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Half of the game against Sturm is just to manipulate your damage against him so you end a day with him just under enough power, then the next day setting up your space rock decoy while doing as much damage as possible, then the next day doing as much damage as possible again while his meter is stuck at full. Rinse. Repeat. What makes this interesting is just how goddamn much he outnumbers you. Seeing Andy on the ropes like that keeps things suspenseful.
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Apr 19, 2014 09:12
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MR. J posted:Half of the game against Sturm is just to manipulate your damage against him so you end a day with him just under enough power, then the next day setting up your space rock decoy while doing as much damage as possible, then the next day doing as much damage as possible again while his meter is stuck at full. Rinse. Repeat. That's what I enjoy about the final mission, even in Normal difficulty... having 3 armies that, by themselves, can't hold a candle to Sturm but, little by little, they shift the momentum and carry the day (hopefully). It really makes the end feel epic, as it should be.
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Apr 19, 2014 17:41
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The funny thing is, I've been hit by Meteor Strikes so many times now that I've started to become blasé about them. Especially when they hit me later in the mission by the time I've already got into a strong position against Sturm. It's like, "oh well, you hit my front lines, I guess my waves of reinforcements will just have to push on through them or something." This probably makes me a horrible person  .
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Apr 19, 2014 21:06
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Paul.Power posted:The funny thing is, I've been hit by Meteor Strikes so many times now that I've started to become blasé about them. Especially when they hit me later in the mission by the time I've already got into a strong position against Sturm. It's like, "oh well, you hit my front lines, I guess my waves of reinforcements will just have to push on through them or something." "Aw, man, my dudes died. Guess I'll just get more where that came from, since I have an UNLIMITED pool of dudes and equipment to pull from, clearly." But all the jokes about Advance Wars commanders' attitudes have pretty much been made in a few webcomics already linked in the thread, so 
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Apr 20, 2014 05:33
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What's funnier is how they hand wave the whole "unlimited soldiers" in Days of Ruin. They're all automated guys. Those clearly human things holding rifles? All automated. Nothing to worry about.
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Apr 21, 2014 07:22
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Man, another long gap and I don't even have an excuse this time - I've had the edited video ready to roll on Dropbox for several weeks now. But the good news is, got round to recording commentary tonight! Let's have a preview...quote:[23:08:14] Paul.Power: this time's AW commentary is around 25% fire emblem discussion, 60% puns and maybe 15% talking about what's actually going on
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May 12, 2014 23:16
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Needs more Fire emblem. 20% in an Advance Wars commentary is not sufficient guys.
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May 13, 2014 10:22
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Advance Campaign Mission 17: The Final Battle! AC (or "Fully Armed and Operational Mech Flood") - Part 2 Youtube video (35m35s) Having weathered the Sturm (consider that your warm-up for the assault you'll be receiving in the video  ), the middle leg of The Final Battle is mostly about consolidating, pushing Sturm back behind the river and gathering up a force that can smash him for good. Perhaps because there's a certain lack of drama, the video drifts more to discussion of Fire Emblem: Awakening, other Advance Wars games, media products featuring characters called Evil, and puns.so many puns. Joining me for it are Sylphid, Senerio and alcharagia.  something something in medias res something.  Andy and Max do some good ol' back-to-back fighting in the middle.  Look at me, I'm a distraction!  Some pussyfooting around in the north.  And a quiet turn for Drake too, as he continues stoically trying to capture that base.  Day 8. The AA's down - Andy has Hyper Repair charged, but nothing to use it on at the moment, so we'll hold on to it for a while. Shame about having an enemy medium tank parked on one of our bases, but even with that, Andy's numbers are starting to look healthier - although he's not out of hospital just yet.  Having been lured away by the siren's call of the APC, this medium tank is surrounded and chip damaged down to 4HP.  Said parked medium tank is gone - Max's own middie knocks it down to 3HP, and his light tank cleans up. Now Andy could build from there... if, you know, he hadn't already had his turn. drat it, turn order!  