 Alright, we are live and hopefully this will be working very well. You might hear some poorly emulated sound in the background, as opposed to last time when I couldn't actually play the sound at the same time as the stream. So today, on Advance Wars Night, or whatever I'm going to call this, I'm going to drive something a little bit different because usually people end up playing multiplayer at least on these tiny little maps because they don't want to spend forever playing a real map that's going to take, you know, forever. So I kind of want to go through these really tiny little simple maps, many of which, if you spend a little bit of time thinking about them, or even playing them trial and error, are 100% one-sided, assuming both players are pretty smart and equal. So we're going to use the most basic, tiny map here, just the two player plug mountain. And I'm going to play it as orange to show you how to win as orange, that I'm going to play it as blue to show you how to play it as blue, and then I'm going to play it against myself to show you how to do the game theory side of this. So it's a tiny little map and the CO power stuff really doesn't factor in too much in these. It's also not that interesting. So I'm actually going to turn the COs off here. So I'm orange. Fogga war off clear. Nice. Normal. I'll even make the AI normal. All right. So obviously this is just a pure economy map. I just have to control both of these cities. Whoever controls two of these cities for long enough wins. Orange has the advantage just because orange goes first. So in this case, I could, we'll see, because of this thing here, the bike's actually not the best idea. I'm just going to spam mechs. Watch this, just mech mech mech. Now look, if I start taking the city, he could attack my guy instead of taking his own city. So what I'm going to do is start taking the city anyway. I have this guy coming up and even though I could build a recon, nope, another mech. Sure enough, he did the smart thing. Now watch this. Capture. Join. So my guy's still strong. I just got to guarantee that I take the city. Now we're cooking. So now I've got a little bit more money and I could just keep spamming mechs, which actually still isn't the worst strategy, but he's going to start capturing this. I'd rather not get that city. So now I'm actually going to build a recon. Let's bring this guy over here. Get ready to kind of rush in. I'm actually not going to take the city, most likely. Depends on what he does. What am I going to build? Oh, another mech. Oh, it's a mech turn. So see how, despite his massive attack here, because I kept joining the units, I was able to get this city. Now he's going to get that city too because I didn't play it super optimally, which is probably fine because now, see where this tank is? Let's just back up a little bit and just wait. See what he does? See that tank is pretty weak against these guys. So now the tank went up there. I can send this guy down here. Send this guy up here. Pull this guy back. No, I don't want to pull him back actually. But I do want to do. Build an artillery. I will lose this guy, but that's fine. So see how he moved his troops in such a way they didn't actually take that city from me. Now I can fuck up his tank. I won't destroy it, but I'll do enough damage to it. That thing can't actually hit me. So rather than take his weak guy out entirely, I'm just going to fuck up this little guy and that's it. Just hang this guy up here. I could have done that differently, but I choose to do it this way. So now he's defending that. I'm actually just going to back up here. Out of range. And wait. Oh, he attacked my artillery, which is good. This is covering my city, so I can't heal there just yet. I'm going to leave this guy to keep healing. One infantry for some mobility, because now I've got the unit advantage. He lost an expensive unit. I have not lost expensive units. So let's just get this guy right up in to threaten his artillery. Let's get this guy here. That way, when he brings this guy to try to take my city, I can just artillery it. And for good measure, I say I don't want to actually kill this guy with this recon, because if I do, this thing is going to kill it. So instead, I'm going to come all the way over here and just menace. And if he sends this guy down to attack it, that's fine, because that frees this area up. Get in this guy in position to take the city and mech spam. Now look at that. Let's get this guy right there. I like this guy up a little bit. So this thing is pretty much indefensible. I'm actually going to recon. Nice. So he's got another tank raiding in the wings already, which is kind of bad newsbears for me. So I am actually going to let him kill my guy so that I can move all this stuff up. So this guy's going to move in there. Let's just keep meching. See, I don't want to just attack right away here, because if I do, I can't build another unit. I have to be able to build a unit every time. But now the tank's gone. Let's force him to attack my little guys. Hang out right there. Hang out right there. Hang out right there. And now his tank is in range of another tank. So you can see how these tiny maps actually can take a while because they're so tiny and they're so symmetrical and there's not a lot to actually fight over on them. So it comes down to unit and puzzle economy. What's going on here? This guy, I don't want to actually attack this guy with the recon because then this guy could actually still get me there. This is trying to heal, which is good. So what I might as well do is weaken his recon and continue to make mechs. Let's let him come to us because we