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FoolyCharged posted:Map damage can't kill. Lasers do 50% damage, buy if it would kill it leaves the unit at 1% hp such that literally anything will kill it. Cannons work the same way Not literally anything (at least on AWBW), if you have a 1 hp infantry attack a tank at 1% hp you might do no damage with a low luck roll and have the tank survive. Pretty sure I've seen this happen in an Olaf mirror (mass damage CO powers can't kill either, for anyone who didn't know).
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Feb 20, 2023 16:03
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Beartaco posted:What's the purpose behind not capturing a city when you have a troop sitting on it doing nothing else? Do you mean the 4 HP mech a bit before 6:00? Basically there was no point in starting a capture because I had a full HP mech who'd arrive a turn later. My options were: 1) Cap all the way with the 4 HP mech, taking 5 entire turns 2) Have the 4 HP mech just get out of the way, letting the new mech start capping next turn. Finishing on the 3rd turn. 3) Have the 4 HP mech capture, then give up and walk away next turn to make room for the new guy. Since capture progress is lost when you leave the city, that would be the same as option 2. So it literally doesn't matter if I capture or not as long as I'm making room for the new guy. Might as well not bother clicking the button. 4) Start the capture with the 4 HP mech. Next turn, continue the capture with the 4 HP guy, and then Join the 10 HP mech onto him. That leaves me with 8 progress done and 12 more needed. Which will then take me 2 more turns to complete. Meaning I still finish on the 3rd turn, but now I'm down a 4 HP mech. Not much benefit to that when I could just have the 4 HP mech go launch missiles or do some other useful thing. Staltran posted:Not literally anything (at least on AWBW), if you have a 1 hp infantry attack a tank at 1% hp you might do no damage with a low luck roll and have the tank survive. Pretty sure I've seen this happen in an Olaf mirror (mass damage CO powers can't kill either, for anyone who didn't know). Everyone is correct that ANY form of damage on the map is incapable of killing a unit ever. Missile silos? Can't kill. Meteor? Can't kill. Lasers? Can't kill. Black cannons, death rays, minicannons? Can't kill. Winterfury/Tsunami/Black Storm, etc. can't kill. They reduce you to 1% HP and no further. (It's worth a reminder that anyone from 1%-10% HP will display as having 1 HP on the map). Staltran is right that there are a very small number of engagements where, if you have minimum luck and an injured attacker, you miiiight fail to kill a 1% HP target. But even an infantry attacking a megatank on an HQ is guaranteed to deal at least 1% damage as long as the infantry isn't injured. So it's pretty reasonable to think of any unit at 1% HP as instantly dying to any attack as a shorthand. It's worth remembering (and this came up, for example, on my normal mode run of 20: Tanks!!! which units are at 1 HP as in 10% and which ones are truly at 1% HP. If you hit a full HP MD tank with 3 silos for example, it has been reduced to 10% HP. And a recon isn't gonna kill a 10% HP MD tank. But if you hit that MD tank with a FOURTH silo for example, then it's at 1% and a full HP recon is guaranteed to kill it.
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Feb 20, 2023 18:54
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They could have also been asking about when you declined to capture a property because the low hp tank you wanted to retreat and gum up lashes base and suck up her funds would have turned around and suicided on the infantry, delaying the capture and defeating the purpose of making it flee to repair.
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Feb 20, 2023 19:16
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FoolyCharged posted:They could have also been asking about when you declined to capture a property because the low hp tank you wanted to retreat and gum up lashes base and suck up her funds would have turned around and suicided on the infantry, delaying the capture and defeating the purpose of making it flee to repair. Oh, at 4:00? Yeah, you're correct about that. The reason I didn't capture the city was that 1) my real goal was to capture a factory, and I wanted to reach that at full HP 2) If the AI sees me capturing something, the AI is compelled to attack the capturer with the recon and then the tank, which would injure my infantry and thus slow down the eventual factory capture. And would also destroy the 1% HP tank, which I would rather ran home for repairs to gum up Lash's bases and drain her funds. I thought the 3 HP recon would choose to attack a nearby 6 HP infantry on a plain instead of zooming over to attack the full HP infantry on a city that wasn't capturing. Apparently I was wrong about that. Which forced me to change plans. Melth fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Feb 20, 2023 |
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Feb 20, 2023 21:03
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Advance Wars By Web: 2 Games on My New Naval Map After a lot of thinking, I came up with a new map for AWBW which I think will solve a lot of the problems that have prevent naval units from being very useful (or interesting) in the past, and allow for interesting mixes of ground, naval, and air combat! And I got together Advance Warrior and some other folks to play 2 games on the new map.