Yet another bit of  drew a B copter out of position, allowing it to be easily swatted by this AA. More joining... and more bombers. Ugh. At least this new one should be distracted by Max's damaged APC in the north west, but I don't want to take any risks (as an aside, it figures that, having decided to colour-scheme my arrows as blue for load/drop and green for join so long ago, that I'd end up in a situation where blue keeps loading/dropping and green keeps joining...).  Don't worry boys, the cavalry's a-comin'!  Don't worry boys, the meteor's a-comin'!   In a weird way, this is one of the better possible outcomes.  Since Andy can shake off some of the meteor damage with Hyper Repair...  ... and unit joining can take care of the rest. Good as new!  Man, it's just a big ol' chain of CO Powers right now.  The light tanks finish chipping that middie to death, and I finally get rid of that pesky HQ fighter that stalled Max's movement in the last update.  BOOSH!  With that rocket launcher around though, Max still has to be kinda cautious. Hopefully will work its usual magic. Over with Drake, this bomber finally dies.  And now, the next challenge - that B copter . For now, we'll adopt a policy of containment.  Hmm. After Drake not having had any AAs when we needed them earlier, I think I may be overcompensating now.  Sturm's turn goes by, and we hit Day 10. Thanks to Max taking nearly all the hits that turn, Andy ends up in no worse a position than he was before Sturm's turn.  Consequently, Andy gets to end his turn in a much stronger position.  Especially with Max around to remove the biggest fly in the ointment.  An AA takes out a fighter that was sniffing around Max's new B copter division, and I pull back most of Max's troops in the north for now since they're looking a little beat-up right now. This may not have been the wisest move.  Things're still going okay around Andy's base, though. Those two light tanks that chipped that medium tank to death join together to give me a nice full-health light tank.  *"Ode to Joy" plays*  Time to use this AA surplus to clean up town.  Drake's developing a pretty strong position here. Helps that he's not in the middle of the fighting like Andy, or split between two fronts like Max.  Dislodged from that airport by an AA, and now there's another bomber to deal with. But Max has an AA ready for that.  Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational mech flood!  It can take down... uh... an AA and an empty APC.  But no doubt it'll have bigger adventures in future.  Max takes care of the bomber, and has his own go at taking the airport back. I know it's "technically" Andy's, but makes sense to give it to the guy with the strongest air units, right?  Speaking of air units, Max clear out another curious fighter in the west, while moving the B copters up to the edge of missile range. Plan is to strike at the missiles next turn and finally clear them from the map.  That's the plan, anyway. No prizes for guessing what actually happens.  A kamikaze move from Drake's 4HP medium tank. At least this way it gets a first strike so it can chip 2HP off Sturm's middie. Actually, this is a good moment to take an aside and talk about the differences between Advance Wars and Fire Emblem. As I mention in the video, I've been playing a good deal of Fire Emblem Awakening lately - and on Newcomer Mode, so that losing a unit during a mission doesn't leave them out of commission permanently. I tried Classic mode once, and got far too paranoid about it - Newcomer's been much more enjoyable. Of course, in Advance Wars losing a single unit is rarely a deal breaker. And on a mission like this one, you lose dozens and dozens of units, and just keep pushing out new ones. It's the nature of total war: consider how many soldiers died in, say, World War One or Two. That's fair enough, but some might argue "if you can just bludgeon your way through it without major consequence, where's the challenge?" One important factor is that in Fire Emblem, by the end of the game, you're fielding a team of super units. In Awakening, you end up with the likes of Donnel* and Morgan rolling around crushing everything, regardless of enemy numbers: like Kanbei on steroids, so to speak. It's the same weird quirk as XCOM Enemy Unknown/Within and, to a lesser extent, original X-COM: the game gets easier the further you go into it, because although your guys start poorly, they ultimately develop crazy tricks that the aliens can only dream of. Advance Wars is different: for the most part (certain exceptions like Max aside) you're on a level playing field. An infantry unit is an infantry unit, a medium tank is a medium tank. An infantry unit attacking a medium tank isn't going to go well**, even if that infantry unit has survived an entire battle, captured ten cities and taken out five other infantry units along the way. Because this relationship stays pretty much the same, the enemy getting more and more medium tanks now actually becomes a serious threat. Sometimes you can be smart about the medium tanks and deal with them using indirect fire and air power. Sometimes you can be Max and obliterate them with your own middies. But sometimes all you can really do about them is hurl weak units at them until they eventually go down. Hopefully that explains why Advance Wars isn't Fire Emblem, and why it still presents a challenge despite this. You probably already knew most of this, but I think it's just been something buzzing round my head for a while that I needed to type out. Okay, enough lecturing, back to the update. * Granted, Donnel starts terrible and you have to keep him alive (or play on Newcomer!) through the terrible part until he can hold his own, at which point he rapidly becomes godlike. ** Unless you're Nell and get lucky. But that's an edge case.  