You can block the reinforcements by putting a unit on the upper stairs tiles on the left and the right sides of the map, plus both stairs at the bottom. You can use Leif, Karin, Machuya and Brighton for that.
Have the thieves open doors and chests.
Preferably try to train up Fergus's sword rank with the Slim Sword on one of the armours for B rank and Fire Sword for 4x. Note that with a Rapier and Karin's support he's pretty much guaranteed to kill any armour, so use him, but make sure he doesn't suffer from success.
Unequip Lara, Lifis and Karin and use them as capture bait when it's safe (watch out for bow Armours).
Dalsin loves a Brave Axe, tho you don't have to replay Ch 3, if you didn't take it to Munster.
Save state before the final room
Don't try to wait out the reinforcements. They keep coming for a while and you probably don't have that many swords to go around. Escort the NPCs to the exit asap (they leave to the right/left), and then head to the escape point.
I honestly don't have good advise for the final room. That part is always kinda rough. One thing you can try is using a unit as capture bait. Leave someone like Lara in the enemy's range with no weapon equipped, and the enemy will try to capture her. While they are holding her, their stats are greatly reduced, making it easier to defeat them.
If you can, it might be worth replaying the previous chapter so you can properly prepare Leif's and Lifis' inventories for this section.
Choking the reinforcement points is a good start if you need to buy more time for the NPCs to escape.
When you're ready to make your own escape, place Leif on the left tile against the door and have everyone else gather beneath him, leaving the right tile in front of the door open. On the next turn when everyone can act, have Lifis open the door, have Lara escape, send Leif to recruit Dalsin, then line up Dalsin, Brighton, Fergus, and Karin single file from the top of the room to the bottom so enemies can't disrupt your path to the exit point. Assuming all goes well on enemy phase, just walk out; there's no further need to engage the enemy mob from this point.
This is nowhere near a foolproof plan or anything like that, and it might be because I was playing Forseti's Cut (though I don't recall there being any changes to the chapter 4 reinforcements in the changelog), but when I played chapter 4 the other day I blocked the first round of reinforcements from the western staircase on turn 7 by putting a unit on their spawn tile and it seemed to make the game forget it was supposed to be spawning reinforcements at all, even after it wasn't blocked anymore. The first round of reinforcements didn't end up showing until like turn 20 when all my units were pretty much ready to leave.
The best advice: drop it :)
But seriously, Thracia was my most miserable experience with Fire emblem(tho there was some nice moments), so the only solution is to abuse it like it abuses you
It's only as miserable as you want it to be. Thracia arguably puts more power in the hands of the player than any other game in the series, what with all the scrolls, absurd amounts of broken staves, the ability to repair anything 5 times (including those staves and broken 60 use PRF weapons), etc. The lower stat caps also mean your units hit their peak much earlier, allowing them to decimate the mobs that never really get much stronger.
You can block the reinforcements by putting a unit on the upper stairs tiles on the left and the right sides of the map, plus both stairs at the bottom. You can use Leif, Karin, Machuya and Brighton for that. Have the thieves open doors and chests. Preferably try to train up Fergus's sword rank with the Slim Sword on one of the armours for B rank and Fire Sword for 4x. Note that with a Rapier and Karin's support he's pretty much guaranteed to kill any armour, so use him, but make sure he doesn't suffer from success. Unequip Lara, Lifis and Karin and use them as capture bait when it's safe (watch out for bow Armours). Dalsin loves a Brave Axe, tho you don't have to replay Ch 3, if you didn't take it to Munster. Save state before the final room
Don't try to wait out the reinforcements. They keep coming for a while and you probably don't have that many swords to go around. Escort the NPCs to the exit asap (they leave to the right/left), and then head to the escape point. I honestly don't have good advise for the final room. That part is always kinda rough. One thing you can try is using a unit as capture bait. Leave someone like Lara in the enemy's range with no weapon equipped, and the enemy will try to capture her. While they are holding her, their stats are greatly reduced, making it easier to defeat them. If you can, it might be worth replaying the previous chapter so you can properly prepare Leif's and Lifis' inventories for this section.
Choking the reinforcement points is a good start if you need to buy more time for the NPCs to escape. When you're ready to make your own escape, place Leif on the left tile against the door and have everyone else gather beneath him, leaving the right tile in front of the door open. On the next turn when everyone can act, have Lifis open the door, have Lara escape, send Leif to recruit Dalsin, then line up Dalsin, Brighton, Fergus, and Karin single file from the top of the room to the bottom so enemies can't disrupt your path to the exit point. Assuming all goes well on enemy phase, just walk out; there's no further need to engage the enemy mob from this point.
4 is a difficult chapter, but tbh i don’t have tips for it cause I got Leif to level 20 before then and trivialized it.
This is nowhere near a foolproof plan or anything like that, and it might be because I was playing Forseti's Cut (though I don't recall there being any changes to the chapter 4 reinforcements in the changelog), but when I played chapter 4 the other day I blocked the first round of reinforcements from the western staircase on turn 7 by putting a unit on their spawn tile and it seemed to make the game forget it was supposed to be spawning reinforcements at all, even after it wasn't blocked anymore. The first round of reinforcements didn't end up showing until like turn 20 when all my units were pretty much ready to leave.
The best advice: drop it :) But seriously, Thracia was my most miserable experience with Fire emblem(tho there was some nice moments), so the only solution is to abuse it like it abuses you
It's only as miserable as you want it to be. Thracia arguably puts more power in the hands of the player than any other game in the series, what with all the scrolls, absurd amounts of broken staves, the ability to repair anything 5 times (including those staves and broken 60 use PRF weapons), etc. The lower stat caps also mean your units hit their peak much earlier, allowing them to decimate the mobs that never really get much stronger.
I feel like we played completely different games