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 What is Advance Wars? Advance Wars is a series of turn-based strategy games developed by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. The games themselves date back to the Famicom in Japan (the series known as Nintendo Wars in Japan), with the first western-localized title being released on the Game Boy Advance on September 10th, 2001 (unfortunately). A set of games deeply rooted in tactics and careful planning, the series has been met with extremely high critical reception in the west (Advance Wars holding the highest score for a GBA game on Gamerankings with a score of 93%), and has remained a set of cult classic titles for such a reason. The best comparison point to Advance Wars is Intelligent Systems's other strategy series, Fire Emblem. The greatest difference that will be immediately noticed in Advance Wars are that player units are uniform and disposable. This leads to a greater sense of strategy involved, as your tank will be equivalent to the enemy's tank, and thus finding a way around it isn't a matter of having a better stat line, but a better strategy to get around said tank. Another key feature is that each army is led by a CO (Commanding Officer) who will give unique day-to-day bonuses to each unit, as well as have a CO Power (think along the lines of a limit break) to boost units in advantageous or dire situations, as to turn the tide of battle. All units begin with 10 hit points. As their HP goes down, their attack power also goes down. When a unit's HP hits zero, it is destroyed and removed from the map. Victory is seized in Advance Wars when the losing player is either routed, their HQ is captured, or when they surrender. On some maps, other win conditions may be enabled as well, such as when a player seizes enough properties to win the game. What is Advance Wars By Web? Advance Wars By Web is a fan-made browser client for Advance Wars, where players can participate in online games of Advance Wars versus one another. The client itself is dated in many ways (being launched initially in December of 2004), but it remains a reliable way to play the game competitively with others, as it does accurately emulate all of the mechanics of Advance Wars to a tee. How is Advance Wars By Web different than the games themselves? Advance Wars By Web accurately emulates Advance Wars for a browser experience. However, not everything is exactly like the Intelligent Systems games for the GBA and DS. Here are the major differences:
Wait...so how are you going to Let's Play this? Back in the ancient years of 2015, Paul.Power had a small intermission in his Advance Wars 1 Let's Play. At this time, he decided to commentate on a game held between myself, Roonespism, DaRealKooky and Kennyman666. Entertained by the commentary of our game, I decided that this Let's Play would be a full thread dedicated to this kind of commentary on the one aspect of Advance Wars which wasn't shown off in the previous ones, yet remains one of the most important factors to the game's overall design: its multiplayer. So when will the LP finish? After the tournament's completed. ...Wait, a TOURNAMENT?!? Yeah. That's how this thread is going to be formatted: first, I will show off a sample game between myself and Paul.Power, to introduce the intricacies and gameplay of Advance Wars multiplayer, and show just how different it is from the tactics of baiting out an APC-hungry AI. Afterwards, 16 lucky goons will be able to participate among one another as to see who is the best Advance Wars player on all of Something Awful. How do I register for the tournament? Simply post in the thread that you're interested in playing, and I'll note you down as a potential participant. Be sure to have a bit of time on your hands in the future; Advance Wars By Web games can go on for quite a few weeks. If you aren't, or have any problems participating, post or PM me as soon as possible so I can accommodate for you. If problems arise in the first round and you absolutely cannot participate, I'll grant your slot over to another interested player. Why would I want to join? There's prizes. What are the prizes? Free avatar change for the winner of the tournament. But I'm new to the franchise and I really wanna join this tournament! Don't worry: the entry barrier to this franchise is now extremely low. The first two Advance Wars games are on the Wii U eShop for $8 USD, in both North America and Europe. If you're worried about learning the intricacies of the game, there is a really well-crafted tutorial in the first game which will take you step-by-step in understanding the basic mechanics of Advance Wars, and get you to a level where you will know all of the rules within an hour or two. Furthermore, as aforementioned, I will be posting a competitive game which happened recently between Advance Wars LP legend Paul.Power and myself before the tournament begins. This will highlight all of the intricacies of how Advance Wars plays competitively, in comparison to the campaigns which you're probably used to playing and seeing played. As some supplementary reading, some of my favourite LPs on the archive are Paul.Power's LPs of Advance Wars and Advance Wars 2. You can find them located here as well as here. So how do I play Advance Wars By Web? Go to http://awbw.amarriner.com/ and register for an account there. In this thread, I will post links to the maps you are supposed to play on in your given bracket in the tournament. One person in the bracket shall host the match by clicking the "play on this map" button, while the other participant(s) will join the match by clicking "Games on This Map". When the host creates the game, these settings must be in place: BANNED COs:
BANNED UNITS:
BOOT INTERVAL:
WEATHER:
The rest of the settings should be left at their defaults, except for their CO of choice and the password to the game (which they should give their selected opponent via PM or by posting in the thread), or if I decide to spice things up a little bit and ask you to add in other conditions to your game. When the game begins, one of the players should link the game in this thread, so that I may keep track of it. Are there any conditions for tournament disqualification? As noted above, the boot interval is set to 5. That means if you take 5 or more real-time days to complete your turn, you will lose the game. If Advance Wars By Web goes down within this time, do not worry: you will not be kicked from the game that you are in while the system is down. The other condition for disqualification is if I catch you using any glitches in Advance Wars By Web (most notably the APC glitch, in where said glitch will allow transport units to move twice in one turn). Anything else? Nope! Just sit back and enjoy the exhibition match that will kick off this tournament. May the biggest mech-flooder win! 
Slur fucked around with this message at 15:50 on May 9, 2016 |
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Feb 3, 2016 23:00
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Well I guess I'd better sign up for this at this point  . Count me in, although if by some miracle I win the tournament (because you all know by now that my main quality as an AW player is sheer persistence rather than any particular genius for war), I'll probably hand the prizes off to the runner up.I'd still have preferred "It's your turn" for the thread title though  .
Paul.Power fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Feb 3, 2016 |
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Feb 3, 2016 23:05
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What the hell, guess I'll sign up if Slur lets me participate.
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Feb 3, 2016 23:17
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You can count me in!
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Feb 3, 2016 23:22
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Not signing up but I'll be watching with great interest.
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Feb 3, 2016 23:25
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I'm up for some infantry spamming action, count me in!
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Feb 3, 2016 23:28
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I am in for this and will
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Feb 3, 2016 23:34
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I'll join as well, and see if I'm as bad at this game as I think I am.
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Feb 3, 2016 23:34
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Definitely want to get in on this.
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Feb 3, 2016 23:37
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wait, what's so hitler about stealths? Maybe I want to build stealths as kindle, slur!!!
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Feb 3, 2016 23:41
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Stealths can shoot everything but can only be shot back by fighters and other Stealths. They're not the worst thing imaginable (that's probably Oozium being affected by movement-boosting CO powers), but a lot of people don't like them.
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Feb 3, 2016 23:42
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Keiya posted:Stealths can shoot everything but can only be shot back by fighters and other Stealths. They're not the worst thing imaginable (that's probably Oozium being affected by movement-boosting CO powers), but a lot of people don't like them. That, and when stealths or subs are active, I can't view replays for those given turns until the game is over due to an anti-cheat feature in AWBW. It makes things easier on me in the long run.
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Feb 3, 2016 23:45
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Sounds like it's worth a try. I'm in.
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Feb 4, 2016 00:00
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I, will play.
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Feb 4, 2016 00:04
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Slur posted:That, and when stealths or subs are active, I can't view replays for those given turns until the game is over due to an anti-cheat feature in AWBW. It makes things easier on me in the long run. Good thing there aren't actually naval maps in AWBW for some reason. Perhaps the crippling cost. (ps i am in btw)
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Feb 4, 2016 02:24
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If you have trouble getting to 16 I'll be in, but I'd rather watch. Really looking forward to this thread.
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Feb 4, 2016 03:24
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i'm really bad at 1v1 but i'd be down for a losers bracket or something
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Feb 4, 2016 03:36
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I'm game granted for as much as I played these I never actually managed to beat any of the single player campaigns so I cant say I'll be much competition.
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Feb 4, 2016 03:49
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Sure, why not? This looks fun, and I would like to join in.