With that base finally secured, Drake can make a break for it, across the river and over the mountains.  This is really quite a serious army now.  Of course, that's the problem with this mission. Every time you think you're on top, Sturm has a little surprise for you...  Like I said earlier, no prizes for guessing what disrupts Max's missile-conquering plans.  And to make matters worse, Sturm's punched quite a few holes in Andy's lines.  But not enough holes. Andy's mechs have reached critical mass, and they're out for revenge.  Okay, this didn't go so well. But it's all about that chip damage.  Keep on mechin' (er, plus one rogue infantry).  Even Max's meteor-struck B copters get in on the chip damage game, finishing off that rocket launcher. Light tank finishes off AA, and the APC traps that medium tank in, so it keeps blocking the airport... as well as making a very tempting target for the middie to waste its shot on ( , etc, etc). The rest of Max's units just have to move on from the Meteor Strike. We have the economy to cope by this point, at least.  And it's Drake's turn to interdict Sturm's forces as he crashes in from the east.  This is actually starting to turn into something of a doom army.  More damaged medium tanks, but nothing that proves a true threat to Andy's mechs.  That's the missiles pretty much gone.  A little conga line of joins, attacks and retreats.  But now the question is, are you ready for one of the worst uses of Max Force ever?  9% damage to a medium tank...  ... and, uh, that's it. I really should have saved that up for a more opportune moment... at least I continued to weaken that medium tank, I guess?  Man, Drake's having all the fun.  Especially now, with Tsunami finally charging up again.   In case you were wondering, this is what Sturm's HQ area looks like right now.  With Drake done for Day 13, this seems like a good place to stop before heading into the last stretch. Not so much of a cliffhanger this time, but there are a few questions to be asked. Can Max regain his poise? Will Andy's mechs be able to stay relevant in the endgame? Does Sturm have any more tricks inside his teapot? Or will Drake wash away all resistance? Tune in next time for... The final Final Battle finale. Er, so to speak. Paul.Power fucked around with this message at 12:13 on May 23, 2014 |
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May 23, 2014 10:57
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Paul.Power posted:It can take down... uh... an AA and an empty APC. Oh god, the game has gotten to you hasn't it?  You can't resist slaughtering poor undefended APCs.
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May 23, 2014 13:08
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You guys have started punning in earnest right around the time our new pun overlord has ascended the throne. ISN'T IT SUSPICIOUS. Edit: Also, "fight for your right to 'arty" deserved a WAY better reaction than it got.
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May 23, 2014 17:47
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While I do love me some Fire Emblem and those beautiful beautiful +1's, Advance Wars 1 and 2 are still the kings of solid design and difficulty to me. Awakening is really fun, but I'm worried IntSys is veering toward the Disgaea school of big numbers and swole dudes trumping actual strategy.
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May 23, 2014 22:54
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It's actually not that hard to get Jake and Rachel horribly overleveled in dual strike. They're the first two characters you get, so those first campaign missions mean that Jake and Rachel get access to those broken, broken skills before many other COs even appear. Then you wind up continuously using them because they're the only ones with skills, leading to a shortage of other COs getting used, and ending the campaign with it basically as the Jake and Rachel show. The normal campaign is way easy enough to not need skills, but it's still pretty easy to get sucked into that, it's how I played when I first got the game.
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May 24, 2014 03:48
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Oh gods, you all really got into the puns halfway through the video and didn't stop for a good twelve or thirteen minutes. Nearly a quarter of an hour of nothing but pun after pun after pun. It was beautiful 
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May 24, 2014 11:06
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After that video I expected the thread would be Jess a Sturm of puns.
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May 26, 2014 01:02
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SlothfulCobra posted:After that video I expected the thread would be Jess a Sturm of puns. Are you Colin in a request? Because I Kanbei the one to instigate it. Just remember that you are potentially asking for a very Grimm outcome.
