns; Sonya's map might be faster...not sure), Gieth fort-9 turns, and Mila temple (6 turns). Thoughts?