Mastodawn

#retrogaming #letsplay #snes #superfamicomwars

prokyonid Feb 18

Our first map is Kotsubujima, which translates to something like Small Island. This was localized as Ridge Island, and is the basis for the #advancewars War Room map. All of the 'New' campaign maps are in Advance Wars, though some are highly modified.

The enemy here starts off with a small purse of extra funds beyond their day 1 income, and yellow has a defensive advantage due to layout of the map. Otherwise, we begin on equal footing.

prokyonid Feb 9

And that's it! Victory by rout on turn 49.

I've played this map often, on all the titles in the series, and this has been the most interesting battle I've had on it. The enemy CO, "Billy Gates" has a special ability - they get an extra 10,000 income every turn, which is how they were able to field such a powerful force so early in the game. The only thing to do was to flood the map with cheap units and stall them until I could afford powerful units of my own.

prokyonid Feb 9

Ugh, the slog's almost over, finally made it to the enemy base. We're playing the Domination ruleset, so there are three conditions for victory - rout or HQ capture, as always, or by capturing 75% of the properties on the map. The enemy is still well-funded and is turtling up, so it's a toss-up if the win will come by rout or by domination.

This little dude's not feeling good about his prospects.

I think we've finally broken the stalemate! I moved my defensive rockets into the firing range of the enemy, forcing the AI to prioritize between rebuffing my advance and hitting my rockets. They split the difference, which left me with just enough firepower to do some lasting damage and start making solid gains again.

Well, everything went according to plan, and I managed to keep the enemy's rockets occupied until I could push the rest of their forces out of the north. Unfortunately, due to the level-up system in the game, this now means the enemy has a stack of super-powered rockets. I've built my own pile of rockets, and for the last 15 turns or so we've had a stalemate, trading control of the pass leading to the enemy base and turning it into an unpassable valley of death.

Third attempt is looking very promising so far. Rather than attempt to intimidate the enemy out of advancing their rockets, I have been feeding them infantry in the south. Since rockets cannot move and fire on the same turn, this means they are stuck defending against an endless stream of suicide attacks across the mountains. Hopefully, this will paralyze the enemy long enough for me to build up my forces in the north.