Part 4: Crater (1 of 2)
Part 4: Crater (1 of 2)
For the next map's challenge, we will not be allowed to use infantry units. That's going to slow down the start of the map a fair bit, as we'll have to capture with mechs - more expensive and less movement.
The second map is just called "Crater", presumedly for the small lake in the center. In the original Japanese, this map was appparently called "Donut Island", which is much more entertaining.
Typical setup so far, though the lake in the middle means we have both the road route and the forest route to attack/protect. Let's look at the full map:
Hmm. Something not quite right here. Why are all the cities near the Blue Moon HQ still neutral? The map is about even otherwise - the neutral cities along the road on the lower left and in and around the forest are equally far from both HQs. The cities near the Blue Moon HQ are a bit more densely packed and better positioned for defending along either front. But that's not nearly enough to offset the 7000 G income advantage we get from the start, or the several turns we don't have to spend capturing those cities from the start.
Really I'm not sure if this map design is a bug or intentional design. I do know, however, that when this map appeared in later games, the cities near the Blue Moon HQ were still left as neutral. So if it was a bug, it's not one they bothered to fix later. I suppose this game does let you choose to play the blue side if you want some extra difficulty here. Maybe you can convince me to replay the asymmetric maps for the other team after we're done here.
Turn 1
Our start advantage is offset somewhat by being stuck using mechs to capture. There are 23 cities on the map so our goal is to get to 12 (more than half) and then start pressing the advantage from there. We start with seven cities, so need to capture five more. To start, two mechs will capture the two neutral cities to the right, while another is going to get into the APC and head down the road.
Blue Moon starts with just 4000 G and four deployment spots which happens to perfectly fit four infantry units.
Turn 2
Two mechs head east, the other gets ready to get in the APC.
Like so.
We round out the turn by buying two more APCs and another mech. These will all head south. The mech on the far left was recruited from another base disguised as a city. When this map appears again in later games, that tile is correctly shown as a base instead.
Blue starts capturing, though for some reason it didn't get all four infantry to a city in one turn. There was another one right there for it, too.
Still just 4000 G so we see another four infantry pop out.
Turn 3
The first two mechs have almost reached their destination now (for the record two infantry would've gotten there this turn). The first APC unloads a mech onto the nearest city along the road. The three cities on the lower left here are the golden triangle - if we get and hold all three of these, we'll have a majority of the cities.
The secondary objective down south is to slow down the enemy infantry as much as possible. As I showed last update, APCs are an excellent hard counter to infantry, so an empty one moves down alongside the newly-loaded one.
In fact I get two more APCs along with one mech, to continue the strategy.
Blue finishes capturing three cities and starts capturing a couple more, while other infantry head outward from there. No new units recruited this time, so with the 4000 G from this turn and next turn, plus another 3000 G from the new cities next turn, Blue will have 11000 G to play with next turn. Or, what we've gotten every turn so far already.
Turn 4
We've got three city captures in progress ourselves now.
Another mech is in position to start capturing next turn, and I've not got three empty APCs down south that can harass the enemy infantry.
The last empty APC heads east to guard the forest against encroaching infantry. Vehicles like the APC only move half as fast through the forest, but that still means they can move three spaces through the forest. The mechs don't have any penalties in the forest but are still stuck at the max two movement. So the APC here can actually get through the forest better than the mechs can. And will do a much better job harassing the infantry as well.
I may have gone overboard here, getting two more APCs and two more mechs. But all I know that's coming so far is eight infantry.
Blue gets two more cities and starts capturing two more, with other infantry continuing to advance towards more cities.
That tank there is going to make life hell for our APCs, but not before we shred their infantry first.
Turn 5
Before Blue can even catch up to our initial city advantage, we add three more to our total.
One of the APCs down south starts harassing a capturing infantry, delaying capture by a turn.
We get a slightly better result by intercepting this infantry before it can even reach the city. That APC is now in range of the enemy tank; it would've been better if I'd attacked from above instead.
The third APC is able to finish off that infantry entirely.
The second member of the golden triangle is now halfway captured, while the third will get started next turn with the mech that just got dropped off by the APC.