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May 26, 2014 02:52
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Calm down guys, or you kats will get a real tongue lashing from the higher-ups. Last time some maverick got a thread into a pun derail it went crazy. Mod's got eyes like a hawke, people.
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May 26, 2014 03:13
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The mods are prepared to strike like an adder, they're ready to rake us over the koals. Olaf us are going to catch a lot of flak for this.
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May 26, 2014 04:09
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On the plus side, I think I laughed more at the puns in the thread than the ones in the video .FoolyCharged posted:It's actually not that hard to get Jake and Rachel horribly overleveled in dual strike. They're the first two characters you get, so those first campaign missions mean that Jake and Rachel get access to those broken, broken skills before many other COs even appear. Then you wind up continuously using them because they're the only ones with skills, leading to a shortage of other COs getting used, and ending the campaign with it basically as the Jake and Rachel show. The normal campaign is way easy enough to not need skills, but it's still pretty easy to get sucked into that, it's how I played when I first got the game. Because hell, why not, let's dig out the ol' Dual Strike cartridge and see what levels I got for Jake and Rachel: 14 and 12. Reasonable enough without going overboard. Meanwhile, my top five are: Sensei 29 (gosh what a surprise) Grit 23 Sami 22 Sasha 21 Colin 19 To my eternal shame, Jugger is still only rank 4. I think I may need to take him for a few spins on Muck Amok HC...
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May 26, 2014 09:03
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Paul.Power posted:On the plus side, I think I laughed more at the puns in the thread than the ones in the video It takes real grit to make some of these puns. I commend all of you. Also, I think Lash and Hawke were my highest level due to me playing Muck Amok on normal repeatedly (because I suck). There's no defence for not having Jugger at rank 10 though. You have to do it just for his alternate costume.
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May 29, 2014 08:48
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Hoss Corncave posted:It takes real grit to make some of these puns. I commend all of you. Grit? Puns are more like taking Candy from a baby. You guys are like a Kindle of kittens being let loose in the vast jungle of humor, you don't hold a Candle to the true predators!
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May 29, 2014 10:50
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May 31, 2014 19:55
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It does seem like you've got the battle well in hand now, unless Sturm suddenly gains the ability to buy units in cities.
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Jun 5, 2014 10:35
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Glazius posted:It does seem like you've got the battle well in hand now, unless Sturm suddenly gains the ability to buy units in cities. Don't worry they took him out for DS, denying himself the chance for true brokeness  If memory serves the map can slog up in this spot pretty bad, as you have a whopping 3 tile gap to push a three army offensive through. This means a poorly timed meteor strike can give Sturm a pretty solid counterattack. That said, you still outproduce him with no real means for him to change that, so the battle is all but won.
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Jun 5, 2014 13:19
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FoolyCharged posted:Don't worry they took him out for DS, denying himself the chance for true brokeness Also, hiya. I'm on my way home from a cruise to Norway right now, hoping to get an update out (Socker's run of Naval Clash! AC as Sami) in the next couple of days.
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Jun 8, 2014 08:50
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Advance Campaign Mission S5:  (animation by Sockerbagarn, "Navel Clash" text by me). Youtube (15m37s) I appreciate that after last video you're probably all punned out, but come on. It's a mission called Naval Clash, between two COs known for baring their midriffs. It's pretty much the definition of an open goal. Anyway, Sockerbagarn continues his dismantling of some of the tougher branches of Advance Campaign, taking myself and Sylphid with him.  "A straight forward map as long as you realize you can't go straight forward (or to the right, what I'm trying to say here is that it's not very straight forward?). Drake's HQ looks to be so easily reached (especially compared to the previous map) that you will immediately realize that it's a death trap. There are two rockets overwatching the beach that will set you up to be pulverized by Drake's two medium tanks and the rest of his forces. My strategy is to hit him from the left to drag his forces out of position while bombarding them from the reef outside the main beach. As long as you take care not to get your medium tank hit by a rocket barrage you should be able to clear out his forces for an easy HQ capture. "First you will want to cripple Drake's navy which is not too challenging. While his "As to when you want to land the infantry to capture the HQ it all depends on how reckless you are, land it early and risk getting your landers destroyed or land it late and risk the S-rank. Obviously not getting the S-rank is a fate worse than defeat so I'll go ahead and drop off my infantry straight into the hotzone." And there we have it! Next time, I'll be entering the final stretch of The Final Battle - took a while for me to get the video edited ready for commentary, as I wanted to do something fancy with it. Ooh, what could that be? Well, I guess you'll all find out .
