Berwick Saga Map Design Thread: Chapter 3 - Gaidens
New thread because the old one is too... old? _________________________________________________ **Mission 3.1 - The Princess and her mercenary**
**Unlock Requirements:**Complete Mission 3: The three Bishops
**Map link:** http://i.imgur.com/ak0Bqhl.gif
**Objective:** Have Aegina talk to Roselyn. After that, any character can seize the fort.
Like Mission 1-2, it's a FoW map and you don't start with control of your selected units. Instead, you start two new characters:
* Aegina, a Mage who focus on using wind magic. * Sherpa, a badass warrior that can wield greatswords and the like. Highlander class.
Aegina is the first mage in the game you get. She starts at level 1 and very fragile, with low stats. You may think that mages are simply terribly, but they aren't (though I secretly wish they were stronger). In Berwick Saga, 90% of the enemies have 0 or 1 mind, meaning magic always do full damage to almost everything. There's also the fact that dragons only die to magic, but we will come back to that later.
Sherpa is an offensive powerhouse. He starts with a personal blade that allows him to attack 3 times with a -50 penalty to avoid. He also has the Counter and Guard skills. And I just need to say that Sherpa is my favorite character in the game.
First, you must move both Sherpa and Aegina south, so she can talk to Roselyn, a NPC girl that you can meet during events at Narvia city. Some enemies will pursue, but they shouldn't pose much of a problem. If Aegina is in risk of dying, the player can use Sherpa's Guard skill just to be safe (he is a bodyguard after all).
After that, your other units appear. Completing the map is just a matter of seizing the fort at the top left portion of the map (red banner 1). To reach the fort, the player must either use Czene to unlock the doors or break them down, Tellius style. One thing of note is that breaking doors here takes a while due to massive HP (100 points IIRC).
Enemies are for the most part weak, and the only danger is getting someone fragile overwhelmed or ambushed in FoW. There's a bag in the southwest and even an enemy escape point, but I don't remember it ever being used.
Pretty standard map. The best things about it are Sherpa and the little escort setup at the beginning.
**Rating:** 3 stars _______________________________________________ **Mission 3.2 - Thieves and ponies**
**Unlock Requirements:** Complete or skip Mission 3-1: The Princess and her mercenary
**Map link:** http://i.imgur.com/KN4CZsp.gif
**Objective:** Seize the fort or have all characters escape.
Time to save more horses. Bringing Czene to this map is a must for a special event (she really has a thing for horses).
A short mission in a heavily forested area with a very low deployment count. While escaping is an option, seizing the fort (red banner 2) has several benefits .
The biggest tactical challenge here is rescuing all 3 stranded horses. The enemy bandits will aggressively capture them and escape the map, either via the southeast or the northwest. Consider that there's a lot of forest terrain here and abusing mounted units is difficulty. To top it off, the bandits can hide in forest terrain and go completely invisible. You really need a good strategy here to pull it off, considering you can bring only 5 units.
The boss, Shamos, is also on the bounty list and camps by the fort. He will leave on turn 10. You can either kill him before that or block the northern escape point. If you do, he will try escaping south, giving you more time. Shamos is actually pretty strong and can take a while to go down. Caution is advised when fighting him.
And for last, one of the enemy reinforcements drop the *Kali Axe*, which is one of many weapons the item collector wants. The item collector is a guy in Narvia city that pays money for rare items. Gathering all of them is required for max rank at the end of the game, so there you go.
Oh, and after you seize the fort, there's a very sad scene involving Czene and an unique horse named Tico, who has being treated badly by the bandits. Pretty touching stuff actually. If you unlock this, Czene can promote and becomes a mounted thief, using Tico as her mount. She will gain various stat boosts from him and even the *Horse Master* skill, which lets Tico heal between chapters.
Certainly an above average map. Doing all the optional stuff takes good planning and execution, capturing the boss is a time sensitive objective and playing cat & mouse with the thieves is fun.
**Rating:** 4 Stars