I'm rather fond of keeping the animations on, since otherwise there's not enough diversity in the movie. Lightning fast movement and menu handling is cool and all, but it really can't hold up the whole movie. Anyway, fast movement + battle scenes = instant win. I wouldn't worry about the plot scenes.
Was there a reason why you had Sain miss repeteadly or was it because the random number chain needed altering? That document is quite enlightening, though it seems that manipulating luck is a pain in this game.
Anyway, good work, I'll be following this.
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daniayaw: Watch the posted movie to see how much control I have. So what about you, can you manipulate better spelling and grammar?
Unfortunately, there are limits to how much I can do this, which is why I've only gotten one critical hit so far. My main focus has been on levelups. Right now, I'm really still messing around, and only thinking of Lyn's story.
It was a good suggestion to check out SDA, I hadn't thought of that yet. However, there will be no comparison between my TAS and the SDA run (though the SDA run is quite good, giving me some ideas.) While my powers of luck manipulation aren't infinite, they are significant enough to turn the strategy of almost every battle upside down. For example, I could go to the field with only a small cavalry force and quickly invade the enemy. Also, stat pumping and crit manipulation will change the balance of power in the party.
Because the combat will be much more focused, I don't think I necessarily need to turn the animation off, at least for Lyn's quest. If I do Eliwood's I may consider it though.
That mine glitch is amazing, it might actually be preferable to manipulation in some battles. Any other glitches I should know about?
Because of the way the RNG works I think the movie won't be changed at all if someone hexes an "animation off" in there somewhere. Personally I think the comparison should be number of turns, not realtime, so animations can stay.
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Tombad wrote:
Was there a reason why you had Sain miss repeteadly or was it because the random number chain needed altering?
You shouldn't see Sain missing. The luck manipulation is done by moving the cursor around before settling on the spot where I move to, but I have to move it in certain ways.
Boco is right, the animation shouldn't affect the outcome of anything. But hexing the difference would be annoying as you would have to hex out the differences for all the animations.
As far as counting turns vs real time or some other goal, this is what I meant when I wasn't sure how this run should look. A minimum turn run could be much longer than a fastest real time movie on some levels. My current thinking is a minimum turn run which is reasonably efficient in real time, and the animations will be on the whole time. The other alternative is an all-out real-time timeattack with no animations.
Also, a timeattack has to start from nothing, so Lyn's story has to be done. I was thinking that a published run on this game would have encoded clips for each story line. But there could be one long vba to prove that it is real. Of course right now I'm still just messing around, I might give this up if someone who knows the game better is interested.
Oh yeah, I hope I didn't offend you daniayaw. I just think that anyone who has enough time to post on this forum probably has enough time to spell words out and use complete sentences. It's always better to have more people interested in a game, so I hope you keep watching this thread.
to Tombad and daniayaw:
I can't tell if this has been answered yet, but... the reason he misses so much in the 2nd battle is because it's scripted that that has to happen, it's basically part of the tutorial that there's no way to avoid.
I didn't realize luck could be manipulated like this in this game. This will be interesting... One question: Why do you save in-between levels, just to show the chapter title?
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nitsuja wrote:
the reason he misses so much in the 2nd battle is because it's scripted that that has to happen, it's basically part of the tutorial that there's no way to avoid.
Thanks nitsuja, I forgot about that part. The battle outcomes are all set in stone for the entire first stage and in the second up until Sain uses the vulnary. Lyn's first levelup is random, but I didn't do anything to get that. In the third stage the characters all have to visit the houses, but after that I'm free to do as I want.
Hadn't thought about whether I save the game or not, I'll check that.
Edit: Duh, looks like I remembered after the first battle, but not the second. Of course there's no reason to save so I shouldn't.
to Tombad and daniayaw:
I can't tell if this has been answered yet, but... the reason he misses so much in the 2nd battle is because it's scripted that that has to happen, it's basically part of the tutorial that there's no way to avoid.
Ah, this explains it then. Been quite long since I last played this game so all those little details are gone from my memory. :P
This will indeed be interesting, looking forward to see what kind of stunts can be pulled off with luck manipulation like this.
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Same file, one more level. Also, I fixed the third battle to finish on the earliest turn possible. In battle four I finish on my fourth turn, which is as fast as possible, and I also visit the town to pick up some money. Here it was starting to get tougher to make things go my way, but you can also start to see the effectiveness of my levelups.
The next battle is a defend the temple fight, and there doesn't seem to be any way to end it before six turns. So the big decision is whether to kill no enemies or kill all enemies. Both would look pretty impressive if done well, but killing no enemies is of course much faster in realtime. Killing all enemies will pump my levels sky-high, making the rest of the campaign even easier. With the stats I've manipulated, this was easy to do even without savestates.
So the big decision is whether to kill no enemies or kill all enemies. Both would look pretty impressive if done well, but killing no enemies is of course much faster in realtime. Killing all enemies will pump my levels sky-high, making the rest of the campaign even easier. With the stats I've manipulated, this was easy to do even without savestates.
What exactly are your goals again, minimum turns or minimum moves or minimum time? I'd go with killing all enemies, but if aiming for time then I guess that's only worth it if you think the level-ups will speed things up enough to eventually make up for the time it takes to kill them.