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Jun 17, 2014 18:18
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Paul.Power posted:Advance Campaign Mission S5: LIES. I'm not punned out at all.
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Jun 18, 2014 00:13
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"I won... somehow." :S RANK!: Sami, did you have demanding parents?
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Jun 27, 2014 23:30
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Glazius posted:"I won... somehow." :S RANK!: Just to let you guys know, I recorded commentary for part 3 of TFB a few days ago, and edited the audio today. There's still some stuff to finish up before I can post, but hopefully I should be ready by... Wednesday maybe?
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Jul 14, 2014 20:24
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Advance Campaign Mission 17: The Final Battle! AC (or "Quick-Time Event") - Part 3 Youtube Video (31m46s) Once more unto the breach, dear friends. Or, er, something. On the mop-up stage of this operation, it feels like I spend most of the video desperately trying to make Socker proud, while doing a lousy job of dodging meteors. Still, by this point the meteors don't mean that much, even if they hit me in the middle of my attack formation - I just have far too much stuff for Sturm to deal with. Joining me are Sockerbagarn and alcharagia.  Sturm gained a little ground here. But by this stage, any victories for him are pretty much pyrrhic.  2HP medium tank and 1HP missile launcher down, and that airport is finally - finally - clear for capturing.  Andy's not capturing it though.  That's Max's job. Max's other jobs include being our best method at dealing with medium tanks, and deploying a bomber. Hell yes.  Messing about with APCs. At least that infantry managed to move one square further than it would under its own motive power? I guess?  Yadda, yadda, yadda.  In the east, Drake clears out an AA and a B copter, and shows why it's a bit of a shame that I haven't brought any indirects with me to finish off that 1HP medium tank. But you can't have everything, and right now I'm going with the move-and-shoot flexibility of direct combat over being able to hit stuff at range. In the west, Drake's medium tank finishes off the AA that Max attacked previously.  Keeping things spread out a little bit, because I'm sure you can all guess what's round the corner...  Oh god, what was the key combo again? Wasn't it Triangle + B + Left Trigger + Print Screen + Page Up + Start...?  ... maybe not.  This was taken right at the end of Sturm's turn (as indicated by his low, post-building-stuff funds). Somehow Sturm decided not to try attacking either Max's 1HP medium tank or his 1HP B copter. I blame either "I can't attack! I'm in healing mode!" logic or the AI knowing when it's going to be unlucky.  Day 15. Andy's kind of hit the point where he doesn't have that much else to do. He's not completely out of it just yet, but certainly nothing that interesting happens for him this turn.  Even ol' Maxie can have infantry chip damage work for him.  Always good to finish off a 1HP unit with chip damage from some badly crippled unit of your own. Especially if that 1HP unit would have started healing otherwise.  Joinin' units (maybe joining the APCs wasn't the smoothest move. Now I have half as much bait!) and doing disproportionate amounts of damage with a 4HP medium tank.  Kamikaze-ing with the 1HP B copter knocks a hit point off that light tank. Again, better than waiting for it to get killed.  Let's move on to Drake. I take down a B copter with an AA (in hindsight, I could have taken it out with the 8HP AA further back, and freed the full health AA up to attack something more juicy like a mech. Not the end of the world, though) and attack a light tank with a middie, leaving it at 1HP. My 1HP middie clears it up in what will probably be another suicidal move (though not directly so this time). And some damaged infantry join together.  Yet more chip damage as battered AA takes on battered AA. And for those of you screaming "for goodness' sake, refuel that poor medium tank already!", well, there y'go.  Sturm's medium tank gets dragged off the HQ. It makes his frontline look a lot tougher, but it's also pretty much his last throw of the dice.  Hey look, Andy killed something! All right, it was only a 3HP AA, but that's one less bit of chokepoint clutter than Max and Drake have to deal with. Go Andy!  And compounding the drama by building something that isn't a mech. I know, right.  No prizes for guessing how that "last throw of the dice" turned out for Sturm.  I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking when I decided "let's have the B copter attack a random light tank rather than the missile launcher threatening Max's bomber". Probably "eh, Drake'll deal with it." But even then, this attitude causes some problems for me.  