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Feb 4, 2016 04:15
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Count me in as a ##signup. I'm awful at AW but love the hell out of it anyways.
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Feb 4, 2016 04:38
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im down
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Feb 4, 2016 05:34
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I'll give it a go.
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Feb 4, 2016 06:40
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I've not played since the original, but I'll give it a go!
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Feb 4, 2016 07:11
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Is it too late to join ? Count me in
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Feb 4, 2016 07:15
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gently caress yes, ground floor.
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Feb 4, 2016 10:03
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An important PSA for those participating in the tournament (copied from my post in the AWBW Games thread):Amarriner posted:
Source: http://awbw.amarriner.com/news.php Also, the first update for the LP should be available tonight.
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Feb 4, 2016 19:36
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This probably won't affect the LP too hard. We're only doing 1v1's so its unlikely a game will be deleted before it finishes.
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Feb 4, 2016 19:43
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It won't be deleted at all, really. You don't have to play on the temp-server and things should just swap over cleanly afterwards, to my understanding. Just potential downtimes.
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Feb 4, 2016 19:57
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Exhibition Match: Paul.Power vs Slur - Part 1 This game finished a little under a month ago between Paul and I, just as a game for fun. With Paul's permission, it's becoming a part of the Let's Play, and a bit of practice on my end to see if I can live up to his commentary in the Advance Wars 1 LP. So, let's take a look at the map that we played on, shall we?  So it's a fairly symmetrical map, as most competitive Advance Wars maps are. However, the one bit of asymmetry here is that the player on the right starts off with a single infantry. As to why this is, it's to counter what is known as FTA, or First-Turn Advantage. Though the terminology may seem self-explanatory, it should be expanded upon: players who tend to go first or earlier in the games tend to get first dibs on key properties on the map. Thus, the player who goes second (or third, or fourth, depending on how many players there are) tend to be thrown a single infantry as to assist in gaining momentum similar to the pace that the player going first does. It may not seem like much, but it does make a world of difference. The points which stand out on this map are the multitude of sea ports which are on the map, as well as the two comm. towers which are on the southwest and northeast sides of the map. For those of you who have not played the DS titles of Advance Wars, a captured comm. tower does not grant any funds to the player who captures them, nor do they heal units who are on top of them. Rather, every unit belonging to the player who controls a comm. tower gains a +10% boost to their attack power. This accumulates with multiple comm. towers, which is why you don't see a lot of them on competitive maps like this one. So, let's take a look at what COs we've each chosen for this map. Of course, in AWBW, we're not allowed to see who we've chosen until the game begins. If we take a look down below we'll see tha---  poo poo. Okay, so I'm at an immediate disadvantage on this map: Paul.Power has chosen Andy, and I've chosen Drake. Let me give you a quick rundown of each CO quickly: Andy:
Drake:
So, Paul predicted that I was going to be playing as Drake from the get-go, seeing all of the naval bases on the map. Though Drake has the slightest naval advantage over other COs, most of the battle is going to be taking place on land, as naval units are rather expensive to produce: submarines cost 20,000G (which is as much as a fighter, or a little under 3 tanks), and battleships are the most expensive unit in the game at 28,000G. More striking is that both of Drake's CO powers are immediately negated by Andy's regular CO power, as Hyper Repair can just fix up any damage that Tsunami or Typhoon leave behind, leaving Drake's powers to be more or less (seemingly) useless against Andy in the long run. Drake's COP bar also charges slower than Andy's, and ultimately, if the game lasts too long, I could see this taking a toll on me. So now that we've done the pre-game analysis, let's begin the actual game: Grey Sky - End of Day 1  You might have noticed that the army colours have changed. In Advance Wars By Web, 9 extra armies were introduced, bringing the total amount of armies up to 14. That's because AWBW can support up to 14-player games. I've played one before. It wasn't pleasant. Regardless, before a match begins, you can change your army at the beginning of the game, for no real gameplay change except for cosmetic effect. I chose Grey Sky, Paul chose Purple Lightning. Two infantry were built. I pushed my infantry forward. We ended our turns. This is how every Advance Wars