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Oh yeah, I did decide to do minimum turns, but I'll cut real-time if it's all the same. Extra levels are nice, but I think it's overkill, so I'll go for a no-kill finish on battle five.
Looking ahead to battle six, it may be possible to finish in just two turns, it would end on the enemy's turn.
Edit: After looking at this pretty closely I don't think it's possible. Theoretically, it would be if I could manipulate the enemy's actions better, but the AI is pretty ruthless in this game. Another possibility is for Erk to get back-to-back critical hits as enemies attack him, but he's not strong enough at this point (3% chance, I could only get one.) I'll go for a three-turn fight and take advantage of the shop to buy javelins.
Oh yeah, for anyone who likes to poke into memory, the first six bytes of RAM hold some sort of value for the random number generator. If anyone can figure out how these numbers get set, then it might be possible to create a list of the random numbers used. Of course this would make a timeattack on this game much easier, and would reveal exactly how much luck can be manipulated. If combined with levelup stat chances for each character, we could see which characters are most likely to have good levelups.
This is going to be an interesting run. In my opinion the animations have to be left on. The animations are one of the best parts in the game, especially when the fighters do critical hits. If you turn them off, you get something that looks like Deja vu combined with Starcraft - it would just be a bunch of menus and moving your units around with the occasional story scene here and there.
As for figuring out how the numbers get set, good luck. I don't know how to get into the memory and RAM of any ROM, so I can't be any help to you there I'm afraid.
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Ok, forget about what I said before, I was able to finish that level in two turns after all. Of course I'm not able to do any shopping, but the fact that this is possible at all is pretty impressive. To see how I pulled it off, get the vbm from the same spot in my first post.
Next level will be a little longer, it will be interesting to see what happens.
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A couple more levels beaten, 3 and 2 turns. Now just three left, but they will get a little tougher. The next level requires beating all the enemies, and there are quite a few of them. The terrain is also annoyingly difficult to traverse on foot. I'll see what I can do, I'd like to work in the ballista. The last two levels have the capture goal, so I'll be able to march right in, and hopefully Lyn has enough strength that her crit will slaughter the bosses. Otherwise Sain or Erk will step up.
This is one of those games where the rules "start from scratch" and "play at the hardest" conflict. Which is a bit of a shame (and also you can't have the units move about super-quick which would speed things up in the enemy turns). And I must say this terrible joke, you sure made Ketchup of Heintz...
As for chapter 8, this might be a good map to make effective use of Nils to transport units about the map more efficiently. But for the most parts its probably going to be one a man army. And think about who goes where and to do what. Remember Soldiers do show up from those forts. If you manage to beat the map before they turn up then great (I can't' remember when they turn up...)
Anyway i'm sure you'll manage to find a quick way through.
Chapter 9 should be fun due to the fog of war. I would probably have Florina pick up Lyn and dance about (noth Nils and avoiding units) to the boss where Lyn is dropped off. I seem to recall the same could be done for Chapter 10.
You've pulled through so far so i'm sure you'll still do good.
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Ah, thanks for the support, it's important for somebody to make that pun. ;)
Nils wasn't useful in Chapter 7 for two reasons. The tutorial script forces me to waste his dance on Lucius, but even if I could use him on Florina, it wouldn't be enough to get me all the way around the shaman to put Lyn in front of Heintz. Of course, I could have dropped in Rath and gotten the boss from the side. Now, if I had picked up a javelin somewhere, Florina could fly in and nail the boss on the first turn, but it would take an extra turn to get the javelin in Chapter 5.
In 8, I've worked out a plan to finish on my turn 3. This is key because the reinforcements come during enemy turn 3. As you guessed, I'll be using Nils and Florina in a balls-out, Rambo style raid. But you were wrong about one thing, it won't be a one man army...
Looking ahead, chapters 9 and 10 both have seize-the-throne goals, which will unfortunately add an extra turn. After checking them out a little, I think three turns each will be the best I can do. Again, if Florina was an invincible killing machine, things would be different, but the programmers did a good job of making her useless in big battles.
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http://home.comcast.net/~f_amoroso/FireEmblem-TheAxeManv0.1.vbm
(same link as before)
Lyn's story is finished. The last three levels each take 3 turns. Theoretically, if Florina were as powerful as Lyn, I think battle 8 could be done in 2 turns. But only Lyn has even close the stats needed to pull off that killing spree.
Of course, I could go straight to Eliwood's story, but if I decide to go there I'll do an improved version of Lyn's story first. I discovered several timesavers in later levels, and I never needed the money I put so much effort into getting. I could also do better with low-probability criticals early on.
Well, it's going to get a lot tougher from here on out. I'm not really up for this right now, so if anyone else wants to take on this game, then please do.
Well, you got many amusingly unlikely things to happen. And Lyn became quite a powerhouse, although that battle with Lundgren was still close.
AxeMan leaves Lyn to continue his
training...
Indeed awesome work. I'd really like to see this being continued, but at least you proved doing this was feasible and can produce entertaining videos.
I agree with Nitsuja, many very very unlikely things happened, namely the huge amounts of crits you got. :)
"Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home."
( Pratchett & Gaiman: Good Omens )
Since randomness apparently isn't timing-based, maybe a version with animations and a version without could be made.
Also, holding start and select after doing a soft reset will instantly load an autosave. Would save a minor amount of time when you use the Mine glitch for the Über-spear.