Doing 6HP damage to an AA with a 4HP medium tank (Max ) before joining the 1HP one onto it. And an APC heads forward for yet another bit of  To be fair, Drake did deal with it - that missile launcher's down to 1HP now. But it is kind of a shame that he couldn't finish it off, which he surely would have if Max's copter had also attacked. Now that missile's gonna heal back up to 3HP, tear a fair chunk off the bomber and reduce its effectiveness...  The AAs continue their work, taking out a B copter and a mech.  The bomber situation aside, it's all going very smoothly.  Sturm's response leaves Max with a 6HP bomber  . At least the other missile launcher's decided that it's not worth sticking around here to get smashed to pieces like its brother, using Sturm's ignorance of terrain movement costs to get the hell out of Dodge. Andy continues to break the mould by building... A TANK  . AA pushes through to take out a mech before it can leave base, while the damaged middie and bomber keep plugging away.  And plenty of troops behind them to keep the mill rolling.  Drake pushes onwards. Once again I find myself leaving that missile launcher alive. I think I still have some kind of "oh, they're useless" mental block when it comes to missile launchers. But it keeps getting health back, and it'll probably finish that bomber off on Sturm's next turn.  Battle of the 1HP units.  And because heck, why not: let's have a Drake B copter. Nothing for stamping your authority on a situation like building usless things just 'cause.  Here it comes again... let's try F8 + Square + Pause/Break + ¬ + holding the left stick up and the right stick down + swinging the Wiimote in an anti-clockwise direction...  Nope, that's not it. But even hitting me right in the heart of my assault force, Sturm's only delaying the inevitable.  RIP Max's bomber, taken out by a combo of meteors and me not dealing with that missile launcher properly. The other missile launcher continues to escape - in the video, we end up deciding that Hawke, Lash, Adder and Flak must all be on that thing...  Andy, Andy, he's our man, if he can't do it...  ... oh, uh, I guess Max can?  Max gets revenge on the missile launcher - too little, too late. But we can enact a bit of eye-for-an-eye by taking out the bomber that's been gradually repairing on Sturm's airport for the last few turns.  Max Force's extra movement boost does help out a little here, letting this B copter makes a suicidal-looking charge to take down a mech, and letting that medium tank rumble one tile closer to the front.  Base-blocking shenanigans. I really should try to do something about that AA on Drake's turn, if I can.  But that's Max done for the day.  I really should try to do something about that AA, but I don't. Or can't. I could have had a few options though: on Max's turn, I could have attacked the right-hand mech rather than the left-hand one, thus freeing up Drake's tank to attack the AA. That might have made base-blocking trickier, but Drake seems to have an APC in reserve for that task. Forward planning, that's always my problem.  But then if the APC was blocking a base, it wouldn't be able to block this airport and aaaaa. Either way, worthy sacrifice or not, it does look like Max's B copter is going down.  Drake's turn finishes up. Hmm... he does have plenty of infantry within three squares of the HQ now... sentiment says I should give Andy the job - and he does have an APC close by - but it'd take too long to set up, and the HQ area's far too cluttered for APC deployment.  Andy does get to do something though.  Beautifully, the AA is finished off by chip damage from an infantry and - you're gonna love this - a mech that's run out of bazooka ammo.  I'm laughing now, but that lack of bazooka ammo will come back to bite me. Perhaps only the tiniest bite possible. Like, a bite from a toothless shrew or something. But kind of a bite.  Max is as Max does.  Paving the way for Drake's HQ run.  Drake graciously accepts.  All factories locked down.  So here's where the toothless shrew bite comes in. Sturm's APC decided that it was fed up of running, and returned to face the music. This means that Andy can make a "useful" contribution! But oh no, his mech is out of ammo... but wait! There's an APC right there! I could resupply the mech and attack the APC!  Nope.  Sorry, Andy.  And Drake adds the finishing touch.   And there we have it! A serious grind, and a 20 day B-rank, but from some of the horror stories I've heard, that went relatively smoothly. Andy didn't fall (though he was reduced to a single mech at one point), Drake gave a star performance and Max was... well, you know, Max. A fitting end to a run of Advance Campaign that wasn't stylish, or quick, or even competent - but at least it was stubborn  .