have all mechs and we have multiple, albeit weak, normal units. He doesn't have so much. All right, so that artillery is interesting because he's got two units that can actually attack us over here effectively. So to do this most economically, we actually want to run this guy down here to present this with a bunch of targets up here to weaken this and to prevent this from attacking it. I'll use this to weaken that guy. And otherwise, you know, I still stay out of range of both these guys. Sure, he can hit here, right? So I have to attack this guy here. That way this has to choose between one of my two relatively cheap units. Meanwhile, let's get another recon to slide around the edge. So what's this guy going to do? Let's just wait him out. I have that guy hang out there. So this guy, rather than moving up, is going to move across. And now let's see. So I don't have a lot of money, partly because of repair costs. So I'm going to build just one infantry, a little bit more mobility. All right, so what's he going to do? He's got $5,300. He's going to get four more. So he's probably going to build a tank on his turn. So let's just heal up. Now he's only got two units that can actually attack me here. So this might be an opportunity. I could go for the city. If I try to go for the city right here, what would happen? So I can move one guy in and do it for nine. This guy will attack me. This guy will attack me. And that guy will attack me because there are three open fronts. So the way to prevent that, I could move this guy here, but then this guy could take him out. So I can't actually defend this if I go after it. So I'm better off letting him build the tank, healing my units, and preparing for the next turn on a counter strike. And actually at this point, because he's going to build a tank, I should build an artillery instead of the tank that I had planned on. He did not build a tank. Interesting. So now that artillery is in a pretty good spot for him. And if I move my artillery here or here, then the mech or the infantry will attack it. So I'm not going to move it yet, but I'm going to move in here. Now if I move in there, see again that artillery there. So I only want to move in if I'm going to move in with enough troops committed to where he can't make effective use of that artillery. I have to do something like this. See how I've presented him with so many targets? He has three targets to choose from, and he doesn't have any strong units other than that artillery to capitalize. So for good measure, I'm going to menace him in multiple directions. So one of these guys is going to survive. I built an infantry there so I can save up some money. See, he sacrificed it. I'll sacrifice this guy. I'm not going to start capturing yet, for the same reason we've talked about before. You can see this thing can't really attack much. So most damage you can do is have this guy attack here and kill it, and then this tank come in and kill this guy. So I want this to be hanging out here ready to capitalize on that. This guy is going to be ready to actually take the city, and I'm going to build another artillery because I want to end this. I'm tired of dicking around. There we go. So now I can start capturing this. He cannot stop me. So there's a lot of ways I could go here, but what I want to do actually is damage him sufficiently to where he's not a threat. And you see how suddenly the tide gets turned. It looked like it was such a stalemate, but because I was slowly winning out on the unit economy game, suddenly I have the advantage and I have the city, and it's over. He will never take that city back. There's no way. And I can do a bunch of free damage here to that tank. Might as well hurt that infantry. Might as well just rush this guy over here because what's that tank going to do? Nothing. I'm covering my dudes just in case. Let's move a little bit closer and let's build another mech in case he sends the tank up for my base. It's not that it matters. All right, moving back forward. Finish off that tank and put that there to protect my artillery. So at this point, he is going to have $3,000. He can build a mech, basically. So I might as well build a bike. Start smoothing my guys over just to capture and win. But what's this? An anti-air because all he's going to build is mechs. Never forget, anti-air are crazy effective against all infantry types. And yeah, it's over. So look at the breakdown. I pretty much built mechs and occasionally I built other units just for support along the way. He built mostly regular infantry, which are weak against vehicles. And because I built these vehicles here, see I built four recon, three tanks through artillery. Those mechs ended up being the deciding factor. I only built four more than him, but the fact that I kept building them meant that eventually I'd win the unit economy game. Now let's try this again. I'm going to play as the other side. I'm also going to play it a little more efficiently than I did the previous game. So look, already he's not doing what I did before. He built a regular infantry, which you can see can attack these spaces and can only move there. So we can't start capturing right away. So I can prevent his capture if I really want. I'm going to get this guy close to be able to come in over the top. See he diverted, which was strange. Now that he's diverted and he can't capture the city, whatever. I'll just come back and heal. And at this point he'll build a tank next round. So there's no point in me building a recon. I'll just build another mech. Oh no, he didn't build a tank. I wonder if he would have built something different. So see if I could attack him