AWKWARD ZOMBIE

Oh my gosh, the music in this game.

I have a serious Pavlovian response to fully-orchestrated video game music.

I can't beat that daisies boat mission on Ephraim's route in the Sacred Stones. I probably can do it, but I'm trying to do a run with no loss of life and it just isn't working out. I forgot about a few flying enemies and they got Colm. The first time they killed Ephraim so I had to restart anyways.

Oh, gods, THIS level...
Yes, I tried to do the same thing, and I have never succeeded.
That's not to say it's impossible; I'm just a horrible tactician. I'll beat it someday...

That's the one where you can steal a Speedwing from the boss, right? Or is that one in Blazing Sword?

You're thinking of Blazing Sword. I didn't know he had one until now, actually...
Good thing I restarted the whole game half a year ago and am just now getting back to playing it!

Out of curiosity, does anyone know what happens if You kill all the women in the group before Lucina is born? I just wondered if they just randomly gave a Chrom an npc wife or something, and don't know if I want to go through all the way to that point in the game just to find out.

All the potential mothers retreat when killed to prevent that kind of plothole. If all of Chrom's potential supports are already married, though, THEN you get an NPC as Lucina's mother.

Yeah, I got the NPC wife (she's just called "Maiden," they didn't even give her a real name) in my second file. It sucked. Was going for Olivia and messed up, whoops.

Chrom is also bit of a jerk in that case. The scene where Lucina is just born, but Chrom's army is being called off to war again, rather than having the mother urge to go with them (if the mom is one of the normal characters), Chrom is like "It's too dangerous, STAY IN THE CASTLE WITH MY KID, WIFE!" and then he just leaves.

I know it's a failsafe, but it still rubs the wrong way a bit.

I'm... not sure what you're saying here? You probably married Sully because you had more support points with her than with the other two. And you totally can use her to fight. It's only the NPC Maiden that Chrom tells to stay behind; all the named characters will go with the army.

How exactly does one take Olivia out of the running? Isn't that why she's given in the mission right before the time skip/Lucina's birth?

That's exactly what I thought, and exactly why I failed. Throughout the game, I was very careful to never get a single support point with any of the female characters. I married Sumia (who starts the game with points with Chrom) off, so that she was unavailable. I thought this would be enough.

HOWEVER, I failed to actually get any support points with Olivia in the chapter. I don't know what I was doing, but somehow it just didn't happen. And with 0 support points with any of his potential wives, and the usual default (Sumia) removed, Chrom married Maiden.

I think the game just wants you to have at least 1 support point before you can get Chrom to auto-marry any of them. Either it's to A: preserve all your female characters, so that you don't lose out on a support pair you're working on to Chrom, or B: to punish you for being so bad at being friends by giving Lucina bad stats. And also maybe the fact that a 0-support marriage has bad connotations.

So no, you don't just auto-marry Olivia. You still have to make it work.

I think they need at least 8 support points on the map. Which is really easy to do, just pair them up and have Chrom kill things.

Yes. But Olivia is a special case. Since Chrom is forced to marry one chapter after she appears, you only need 1 to marry her.

Getting her is the challenge, as you basically need to ignore everyone else for the entire game up to that point (or else rely on male supports).

It's worth trying for, as Inigo with Chrom as a father is pretty powerful.

I had no idea how supports worked my first time around, so I bodaciously had no supports or even support points with any of Chrom's potential wives. Yeah, I got the Maiden first. It was kind of awkward.