[TEAM THREAD] BRick and ipecac wonder, what's an airport again?

[BRickAstley]

[BRickAstley]

I plan to try and describe the fundamentals of the game as we go, for people who don't know the game. [/quote]

[sunrise089]

Yay

[ipecac]

A port for those new-fangled seaplanes, of course.

[ipecac]

Brick: there's no land bridge and with fog we're unlikely to contact the other team early so do we want to do serious micro?

[ipecac]

So the current plan is Brick takes Hawke and I take Sonja. Sonja is recon specialist + bad luck, while Hawke is the heavy hitter, so basically if we fail to break through it's Brick's fault

[BRickAstley]

So the current plan is Brick takes Hawke and I take Sonja. Sonja is recon specialist + bad luck, while Hawke is the heavy hitter, so basically if we fail to break through it's Brick's fault

Sike, they wanted to ban Sonja! It isn't a problem though, we were also heavily considering Hawke + Eagle, so we're just going to go with that.

[ipecac]

Introduction

Advance Wars is conceptually simple: you capture properties that give a fixed income per turn, you use the money to build units in bases/ports/airports, and you crush your opponent with them. It has a 1UPT system with both direct and indirect units as well as land, air and sea units, leading to interesting tactical and strategic situations.

There are two methods to win:

A) Capture the enemy HQ
B) Destroy all the enemy units

We'll discuss capturing in general first, followed by combat.

Capturing


Only infantry units (infantry and mechs) can capture properties or buildings. Each property starts with a point value of 20, and is only captured when the value drops to 0. When a infantry unit performs the capture command, the building point value drops by the HP of the infantry unit (integer amount with a maximum of 10). But if the infantry unit moves away or is destroyed, the point value immediately resets, so it typically takes 2 turn for a building to be captured but that can be delayed or averted by an enemy unit attacking the capturing infantry.

When captured, buildings which were originally neutral (no owner) or belonging to an enemy force are now owned by you and provide you with a benefit every turn. The main types of buildings are Cities, Bases, Ports, Airports, and HQs. Cities are the vanilla type of building, only only providing income when captured. Bases, ports, and airports provide you with the additional benefit of building units there when the space is unoccupied, with bases building land units, ports ships, and airports aircraft. Finally, each army has 1 HQ. When an army's HQ is captured, it is automatically eliminated from the game (all the units on the board are destroyed, and all its buildings revert to the capturer's side), with an immediate loss for that side if the game is FFA or a severe setback in team play.

Troops are essential to victory, and income necessary for building troops, so much of the game revolves around capturing properties to reduce the enemy income and defending your own buildings to maintain cashflow. Units must engage in combat to take and hold ground.

[BRickAstley]

Some basic basics, for those who are interested. A lot of this is taken and/or modified from the various Advance Wars LPs over on http://lparchive.org/

The Basics

Advance Wars is a turn-based strategy game played on a square grid with a taxicab metric. Only one unit can stand in a square at a time, and all units block all enemy units' movement (yes, ground and naval units block enemy air units and vice versa... I know it makes no sense. Just roll with it). There are two main types of combat: with direct combat, you roll on up to the square next to a unit and select it to attack. You do some damage to it, it gets a chance to counterattack if it hasn't been destroyed, and that's pretty much it. With long range attacks, you can assault your foes from a distance, meaning you can't be counterattacked, but long range units cannot move and fire on the same turn. The objective of the game is to either destroy all of the enemy's units or capture their headquarters.

Units

The armies at your command are made up of discrete, specialised units that fill a variety of roles: killing stuff up close, killing stuff at range, capturing stuff, transporting stuff, flying and killing stuff, killing flying stuff... you know the drill.

Army

Infantry or "Inf" (1000G). The bread and butter of most armies. Infantry move slowly and are weak in both attack and defence, but they can capture properties, board transports and they're very cheap to produce. A standard high-level defensive tactic is to mass produce infantry, on the basis that your opponent can't kill all of them.

Mechanised Infantry or "Mech" (3000G). Actually they're more like anti-tank infantry than mechanised infantry (since that implies some form of transportation), but whatever. Mechs are even slower than normal Infantry, but are a little more solid defensively and much more powerful attackers - their bazookas allow them to hold their own against small tanks and the like. Like infantry, they can capture properties and board transports.

Small Tank or just "Tank" (7000G). Pretty fast, decent armour, packs a fair punch against infantry and most light ground units but not up to much against air units or larger tanks. Reasonably cheap and pretty versatile, a mainstay of many an army.

