Elemental Forums
Trying to figure out if I am over valuing Initiative bonuses like +-2 for weight. I.E If I have 30 and the monster has 10 do I get 3 more turns (obviously not, but turn advantage is what I'm trying to understand.)
Thanks!
Actually, 30 to 10 would result in your having two more turns, i.e. having 3 turns for the enemy's one.
This is the rule of thumb that I use. I know _nothing_ about the code, it's just a theory based on observations, which I have not disproved yet.
Think of your units as having an energy tank. Lets say that it takes 100 energy units to fill it. Every 'tick', every unit generates energy units equal to its initiative. When an unit has filled its tank, it moves.
So, you have two units, A with initiative 36, and B with initiative 13.
On the 3rd tick, A moves. It moves again on the 6th tick. On the 8th tick B moves. On the 9th, it's A's turn again. And so on.
How accurate is this mechanism? Very. It perfectly predicted the fight I just tested up to the end.
Does it break down at some point? Yes. In large fights, when Haste/Slow comes into play, when units change sides, when units use some special attacks.
But in general, it works really well for designing a strategy, and for estimating the frequency of acting.
This, and a lot of what I know about the game can be found here. I just wish I knew close my theory is to the truth.
I think the initiative bar on the left side of the screen is partly responsible for the vagueness of our understanding of initiative (though, once again, Tuidjy has deduced a reasonable theory)
Every time I go into a tactical battle, I think, there has got to be a better way to display the information of the order of turns. Also, every other battle the information there is misleading or flat out wrong.
One simple thing I think they could do is notify the player when the unit has more than one turn in a row. A x2 icon would be so much more useful than putting that unit's card up repeatedly.
Fun thing to do: Make a sovereign: tarth race, tactician, air magic, dragonfly bracers. Start an insane difficulty world game(to make monsters have triple normal HP). Get him a dagger for weapon. Then find some mites, attack them solo and haste yourself at the start of the fight. Despite the monsters having insane HP, you will wipe the floor with them due to making three attacks(four with counterattack) for every one of theirs(well, nearly) 
Heh. This is almost exactly the combination I used to test my theory before I posted (I have this rule, every time I say something of which I am not 100% sure, I test it)
Here's Pixa:
It's turn 9, she just killed a troll for that pony. She was getting four attacks (nearly) for the troll's one.
Damn, that is some useful information ! Thanks Rhadagast for asking the question; thanks Tuidjy for your brilliant analysis; and thanks, Mr. Paxton, for confirming the accuracy of Tuidjy's analysis.
This is one of those examples of why I love to read the FE forums ... 
Huh... I always thought it was 50 for a turn... isn't that's why impulsive gives you a free 50 initiative on the first turn...?
Why is it then, when i summon an earth elemental in combat, that an enemy with the same initiative as the earth elemental gets to act 3 times before the earth elemental does?
Reported here
Summoning delay. Basically you lose one "turn" of initiative before the summoned unit starts to generate initiative (which leads to turns). If you look up from your ss in the thread you link, you'd notice that after the first turn, the turn order is 1-to-1.
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