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Feb 26, 2023 19:57
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Melth posted:Advance Wars By Web: 2 Games on My New Naval Map Looking forward to watching this on the train later this week. I find the map design and map meta really fascinating. I'm probably in the minority but I'd love a video going over the map meta, map design choices, and your thoughts on what makes maps strategically balanced and interesting, and maybe some of your favorite and least favorite or least interesting maps.
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Feb 27, 2023 15:55
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The ports that were basically cities functioning like a canal was a pretty cool idea Also Sasha V Sasha was as silly as expected.
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Feb 27, 2023 16:09
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Soylent Pudding posted:Looking forward to watching this on the train later this week. Sure, I could talk about that sometime! I think I already do a little at the start of some of my videos. FoolyCharged posted:The ports that were basically cities functioning like a canal was a pretty cool idea As far as mirror matches go, I think I'd put it in the midrange of silliness. Some interesting choices and strategy changes are called for to try to get your power out first, but all in all somewhat bland.
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Feb 28, 2023 18:34
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For anyone who wants to check it out by the way, the map is playable here: https://awbw.amarriner.com/prevmaps.php?maps_id=120906
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Mar 3, 2023 07:53
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I've finished the whole Blue Moon campaign with 300 points and not a single unit killed! Hard 24: Factory Blues
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Mar 12, 2023 19:00
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I've found a strategy for an upcoming level that can either win a day quicker with a bit of AI luck, or win a day slower with a certainty of success. Haven't decided which I should make a video of.
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Mar 18, 2023 21:15
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Melth posted:I've found a strategy for an upcoming level that can either win a day quicker with a bit of AI luck, or win a day slower with a certainty of success. Haven't decided which I should make a video of. Both, perhaps?
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Mar 18, 2023 22:23
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Ah the joys of perfectionism: sometimes poo poo can be better in two mutually exclusive ways and it's incredibly frustrating deciding which improvement you like more.
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Mar 18, 2023 23:25
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FoolyCharged posted:Ah the joys of perfectionism: sometimes poo poo can be better in two mutually exclusive ways and it's incredibly frustrating deciding which improvement you like more. Perfectionism, yes... That's why all my stuff takes so long. I literally didn't update my X thread till multiple days after uploading the newest video, just because I hadn't yet acquired permission for the Youtube thumbnail yet. Thoroughness can be a good quality — yet, debilitating at the same time  .
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Mar 19, 2023 00:08
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I wasn't sure how feasible it would be to get no casualties on the iconic hard campaign version of Sea Fortress, but when I took a detailed look at the map I found several ways to do it. I thought I'd show a couple of them together here: Hard 25: Sea Fortress
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Apr 9, 2023 18:58
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Usually when you have a two-to-one numbers advantage with your fighters and copters, you'd just decide to attack instead of letting the enemy have the first strike. Boxing them in for the second strategy is a really clever way to delay Hawke's CO power and let his first strikes build up your own gauge. It also goes to show how terrible those 2x2 square formations are compared to a wall that can only be attacked on one side or at the flanks. I'm glad you decided to show that off, even if it does require more luck than you like to rely on.
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Apr 10, 2023 04:10
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GauRocks posted:Usually when you have a two-to-one numbers advantage with your fighters and copters, you'd just decide to attack instead of letting the enemy have the first strike. Boxing them in for the second strategy is a really clever way to delay Hawke's CO power and let his first strikes build up your own gauge. It also goes to show how terrible those 2x2 square formations are compared to a wall that can only be attacked on one side or at the flanks. I'm glad you decided to show that off, even if it does require more luck than you like to rely on. Very true about box formations usually being bad. In this game, you definitely want to present the smallest available surface area to the enemy. And the way to do that is very often to form a straight line that they can't reach the back or sides of. I might say though that having a two to one numbers advantage with my fighters is why I can get away with NOT doing first strikes. Since I outnumber Hawke's fighters, I can still have healthy fighters to win with even if he gets first strikes on me.
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Apr 11, 2023 02:59
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Hard 26: Sinking Feeling One of my all-time favorite missions! Getting 0 casualties here without sacrificing too much speed was a bit tricky, and I think the key is to recognize that different units are valuable at different phrases of the mission.
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Apr 23, 2023 20:26
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Advance Wars By Web: Money Landering My first AWBW video in a while, on a very interesting map called Settles as Still Water. There've been 3 versions of it so far and it's been a fixture in the competitive map pool for a while.