Up north we have one APC headed deeper into the forest, and two more loaded up with mechs right behind it.
To counter the tank, we throw out an artillery.
Blue is able to capture one city in the forest and start on another one. The infantry weakened by the APC continues its capture attempt but is only 75% of the way there. He's joined by another infantry starting a capture just below and to the right.
The tank is a hard counter to my APCs and shows why here. If I'd just attacked from a different position it would've been able to take another shot at an infantry first. Oh well.
Two infantry have almost finished crossing the forest. We'll have to put a stop to that next turn.
With all the APCs I have nearby, seeing another tank is no surprise. I'm not sure why they added in a mech though. You can see that the tank was recruited from another shadow-base hiding as a city; the Blue Moon territory actually has three of those.
Turn 6
First action is to finish off one capture and start another.
The lead APC in the forest makes sure that the infantry is going to take longer to try and capture that city. I'm not quite sure but it looks like the forest gives the same defensive bonuses as a city. Quick tangent on these defensive bonuses:
In later games, each type of terrain will display a certain number of stars. Then for each star, a unit will see a 10% damage reduction for any attacks against it in that terrain. So a city for example would have three stars, and all attacks against a unit in a city would do 30% less damage. That reduction is applied after the initial damage calculation and then any fractions afterward get randomly rounded up or down from there. So sometimes you see a big effect, sometimes not so much. But in this case, we have a full-health APC that normally does 8-9 damage to an infantry. On the forest, only doing five damage indicates about a 30% damage reduction. Cities have a similar defensive bonus (about 30%, as far as I can tell). This game never tells you anything about terrain, you just have to learn it from observation and getting wrecked the first few times you attack a unit sitting on a city.
Anyway, having every forest tile give as strong a boost as a city is going to make fighting in here pretty drawn out. I've got two mechs and two loaded APCs on the way to help.
Down south we're able to finish off the wounded infantry with our APC, keeping that city neutral for a little while longer.
I'm basically sacrificing this APC to delay the enemy from capturing this city for another turn. Probably not a great trade.
The last APC retreats and loads up a mech. Maybe we can steal another city.
Blue continues its capturing efforts, gaining another city in the forest. Blue now finally has seven cities, or the same amount we started with on the first turn.
Well that's one APC down.
There's the other. We'll have to counter those tanks soon.
Good on this infantry, making a solo run into our territory.
The enemy APC heads left and unloads its infantry. The mech moves up into the forest. And an artillery is built. Nothing too daunting.
Turn 7
We start off by finishing up the capture of the last city in the golden triangle. We've now got the initial 12 cities we were pursuing.
The last APC in this corner unloads a mech onto another neutral city. Neither tank can reach it but the enemy APC sure can.
Whatever happens, we now have a medium tank in range to do some damage next turn.
Up in the forest, we have an APC soften up the stupidly brave infantry.
It's a little subtle, but can you spot the problem here? I move up a loaded APC into the forest and try to spit out the mech it's carrying. One problem - APCs apparently cannot unload into or from a forest tile.
While I contemplate that unfortunate newly-discovered gameplay quirk, we send a mech up to harass this infantry. The infantry is just going to heal up most of the damage next turn so there wasn't really much point to this attack.
Ok, we wasted a bit of time loading up those APCs and then just dumping the mechs back out again. Oh well.
Anyway, we have a loose mech go work over this infantry again.
Well, that turn could've gone better. How about a second medium tank to make us feel better?
The APC here doesn't survive and frankly doesn't even bother the tanks much, but it does soak up both tank attacks and draw them into range of our artillery and medium tank. Sacrificing APCs as bait is a time-honored Advance Wars tradition, I guess I'm just giving it a little homage here.
The highlighted city gets captured, with a couple other captures still in progress. The one on the upper-right is at 50% but will still take two more turns, if we let it last that long.
The enemy APC takes a big chunk out of our capturing mech. APCs actually do more damage to mechs than to infantry, go figure.
After some more moving around, Blue Moon finally puts out a threat. We've got our first enemy rocket.
To Be Continued...