Let's All Play Fire Emblem: Draft Edition!

Greeetings folks and folkesses, and welcome to the Fire Emblem Let's All Play!

Haven't we just had an Fire Emblem LP? Yes - but this takes a different approach and turns it into a sort of contest. There will be some rules, but they are intended to give everyone a fair chance even if you're stuck with a difficult team.

Rules:
1. This is a draft for 5 people, including myself.
2. Eliwood, Marcus, Athos, Merlinus, Ninian and Nils are free to use.
3. This will be played on Eliwood Normal Mode. Lyn mode must not be done beforehand.
4. There are 35 draftable characters, 7 per team. You are not required to recruit units you have not drafted, but you can do so for their items.
5. Undrafted characters can Shop, Trade, Rescue NPCs and other undrafted units, pick up buried treasure, Steal, Open chests, Open doors and recruit other characters. All other actions, including taking attacks for other units are prohibited.
6. A prohibited action gets a 4 turn penalty, per chapter.
7. Drafting is snake style and order is Random
8. Karla and Farina are not avaliable, as this is Eliwood Mode.
9. Gaidens 13x, 16x, 18x, and 29x are required. 22x and 26x may not be done.
10. NPCs can do as they please
11. Hector and Oswin are free in chapter 12
12. One Caelin Character (Lyn, Kent, Sain or Wil) is free in chapter 15. You can choose which at the time.
13. Wallace and Geitz count as one choice

So what do I do? First, you sign up. Then you are assigned a random draft order, and then you start to pick your units. Drafting will be done snake style - that is, the first person gets to choose, then the second, and when it gets to the end the final person gets 2 picks, then the drafting continues in reverse order.

To represent it numerically, the picks would go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 1, 2...

The goal is to complete each map in the lowest turncount you can manage. Don't worry if you've never played this way before - it will be a fun challenge either way, and the hope is to give a different appreciation for the FE games by encouraging a different sort of play style.

Once you complete each map, you should update the thread with your progress. It helps if you also post unit stats as well as turn count, as well as any penalties taken. I intend to update using screenshots showing my approach to each map - note I'm not the best at low turncount play either, so I may make mistakes too, but it is as much a learning process for me as well as having fun.

Players:
1. Raven: Priscilla, Guy, Canas, Dorcas, Oswin, Matthew, Vaida
2. BlitzBlast: Bartre, Harken, Kent, Fiora, Wil, Isadora, Nino
3. Umby: Serra, Pent, Raven, Dart, Lowen, Jaffar, Legault
4. Refa: Hector, Rebecca, Lyn, Lucius, Rath, Karel, Wallace/Geitz
5. Toothache: Florina, Sain, Erk, Heath. Louise, Hawkeye, Renault

...This sounds utterly insane. Needless to say, I'll be following this one closely.

Participating? I'll pass, thank you.

OK, I'll join.

Too hardcore for my blood, I think.

Sorry about this Tootheache, but I gotta close the thread. The next open slot for LAPs isn't until September (i.e. this Thursday), and letting the FE draft start early would be setting a bad precedent. It's pedantic, I know, but rules are rules - I gotta lock the thread until then.

EDIT: Oh wait - that's right, you wanted to use your queue claim from July for this. Uh... okay then. Hm.

Also, I won't be able to take part - Pkmn White is taking up all of my spare time as it is.

I'll try to be less awkward in future. Thanks for the go ahead at least, I think my first claim for the queue was made in February, so I've been waiting quite a while. Not that I mind, I'm a patient person by nature, but I have been itching to get started. Shame that you can't take part Papillon, but we all get busy from time to time.

I will be following with interest, however. Looking forward to it!

I'll join. I'm all up for a challenge.

EDIT: I just looked into SerenesForest just out of curiosity for seeing how drafts usually work, and you're in the Support Draft thingymabobber!

I'm in.

Yup. That was my first and only draft so far, so this is relatively new to me as well. Although, I am working on a TAS of FE6 so I'm not that unfamiliar with low turncount strategies. Still, it was a lot of fun, hoping this will be too.

