Topic: FF2/4/4A Battle Order

[Deathlike2]

This dawned on me more when FF4A came out.. but basically.. there is a battle order priority of your characters, based on their position, unlike FF5/6.

This applies mainly against "First Strike!" attacks, but also if all character agility were equal (it isn't usually the case in most instances).

This totally ignores what row your character in.

Here's the order:
1) Middle
2) Top Most
3) Bottom Most
4) Top-Middle position
5) Middle-Bottom position

The most obvious way of seeing this grouping is via saving.

The benefit of knowing this is trying to align your characters in such a way to determine who goes first. I would assume most people would try to align characters with high AGI along the top 3 positions... and eventually leaving Rosa in the 5th position at the end of the game. This also helps in attempting the Silver Shield on Rydia trick/bug.

Edit:

Additional Note: This order behavior also applies character addition/joining and level up messages.

[Lenophis]

That would explain why Cecil always goes first, even though Edge clearly beats him out in agility. I wonder, is agility a completely useless stat then?

[Deathlike2]

That would explain why Cecil always goes first, even though Edge clearly beats him out in agility. I wonder, is agility a completely useless stat then?

This applies mainly against "First Strike!" attacks, but also if all character agility were equal (it isn't usually the case in most instances).

I'd like to amend that a little bit. If there's a slight difference in AGI and you start with no battle ready status (in other words, no First Strike/Back Attack/Surprised), sometimes the order will be a bit inconsistant and/or favor the order that I've listed.

[Deathlike2]

As an addendum, this order also affects how the R button rotates the character sprite on the map.

[Entroper]

That would explain why Cecil always goes first, even though Edge clearly beats him out in agility. I wonder, is agility a completely useless stat then?

Agility definitely has an effect on the battle order.  Fight a few battles as soon as you get Young Rydia, and you'll notice that Cecil often takes two actions in a row, since Rydia's still at level 1.

[Deathlike2]

That would explain why Cecil always goes first, even though Edge clearly beats him out in agility. I wonder, is agility a completely useless stat then?

Agility definitely has an effect on the battle order.  Fight a few battles as soon as you get Young Rydia, and you'll notice that Cecil often takes two actions in a row, since Rydia's still at level 1.

The exception here though is if you have a "First Strike" and have Rydia positioned in the middle slot. Rydia will go first in this instance.

[Entroper]

That would explain why Cecil always goes first, even though Edge clearly beats him out in agility. I wonder, is agility a completely useless stat then?

Agility definitely has an effect on the battle order.  Fight a few battles as soon as you get Young Rydia, and you'll notice that Cecil often takes two actions in a row, since Rydia's still at level 1.

The exception here though is if you have a "First Strike" and have Rydia positioned in the middle slot. Rydia will go first in this instance.

She'll go first, but Cecil will continue to take actions more often for the rest of the battle.  The game just "pre-fills" your ATB meter by a different amount depending on your battle position.  The faster characters still fill up faster.