engagement farming, pt. 5

14 Apr, 2026

Another week has passed and that means it's time once again for Engagement Farming, our ongoing series in which we play through Fire Emblem Engage. Last week we found out that our new friends' kingdom is being attacked by jerks; this week, we're going to help defend their castle from said jerks! Let's begin.

You'll recall that last week we were doing battle with the kingdom of Elusia, who had taken the bridge into the kingdom and was apparently sent out there with express purpose to kill us, the Divine Dragon whom everyone loves (which I maybe didn't mention last time, oops); we defeated them and have moved onto the castle, where the Elusian army is approaching with the intent of stealing its Emblem Rings (and maybe also killing its king?). Fortunately we arrive before they do, so we get to join up with the crown Prince and his retainer and defend against the siege. The Princess leading the attack doesn't seem to be entirely cartoonishly evil (the last one seemed a little unhinged); perhaps this is the narrative attempting to warm us up to the idea that the Elusians aren't the real bad guys, so we can subsequently recruit the ones we've already battled.¹

Anyway, once we win this fight we learn the Elusian King is leading another army and has challenged the Brodian King to a battle, and I guess he feels like using the elaborate fortifications you've built up to give yourself a martial advantage is unsportsmanlike so it looks like it's game on. I have a feeling this won't go very well for Brodia; guess we'll find out soon, eh?

I did Tiki's Divine Paralogue and Chapter 8 this time around. Tiki's Paralogue, I am told, is lifted from a map from Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem, and it's a neat design. It has an icy floors gimmick (you get more movement if you start your turn on ice tiles), which helps make the map feel a little smaller, which is nice since you need² to go visit three different rooms in sequence to get to the boss; but once you get into the castle, jerks start spawning behind you, and they also get to use the ice. Two of the jerks are just normal men, but the third one is a big scary flying wyvern whose attacks ignore your defensive stats altogether and leave the unit they attacked immobilized.

I really like how these reinforcements are set up. In a lot of maps where units spawn behind you it's fairly easy to leave one or two units behind to deal with them and not really have to think about it. But here, while the wyverns are easy enough to deal with if you have an archer (though my archer was just shy of being able to one-shot them so I needed to give him a healer friend), the other two reinforcements will make quick work of any archer or mage you dedicate to dealing with them, so you'll need a couple other units to deal with those guys, so you're probably dedicating 3-4 of your 8 units to dealing with the flanks. That's a real investment of resources

Chapter 8 is set up as a defense map--you lose if the enemies ever reach a certain area--complete with a ballista that is a little further forward than you'd like and constantly spawning fliers, but the goal is to defeat the boss, and she, uh, makes some bad choices. Like flying her wyvern in range of your ballista bad choices. I don't think she even got an attack off that wasn't defensive.

Defense maps can range from "this just plays like a normal map" to "grueling gauntlet which will push you to the absolute limit" and this one is much closer to the former, though I suspect if one's inclination is to hole up rather than try to push forward and seize the ballista it might be a bit harder. Defense maps, rather than trying to force you to break from the pattern of "slowly move the front line forward", instead test just how good you are at doing that. It's always neat when it's done well.

And that's what I've got for you this week. Next week it's on to another chapter or two. We've got more friends to make, more emblems to gather, and so, so many more dudes to murder. Until then, friends, take care.

#engagement farming #fire emblem