You should probably link a save of a completed file, just so we can start from Eliwood Normal Mode without having to do Lyn Mode.

Download Here.

This is a save file with 100% support conversations unlocked, as well as all modes. You will probably need to rename the save file to the same as the ROM. Or, you could just quickly run through Lyn Mode yourself if it doesn't work, it doesn't take that long to do :-). Should still have time while we wait for the last person to join.

I'm assuming that actual copies of the game can be used for this?

Sure, I guess. What's your plan for the updates format?

I wouldn't mind running through Lyn Mode, but according to your rules, that's not allowed.

The reasons for Lyn Mode not being part of the draft is simple. One is that you only have a few units to use, leading to vastly different turn counts there, so it simplifies the draft choices by just focusing on Eliwood mode. Two is that everyone will start Eliwood mode at the same level, making things fairer there, rather than having one unit sneakily solo Lyn mode and overlevel to stomp through the rest of the game (more of a concern for Florina than other units, or Kent/Sain where they can get hold of Wallace's Knight Crest for an early promotion - as well as the two free stat boosters which players with pure Eliwood Mode units don't have access too). Three is Lyn mode just isn't that interesting - it is a tutorial at best designed for new players, and you will need some familiarity with the game in order to do well in a draft, so going through the same enforced tutorial every time is not fun either.

PS: I meant running through Lyn mode to unlock Eliwood Normal separately, not as part of the playthrough

Ah, I see. I guess it'd make more sense to do this by ROM, as much as I'd prefer doing it via the real thing. How would I patch the ROM with Toothache's data?

EDIT: Also, while I'm at it, how do I take screencaptures of the emulator?

Just put the save file in the same folder with your ROM file, and rename it so that they have the same name. The save file should be applied automatically to the ROM when you start it up.

Alternatively....if you don't really want to use emulation, personally I think it's mighty fine to just do text-only update (meaning no in-game screenshots) for your LAP.This is more like a contest than a regular LP, after all. I myself will only use a sparse amount of screenshots, because I want to do a different kind of approach, and because I think we already had gazillion in-game screenshots from all those Fire Emblem LP's already done.

So, if you want to do it like this:

....I think it's okay. You can make it journal-style, descriptive & sweet, with maybe some flavoring & random FE images to spice things up.

You should do whatever you feel comfortable the most

EDIT: You can use image-editing programs like IrfanView to capture and edit the images from the emulator, then put the image files on some image-hosting site like Photobucket.

I'm tempted to join in, but even I have to admit I've got too much stuff on my plate as it is.

I've got the save data working. Next step would to take in-game pictures. Any directions on that, boss?

You should just be able to do that with F12. If you don't want to do use that key, just go to Options -> Joypad -> Configure -> 1.... and you can configure it however you want.

As for telling the screenshots where to go, go to Options -> Emulator -> Directories.... There should be a section labeled Capture. Click Browse next to that, select a folder (you should probably make one for this purpose, btw), and you're good to go.

Edit: Wow, I kinda just answered for Raven, didn't I? Sorry, guys. =/

VBA-RR is honestly the way to go here.



If you want to set the capture ability to a hotkey, you would go Options -> Input -> Configure All Commands and assign one there.

And as mentioned before IrfanView is great for dealing with lots of screenies.

Coming from the person who played FFV four times concurrently? Madness!

Oh, hey, no worries there! While you're at it, just come join, I'm growing itchy waiting for this final player.

Also

I would, but I'm already terrible at strategy games, much less Fire Emblem, much much less what seems to be a challenge run of it. I'll totally be watching the thread, though!

Well when you put it that way... gah, I was going to drop my latest FFV Advance challenge anyways. Screw it, I'll join.

Well, I know who I'll be rooting for.

And with that, we can get underway. So, let's have the drafting order picked randomly:



Drafting order is as follows: Raven, BlitzBlast, Umby, Refa, Toothache.

Raven, you get to start the unit picks. Recommendations for a first pick are either a flier, a mount or a staff unit. Post your picks in the thread so people can more quickly choose the next picks, I'll edit the teams in the OP as it goes.

....I'll pick my sister.

Priscilla.