from either spot, and there's actually an argument he had for both. So the city is slightly more defensible, so I'll take less damage when he attacks me. But if I come in here, then this guy is less likely to come around and attack because he can't and that guy will still be there and he's not likely to move him out of the way. What I am going to do instead is this. So now he has got 4,000, so he could build a tank. I think he will build a tank. So I'm going to build another mech. And if he doesn't build a tank because I built a mech, that is also fine. So he's spamming mechs, interesting. I might as well keep fighting for this exact situation. I'm going to keep building mechs because I don't want him to build a tank. So now I'm in a good spot because I can... See I'm not going to start capturing with this weak guy. I'm going to come in here and make sure that he's not going to capture. I'm going to start capturing with this strong guy who will get it in 2 and can't be stopped, bring this guy forward, and this guy is here. By moving him there, he can menace everything. And if this guy is weak, I can move him out of the way and have that guy come in to make sure he doesn't get the capture. So my goal is to win the economy game. Now at this point, he's still going to have plenty of money. So I'm going to keep making mechs. This guy is sacrificial. There's that tank. See where the tank can attack? Let's back up here and heal. So now the tank can attack a little further. It still doesn't matter. And my mech forward. I'd like to build an artillery now. So if I've got 5,500, so I'll have 9,500 next turn. I need at least 6,000. So I wonder if I even need an infantry right now. I'm going to build a single infantry for a little bit of mobility. And I'm otherwise just going to attrition these guys. Let the tank hang out. The tank's got to attack a guy. And he has his pick of any of these guys. And let's make him come out of the city. All right. I can probably take this city real soon because I'm just winning this attrition war. See the tank can't break through. He's going to have to retreat it. Now's the time to build a recon. So of course he retreated it. But he retreated it next to a bunch of mechs so I can just destroy it. That guy's weak. Let's bring this guy up here. I'm not going to try to take it yet. I'm actually going to back away. Because if he comes in there I'll artillery him. Regular infantry. I'm winning the econ game. So if I just turtle and wait and just play this defensive game, I will eventually just win. See now if I attack here, he can't actually get either one of those mechs in to get me. And now this guy's super weak. That mech's going to come in and try to take the city. I could start capturing now. I might as well let the mech come in first. I'll just otherwise get these guys close. So I'm still covering the city but now I'm protecting all my guys. Now he'd like to build another tank but he had to save up for it. See how he can't actually get that artillery? See how this game is over? That tank was his Hail Mary. Now he can't stop me from capturing the city. I've just got to hold out. So one of these guys can kill that guy and then the other one could get through. Or one of them can kill that guy and the other one can get through. So I actually want to hide this guy back here. Like that. It's over now. Pretty much just mopping people up. Now I just want to do damage, slow him down. Let's just save money and build something big and end it. Now wait another round. Now he has to, if he wants to kill that guy, stay in his base and thus not build another unit. He's only got one unit so I might as well just move in. And now I have to force him to not move it. He moved it anyway. All right. And that's it. So you can see these tiny little maps. Again, they're just slogs and blue. It's hard to say why, you know, the AI loses because the AI can't really predict when and why it's going to do things sometimes. So now let's try something weird. Let's see who's a map that's a little more swingy. So I'm blue. Now how can I win this one? Again, obviously economy. I want to take his two cities as quick as possible. Now you'll notice that blue starts with one more. This is actually a more well balanced map. So I should build because I can only build one unit per turn, a bike and get right in there and take his city. And if he tries to stop me, I'll just attack him right back. And now because I got a pile of money, anti air, even though he might build a tank. He did not. Let's wait and just build a bike. See my slavish devotion to economy. All things are in service of economy. That way I can cover everything. And I got a bike backing everybody up. Ooh, a conundrum. Economy is more important. Might as well do some damage though. Again, make him have to choose. If he doesn't have that tank attack this guy, then that guy takes the city. Now that recon can't actually get me. Nope. I just forget the RMGs. Just build a mech there. He's probably going to attack my artillery. Just fine. And see, now it's over. I've got all the economy. I can just spam to victory. Just tank every round. Might as well use that guy because this guy's got more mobility. Might as well block. Not that it matters because the map's over. So it seems really easy. It seems like blue's just going to win this one. Let's play it again as orange. So I'm in the same boat here as before but I'm going to use my first mover advantage. I've got to go right in and capture his cities. See how I got that city and he didn't stop me. And now he's got no one in position to really stop me from getting that one. And the economy game's basically already