Advance Wars by Web Games

[Cheater Hater]

Sorry I took so long to join--I've been buried under Eternal Masters work so I can hopefully get an article out for Monday. On a related note, I'll be gone most of Sunday at GP Minneapolis, so keep that in mind.

Edit: ipecac, can you put a little obvious reference to AWBW in your spoiler thread if we aren't getting a forum? I clicked on it and immediately backed out once I realized it was AWBW--then again, it's not like it would be a shocker that your opening move was two infantry

[Bobchillingworth]

So, who's idea was it for Jade's structures to have almost the exact same shade of grey as neutral properties? I've screwed up two games now because I couldn't tell that my units hadn't finished capturing them.

[ipecac]

Edit: ipecac, can you put a little obvious reference to AWBW in your spoiler thread if we aren't getting a forum? I clicked on it and immediately backed out once I realized it was AWBW--then again, it's not like it would be a shocker that your opening move was two infantry

Done

[Xmo5]

Nice game Fenn, that was lots of fun! We were pretty evenly matched for a while and at one point I was fairly sure I had lost.

Re: JS properties- you wouldn't be the first to make that mistake, believe me. There's a reason I hold a grudge against them. I had the exact same problem in my early days; if I get stuck with JS I usually change my country if at all possible, hence why I've only played 5 games with them. That said, I find the aesthetics of their infantry to be among my favorites.

[Fenn]

GG Xmo, I though I had it all tied up at first too.

[Xmo5]

FYI for anyone interested:

According to amarriner, the boot timer and league game generator should be fixed. That means you will be booted from your games if you don't take your turn before the timer runs out and that if you set the number of games to anything but 0 on the "League" page, it will automatically place you in league games overnight up to the number you selected and continually replace any finished league games the same way.

It may take a day or so for this to kick into full effect because of the backlog, but aside from that, these features should theoretically be bug free now. That said, if you have any questions about them or how they work, let me know and I'll be happy to explain further. In exchange, if you notice any bugs in these features, let me know and I'll see what I can do about having them fixed. :P

[Xmo5]

Fenn, after looking over the game again, I think there were a couple of main reasons why I ended up making a comeback. I'll give my analysis (which isn't any more than my opinion, mind you) since I know you guys are interested in dissecting games.

The first I can see is that I happened to have a well-timed SCOP, which is one of the very few things Sonja is good for. That seriously gave me a chance to regain ground in the South, and at least stall your advance through the center. However, it might have been less potent if you'd continued focusing more efforts in fortifying the South while you had the upper hand. Your copters made mincemeat out of me there, but you stopped bringing enough tanks to back them up and lost control when my AA were less restricted. What it did do for you, however, is give you a chance to focus in the center where you made some serious advancements and almost tipped the scale to the point of no return.

This brings me to my next two points, which were both mistakes made in the same turn. My bomber was a last ditch effort to force you back in the North to make up for my lost ground in the South. The fighter is a perfect counter with +2 movement, 2k less funding, and a guaranteed OHKO. However, it did force you to waste a turn on your airport to send reinforcements the opposite direction, something which I had not considered (but probably should have), leaving me more room to breathe in the South while I captured your tower. Still, it was an important purchase and a good move on your part and forced me to invest in a fighter of my own.... but... that fighter had 1 single purpose and it was to render your fighter useless or, better yet, kill it. I figured that if I could bait you to attack my fighter, yours would be dead or crippled, even if it cost me my own fighter, which gives my bomber free reign again unless you want to invest another 20k. By letting my AA take it out, it made things even better for me because I could cripple your copters in the North with my crippled fighter. Point to remember here is that a 7 HP unit is worth less than 70% of that unit, and the effect is more dramatic at lower HP. By the time you get to 5-6 HP or below, your unit is almost worthless except to finish off another crippled unit or act as a meatshield, so best case scenario for your fighter is not good, even with first strike against mine. Hind sight is always 20/20, but if you ask me, the best move would have been to send the fighter to a safe place in your Northern ranks and build some tanks to send to the center and take out my AA. It would keep my bomber at bay, render my fighter useless except for mirroring yours, and help you secure the hold you had in the middle, while continuing to split my central base between two fronts. It's okay to stall on one front if you're winning elsewhere, especially when you know you've locked 42k of my units away with only a single 20k unit (plus meatshield).

The second mistake you made that day was building a rocket. As a general rule, you should never build rockets (or missiles) unless they are very well shielded and have a very specific role to play. The main purposes they serve are to out-range artillery and to deter/destroy heavy tanks (or counter other rockets). Long-reaching units (including mobile air units) and meatshield breakers (OHKO dealers) are their biggest weakness they have because it doesn't take much attack power to render them useless- if anything can get behind or around defensive lines, they're usually toast. I don't even mind wasting a copter to cripple a rocket because they're dangerous and worth a good bit more than a copter. AA used as copter deterrents won't stop me from taking a shot if I have one so the rocket needs to be defended through legitimate barriers. As a result, your rocket was too exposed since you didn't have much in the way of shielding and my bomber was perfect for breaking any meatshields quickly. You never got any use out of it and squandered 15k at a critical time in the battle.

In short, you may have had the income advantage, but my SCOP combined with a couple of decisions on your part that resulted in wasted funding more than compensated for the advantage you had, and ultimately resulted in my ability to turn the battle around.

All that said, I thought it was a brilliant match and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Those mistakes sound so much worse when I say them like that, but in actuality you played quite well and you did a great job taking advantage of Sensei's strengths, even without his COP/SCOP benefits that normally make him broken. Especially for not having much AWBW exposure, you're definitely a good player and I think that once you polish your game up a bit, you'd have no trouble beating me regularly. If you're ever interested, I'm up for a match any time.

[BRickAstley]

FYI for anyone interested:

According to amarriner, the boot timer and league game generator should be fixed. That means you will be booted from your games if you don't take your turn before the timer runs out and that if you set the number of games to anything but 0 on the "League" page, it will automatically place you in league games overnight up to the number you selected and continually replace any finished league games the same way.

It may take a day or so for this to kick into full effect because of the backlog, but aside from that, these features should theoretically be bug free now. That said, if you have any questions about them or how they work, let me know and I'll be happy to explain further. In exchange, if you notice any bugs in these features, let me know and I'll see what I can do about having them fixed. :P

So this is why a bunch of my old games have been deleted from my "Completed Games" section I'm guessing?

[Bobchillingworth]

Boot feature still seems to have some kinks in the system- a couple of my games have players who are to be booted in a negative number of days, including a 4 v. 4 game Brick & I are in which has been stalled on one player for weeks.

[Bobchillingworth]

Oh, also, I'm in a "Z" series game with Fenn which needs whoever created it to start the match for us.