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Jul 15, 2014 13:21
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Advance Campaign Credits Roll and Musings You'll already find this at the end of the video in the previous post, but I thought I'd put in a few last thoughts.  So I had no idea when I first started the thread, that I'd be able to beat Advance Campaign. In fact, I had no idea I'd even be able to beat It's War! AC. But I did, and decided to make the run of AC a video/screenshot hybrid, on the basis that if I couldn't finish the job, at least it would make an interesting coda to the LP. Some coda. Normal Campaign (and that's with all the branching paths) took 223 days to finish... Advance Campaign (not counting the extra stuff to come!) took around 640 days. This is an object lesson in what happens when I lose momentum in a project and start procrastinating. Still, let's talk about It's War! A run where Olaf reduced me to two artillery, a mech and an infantry by the end - a big, hearty "welcome to Advance Campaign!" right there. Still, victory (and an A-rank!) was secured...  ... followed by a first taste of the kind of trouble my grinding playstyle could get me into in AC: the first B-rank of many. The bases made victory easy enough in the long run... but at what cost?  Trouble subduing a bomber dragged this one out, as many units gave their lives to let me land on Eagle's HQ.  I had to go the Andy route. Gotta get Max in The Final Battle, after all. This didn't look too bad at first, but it turned into a much grindier battle than I was expecting. Andy held the line well, but couldn't stop the B-rank.  The first mandatory S-rank, and as these things go it went pretty reasonably. Heck, Max could probably have powered on to overall victory if the game had let me. AC is full of these weird little lumps and dips in the difficulty curve.  A toughie - Olaf's ground forces surprised me here, and forced me to retry a few times. Fog of War missions provide some of the nastiest moments in Advance Campaign (although weirdly, two of my greatest triumphs too).  Oh goodness, Sami's Debut. 33 days, the longest mission by day count. Many failed attempts, including one that nearly took me all the way to victory. And in the end, a grinding, cautious rout took me to victory. I'm not sure why this wasn't a C-rank - I guess it was meant to take a long time.  Followed up by a mission that seemed easy - too easy. With a B-rank for an 8 day victory, this was Advance Campaign being just plain mean.  With Andy in Normal Campaign, the line held easily here. With Sami in NC, the line buckled and I had to sneak an HQ capture while Kanbei was busy running round my base. Andy in AC played out much the same as Sami in NC. At least it was an A-rank.  ... which is more than can be said of this. Fog of War...  . Property capture... . This one took many, many attempts, but eventually I found a way through. And then Socker asked if he could borrow the save file and promptly delivered an S-rank version... leading to his own run of the Sonja and Sami missions. I bashed my head against the Sami version of this for a long, long time, even making an April Fools' joke about it... but eventually I gave up and took the Andy path instead. The result was a mission that was straightforward... but a serious grind. With the raw footage coming in at over 50 minutes, this was the first video that I used Avisynth to cut bits out.  The second mandatory S-rank, as everything got demolished by Drake's absurd forces except for the missile launcher and the lander carrying it. I hope Nell's happy.  A mission very similar to its Sami NC counterpart. Weird blunders and overcaution led to a B-rank that could, perhaps, have been an A.  I forgot to mention in the video, but Enigma wasn't my only non-mandatory S-rank: I got this one, too! In fact, this was the only AC mission I retried after a victory - I knew I could shave an extra day off somewhere, and I did.  And the elation of that S-rank was followed by my nadir. With Eagle's dodgy AI leaving the HQ capture plan in smoking ruins, I ground out a long rout with Andy... and got a C-rank, my only C-rank in both this LP and the AW2 one, as a reward.  But at least that C was sandwiched between two Ss. Enigma, my other non-mandatory S-rank. Even Fog of War couldn't help Sturm stand up against Max. In fact, despite Fog of War causing me tremendous problems in other missions, the fog in Battle Mystery and here couldn't stop me posting those two S-ranks.  Aaaand well, you've just seen this. No more recapping necessary.  So let's do something special. I mean, we've got this space at the end of the credits for it. Let's add some credits of our own. Thanks to Socker for adding a similarly blind (just more competent) look at the Sonja and Sami missions, and ultimately paving a road to Rivals! AC.   Thanks to everyone who provided commentary for the AC videos, and putting up with me saying "Anyway" whenever my train of thought gets interrupted.  Thanks to Alien Arcana for the neat extra analysis of the Normal Campaign missions, Lord Baxter for sparking discussion on real life counterparts for the units, Liebely for looking at Japanese versions of the COs and ultimateluigi987 for showing off the Design Maps Glitch in all its game-breaking glory.  