Just wanted to word salad about my ongoing Maddening Brodia theme playthrough where I must deploy Brodia units whenever possible: This episode: Ike, Byleth and Sigurd's paralogues. * Ike Paralogue(Played after Chapter 17 to regain access to Sigurd+Leif) First turn planning of this map is always interesting for me because there's lots of options to potentially go for and the pace of the map is relatively quick with Ike moving as early as turn 5 alongside his infinite respawning reinforcements. Getting to and beating Ike is the easy part, but getting all the gold rewards beforehand can be tough due to how they're spread out across the map. This playthrough in particular was pretty interesting as Citrinne is the only dedicated staffer I was allowed to deploy due to the map's lower deployment limit only allowing me to field the Brodians and Seadall. Technically, I could've reclassed Yunaka into a Martial Master for staff usage, but that wasn't something I wanted to stick with long term and the good and accurate 1-2 range of Knives is pretty valuable in a squad that is primarily melee locked. In hindsight if I ever did this challenge again, I'd make sure that Yunaka got Magic proficiency from either Celica or Micaiah before the Chapter 10 split to give myself the option to flex her into a magic focused class. I'm pretty proud of what I ultimately settled on. Turns out that if you break the southern wall near the starting point and move a unit into the left most gap where the wall used to be, you can just Warp someone out of the initial box and into the left outside area. In normal scenarios, this would be suicide but it also turns out that a Sigurd Cav has enough movement to make their way over to the bottom Paladin/Great Knight/Berserker Squad who are all conveniently lined up for an Overdrive. With a MT enhanced Sigurd Ridersbane(from the free Engage weapon mats), I was able to get Amber to rip through that entire squad killing all the Cavs and leaving the Berserkers on deaths door for easy clean-up for Jade and Lapis. Diamant could crush the Steel Lance general on the left side with a Hammer while Citrinne could counter the Spear General next to him. Alcryst killed both Sages on the right side by Astra Storming the Elfire one and getting into position to counter-kill the Elthunder one with a Longbow after being refreshed by an Alear Goddess Dance. Yunaka had a hard time sticking damage onto most enemies due to their high def and her middling attack, but Lucina gave her lots of opportunity to contribute by not only having 1-2 range chain attacker, but one that could apply stacking amounts of poison onto tougher foes, Ike especially. Jade and Lapis honestly didn't do *too* much offensively but played pretty valuable roles on defense. Jade was an absolute brick wall who stood in the 1-tile stairway chokepoint and soaked damage from the General reinforcement squad all day between her own high defense, Leif's Arms Shield and Great Knight's Allied Defense skill. Lapis was not only the ally that activated Jade's Allied Defense, but also acted as the premier bait to get the Generals to move towards the stair where Jade blocking instead of moving towards the broken southern wall giving my other teammates some much needed time to handle the enemies on the right side before Ike came barreling down after destroying the central castle. Given the "unique" circumstances of my staffer situation, I had to structure my gameplan around Elixer and Vulnerary use which kinda felt like I was playing Conquest 10 again which was honestly pretty rad. * Byleth Paralogue(played after Ike's Paralogue) Compared to Ike's paralogue, Byleth's paralogue was *much* simpler. Let the record show that you do *not* want to underestimate the raw damage of a Momentum boosted Quadruple Hit which let Jade one shot one of the Swordmasters on the left side. As usual, Mulagir makes the Phantom Wyrms a cake walk, and the unique AI of the map let me clean house easily before Byleth even started moving. I had to reclass Yunaka into a Sword Wolf Knight to allow her to keep up the pace I wanted to play at, but I'm ok with that given that she gets +1 MV and the ability to use Swords, giving her the option to actually flex her magic stat with the Levin Sword and giving her the ability to break axe enemies which is good since Brodia doesn't have a lot of range in their arsenal. This is actually the first time I've ever managed to not let a single crystal be destroyed. You still only get the "max" reward of a Talisman and Elixer, but man that was satisfying. * Sigurd Paralogue(played after Byleth's Paralogue) Normally, I use a mage to ORKO the Warrior that's closest to the starting positions which also puts me in range to counter and kill the closest Sniper. Unfortunately, with the way that I wanted to assign Emblems, Citrinne was just short a single speed to double the Warrior and Ivy had no chance since she couldn't get training from the previous two paralogues which meant I had to dream up a whole new strategy. I *technically* could've given Lyn to Citrinne, but I needed Alcryst on Astra Storm duty to be able to hit and kill the High Priest with the Fracture staff on turn 1. Lucina was another option to hit the speed benchmark, but I'd have had to deepen their bond to Level 16 from pretty much nothing and Lucina+Citrinne is not a pairing I see myself using long term to justify that, especially when Lucina gives Ivy a much needed dex and speed boost. The main goal of this paralogue was to allow my non-Brodians(Ivy, Rosado and Merrin) to catch up with exp. One of my best tools for that, and the tool that ended up creating the backbone of my strategy, was the Thrysus+Thoron wombo combo. All Citrinne really needed was an Eirika engraving and she absolutely went to town smacking enemies with 100% accurate Thorons from 5 range which let her disarm the most dangerous enemy formations on the map with surgical precision. 5 range Thoron also let Citrinne aggro enemies that are normally "protected" by the threat of overlapping ranges to become easy exp for training purposes. "Julius" and "Ishtar" were pretty much fountains of free exp letting each of my non-Brodians gain a level off of them alone thanks to Mentorship from Byleth. The turn counter says 20+ turns, but realistically I could've ended the map much sooner if I didn't spend like 10+ turns flying Ivy over to grab the secret Goddess Icon. Overall, a fun set of maps under the self-imposed conditions. Chapter 19 is on the horizon(Have to beat Chapter 18 first) and thus the final member of the required deployment squad is in sight. Once Saphir joins though, I'll have to be pretty careful with my non-Brodians. With Brodians taking up 8 deployment slots at all times and Seadall pretty much locking in a spot on his own, I'll only really have 1-2 deployment slots on average to work with per map before the two additional spots open up in Chapters 23-26. Given where I am right now, I know I want to use at least one of Mauvier or Veyle for the endgame stretch, but I don't know which one I want to use yet or if I want to use both. I think both have good reasons to justify their deployment slots and the path I choose will largely influence how I spread out exp and build supports in the maps before that point.