over. Sure, he's got that medium tank. And my anti-air is basically useless against it. But it won't get to the front right away. And in that time, I can build an artillery that will easily be positioned to take it out. See that coverage there? Because I can just wait. I can take damage. It doesn't matter. I'm winning the economy game. I just have to hold out. Now it might as well hang out here because the bridges actually leave units vulnerable. So being on a bridge makes you take more damage. I like to build a rocket or something right now but it's a small map so I'm just going to tank it up instead. You can see I've got more economy. There's just nothing the guy can do. Now how does it seem so easy as both sides? Other than the fact that the AI is just really bad. See how I lure that guy in by going to the bridge? So if you're playing advanced wars against a human, the thing is the human, you can't trick another person. You can't trick something into falling into an artillery range. They know exactly what you're thinking. They know what their options are. And what they decide has no basis myself here. I suspect Orange still wins. So let's see. So Orange right here, I'm going to do the same strategy I did against the AI. Build a bike. Now Blue here, I know he built the bike. And I know the bike can capture either of these two cities. So I have to get something in position to stop that. I'm going to send an early recon in. Now he knows that I built the recon. So if I were Orange, I would take that city. And now I have a little bit of money. I want to win as Orange. I'm going to build another bike. So now as Blue, my plan didn't work. I couldn't actually prevent him from taking that city. So instead, I'm just going to come in here and be ready to mess up his jam and build a bike. So Orange, of course, has to complete the city. So Orange is now winning. Blue is right there. And all I have is a bike. What I might as well do is keep him occupied, start capturing right next to him and build the tank, which will just take that thing out. So I know he built the tank. The tank can get me no matter what. So that's a problem. So I got to make him choose, take the city or stop me from taking that city. Now this guy can still come in and take my city here. So what I should do is build a unit to prevent that. He's got a tank, so I should probably build a tank because tank defeats tank. If I build an artillery here, sure it could stop that, but then the artillery can't move when it takes that action, takes that shot. So now the artillery is stuck here and I can't build a unit. I would build an anti-air, which would be way more effective, but I'd like to have an answer to that tank. So Orange now has the choice. Orange either has to take this guy out or to prevent this guy from getting the city. And notice how with blue I did something very clever. If I move my tank down here and attack this, then this tank will get a first strike on my tank and damage it sufficiently that it'll have to retreat. So what I'm going to do is not take this city, though if I take this city it puts him in a gamut against. I have two options as Orange. I can either start capturing the city, forcing him to divert one of these units, probably the tank, because I'll send my other unit, the tank, to kill this guy. So tank takes this guy out. This guy starts capturing. Then blue on his turn can stop me from capturing. Blue's actually in a pretty good position here, better than I expected when I really thought about it. What I should probably do is a much simpler gambit is take the conservative denial. So deny that city, weaken that guy, continue capturing, force him to come in and stop me. So now I'm blue. This guy's actually useless now. This capture will not complete unless I heavily defend it. And even then this guy, while he can't get there in time, this guy could divert but he won't. That guy is going to want to finish this off, though if I were Orange I would not finish this guy off. And this tank, oh look, the tank can't actually get there. So for blue, now is the time to build another bike to take advantage of this. And this guy should stay right here and just do a little more damage, slow that down. So now this guy's going to take two more turns to take the city. So now I'm Orange again. Orange would be foolish to attack this with the tank. And this guy, it's going to take two turns anyway. He won't be able to sufficiently disrupt the taking of the city. So what I'll do, the RNG, okay that worked, is something like that. Now I can prevent him from taking the city but I've sacrificed my tank. This tank is going to take a ton of damage. So to buffer against that, I'll have this guy on the city ready to go in here. And if this guy comes in, I'll be ready and waiting. And I'm going to build now that he only has one tank. I'm going to build that artillery. So now blue. Blue has to take the free shot. And blue has to prevent that city from being captured. And blue doesn't have any other good options. Again this guy's going to come in and take the city right away. So with blue I should build a mech because that mech can prevent this and then be an asset later. It's back to Orange. This guy's not a threat yet. Orange really would like this tank to survive. Orange is going to go onto the city and take that guy out. Look what I'm doing here. Look at this. So Orange now, I've put blue in a gambit. Blue will have to use this tank. If blue attacks this tank with any unit that can actually damage it, meaning the tank, then the tank's destroyed. It's forfeit. Meanwhile, this guy's going to heal back up. Yeah, I still think Orange has the advantage