Medium Tank or "Md Tank" or "Middie" (16000G). Slower than a small tank and a lot more expensive, but a lot more powerful both in attack and defence, Middies annihilate most ground units. Their main weaknesses are air units and long-range attacks.

Anti-Air Tank, or AA (8000G). As the name suggests, the AA's primary role is to marmalise aircraft, B-Copters especially. It's also a very powerful unit against footsoldiers. It's a lot less effective against tanks, though: Tank > AA > B-Copter > Tank is one of the simplest examples of a rock-paper-scissors triangle in AW. Pretty fast, can move the same distance per turn as a small tank.

Artillery, or Artil, or Arty (6000G). Artillery are the most basic long range unit, able to hit things two or three squares away from them. They pack a significant punch for their cost, and because they strike from a distance they're immune to counter-attacks. But they're slow, they can't move and fire on the same day, and their defence is paper thin. As a result, Artillery at their best at chokepoints, behind some kind of meatshield - either a heavily-armoured tank, or a large number of infantry. Another mainstay unit in high-level play, as they offer one of the best firepower-to-cost ratios in the game.

Rocket Launcher, or Rockets (15000G). Rockets are Artillery+: they do more damage and have a greater range of fire (three, four or five squares away). But their range shadow is larger, and they are even more slow and poorly armoured than Artillery. Again, best used at chokepoints behind some kind of meatshield.

Recon (4000G). Recons are very fast units, but don't have much in the way of armour. They can take on footsoldiers and long-range units well enough, but that's about it. Recons also have fantastic vision ranges in Fog of War, and are a must for good intel gathering in those conditions.

Armoured Personnel Carrier, or APC (5000G). APCs can transport footsoldiers around the map (just as well, as footsoldiers are slow buggers), and double up as supply trucks to keep your forces fuelled and armed. They carry no weapons (and infantry inside APCs cannot fire out) and aren't that well armoured despite their name, so keep 'em escorted.

Neotank (22000G). Don't let the quirky design fool you, this secret Black Hole weapon is superior to the Medium Tank in pretty much every way bar cost. It does more damage and takes less damage, is faster and carries more fuel and ammmunition. Its main weaknesses are the same as the medium tank's: long-range attacks and air units.

Missile Launchers (12000G) are the long range surface-to-air weapon - they have the same attack range as rockets, and a full health missile launcher can one-hit kill any air unit. So on paper, that sounds pretty good. Unfortunately, they have a lot of weaknesses: they're slow, and it's very easy for B-Copters and Bombers to just fly into their range shadow and take them out. They have a few uses though, like rendering enemy airports useless by setting up within range of them.

Megatanks (28000G) are the last entry in the escalating size of tanks. Although very strong, they are very slow and use up a lot of fuel very quickly. Their weapon, the megacannon, is very potent and can seriously damage most land units. Not seen very often due to their ridiculous cost.

Piperunners (20000G) are powerful artillery units that are limited to moving on pipes. The maps we have been playing have not been set up to use piperunners so you won't be seeing them.

Air Force

Battle Helicopter, or B-Copter (9000G). Pretty fast, these are basically small tanks that can fly, so they can get over most awkward terrain (such as rivers and mountains) easily. This makes them invaluable flankers on maps with chokepoints. They're decent attackers against most ground units, and take little damage back as tanks can't use their main cannons on them. They have one massive weakness, though: they get taken apart easily by anti-air.

Transport Helicopter or T-Copter (5000G). If B-Copters are flying tanks, then T-Copters are flying APCs, able to transport one footsoldier at a time. Because they can fly, they can reach places that APCs can't - to make up for this, they can't supply units the way that APCs can.

Bomber (22000G). The game's most powerful attacking unit, capable of one-hit-killing many ground and naval units and not being far off at killing medium tanks and battleships, either. Even Anti-Airs can only beat them if they get the first shot in. Bombers are helpless against Fighters, though.

Fighters (20000G) rule the skies, and are how you gain and hold air superiority in Advance Wars 2. They're devastating attackers against Bombers, B-Copters and T-Copters - and to add insult to injury, those three units can't even attack Fighters. They also have the largest movement range of any unit in the game. They can't do anything against ground or naval units, though: a common anti-fighter tactic is to surround it with infantry or something and trap it in. It makes no sense, but that's Advance Wars for you.

Stealth (24000G) are airplanes that gain the ability to Stealth, protecting them from attacks from all units except Fighters and other Stealth Fighters. They can attack any units except for submerged submarines. However, their attack power is less than that of Bombers or Fighters.

