Part 51: The Lucy Log Of A Stupid Strategy
PART 50 - The Lucy Log Of A Stupid StrategyWelcome back to Menu Wars, everyone. We've got a little something we need to do before we begin the final final map.
Alright, so first we need to access the secret settings. I think it's the Konami Code, one second...
Ah, yes, here we go.
Alright, now we can change this...
...To casual.
I beat Final Battle with one death, guys, give me this one.
OK, back to the campaign at hand. The fuckin' Eagle and Dipshit battle that they just throw at you for beating Green Earth with Sami.
I'm not.
Why are Dipshit and Eagle rivals anyway? I only did one of Eagle's maps with Dipshit iirc, and his relationship with Sami seems like the more interesting one.
Welcome to the map.
I mean, he's pointing out the patently bloody obvious here, so
Andy’s Stupid Question Count: 12
Oh, hey Nell. You came in person to see us?
Is... is that a come-on? I know EXACTLY what to do, Nell.
oh right she's talking to dipshit
"Whatever I want" is going to become "a fuckload of transport copters", so don't get too excited, folks.
That's blatantly untrue. He's an idiot.
OK, so this map is going to be stupid. And also I don't want to do it-
"Hey, my dude."
I turn around and see her. She's back. Around her neck, a necklace with a glittering star design shines.
"Nell..." I breathe.
She smiles. It's the most wonderful thing I've ever seen.
"You did it. You kept fighting... and you beat Sturm."
"Until we meet again." I reply.
Nell nods. "I'm sorry it took so long. But I'm here now. Are you free?"
"Yup." I say, then turn to the soldiers gathering outside the HQ. "Hey, Lucy!"
"Yes boss!" Lucy shouts, running up and saluting with her usual joyfulness.
"Make the notes on this battle, would you? I really, really don't care... and I have something better to do right now."
Lucy nods, and dashes off. I turn to Nell.
"Let's go for a walk."
"Sounds good to me." Nell replies, and she can't help but let a smile grace her lips. "We've got a lot to catch up on."
-----------~~~~THE LL LOG~~~~-----------
hi guys! it's your pal lucy, back one more time to cover this mock battle!
it's only a mock, so nobody's in danger of dying. all we need to do is beat eagle!
so, along with our friends gareth, arthur and dave, and bernard and fleur, we also have alfonse!
it looks like gareth and arthur are off. i wonder where?
eagle doesn't have many soldiers either, but he's making a start on capturing all of these properties... uh oh!
alright, here we go! what's andy's plan?
andy said he wanted to see the battles more closely. i... don't get what he means. he's already at hq watching everything, how much closer can he get?
bernard leads the way~
now we have even more transport copters. that's harvey, but who's the new one?
i guess some of the other pilots have been deployed as transport copters for this map. the lower copter is actually howard!
go on, guys, do your best!
i wonder what eagle's going to do now...? he does have the advantage in funds, with a few more buildings than us!
and now he's capturing even more! that middle airport is gonna be really important!
i guess andy's just not as smart as my dude...
a new day! will we see some new friends to go with it?
well, first, the transport copters move forward. that's important!
then the other ones... what on earth is andy doing?
and then... buying more?
whoa, this is such a crazy strategy! now we've got stanley and... dad! HI DADDY!
do your best out there, pops!
uh oh, it's eagle's turn. his power keeps growing!
that nasty battle copter will be able to take out our transport copters in a single strike. they're very strong!
keep up the strategy, andy! ...whatever strategy that might be!
(oh goodness, what if he doesn't have a strategy? that'll be really bad!)
now bernard and fleur need to get out of the way of this battle copter, or they're gonna get defeated!
oh, covering the airport! that's a good move!
i bet my dude would have done something like that. though, i guess my dude would have dropped someone off to capture it, rather than just sticking a copter on it.
and this strange group of transport copters continue to fly forwards! i wish i could tell you what's going on, but i have no idea!
and now even more of them are bringing up the rear.
and now there's more! it's, uh... rose! hey rose! it was fun fighting in that final battle alongside you!
eagle's not gonna take all these copters flying into his territory lying down, though. i bet more dangerous things are coming!
oh no, i was right! that copter is going to attack!
oh dear.
at least it's a mock battle. you'll be back soon, howard!
now it's our turn. the exciting battle continues!
(i'm actually making a joke, like my dude does when he reports on battles. see, it's kind of a boring battle, but i called it exciting to make you laugh! did it work?)
keep on trucking, pilots~
they're almost at eagle's hq now, gosh.
hey, andy's learned some things! look, his copters are out of range of this anti-air.
maybe it was blind luck. but i have faith in andy!
and of course all the rest of the transport copters are catching up. there's a fighter jet, too! that's going to be a big problem, those guys rule the sky!
...well, i rule the sky as well, but fighter jets are a close second!
andy's only getting 11000 per turn, so that's two transport copters and... only one infantry. oh well, i guess not every copter needs someone inside it!
i've never seen such a silly strategy!
and now the fighter is going to strike. this will be dangerous!
