Challenge MKDH #19: Christmas on the River Styx

The Master Knight has managed to escape the Hyphy Movement, the San Francisco Bay Area residents who prove that it doesn't deserve to be called the "Yay Area", the shallow girls who would say "wanna suck my pee" just to mock him, and the Oakland rioters. He sees Santa Claus's workshop nearby. He questions how ol' Saint Nick can even be real, let alone do his job, with the number of kids to deliver presents to within the 24 hour timespan exceeding an average of 1 per second, until he realizes that he must have a short list of nice kids anyway considering the way kids in general tend to act nowadays, plus magic still has its limits even if that wasn't the case. He has no time to think about this further, as he sees some trolls preparing to attack Santa Claus and his reindeer to stop them from doing their job. The Master Knight and his group of soldiers lead a battle so that Santa can escape with the presents in tow and then allow the elves to regroup once that is accomplished....

Well, I got a challenge from Ephraim225:

*Game: Advance Wars 2
*Map: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/Sarumarine/Situation%20Room/tfsr-37The... (no left bridge)
*Weather: Random (Rain)
*Player CO: Olaf
*Enemy CO: Drake

The challenge basically amounted to storming the HQ. Ephraim did at least try, considering it's not a simple cheap HQ Capture but trying to take the HQ instead. But the challenge itself was a joke, even with the weather set to Rain (which hinders Olaf severely but not Drake at all) instead of Random. Nothing says AI buster like an early AA Tank to cramp the AI's ability to get control of properties. With me attacking the middle area ASAP, it would be a matter of escorting the infantry while they take the properties that I can use to manage an easy HQ attack.

I think what happens is that I have played Game Boy Wars 3, which has far more units so despite the lack of a Battleship to work with on navy maps, I learn to adjust to the variety provided there. Particularly, Anti-Air Tanks wipe out anything with less armor than a Rocket Launcher in one round with a first attack or in a situation where the enemy unit doesn't even have an anti-tank weapon, so I have learned to incorporate them into my playstyle to kill infantry and punish any that try to meatwall by killing the stuff they try to block me off from. Mind, this would be effective in the metagame if you didn't actually need infantry to capture properties in the first place. Or better yet if killing each Artillery would be safe/sufficient enough instead of a chore that would qualify the buggers for being Cheap Wimps like with Olimar in Brawl or the Black Bomb in AWDS.

My point is, AW could stand to use better variety than "spam tanks" or "spam artillery and infantry." Days of Ruin doesn't manage this, not when:
*Bikes cause a slippery slope thanks to not even having enough defense issues.
*Flares are too ineffective against infantry, which they shouldn't be.
*Anti-Tanks are too expensive to be the Demonic Spiders that they are in Campaign.
*Dusters, while having a use in some versatility, bring nothing new to the table and get swatted by AA Tanks.
*Don't get me started on Seaplanes.
*Navy still hasn't been fixed up.

For all that Game Boy Wars 3 has clear balance issues, it does try to tone down slippery slope and make sure the pacing is good simultaneously. Just play the game, I could talk about the various ways it does that but it would take all day and I just want to get this up.

And merry Christmas.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• advance
• wars
• aw
• aw2
• days
• of
• ruin
• Challenge
• Taking

[sd1333]

I just beat the first Advanced Wars, this one seems interesting but are there new units and characters?

oh yeah and what's that music playing at the end?

[MasterKnightDH]

@sd1333

1 new unit, a few new characters.

As for the music, it's from Zelda: Twilight Princess, when you beat a boss. Look up "boss calm" or something like that.

[littleryry2005]

I completed it as Isabella in 23 days, could have been 22 if that infantry on his factory hadn't survived my COP. Will took slightly longer, 28 days. One of the things that makes things more difficult early on and easier later is the existence of the bike. Because Penny can build a bike on day 1 and begin capture of the factory on day 3, you have to be able to build an AA .. Basically the entire map is about how quickly you can set up a defense and your ability to hold out.

[MasterKnightDH]

@littleryry2005 Isabella is overpowered. Then again, Tabitha took almost as short. Repeated OHKing with the CO Medium Tank, oh my God. And I got off her disgusting COP *twice*.

[littleryry2005]

@MasterKnightDH Well yeah, but I was going for people who could make up for the movement loss. I boarded a Bike I think when I won for both characters. I also tried the other way around, where I played as Penny on Blue and fought Isabella. It was slightly difficult at first because I didn't have anything ready to take on her boarded MD Tank except for an artillery and a mech. The two checkpoints made things cake however once I got all of my funds at once.

[MasterKnightDH]

@littleryry2005 I didn't build a Bike right away. What I built was a CO Medium Tank to make everything in the east Factory area go splat quickly. With Tabitha, anything less armored than a Light Tank would get OHKed as soon as it got built, making it easy to clog the Factory early. And I also kept an eye on her meter so that I could know when I'd get the extra zone to work with.

[sd1333]

@MasterKnightDH

cool thanks man =D

[littleryry2005]

@MasterKnightDH Found that out 16 turns ago as Will, snow's effect didn't really click in my brain since I'm so used to playing as Penny.

[MasterKnightDH]

@littleryry2005 Actually, change the human player's infantry to an Infantry. The snow just plain kills Mechs except for Penny's.

[MasterKnightDH]

@littleryry2005 Which CO you use? I recommend the human player goes vanilla because only Caulder has a weakness and it doesn't keep him from being broken.