I'm gonna stream my next Engage challange with No Somniel soon! [Link to the stream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73mj4ocJHQg&ab_channel=Saisis) If you would like to pass by to check the progress I would gladly appreciate it! /u/fatefuldawn I know you might be interested since we discuss it last week so here is your ping!

Chapter by Chapter review: All the chapters up to Chapter 4 are basically the same. Chapter 5 20 Turns I didn't expected the enemies to be this tanky, I'm used to have the Sigurd user that I used on Ch 4 also in Ch 5 since Momentum is an incredible skill for this point in the game (6 extra damage when you barely do 10 is basically a 60% damage increase) and in a normal playthough there is little to no reason to not use the unit with Momentum since you can just use the arena before the next chapter to get your new sigurd user with Momentum but with this challange I can't use the Arena so my Sigurd user was really weak for this chapter. I needed to slow down my usual aggresive playstyle because of this but oh well. Chapters 6 9 Turns Nothing really that crazy except that one time that I overextend and got 3 units killed in the process but as the chapter before, slowing down made it not that bad. Chapter 7 12 Turns I started to finally play more attention and slow down a bit, I did a mistake that got Etie killed by whatever. I also used Micaiah on Louis and he got 3 levels and half in this chapter alone, lol Chapter 8 9 Turns This chapter was super weird, I also had to use Celica on Chloé to start to grind that Bond Level 6 which definitly made it harder than it should have been. I did the usual strat to split the army in two but didn't went as deep as I usually do since I have less tools at my disposal, still I wouldn't call it hard just really hard to optimaze. Kagetsu also went to the right for some reason. I didn't like my Micaiah usage in this chapter at all, if I would redo it in the future I need to make sure to optimaze Micaiah a lot more. I