POW!
and even the battle copters are getting in on the action.
oh, no, sorry! my dude calls them bro copters, doesn't he?
but hey, it doesn't matter. gareth has been dropped off by bernard!
andrew and fleur made it safely, too! wow, it's so strange to be at the enemy's hq already, without any combat~
the rest of the copters advance. but hey, we don't really need them anymore. unless something goes wrong, of course...
it's very silly though, hahah~
eagle just doesn't know how to handle this! he's more used to fighting my dude, i think...
all this capturing, but it's not gonna be any use. eagle's done, son!
i mean, not quite yet, but hopefully soon.
come on, orange star!
alright, what will andy do now that he's at the enemy hq?
ah! gareth is gonna capture it! go, gareth!
and now andy is going to use his super move!
if i had a super move, it'd be called...
...hm...
well, "hyper repair" is taken!
it wasn't very useful. i guess he was just using it because he can!
more of this. there's lots of this happening, even if i don't report on it, believe me!
oh no! an enemy infantry is going for gareth! i guess we should have expected this.
luckily, gareth wasn't too badly injured. his capturing will take longer though, which isn't good.
oh! my dude is back from his walk with nell. what a pair of cuties.
bye, guys, i'm happy i got to do this one last time~
-----------~~~~END LL LOG~~~~-----------
Almost there, but it's gonna take an extra turn. I'm not even going to ask what Dipshit's strategy was here.
Like, this would only have worked in a run where you're allowed to let things die. So, yay for casual mode, I guess?
Anyway, Arthur moves over here - there's an enemy tank up north and he needs to facetank the hit so that Gareth doesn't die.
It's not even worth reporting Eagle's movements. At this point, they literally don't matter.
Arthur channels the spirit of Von Panzer and holds the line.
Beautiful. Von Panzer would've survived it with 1HP, but that's just because he's a dramatic bitch.
Alright, fuck it. Can we all go home now? I didn't want to do this useless Eagle mission anyway.
Now this. This is a historic moment.
This is the last time that I have to say any variation of "this dick captures a property" for the rest of the campaign. NOW, it's over.
And there we go, Rivals is done. Albeit really stupidly.
…Look, I had to do this whole campaign with as few deaths as possible. Grant me this single bullshit victory!
That's factually incorrect because it implies that Dipshit has friends.
I WASN'T EVEN IN THIS BATTLE
We call them Assistant COs or ACOs, but sure.
This is the weirdest place to put this exposition, like, ever. We finally get an actual description of what our role in the game is and it's during the secret final mission you only get if you really like Fog of War maps?
Eagle I wasn't in this battle you're just a fucking idiot
By "we", of course, he means "my dude and Max".
Eagle agrees with me.
This was not Dipshit's day in the sun. It will never be Dipshit's day in the sun.
i'm going to throw a fucking wrench at you
THESE ARE ACTUAL PEOPLE'S LIVES YOU'RE DISCUSSING HERE
Until we-
Hey, that's my line. To Nell.
Until we meet again...
Fuck off back to Green Earth
Oh, you will. You really will.
Dipshit gets an atrocious rank for being an awful strategist. This would've been an S-rank if I'd been here.
And, well, things are over, I guess.
So, of course, it's time for the credits.
This first mission was a lot of fun. Definitely not hard, but it was the first mission that really let you play around with units. The tutorials were quite constrained, so this was a welcome introduction.
The first time we met Grit and his mysteriously moving artilleries. He was definitely a step up, but comparatively, this mission really wasn't so hard. Just fucking Snipe Attack...
This was a good one! I mean, at the time I fuckin' hated it, but there was some fun strategies employed. Actually, it was very similar to this last map - just holding his forces off long enough to snag the HQ with Bernard.
What's not to love about a new, stupidly strong CO, and a map full of weak things to murder? Of course, this was also the introduction of Selena, I believe.
...The less fun early Grit map. Fog of War is never great, and this one was no exception. This is where Eric fell, and where Rose revealed her mysterious powers of "just fucking off before they kill you".
This was a weird map. It's the final one with Olaf, but there's no proper payoff for beating him, since it's a property-capturing map. We never get to charge down his HQ and murder all his stuff.
This, though, was an excellent send-off to the Blue Moon arc of the anime, and Dave's mission. I had a lot of fun with this map, despite the Fog of War.
Also, I got way more S-ranks than I thought I did.
This was definitely one of the toughest maps in the campaign. Eagle and Fog of War is in full force here - beating the map was difficult enough, let alone without casualties. I recall quite a few during this one. Fucking bombers...
A rank S for a fun as hell mission. This was one where Tina and Rose really got to shine - even against Kanbei's predeployed bullshit, they were the heaviest hitters of the bunch.
This was another great mission that started out difficult but grew easier once I'd figured out how best to hold the forts. This was the single appearance of Paul, too! I honestly did want to have him appear again - it's just fate that dictated me not needing 3 rockets in any other missions.