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Apr 30, 2023 19:10
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Nice match. I really like that map, I agree about the pipe with the seam giving some interesting decisions. The double COP instead of the super is a fun option, too, I hadn't realized Jess could do that.
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May 1, 2023 22:27
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Snake Maze posted:Nice match. I really like that map, I agree about the pipe with the seam giving some interesting decisions. The double COP instead of the super is a fun option, too, I hadn't realized Jess could do that. Yeah, a lot of COs can do that! It's quite common to have a 3 star COP and 6 star SCOP, which means you can charge up 6 stars and then do 2 powers almost in a row (you need to get a little bit of charge before the second power since the price increases every time you use one). And for a decent number of COs like Jess and Max, the COP and SCOP are roughly equal in value per price anyway, so it's a viable tactic to consider. There are theoretical cases where a CO like Andy who usually wants to save for his super could instead want to use 2 powers. For example, when facing someone like Drake or Olaf it *might* be viable depending on formations to attack the enemy, receive some damage, use Hyper Repair, force the enemy to use their super, and then use a second Hyper Repair to fix the damage they just dealt. That's not always going to be a good idea by any means though, just something Andy has as an option.
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May 2, 2023 01:06
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I forgot that Jess used to have weakened infantry since I'm used to playing Dual Strike. Is there a particular reason that AWBW keeps the balance from AW2? I believe AWBW uses the added COs and tag battles from DS and there's certainly a few changes that seem like "no-brainers" like Jess' infantry or Kanbei's broken stats.
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May 2, 2023 19:33
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Brutakas posted:I forgot that Jess used to have weakened infantry since I'm used to playing Dual Strike. Is there a particular reason that AWBW keeps the balance from AW2? I believe AWBW uses the added COs and tag battles from DS and there's certainly a few changes that seem like "no-brainers" like Jess' infantry or Kanbei's broken stats. AWBW is... inconsistent. Officially, they do everything the AW2 way because AWBW predates dual strike, so they just added the new Dual Strike COs but left the established AW2 COs alone. This is untrue though, they made several balance changes that have no basis in any of the games.They buffed Drake's naval defense to a level that doesn't match any game, and they also lessened his penalty with air units. And AWBW Sturm has his AW1 stats, sort of his AW2 super but with no stat boost, and also his AW1 power. But changed to not be random. There are a few other minor changes too which are quite arbitrary and inconsistent. All the COs with missile powers (Sturm, Rachel, Von Bolt) were changed in different ways. Most of which were honestly an improvement, but the changes are not consistent with one another. As another example I've mentioned that some COs received a stealth nerf to their powers. In AWBW, like AW1 but unlike AW2, all COs get a generic 10% attack boost when using any power or super. For *some* COs this 10% is stacked onto the bonuses from their AW2 powers. For other COs, it isn't, so their power is just less good than it should be relative to everyone else. Max and Jess both get hit with that nerf (as if the already terrible Jess needed to be weakened further!) It gets even weirder though. For example, Sami is hit with that sneaky nerf to her super, but NOT to her power! So it's not even consistent for the same CO! All of which is to say that I do think they should have made some more balance changes, because they clearly felt free to make lots of arbitrary ones already. Personally, I think Jess should keep her bad infantry, but should get better vehicles to compensate. And I'd like Kanbei to keep his 30%/30% stat bonuses, but pay for it with units costing 40% or 50% more. I like it when COs are very different from one another and change the game in interesting ways. I don't really enjoy the watered down Dual Strike versions at all, where everyone is basically the same and has 20% attack power bonuses to one unit category and very generic penalties to another. Melth fucked around with this message at 21:44 on May 2, 2023 |
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May 2, 2023 21:39
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Will we be delving into the Switch remakes in this thread at all, now that they're finally out?
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May 5, 2023 00:48
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Lustful Man Hugs posted:Will we be delving into the Switch remakes in this thread at all, now that they're finally out? We may. I was thinking about getting it. Is there any way to play it on a computer? I don't really know a thing about the Switch.
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May 5, 2023 05:34
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There's working switch emulators. But, you know, 
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May 5, 2023 09:00
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Hard 27: Danger x9 This is one fog mission where the enemy AI varies enough that it doesn't feel like one just needs to do a guess-and-check routine once to figure out what they've got. Every time I've played it, I've had to make quite different moves to succeed and this was no exception. I think the opener I used here is probably the best overall, but other ones are viable too.