on this map. Just build another bike to come across the top and push the advantage now that I might have it. So blue's in the conundrum. I can take out that tank and sacrifice my tank in the process. I can move this guy closer, but if he goes down the bridge, he's in artillery range, which is no good. I'm actually going to go up here, build a tank to be able to come in. And otherwise, I'm actually going to retreat a little bit, force him to come after my guy as best I can do. Oh, Orange is winning. This is a field day for Orange. So first off, duh. And second off, free city, but he can't stop. Now, you might think you want to move this artillery here and then cover it, but this guy can move here. It might still work. I got enough units to fully find. Nope, because I'm probably not going to want to fire the artillery at this guy. I'm going to fire one of the tanks that comes in. Let's be super conservative. So these guys can attack pretty much anything. Yeah, let's try this. Move the guy up here. Oh, see, I messed up. This guy can still attack him. That's what I get for not actually counting moves. Yep. So now blue, it's a free attack on the artillery, which he has to take. And then the other half, he has to stop the guy from taking that city. This guy has to move into menace that tank. Even with Orange making a mistake, blue is still in a really bad spot here. So as Orange, of course, keep taking that city. Just leave that guy for now. This guy's forfeit anyway, so I might as well weaken this guy. I can either join with this or attack that. I'm going to let that tank down there run amok. I'm actually going to do this. So now this guy is relatively safe. I'll join anyway and I'll build another bite. Ooh, still not looking great. Can't do much with this. The artillery will be a threat if I leave it there. So I probably shouldn't bother attacking the artillery. I should probably get rid of this guy. At least get rid of at least one of these tanks. I got to force him into some kind of gambit. Back to Orange. See that guy is still kind of a threat. It's over. Orange wins. Even making a mistake, Orange wins. I just want to keep my economy game going, let him attack whatever he wants because I make more stuff than him now. And because he can't attack the factory, so what I'm going to build on the factory, I'd love to build an anti-tank. I'm going to save up for an anti-tank. So look, I still am not capturing the city in time. This guy could have attacked the artillery if he built it, but he didn't build it. I can't move here because then the artillery will get me. I have to weaken this guy. And if I go here, the artillery will get me. I got to move up here first and get ready for some kind of counter assault, even though it's over for Blue. Oh, it's so strong for Orange right now. Look at this. I can just rush in. Now he's going to get that city, but I've got good units hanging around. Let's make him actually do it. Check this. So it's Blue. Coming back a little bit. Got a city. Attacking that anti-tank would be foolish. Attacking the mech up there would actually also be foolish because it's in the range of the anti-tank. So I've got to just hold and defend this area here. Press on his cities. Attack from the woodland. Can't build much. Don't have a lot of income right now yet. It's still over for Blue. Stay in the city for defense. He's got nothing really within range that's going to be a threat to me, except maybe a bike or two, and I'll take care of those with this. All right, Blue. That anti-tank is really ruining my day. You hide down here. You come out here. You hide down here. Just do some damage to that anti-tank. Yeah. Start capturing even though it's just a gambit and spam mechs forever. Yep, it continues to be over. Blue can't do anything. All Blue can do is try to delay the game as much as possible. Coming back a little bit. Yeah, Orange has got this. So look. Now I can pretty much just attack things with utter impunity. I can even afford to move this guy over and heal him. So what can Blue do? Not a lot. Blue can strike in and take out that artillery, but now this tank is forfeit. I can try to hold on that bridge. I can try to deny a tiny bit of economy. One more turn there. I saved myself a turn. I'm going to make him use his action if he wants. Orange is going to continue capturing. Oh no, I'm delayed a turn. See how that pitiful defense really couldn't hold up? Blue's got nothing now. Best I can do to hurt that guy. So I just rushed in there. I'm not letting Blue delay the game. So Blue can delay a little bit more, but I'm running out of delay options. I keep delaying the game. Yes. Again, tiny little maps. So now Orange is getting close to where I can force it. What a way to turn there. See? All I can do is take that out. Take that out. Build a map. Orange can now finally come in, take out that last niggling artillery. Oh, I didn't do enough damage to it. Might as well do some damage to the tank. Hide on HQ and devastate that tank from the river. And now I got a protected artillery. So you can see how effective delaying tactics can be. I mean, Blue cannot win this, but yet Blue can delay the game for a very long time if he wants. However, starting to run out here. Problem with building that artillery is that I can't build more units. So at this point, it's over. So yeah, like I said, even though the map looks really tight and you can delay for a long time, and it's not usually immediately obvious that the tide is turned in a tiny map like that. It's all down to real economy. And if the economies are tied, it's just unit economy. But in that map, two smart people, Orange is going to win.