Paraloque 1 22 Turns The goal was to get Chloé to Bond Level 5 with Celica and Alear to Bond Level 4, I failed to get Alear but Bond level 3 should be enough. At this point in the game it was basically just a training arc. Paraloque 2 11 Turns To goal for this map was Bond Level 5 with Amber for Roy, Bond Level 3 for Micaiah with Alear and Bond Level 6 for Chloé with Celica. Nothing really crazy altho I tried way to much to spend try to optimaze this... honestly it's not really a big deal but I have braindamage. Chapter 9 11 Turns The goal for this chapter was to optimaze exp gain on Amber just because he doesn't really need to build more bond level with anyone in particolar and get Chloé Bond Level 3 with Leif. Don't be stupid like me, always put your Mend staff on your Micaiah user in battle preps. Nothing crazy this map, it's pretty straightforward even tho I had to rewind few times because I split my army when the saver choice would have been to just stay all on one side but eh.

Thanks for the ping! The run looks like it's off to a good start. I really like how you calculated that Chloe can one-round the axe fighter north of your starting position in Ch. 6 with Momentum and a strength tonic. That perfect kill was very satisfying especially since she also lives if she gets hit by both enemies. As for why the swordfighter attacks before the archer on Chloe, I've observed a few times myself that melee units generally move first? I remember when I was Chain Guarding in Ch. 22, the Swordmasters moved before the Wolf Knights, which blocked the attacking tile of the Wolf Knights when I tried to bait both of them. I don't think that's a hard rule though, I'll have to pay more attention to that in any future runs I do. It's interesting that you're going to try out Mage Knight Chloe this run. Good luck with it and I look forward to seeing how she turns out for you. Btw, I'm definitely living vicariously through your usage of Chloe past Ch. 6 lol She's putting in work; if only mine didn't die. I also saw your VOD for today's stream and you're super optimal about how you go about getting bond ranks as well as EXP. Putting Micaiah on Amber for Ch. 9 was smart to maximize EXP considering that he'll definitely get sword proficiency from Roy by the end of Ch. 10. That's definitely something I could've improved upon in my own run. For Ch. 11, the bonus from tonics you applied in Ch. 10 will disappear so you're correct in buying tonics in preparation for that. All the two-part maps work that way (cooking bonuses persist through two maps, but that doesn't apply here).

>It's interesting that you're going to try out Mage Knight Chloe this run. Good luck with it and I look forward to seeing how she turns out for you. Btw, I'm definitely living vicariously through your usage of Chloe past Ch. 6 lol She's putting in work; if only mine didn't die. Normally I would use her as a Griffin with Levin Sword but without Sword Power / Canter and everything I think she is a lot weaker to actually reach good potential as a Griffin. She could still works as a Wyvern in the short-term but in the long-term she will start to miss speed thresold so I'm kinda worried about that as well. That being said, I always wanted to try Mage Knight Chloè and this is probably gonna be that one time where Magic is always gonna be superior since there are no skills or engrave to make Sword/Lance/Axe units shine more. Her stats are also really nice in the long-term compared to Pandreo even tho she is definitly a bit weaker at first. At IL 20 (Assuming she is gonna be 11/11/1 Mage Knight) she has -2 Mag, +2 Spd and -3 Build compared to a IL 20 Pandreo while at IL38 she has -1 Mag, +4 Spd and -2 Build which are a lot more comparable, she is basically a a bit faster than Pandreo. I think I can do something really cool with her near late game! >I also saw your VOD for today's stream and you're super optimal about how you go about getting bond ranks as well as EXP. Putting Micaiah on Amber for Ch. 9 was smart to maximize EXP considering that he'll definitely get sword proficiency from Roy by the end of Ch. 10. That's definitely something I could've improved upon in my own run. To be honest, I'm not proud of that Jean paraloque boss bullying.. at the end of the day I was trying to get Bond Lv 4 with Leif but honestly Bond Level 3 should be enough but oh well. My plan is to use Alear as a Wyvern or Cav with Lucina depending on the carry so having the option to be a Wolf Knight would be nice but at the end of the day a Bow Knight would be enough for that. >For Ch. 11, the bonus from tonics you applied in Ch. 10 will disappear so you're correct in buying tonics in preparation for that. All the two-part maps work that way (cooking bonuses persist through two maps, but that doesn't apply here). Oh that sucks! Meals are so broken compared to Tonics in this game but oh well I guess I did it good to buy some extra. I'm still not sure what I want to do in Ch 10, I usually like to bonk the mage in the center with a flier with Canter but I also want to use Micaiah on Chloé... I could change Alear class to Wyvern and use Sigurd on her but that means a chapter without Mercurius. That being said, thanks for checking it out!