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May 7, 2023 19:20
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My thoughts on reboot camp: 1) Eh, you're close enough to done. I'd say stick with the og just for consistency until the campaigns over. 2) the music in reboot camp is amazing 3) I would recommend grabbing it for yourself. There's been a few tweaks here and there, but it's 99.9% a faithful remake. 4) The ai is vastly improved and you can set traps in the fog based on its vision range. It seems to function solely off what it should see instead of psychically rushing your units out of the fog 5) The graphic style has actually grown a ton on me. Especially once you zoom it out, it has a very plastic board game pieces feel. Units are clean and easy to identify, and get their faction look on the board to boot. 6) The music deserves another mention. It's that good. 7) You can replay campaign maps without recreating them in the editor or replaying the whole campaign. Every split route in one becomes available for play after you beat Sturm 8) the happy/sad portraits are back in combat animations. This is very important and they're great. Minor points deducted for the loss of lord snifit spewing rainbow smoke. 9) more than 3 custom map save slots and you have access to the black hole cannons, laser, and death ray. Although these are sadly always neutral and shoot everyone, so no building custom end game style scenarios. You can also place the volcano, complete with defining even day/odd day lava targets. Basically it's just the same game at the end of the day, but I would say that reboot camp is hands down the better offering. The only reason not to use it is if you don't want to shell out for the upgrade. But you've done so much of the campaign in the original I would say to finish that out and save reboot camp for showing off maps you made or doing war room stuff.
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May 8, 2023 05:38
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I'd be interested in seeing Reboot Camp comparisons, but I'm also not sure how much there would be to show off - it's a very faithful remake. The biggest change as far as this LP is concerned is probably that multi-army missions now use the same rules as the endgame missions, where the faction that deals the final blow is the one used for scores. That's probably a wash overall, but it would change your strategies a bit on some maps. There's also the fog of war changes - the AI playing by the rules is huge (that rocket hidden in the woods has a vision of one. It's literally incapable of attacking without another unit spotting for it!). It's going to be purely easier than the versions of the maps you already did, since I don't think the maps got any changes to compensate, but it could be interesting if it open up new strategies. There's probably also some minor changes in how the AI acts day to day. It's been over a decade since I played the GBA version myself, so I can't notice too much, but I did see that, for example, if you park Drake's cruiser on the port in Navy vs Air, Hawke does the smart thing and attacks it with his copters anyway instead of just lining them up to get one-shot. And while the AI generally sticks to always using its super if it has it at the start of its turn, it seems like it tries to save damage-causing powers until it thinks it'll get enough benefit from it - both Drake in 1 and Hawke in 2 would sit on a full power meter for multiple days before finally using it. I'd definitely be interested in seeing a more detailed breakdown in behavioral differences, if it turns out there's more meaningful changes.
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May 8, 2023 06:43
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The main thing that sticks out to me in Reboot Camp is some of the utterly bizarre dialogue changes. Some are understandable, like rewriting the player character out of AW1, but others are just like...why, though? Like the Grit vs Adder dialogue from that Blue Moon mission is some of my favourite in the game, and they definitely made it worse by changing/adding some lines. Other characters are also written differently, like Flak is less dumb and Adder is less of a smug snake and more of a barely-contained maniacal laughing psychopath. Not a huge deal, it's just confusing because it was so unnecessary.
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May 8, 2023 08:45
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SoundwaveAU posted:The main thing that sticks out to me in Reboot Camp is some of the utterly bizarre dialogue changes. Some are understandable, like rewriting the player character out of AW1, but others are just like...why, though? Adder did always seem to have those two sides in AW2 though. Like he was a smug, cunning, pragmatic type villain some of the time... but then other times he would just say stupid nonsense like how looking out over the peaceful sea makes him want to see it destroyed. So random flashes of motiveless, destroy everything for no reason style villainy were already there at least. FoolyCharged posted:My thoughts on reboot camp: Wow, having access to the Black Cannons and whatnot is more than I ever thought we'd see in an AW game. Let alone the volcano. That sounds pretty great! If two players are in range of a black cannon, does it shoot the most expensive unit from each one? Or just fire once at whichever single player has the more expensive unit? Snake Maze posted:I'd be interested in seeing Reboot Camp comparisons, but I'm also not sure how much there would be to show off - it's a very faithful remake. I bet the AI changes would make a big difference when going for 0 casualties, though probably nothing consequential for 300 points since that's pretty easy.