game starts. You may be wondering why we are building two infantry instead of a single mech. In fact, even if we were given 6000G to start, we'd still be building two infantry instead of two mechs. This is because infantry are far more mobile units than mechs are: with 3 spaces to move instead of 2, infantries can reach bases faster, and thus can capture more properties at a quicker rate. Infantry and mechs are also the only two units in the game who can capture properties. How will things progress from here? Grey Sky - End of Day 3  Yep. More infantry. There's a reason that they're considered the most valuable unit in Advance Wars. One, is that they capture properties. Two, is that they're the most mobile unit to do so. Three, is that they're the least expensive unit to produce. Four, is that they make for excellent meatshields in the mid-to-late game. Because they're normally the only units which can be produced in the early game, as well as there being such an overwhelming need for properties to maintain an advantage in multiplayer Advance Wars, the first few turns of a competitive game is usually known as the capture phase. So when does this begin to change? Purple Lightning - End of Day 4  Paul's built an APC. I was kind of confused as to why he would build that so early in the game. Grey Sky - End of Day 4  So I copied him wholesale despite not knowing what the hell I was doing. Purple Lightning - End of Day 5  Another APC? What is he up to...? Purple Lightning - End of Day 7  Dammit. Paul built a recon, and I suddenly knew what he was up to: he was planning to capture the comm. tower in the top right corner of the map, with that recon as reinforcements. Recons have uses outside of fog of war, believe it or not: during the capture phase, they're generally good at disrupting infantry that are trying to capture important property points, as well as can defend any properties which are important before players can build appropriate counters to them. Another oversight that I made is that units can cross the two shorelines which are connected to one another. This map is a lot less narrow than I initially imagined it to be. If he is able to seize both the top and bottom comm. towers, he will have a 120% attack boost to all of his units. I retaliate immediately by building a tank. At the same time, however, I know that tank isn't going to make it before he's able to capture that comm. tower. My infantry sitting at the northern part of the map is the only thing which is going to be able to delay that capture. Another thing you might notice is that I built a black boat within this time, as Paul didn't. The black boat is a unit which was introduced in Advance Wars: Dual Strike, and is personally one of my favourite additions to the game: being able to move 7 spaces, the black boat can transport up to 2 infantry or mech units. As well, it can repair any unit adjacent to it for 1 HP, as well as resupply the unit with fuel and ammo at the cost of 10% the repaired unit's cost, regardless of the unit. If the unit is at full HP, it will resupply the unit with fuel and ammo for free. As well, they're the least expensive naval unit at 7500G. Considering Paul hadn't mobilized a strong enough force for me to warrant another tank, as well as wanting to gain a funding advantage over Paul, I decided that building a black boat to capture the island properties was probably within my best interest. I dropped a single infantry off on that island to capture those two properties. Drake's extra naval movement helped me here as well, allowing me to reach the island in 1 turn instead of 2. Here's where I get a bit arrogant: Grey Sky - End of Day 8  I let off the first set of fireworks. Paul's also built some black boats as well, to capture the properties on the northern island on the map. Instead of bringing my tank upwards to reinforce the infantry attacking Paul's capturing infantry, I send it to the left in order to reinforce the infantry which are capturing the two lower cities in the middle of the southern part of the map. I figured that with the two infantry that I had above, as well as the base I just captured in the northwest of the map, I was fine to take down that infantry that was capturing my comm. tower, and that I would gain footing against Paul in that upper part of the map in no time. Purple Lightning - End of Day 9  As you can see, I was wrong. Paul cleverly uses his black boat to send yet another infantry to back up the one capturing the comm. tower. As well, he creates a very solid wall to protect his infantry here: his recon manages to destroy my infantry attacking his infantry, and his APC and infantry stand adjacent to it to ensure that my infantry cannot interrupt the capture. Within the next turn, I will lose that comm. tower, much to my annoyance. From here, I'm now at a severe disadvantage, and Paul's tactics worked against me, regardless of how obvious his plans were. Paul has also built a tank in the lower corner of the map, and is on his way to capturing the second comm. tower on the map. Things aren't looking up for me in the slightest. Will I get out of this one? Or will Paul completely dominate the battlefield with his 120% attack advantage? Find out, in the next update of Let's Play Advance Wars By Web! Slur fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Feb 5, 2016 |
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Feb 4, 2016 20:49
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If you've got the moxie for it, I do recommend adding movement and jazz to keep things coherent.