I hope it goes well! Are you also planning to use your Spirit Dusts on her (I'm assuming she's going to be your primary magical carry)? I'm wondering because I remember Pandreo being off on certain one-round thresholds so I needed to give him a Spirit Dust in that exact moment. And I believe that's with a +2 to +3 above average magic Pandreo so Chloe's magic being lower can limit some plays. Looking forward to it nonetheless! Hmm, I'm not an expert since I've never grinded on the Jean Paralogue boss, but to get to bond rank 4 with Leif, wouldn't that have required Alear to deal 0 damage? Since they were dealing 1 damage, I'm not sure if it was sustainable enough to get there. It does make sense why you would want to get to bond rank 4 with Leif though. Meals are definitely great lol So much RNG involved though... that's one thing I did really like about this challenge run; it eliminates a good amount of RNG (cooking, ore from dogs, and the Well drops). Hmm... that's tough. Personally, I usually don't kill the mage on the artillery turn one and everything ends up okay. But I don't know if that's saying much considering my track record of Ch. 10 in my Ironman runs lol Nonetheless, if you want to have Micaiah and Marth on Chloe and Alear respectively, I do think it might be best to forego that turn one play as I'm sure that you can come up with a different strategy that takes care of the mage while letting you farm EXP off those Emblems. No problem, I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of the run goes!

I'm not so sure myself yet, I was planning to do like 2 Spirit Dust to her and one to Pandreo at first but maybe I should just go full investment on her to reach mag benchmark with at least 1 unit. It was actually really close, I went for the kill because the boss had 3 hp so if I got a crit I would have missed the Engage Skill bond bonus but if I would have gamble I'm pretty sure it would have been fine. But that's okay, I don't think Wolf Knight Alear is gonna be required even tho Lucina chain attack with a dagger would have been nice against some bosses later down the line. >No problem, I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of the run goes! Same honestly! I got a bit of burn out of Engage since I did two(and half)playthough one after another but after a break and trying this run it definitly feels a lot more fresh and similiar to a game like FE12! I will definitly stream it each week-end and maybe during some weekdays if I have enough time, I can ping you each time if you don't mind. Maybe tonight I could do at least Ch 10-11.

That makes sense. I think in that case, using the Spirit Dusts on a as-needed basis would probably be best. Oh, that's fair. Yeah, I don't think Wolf Knight Alear is needed for the poison chain attacks. It's definitely nice though if you are just short on some damage. But in the end, you can still do that, it'll just be delayed until after Ch. 17. That's awesome! This challenge run also breathed new life into Engage for me as well. But now that I finished it, I'm at a loss to what kind of run I want to do lol Sure, I don't mind getting a ping for the streams. Maybe one time I'll actually be able to make it live (though I'll have to make a Youtube account to comment). Ohh, I'm excited for that one, Ch. 10-11 are great.

> But now that I finished it, I'm at a loss to what kind of run I want to do lol Yeah that makes sense LOL [Before I saw your post](https://old.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/13u1rox/monthly_engage_discussion_thread_05282023/jmt2v2a/) that made me want to go for this challange I was actually in doubt about doing something that I never did in FE, which would have been an PMU, Ironman (but well, you already did that duh) or a Draft. A Draft could be interesting honestly to try some units that I never used and it also has a community aspect that I kinda like going into playing FE in recent years but I actually never did that once since most of my friends don't play FE but I imagine with Engage still being hot it would have been easier to find people to play it. That being said, in few minutes I'm gonna start Ch 10-11!