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May 9, 2023 05:02
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Melth posted:Adder did always seem to have those two sides in AW2 though. Like he was a smug, cunning, pragmatic type villain some of the time... but then other times he would just say stupid nonsense like how looking out over the peaceful sea makes him want to see it destroyed. So random flashes of motiveless, destroy everything for no reason style villainy were already there at least. From testing it just now: At the start each round (excluding day 1) - black/mini cannons fire at the most expensive unit owned by each player in range(i.e. if each player has a unit in range, it can fire up to four times). -If you include a black hole faction, it will still be targeted by cannons -the value of your units relative to the other players doesn't matter. In my test, a battleship, lander, sub, and cruiser were all fired on at once. Lasers will fire daily, and again, there is no immunity for the black faction The death laser fired at the start of turn 7, again hitting all factions and presumably is identical to the campaign version Lab tiles exist -they do not function as victory/defeat conditions -they provide the normal funding per day -they do not repair. -unsure if they do the awbw thing with locking high tech units if you don't own one, will test further and update. E: Further testing Labs just seem to be 0 defense income generators that are more exposed than cities and lack repair function -capturing all of them on the map does not end the map either -aw1 and aw2 rules don't change anything -No tech units unlocked by labs -you must have an hq for each player, even if they have a lab Death ray -it being destroyed doesn't trigger victory -there can only be one -no facing options, must aim at the bottom of the map -mutually exclusive with the volcano -Also fires on turn 14. Definitely using the every 7 days pattern from the campaign Volcano -does not fire on target tiles during even/odd days without the volcano on the map -begins firing on turn 2, the same as all the other map attacks -only one per map -mutually exclusive with the death ray -mini cannons can face all 4 directions -black cannons can face up or down, but not left or right -Ai players will attack all destructible objects -both rulesets allow all the special tiles -Aw1 max deals 177% damage to objects with a full hp bomber and his power active FoolyCharged fucked around with this message at 22:14 on May 9, 2023 |
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May 9, 2023 21:26
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FoolyCharged posted:Lab tiles exist ...Is this how they work in AW2 campaign? I'm used to awbw so not repairing, 0% defence, and providing income just feels bizarre.
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May 11, 2023 03:12
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Staltran posted:...Is this how they work in AW2 campaign? I'm used to awbw so not repairing, 0% defence, and providing income just feels bizarre. It sounds quite different. In AW2 they grant 30% defense and don't repair or provide income.
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May 11, 2023 05:28
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Melth posted:It sounds quite different. In AW2 they grant 30% defense and don't repair or provide income. Interestingly, it looks like the change applies to campaign mode too. 
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May 11, 2023 06:14
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Snake Maze posted:Interestingly, it looks like the change applies to campaign mode too. Interesting, though I don't think it'll affect any of them but maaaybe the orange star one. The enemy doesn't usually guard them (I guess there's a unit on it in the Blue Moon one, but it eats so many missiles that you can kill it in one shot with anything). But sometimes one is trying to capture the orange star one under fire, and not having cover there might make that a little tougher.
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May 13, 2023 02:53
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Melth posted:Interesting, though I don't think it'll affect any of them but maaaybe the orange star one. The enemy doesn't usually guard them (I guess there's a unit on it in the Blue Moon one, but it eats so many missiles that you can kill it in one shot with anything). But sometimes one is trying to capture the orange star one under fire, and not having cover there might make that a little tougher. It's also +1k income for the enemy, so that might be relevant in the ones where the enemy has bases.
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May 13, 2023 13:29
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Staltran posted:It's also +1k income for the enemy, so that might be relevant in the ones where the enemy has bases. True, that change could matter. Though on second thought the only lab mission where the enemy has a base that might matter is the Blue Moon one. No bases on Orange Star or Green Earth, and the Yellow Comet one just has a port they get late and the setup is such that it's unlikely to make a difference. Hard 28: Navy vs. Air Here's a map I was surprised to find out just has one starting base per side! It always feels like a much bigger battle than that.
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May 14, 2023 19:20
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Special: COs Rebalanced for AWBW (And how I'd have balanced them) I've wanted to make this video for a long time. I've heard quite a few people say that COs are the same in AWBW as in Advance Wars 2. In actuality, a majority of COs were changed, some in subtle ways but more than a few in big ones. Some of these changes are very good! Some are not so good, and either way I think a lot of COs could have used a more thorough rebalancing to improve the metagame, so I talk about that too.
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Jun 5, 2023 03:22
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Hard 29: To the Rescue I like this mission quite a lot! Like many Eagle missions, there are a large number of stylish ways to complete it. I think this is just about the coolest all in all though, winning super fast with no deaths.
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Jun 11, 2023 19:00
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