Thanks to everyone who did some fanart for the thread, including that remarkable collection of Nightmare Drakes.   And well, thanks to everyone for posting, and voting, and so on. I couldn't cram everyone in here, but got down as far as people with seven posts or more (skipping those who'd already got a credits mention) before I ran out of room. These are roughly in "number of posts" order, but mixed up a bit so I could match up name lengths to fit as many people in as possible.   I wouldn't be able to get everyone in anyway, because the Who Posted? thing only lists the 100 most frequent posters. Still, let's cram them in too: thanks to Thadius, Kangra, Jabor, WirelessPillow, Sorites, ungulateman, i81icu812, Volatile Penguin, Kajeesus, GrabbinPeels, Anatharon, DarthXaos, Katsuma, ChaosSamusX, Delacroix, ... and that's where Who Posted (again, not recounting people already added under Fanart or whatever) ends, sorry. For the rest of you, you know who you are .   B-rank overall. Well, can't really have expected much better. In total, Advance Campaign turned up four S-ranks, five A-ranks, seven B-ranks and a C-rank. Hey, at least there were more Ss and As combined than there were Bs and Cs combined. Just.  For beating Advance Campaign, much like getting all A-ranks in Field Training, you get a shiny gold Campaign button in the menu! So. In beating Advance Campaign, even in as mangled a way as I did, I guess I managed something that I never thought I'd do. But speaking of things I never thought I'd do... there's one last job for me to deal with here. I still don't know if I can do it, but I'll give it a shot. At least Andy gets bases and airports in Rivals! AC, right?  What's an -... but then again, maybe that won't help. It'll be a while before we get there - Socker still has to make his way through the rest of the Sami Green Earth portion of AC - but there's only one place left to go now...
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Jul 15, 2014 13:23
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Paul.Power posted:
This has been an excellent LP, and you have gone the whole nine yards doing everything, seriously, EXCELLENT job.  Good luck, I know you can beat Rivals! AC. You got all the way through the Advance Campaign when you thought you'd never be able to, you can do one more mission. Just remember, AAs, Missiles, and are your friends, make sure to fade5 fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 01:42
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Thanks for sticking it out to the end. Looking forward to seeing Rivals!, whenever it happens.
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Jul 16, 2014 03:37
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I'm impressed! I thought this would've petered out so many times, but here we are, with a game clear. Looking forward to Rivals!
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Jul 16, 2014 05:49
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Paul.Power posted:
I haven't actually played much Advance Wars, not the GBA/DS games at any rate. I've played much more Advance Wars By Web than I have those. Also tried out Super Famicom Wars at some point? Also Sami is best Advance Wars character forever. (maaaaybe except for Lin in Dark Conflict, or whatever the other name of that game was. I forgot.) KennyMan666 fucked around with this message at 13:11 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 09:50
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Good job on clearing that madness.
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Jul 16, 2014 12:31
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I didn't even finish the regular campaign in this. Regardless of what the wonky ranking system tells you, this was an S Rank LP. Good job sticking it out for advance campaign and I'm looking forward to possibly seeing Rivals.
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Jul 19, 2014 13:03
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Aw man, I wound up two posts short of getting into the credits. Anyway, this has been a great thread, and I look forward to what you do next, Paul.power.
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Jul 19, 2014 15:52
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Great work on the AC, I would've given up on the first mission if I were just playing for myself.
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Jul 19, 2014 17:27
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That was a nice clear of Advance Campaign. Sturm really had you on the ropes in the early parts, but you rallied back like a champ. Even got him to meteor some of his own dudes in the bargain!
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Jul 25, 2014 18:47
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Glazius posted:Even got him to meteor some of his own dudes in the bargain! iirc, Sturm's meteor's don't hurt his own troops.
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Jul 25, 2014 20:24
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