Not necessarily the best of the Kanbei missions, I will say. What is it with climactic missions that end with an unsatisfying property-hunt? Still, I beat it, and that's all that matters. Another S-rank, too.
FOOOOOOOOOOOG
OOOOOOOOOOOOF
WAAAAAAAAAAAR
And then this moron. The map wasn't too great but I did enjoy getting to have some more naval combat.
This was a really weird map, and I'm not sure if I like it. The general mission was ok, but having to protect the landers was strange. There was a map later on that did this gimmick way better. I guess it would've been better if I wasn't already do a minimum-casualty run?
Fuck this map.
This was the good version of the "save this unit" map. Having to desperately get an infantry to safety whilst being hounded by an entire army was absolutely awesome, and I enjoyed it a lot. We also had lots of Von Panzer in this map, which is usually a plus.
Oh, now this was a good map, I enjoyed getting to fight alongside Eagle, but it wasn't terribly difficult. I think that's a bad sign considering that this is supposed to be our first brush with the villain.
I am immensely proud of this. Taking down this map, piece by painstaking piece, was very absorbing. Sure, it frustrated me at times, but man, it was so cool to field all three types of units and have this full-on fight against Sturm.
And then there was this monolith. I'm not the first person to do it minimum-casualty, I'm sure. But I don't care. I did it, and nobody had to die. Sturm was beaten after hours, and hours, and hours of practising this map, testing strategies, writing notes and comparing them... it took me quite a long time to crack it. But having done so, I can say that I am immensely satisfied with my victory.
ha ha ha
And thus, the campaign is done. Thank you, everyone, for joining me on this quest. Just under a year of weekly updates have led us here... it's been quite the year.
And now we fade...
To black.
That's the Advance Wars credits, anyway.
But of course...
This is Let's Play Advance Wars.
So let's rev up the actual credits, shall we? Follow the link below for the proper conclusion!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAYqnILaQV4
***
...All done with the video? There's a couple more things that we can do before we close things off forever. First, I have some numbers for you.
Firstly, here are the counters:
Times The Name “My Dude” Didn’t Work As Expected: 3
Andy’s Stupid Question Count: 12
Number Of Fog Of War Maps In A Row: 7 Godforsaken Fuck Of Bore Maps, Because Intelligent Systems Is Allergic To The Idea Of Fun
Mm. Surprisingly, not as many "my dude" screwups as I was expecting. Also, 7 fog of war maps in a row is monstrous.
Exactly as many stupid questions as I expected, though - honestly, I was expecting a few more. The kid's braindead.
Oh, and for those wondering, Michael died 12 times in total. Way less than I was expecting. (Though that doesn't count the unmanned APC in Enigma, or Rin in the final map!)
The combined wordcount of all the supports, including the Christmas party and Night Before, is approximately 24,600.
The mean number of screenshots per update was 131.
The updates with the fewest screenshots were:
Part 31 - Please Delete Your Search History (79)
Part 30 - Sonja Vs. Operation HQ Road Trip (75)
Part 8 - Meet Mulligan (68)
The updates with the most screenshots were:
Part 37 - Up Ship Creek Without A Paddle (200)
Part 7 - Things Go Well For Approximately One Mission (209)
Part 11 - Oh The Weather Outside Is Frightful (224)
The total number of screenshots for the SSLP was 6574. That's so many screenshots...
Some other fun facts, I guess?
* The title for each even-numbered part of LPAW contains a character's name.
* The part names "This Is The Perfect Day To Die" and "We Are The Ones Who Will Never Be Broken" were both inspired by the song "Soldiers", by Otherwise. I would usually listen to that when I wrote updates!
* The character with the greatest number of supports is Lucy, with 4 - those are with Cassandra, Tina, Michael and Ingo. She has 3 conversations with everyone except Ingo, totalling 10 supports total. The second is Tina, with 3 and 9 supports total.
Alright, I think I'm basically done here.
What's next, you ask?
Basically, I'm gonna take 3-4 weeks off, but once that time has elapsed, I'm going to make a start on another LP. As for what I'm going to play, that's up to you guys.
Vote here for what you'd like to see next!
OK, NOW we're done.
***
Some people are universal constants; though many people exist in alternate universes, universal constants are different in the sense that they can exist in ANY universe, not just universes from the same cluster.
They appear everywhere, with no rhyme or reason to their existence - note that just because they can exist in any universe, it doesn’t mean they do. Some universal constants include a red-haired expert saleswoman called Anna, a web-slinging do-gooder called Spiderman, the scientist Rick and his grandson Morty, and an outspoken but charismatic tactician called my dude.
My dudes have a tradition that they call Dudecon: every year, they get together for a wild night of partying in a sub-dimension with one another. In order to tell each other apart, they all go by nicknames based on their role or original universe. Commander (that’s me), Persona, Dragonborn, Professor, Scout… every my dude has a nickname.
More importantly: every my dude is aware that the others exist.
Remember universal constants. I have a feeling I’m not the last my dude you’re going to meet.
If you encounter someone else calling themselves my dude… tell them I said hello.