FE1 0% Growths Chapter 10 description

Chapter 10.....yeah, I think this is where FE1's map design starts missing, though it does at least hold on better than Gaiden does. The good aspects of the map is thankfully at the start, so I can talk about those right away, while those of you at home who don't want to watch through the entirety of this video can rest assured that everything worth value that you're missing is in the first half. So what's going on is that your guys get flanked by mounted units on both sides: fliers from the north, and horse riders from the south. That's the general gist of things. You have to commit defenses to both sides, which delays pushing through the fortress.

Yes, the fortress itself has some convenient nuisances to slow your advance down. Armor Knights are to be expected, but special mention goes to a Sniper with a Silver Bow, clearly the series' introduction to promoted enemies. I was expecting him to be a nuisance on his own because a lucky crit from him would let him 4HKO Banut, which should tell you how dangerous he would be, but if he never attacks more than once and his target is Banut, his offense is gimped. What makes him significant all the same is that he's positioned to slow down Marth's advance through the fort, because he's also within buddy system distance of 2 ally Archers while having enough durability to make sure you need to expose more units in the inevitable need to swarm the jackhole. This means you have to make sure things have quieted down outside first before you draw out this nuisance.

I don't know how, but somehow, the Sniper manages to be a bigger threat than the Hero, who is clearly placed to discourage Sheeda from just using the back door of the fortress to free Maria. Honestly, he could be placed in the fortress itself to be an actual threat, though that would still only go so far with him using an Armor Killer, which would work on Roger, but definitely not Banut, and it doesn't help the Hero's case that Wendel still doubles him while avoiding non-crit 4HKO, making it joke easy to get the Hero Proof that Oguma uses to promote.

This also brings up how empty the level is once the archer defenses are down. There are some columns just past the archers that serve no purpose beyond slowing down your units for....what purpose I don't understand in the least. If it's to prevent Maria from escaping with a Warped unit to bust open the door to her cell, she's already so slow that even if it's somebody other than Marth you warp there since Maria tries to pathfind her way to him and self-recruit, her status as an enemy unit can't be exploited to sneak her past the Sniper on any attempt at an LTC run. All the columns do is make the twisted turning through the fortress tepid. I suck at logistics so I end up making nearly everybody go through the fortress anyway, even though yes, hindsight does prove to be a shedog. It doesn't change how this becomes idiotic because the outside fortress path, which has no forced turning, is a freaking open field that doesn't help foot units in the least either. Those columns, as well as the narrow smooth terrain just past the Hero, are clearly a half-efforted attempt to let foot units not feel so slow, but instead just slows the entire map to a grinding halt.

On such an important map, a VERY glaring mistake like this is inexcusable. And it's not the only map design flaw here, oh no. Reinforcements do come in around your starting point. This would be good incentive to not take long, but they arrive on Turn 16, they're the same enemies as the Chapter 8 mooks, and they have AI that begs to be put under scrutiny. I would go into detail, but by Turn 16, I had advanced too far through the map for them to have a chance of being relevant. If the Armor Knights arrived on Turn 8, and the horse units on Turn 14, they might actually try to be a coordinated threat to bother to care about, but no, they take too long and I'm just out of here with Jukov being proven to be Hermeine with a worse weapon and a Speed Ring taken from him for that.

Thank God the gauntlet is over.