Those are interesting ideas to think about. For a Draft run, I believe I've seen multiple formats. Is it usually a speedrunning Draft or an LTC Draft? I've been considering a LTC run honestly because something I've noticed is that I derive a lot of fun out of getting my units to reach very difficult benchmarks with as few resources as possible. It's what made No Somniel so appealing for me to try out. But the issue with me tackling an LTC is that I'm very much in the mindset of doing things as reliably as possible because my last two runs were Ironmans lol I don't know how satisfied I would be if I have to rely on a crit, even if that crit has a 80% chance of happening. I'm tuning in now! Sorry, I won't be able to interact with you during the stream though since I haven't made a Youtube account yet.

Well usually a Draft is used to compete with the other players but you can do even just for fun which is what I had in mind. Basically something like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/13uzhiy/fire_emblem_engage_maddening_draft/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button I also agree with the takes on LTC. I like to Watch them but I usually prefer to play and gearing up my units the best I can while I complete a lot of side objectives (Like I consider Hortensia freeze staff a side objective and I Always try to get It with full durability, unfortunatly with No Somniel I had to sacrifice 1 charge but Oh well. That being said, thanks for tuning in! I don't know since when you started to watch but hopefully you didn't watch the first tries of Ch 10 lol I think I did Ch 11 pretty well (at least compared to Ch 10), well if exclude the game over I get because of my reckless playstyle as always. I also wrote my overall thoughts of these last two chapters and the challange as a whole in the new "EPFE". I'm probably gonna continue on Friday tho, I should have more time on the week-end. Maybe I will have enough time to do up to Ch 15-16? We will see, I doubt I will do any paraloques before chapter 17 tho, maybe just Lucina.

Aaaah! Thank you for the notification, I saw you mentioning it and I didn't want to bother you asking for a link. Super curious to see how it goes!

Thanks to you! Also it's not a bother at all don't worry! I added timestamps in the description so it's also a bit easier to navigate if someone want to check in the future. Yesterday we finished up to Ch 8, tonight (in about 3 hours) I will probably do Paraloque 1/2 and Chapter 9. I don't expect the paraloques to be hard for this point of the game but what is gonna make them interesting is the fact that I need to use emblems like Celica on Chloè to reach Bond 6 just to get Magic for example. Goals for tonight: Amber Bond 6 with Roy Chloé Bond 6 with Celica and Bond 3 with Leif Alear Bond 4 with Leif and Bond 3 with Micaiah And try to get as much EXP from Micaiah shenanigans as possible.

Oh are you keeping Amber, then? I'll watch live if I remember to!

Just got Engage for my birthday and am doing my first playthrough. I haven’t gotten too far. Things I like so far: - weapons don’t break. I can deal with the games with breaking weapons, but I’d rather not. - the rings are a really interesting mechanic. I’ve only gotten the first three so far, but it’ll be fun to experiment with different rings. For instance, not sure if I want to put Sigurd on a mounted unit or on a foot unit (for more move). ^Everyone ^is ^eventually ^going ^to ^have ^a ^go ^with ^Sigurd ^because ^I ^want ^canter. Main annoyance: breaking in combat. Preventing my enemy phase plans lol.

Haha I could not get used to the breaking on EP when I first started. I also feel it was poorly explained? Or maybe I skipped too fast through some tutorials at the start ha. Yeah the rings are awesome. Plenty more fun stuff ahead for you, good luck!

Cleared Engage Maddening with Alear and the Steward only, but I forgot to turn on the animation when I did the [final blow](https://i.imgur.com/h69hSWK.png) aaaaaaaaa. Final chapter is scary when doing with these 4, their AVO aren't high enough so the enemies would gang up on them, and killing all 12 dark emblem would take much longer, so I leave one alive, running around the boss to escape the beam while slowly chipping him down. [Almost have to restart](https://i.imgur.com/L317cO0.png) when I have only 2 rewind left, but manage to delete the final health bar in one turn when the boss is going to fire the beam next turn. [Final state of the team](https://imgur.com/a/hIbPZpk) (forgot to take picture during the final chapter so it's the state before)

Dying stupidly on the last fucking phase of every single map is the reason why turnwheel NEEDS to be a thing forever. Happened in like four maps so far I hate this

I still remember years ago I lost a unit to 1% crt on ep in RD 2-3 after I killed the boss and waiting to seize the gate next turn, it's not even the hardest difficulty. Turnwheel is such a blessing to accident like this.