Black Bombs (25000G) are remote controlled aerial weapons developed by the Black Hole army and built at an airport. Black bombs deal up to five damage to every unit within a three space radius. Like missiles launched from silos, black bombs are incapable of destroying units, instead leaving them on a minimum of 1 HP. They are usually banned from multiplayer games.

Navy

Battleships (28000G) are the most powerful long-range unit in the game, able to hit anything between 2 and 6 squares away from them. They provide great fire support, and - amazingly for a long-range unit - have good armour. But they're the most expensive unit in the game (you know you've made it if you've got the financial power to spam battleships), and are defenseless against air units and submarines, requiring Cruisers to escort them. As naval units they can only travel on sea or reef tiles.

Landers (12000G) are naval transports that can carry two of any ground unit: this includes vehicles as well as footsoldiers. This makes them a key part of any island-hopping assault (unless you're playing as Sensei and can afford to skimp on vehicles). They can't resupply. They are the only ship in AW2 capable of travelling on shoals (the yellow-and-light blue beach areas around some coasts). Landers can pick up and drop off their passengers either in ports or on shoals. Landers carry no weapons, and are vulnerable to indirect fire (including battleships), air units and submarines.

Submarines or Subs (20000G) have the ability to dive to hide themselves from view. While dived, submarines can only be seen by units in neighbouring squares, and can only be attacked by cruisers and other subs. However, when dived, Subs use fuel a lot more quickly (and they don't carry much of it to begin with), so you'll need APCs on standby to stop them sinking. Subs prey on battleships and landers, but fall quickly to cruisers. They have no anti-air or ship-to-shore capabilities.

Cruisers (18000G) are the anti-air and anti-sub naval unit, designed to protect battleships and landers from their main predators. Trouble is, while they're pretty good at dealing with subs, air units are more of an issue. Bombers do serious damage to them, and even B-Copters can knock them down below half health (and Sensei's B-Copters will... hahahaha... you'll see). A little-remembered fact about Cruisers is that they can also carry two helicopters, protecting them from Fighters and stuff and also refuelling them. They have no ship-to-shore capabilities.

Black Boats (7500G) are able to repair 1 HP of a unit each turn, draining 1000 funds from the player, regardless of the unit; naturally if the player does not have the funds, he is unable to repair. They are also much like APCs as they are both non-combat units, they both supply units and are able to transport Infantry and Mech units. As opposed to the APC, Black Boats can transport 2 units instead of one, but do not supply adjacent units at the start of each turn.

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What will you see in multiplayer? In games we have played, there will be an initial wave of infantry to capture bases, followed up by a few mechs and a lot of tanks as funds permit. If airports are available, there will be battle copters; if it's a fog of warmap, there will be some recons built for vision. This map we'll be playing on has a large sea, so we will be going into naval warfare, which is new ground, and will also make indirect units like artillery and rockets more valuable. It's hard to say exactly what will happen, we'll ave to see as the game plays out.

[ipecac]

Combat

All units have 10 HP. When the HP is reduced to 0, the unit is destroyed. A side's units can be repaired by waiting inter-turn on an city or base owned by the base (base for land units, ports for ships and airports for aircraft), but at a rate of 2HP/turn and at a cost of 10% of the unit cost/HP.

All units can be engaged in combat, but only combat units can deal damage. Each unit can only attack once per turn, with direct combat units attacking adjacent enemies and indirect units enemies within range. Damage depends on the attacker-defender unit matchup, as well as their respective HPs. The higher the HP, the more damage the attacker does, with this being further modified by CO powers, defensive terrain of the defender, and the defender's HP, and luck (i.e. RNG).

I) Direct Combat



Direct combat occurs when a direct combat unit attacks an adjacent enemy. This can only occur right after its movement phase, and initiates an phase where the damage dealt is calculated and defender's HP corresponding reduced. If the defender survives, and is able to counter-attack (i.e. it is also a direct-combat unit and is able to attack the attacking unit*) then a counterattack phase occurs where the defender does damage to the attacking unit (with the damage proportionate to its HP and then modified, similar to the atttacking phase). Otherwise there is no counter-attack phase.

II) Indirect combat



An attack phase takes places as with direct combat, but there is no counter-attack phase. The drawback is that an indirect combat unit cannot first move and then attack in the same turn. It can only either move or attack in any given turn.


*This depends on the unit matchup For example, bombers can hit adjacent tanks but tanks can't deal damage to bombers