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Feb 4, 2016 20:57
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Some additional thoughts on recons here: this is a cool map to play around with them on, as between the roads, shoals, cities and empty missile silos, there's a lot of terrain that allows for free movement of units with tyres. It's also pretty open (and, as Slur noted, much more open than it seems). Stuff like this to make early recon harassment more fun and viable can make for a neat map design. Recon harassment can be countered easily enough by tanks, but you're spending 4000G to make your opponent spend 7000G - which is 3000G for them that could be going into infantry and economy-boosting. It's a stronger strategy in AWDS, as the crazy way that CO bars charge in that game mean that recons are the second most cost-effective unit at charging your power bar (with infantry being the most cost-effective unit): lose a recon, and that's a whole star on your power gauge. AWBW still follows AW2 rules for power gauges though, where it's strictly proportional to unit cost. While my comm tower ploy was good tactics, it might be poor strategy: I could have been focusing on capturing cities for my economy, especially in these early days where there aren't a huge number of attacks going round to take advantage of that 20% attack boost. Paul.Power fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Feb 4, 2016 |
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Feb 4, 2016 21:01
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Reminds me of Shoal Lock. A decade since I've played AW and I still remember that. But my co-worker's names? Nah, that's not pertinent information...
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Feb 5, 2016 01:43
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Man, here I was thinking "well, at least with Drake, you can still spam Tsunami at a fairly decent enough clip and cause some problems for Paul's navy in the long term", but 1) That's an awfully long term perk, and this looks like the short term is going to be a lot more important and 2) Black Boats exist and probably nullify a lot of that fuel problem just by having two or three hanging around. So, uh, good luck I guess.
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Feb 5, 2016 01:52
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To me, honestly, the naval game at all feels like such a trap on this map. You can shove around an incredibly expensive rocket at sea, or you can just buy a normal rocket and abuse all the good tire movement. There isn't a LOT of properties out at sea, either, so beyond shoving infantry teams in black boats and dropping them off there's nothing really worth while going there. Drake's advantage is functional worthless on account of the hideous buy in and the time it takes to sail the b-ships around, with plenty of safe zones.
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Feb 5, 2016 02:02
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not to mention drake doesn't even get an offense boost for his battleships. frankly someone like grimm or hawke has a better naval game.
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Feb 5, 2016 02:51
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He gets +1 move and defense, which is better then offense. Pretty good!
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Feb 5, 2016 04:47
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If it isn't too much of a bother could you make the images larger? 150-200% please.
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Feb 5, 2016 04:56
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Major_JF posted:If it isn't too much of a bother could you make the images larger? 150-200% please. I was also thinking they were a bit small, but I wasn't sure if I should say anything because AFAIK you need multiply an image's size by a power of two for it to come out clean, and that'd be a bit big with the square screenshots.
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Feb 5, 2016 05:02
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Major_JF posted:If it isn't too much of a bother could you make the images larger? 150-200% please. AlphaKretin posted:I was also thinking they were a bit small, but I wasn't sure if I should say anything because AFAIK you need multiply an image's size by a power of two for it to come out clean, and that'd be a bit big with the square screenshots. It might distort the images a little bit, but if it's easier for people to see, then I'll edit my images in the original update to accommodate. Mind you: the resolution will vary from map to map, meaning that bigger maps will be of a larger resolution. That might prove problematic in resizing for later updates. Example Screenshot of a small map at default:  Example Screenshot at 150%:  Example Screenshot at 200%:  If it is necessary, tell me what you guys want me to start using, and I'll change that in the original update, as well as later updates. Slur fucked around with this message at 07:11 on Feb 5, 2016 |
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Feb 5, 2016 06:41
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