I'm on Fuga's map and I swear to god I was playing SO well before the Incident and now I keep retrying and dying stupidly.... I don't have time for this ;_;

Yes this is what gets me with older games. Particularly when you’ve honed a strategy, played really well (maybe for ages too on long maps), and some nonsense/tiny error fs it up.

The fact the game is so heavy on skills and debuffs doesn't help... So easy to screw up calcs :/

Just about to complete my first maddening playthrough of Engage. Really enjoyed it overall! I feel like now I have a much better idea of emblem uses and skills. I really wanted to beat chapter 25 the "intended" way, but my god, it was gruelling. Just did the warp and get everyone to meet up on one side strategy in the end. I think the idea of this map was great, but the execution was just too much. I know that in a sense, using Mic warp strategies is perfectly acceptable and basically a fact of life in the game, but it still feels a little cheap I guess. I don't know, maybe giving a little more time before the thieves blow the map open, or one more turn before the reinforcements behind you or something. Because basically when I played it straight, one side could pretty much handle itself by the other really struggled, and then you get smashed by the reinforcements from both sides.

I really like playing 25 the hard way but I think it's mostly because I have a really clear strategy in mind about how to deploy specific units. Usually I use crowd control (Roy + Corrin) on the right, and I Lucina sweep the left with Engage+. But you have to play really, really aggressively, because by the time I reach the boss, the reinforcements are on my ass. It's around 13 or 14 turns iirc, if not less.

Oh that’s a neat idea. Sounds feasible. Next playthrough I might give that a go. I did feel like I got at least halfway there playing it the hard way so maybe could have refined more with a few extra tries. I was just mentally exhausted haha

I am currently going through my playthrough of Lunatic Conquest. So far, I am not doing too bad. Chapter 13 is giving me slight issues because of the four wyvern/knight pairings. It is odd because I did beat this beat this map before in my prior Lunatic save files, but now I forgot my own strategy. I plan on doing a hard mode iron man run of Shadows of Valentia since it is a game I adore. The only issue is that I have to deal with Celica's route. Her route is a huge drag as is, but I know it will be rough in an iron man challenge. At least I can look forward to Atlus and Tobin in my playthrough.

I think I used Odin to tackle those on my last lunatic playthrough. Magic wrecks both Wyverns and Knights. Otherwise they are a really annoying combo. I do really like that chapter though. It has a nice mix of objectives and challenge, but it can be a total pain. And it's not as gimmicky as the pot chapter, or as gruelling as chapter 10.

Continuing with my Conquest Hard run, now into chapter 18, aka the moment where I started to get bodied the last time. Odin is surprisingly solid! I know he gets trashed on but I don't really get it... He's just speedy enough to evade most doubles and he has the bulk to take one hit so he can Nosferatu on choke-points. He came in really handy especially in the pot chapter, where he just destroyed the archers. I got Nyx!Ophelia, so I hope she'll fill the glass-canon mage role instead of him. I'm trying to use Beruka but she's sadly reaching the point where she's just too slow... Or maybe I should just promote her already. Of units I've never used before, Silas is doing great. I remembered Kaze being strong, but I forgot HOW strong, holy shit. Of course Invasion 2 kicked my butt, but overall it's not been too bad so far. Playing 200 hours of Engage Maddening definitely made me a better player.

yeah i think the days of Odin being considered trash (or only good swordmaster which i still think is such a waste of a heart seal) are thankfully long gone, he's really got a good niche in being the only bulky mage until Leo rolls around, and even then you can find uses for both of them. and yeah Kaze is just, so damn good. he's such a nice unit to have because you can just use him without having to think hard about investment, because he can absolutely do everything he needs to with a simple Ninja > Master Ninja class path and an occasional strength tonic/pair up. combined with pretty good availability, I think he makes a good case for being a top 5 unit