FE7 Ranked Run

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FE7 Ranked Run
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Q: What is a ranked run?

	A: In a ranked run, I will be trying to achieve the highest "rank" using the in-game ranking system.

Q: What are you ranked on?

	A: You are ranked on the following five categories:
		1) Tactics: How many turns you complete each chapter.  You are ranked better on lower turn counts.
		2) Survival: How many units you kept alive.  You get a 5 star if you finish the game with 0 deaths.  You can reset on deaths
		without being penalized.  Deaths only count toward your rank if they are recruited/blue.
		3) Funds: The total value of your inventory. Counts your gold as well as the combined value of all your items.
		4) EXP: The amount of EXP you earned throughout the game.  Earn more EXP by using lower-level units
		5) Combat: The amount of battles that end in defeating an opponent.  40% is the goal for 5 stars (on average 2.5-rounding enemies)

Q: Why are you playing Normal Mode?

	A: So I can focus more on optimizing my gameplay over challenging myself.  If I find the challenge too easy I may try again on Hard (maybe Eliwood Hard but I probably will want to sweep every mode at some point or another if I find it fun).

Q: How do you optimize each category?

	A: 1) Tactics: Using strats that either clear waves quickly or get to the boss quickly.  Abusing paladins and fliers that can carry units far.
	2) Survival: Self-explanatory
	3) Funds: Keeping my stat-boosters as they're highly valuable.  Avoid using high-value weapons.  Making sure I use promotion items wisely.  idk this category is really bad because it basically punishes you for using resources even though your budget is decently lenient.  This is also particularly interesting on Normal Mode since the Silver Card doesn't exist, making selling your gems a risky play (you get half the "worth" of your gems when you sell them). I have to be particularly stingy and careful compared to Hard Mode
	4) EXP: I'll be deploying low-level units during my chapters and feeding kills to them for EXP.  I'll still be using my focus units for clearing chapters quickly (Hector, Marcus, Sain, Florina, probably Heath as well)
	5) Combat: You can basically ignore this one.  40% is incredibly easy to hit without even thinking about it.

Q: Did you use Lyn mode? What did you do?

	A: Yes.  I mainly trained Lyn, Sain, and Florina, with some EXP given to Nils, Lucius, Erk, and Kent.  Every unit I tried to hit about their average stats and kept the file to use for any future playthrough.  I gave both the Angelic Robe and Energy Ring to Florina.  It helps start snowballing a lot quicker and IMO she uses them better than any other unit.  I set up my funds to get the White Gem on Chapter 16.

Q: Why were you behind on turns/What is the deal with Hector Mode?

	A: In their "failed a spot check" moment, the devs made a separate set of requirements for Hector Mode, but forgot to point to them when playing Hector Mode, so any Hector exclusive chapter in the game (11, 15, 19xx, 25, 30, 32x), the requirements for those chapters are 0 for every thing (except Survival and Combat, since those just use one stat for the entire game).  This means you have to make up the turns in other chapter, while at the same time, you get freebies for EXP and funds.  This is good, because the last few chapters have ludicrous requirements for EXP so I need to be ahead before going in, and some chapters you can make turns up for free (Battle Before Dawn and Sands of Time I believe have turn requirements higher than the actual amount of turns there are, and you can lure the boss of Four Fanged Offense [Lloyd ver.] on Turn 1).

Q: Should you do sidequests?

	A: There's usually a good reason to do them one-way or another
		13x: Get Merlinus early, which you want that convoy, plus it's a survive, so you can't really screw it up turn-wise
		17x: You get Canus + plenty of potential EXP because of the higher-level enemies
		19x: You get the Silver Card if you're playing Hard Mode, but otherwise it's not difficult on Normal Mode and you get plenty of EXP
		19xx: You can skip this one. 0 turn requirement so you just lose turns here no matter what and you don't get too much out of it. Plus it's hard to unlock
		23x: Lots of EXP + turn requirement is super lenient
		28x: You get the Fell Contract here (worth 50k) so pretty important for funds. If you're playing Hard the turn count requirement is a whopping 28 turns, so you can save a ton of turns here if you play quickly.  I might want to skip this on Normal since the turn count requirement is significantly more strict (10 turns) but we'll see.
		31x: Free shopping. On Hard it lets you convert all your gold into items (Silver Card lets you buy stuff for double value) but even on Normal there's no reason to skip aside from losing 1 turn.
		32x: All promoted enemies and 0 requirements gives you tons of training and mending your EXP rank. If I'm ahead in turns I'll go for this if I need to pad up my EXP rating.  If I have the funds to Warp you can warp skip this chapter as well.