I would really like to play the Fire Emblem games, I don't have a 3ds so i won't get Awakening right away, but while I wait for when I actually do get that there are questions I want to resolve before I play the other entries in the series. Now I've played, Path of Radiance and the GBA one with Eliwood, but I have not finished either, I'm going to fix that but before I do I need to know:

1. Do the older games show your character relationships? I've been watching reviews for Awakening and they mention how older Fire Emblems let you place units next to each other and they get stat bonuses and side conversations. I got to chapter 17 in GBA Fire Emblem and I think this may have happened once for me between Eliwood and Hector. Is there some sort of menu in any of the older games that shows the how certain characters feel towards one another? Or do I just need to know that Raven and Wil are buds?
2. Is there any easy to look at guide for the old Fire Emblem games that shows who will show up in a chapter to recruit. Most guides I find are entire character guides that show "you get Ike automatically in chapter 1, you get Titania automatically in chapter 1, etc." but it's never chronological and it's surrounded in character stats I don't care about. I'd just like to know in a order who can join your party, when they join, and how. Because a lot of the time it seems like "oh this enemy unit knows the priest in your party" move your weak ass priest right up to this named knight just to see if you can get them to join you. Or they could be Stefan and you'd have to just know to step on a certain tile with a certain unit. I have a completionist mindset, so if I miss someone it bums me out.
3. When do I make a unit promote? Do I just wait until they reach level 20?

I really like what I've played of the series, I always just feel like I'm missing out on stuff every time I play and thats lame.

@Nottle said:

I would really like to play the Fire Emblem games, I don't have a 3ds so i won't get Awakening right away, but while I wait for when I actually do get that there are questions I want to resolve before I play the other entries in the series. Now I've played, Path of Radiance and the GBA one with Eliwood, but I have not finished either, I'm going to fix that but before I do I need to know:

1. Do the older games show your character relationships? I've been watching reviews for Awakening and they mention how older Fire Emblems let you place units next to each other and they get stat bonuses and side conversations. I got to chapter 17 in GBA Fire Emblem and I think this may have happened once for me between Eliwood and Hector. Is there some sort of menu in any of the older games that shows the how certain characters feel towards one another? Or do I just need to know that Raven and Wil are buds?
2. Is there any easy to look at guide for the old Fire Emblem games that shows who will show up in a chapter to recruit. Most guides I find are entire character guides that show "you get Ike automatically in chapter 1, you get Titania automatically in chapter 1, etc." but it's never chronological and it's surrounded in character stats I don't care about. I'd just like to know in a order who can join your party, when they join, and how. Because a lot of the time it seems like "oh this enemy unit knows the priest in your party" move your weak ass priest right up to this named knight just to see if you can get them to join you. Or they could be Stefan and you'd have to just know to step on a certain tile with a certain unit. I have a completionist mindset, so if I miss someone it bums me out.
3. When do I make a unit promote? Do I just wait until they reach level 20?

I really like what I've played of the series, I always just feel like I'm missing out on stuff every time I play and thats lame.

1. From what I recall, some but not all games do tell you which characters have a predetermined affinity for one another, though the way that this is indicated varies.

2. Character guides typically list which chapters characters are recruitable in and what's required for recruiting them. Not sure how to help there.

3. You should always allow a character to level up as much as possible before making them promote. You get more mileage out of the leveling system if you wait until they're level 20.

@Nottle: http://www.serenesforest.net/ is going to be your go-to for most of the stuff you want to know. They have lists in chapter order for character recruitment.

As far as unit promotion goes, yeah wait until 20. The only exception to this is Awakening where it is actually more beneficial to promote at 10 then reclass at 15.

@Hailinel: I guess I'll just need to dig more into the menus for the games to see the relationship stuff? Or pay more attention. I was just caught off guard when I realized characters could talk to eachother in the GBA game. I don't even remember them talking about stats. I know character guides have this info, I just don't want to have to search though a guide everytime I get to a new chapter. I was just wondering if there was a place that says: "Raven, Chapter 16, talk to using Priscilla. Canas, Chapter 16x, go to house." Something simple that shows order of appearance.

Which is something @StarvingGamer: provided, so that's perfect.

Why is it that in Awakening the wait until level 20 to promote thing is different?

And why do I wait until level 20 in the other games, Is it because it's easier to level up when you aren't promoted? Doesn't the character's level reset when you promote? Also this is true from Geneology of a Holy war until current FE games right? Just making sure.

Thank to both of you for the help!

1. The way the relationship system worked in most of the english games is that certain characters have the ability to do "support conversations" with each other. Every character has at least 3 people who they can do this with. You get these support conversations by having the units stand next to each other in battle, the more often you do this the closer they become to another conversation. Once they are ready and standing next to each other the "Support" option becomes available during battle, if you select that you will see a short conversation where you learn more about both the characters. If you get all of the support conversations between two units than they will actually share a unique ending together after you beat the game. The gameplay benefit to this is that whenever two supported characters are near each other in battle, they provide stat bonuses to one another (which are contingent upon which elemental affinity each of the characters has.)

I believe you're able to see who can support with whom in the preparation screen before battles. It's in the same place as where you get an "augury."

2. Serenesforest, like he said.

3. The reason you always want to wait until level 20 to promote them, is because your stats carry over when you are promoted, so promoting a unit earlier will lead to a weaker version of the evolved class. So if you evolve at level 10 instead of 20, you might get a unit who seems above average at the time, but because you missed out on 10 opportunities to increase your stats, you could potentially be ruining their long term potential. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that evolved units gain less experience, so if you promote all of your units early, then you could end up with a rather weak party that's difficult to level up.

@Nottle: In Fire Emblem, you can level both the primary class and the promoted class to 20. Leveling the primary to the full 20 before promoting will essentially give your character a max level of 40. Promoting early at level 10 will effectively cap your character out at level 30.

The reason this is different in Awakening is because of the addition of reclassing. In addition to the Master Seal used to promote, there is a new item called the Secondary Seal used to change your character's class. This means that not only can your character break out of their primary class, but if you want to you can have them return to that class whenever you want to keep leveling it. The reason that levels 10 and 15 are ideal for promoting/reclassing respectively is because of skills. In Awakening characters learn passive skills that can be equipped (max of 5 at a time I believe) at specific intervals. For primary classes, they learn skills at 1 and 10. For promoted classes, they learn skills at 5 and 15. Therefore, it is generally going to be in your best interest to learn your level 10 skill, promote, learn your level 15 skill, then reclass and repeat the cycle.