The Wicker Tree
Creator: Dr Nasty || First Published: 07/14/2025 || Players: 2 || Size: 19x19
Categories: B-Rank, Live Play, Standard
Rating: 0 in 0 ratings
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Comments:
Dr Nasty (07/14/2025 08:55am | Edited: 07/14/2025 03:51pm):
Rework of The Wicker Man Intended for standard live play
https://awbw.amarriner.com/prevmaps.php?maps_id=165178
MontySigurdson (07/18/2025 03:36pm | Edited: 07/19/2025 08:12am):
The 1b can be Copter-locked from the river. This forces you to build a Copter or an AA (the AA is very bad due to the terrain so that leaves just the Copter buy).

So I think the terrain around the 1b should be redesigned a bit to make the threat of a baselock weaker and buff AAs a bit. Maybe turn the river tile next to the base into a pipe(seam)? That eliminates the Copter lock from that tile and shouldn't make too much of a difference otherwise.

EDIT: Back to New after changes
MontySigurdson (07/19/2025 10:25am | Edited: 07/19/2025 12:43pm):
2nd review:
- Only P1 has an early city skip that they can use and still get BAAB tank order. This means they can grab the Com Tower early, among other things. So I've removed the Live tag.

- Not sure about the gimmick - to me it looks like T-Copters aren't quite worth it as the opponent's Infantry units will cap the corner properties anyway long-term - so at best you can slow the opponent's capture game down a bit and 5k (plus tempo loss elsewhere) is a rather steep investment for that. So maybe bringing the corner Infs over is more of a lategame thing, though in practice the opponent can just keep 1 or 2 Infs in the back to prevent that.

- On the flipside, the smaller map size coupled with the limited AA movement makes it so that BCopters from the corner airport are very strong as they can exert pressure in a huge area and will likely always get at least one free attack. I'd also say this gimmick is hard to balance on a small map - IMO the airports are either kinda OP (as they are now) or too weak (as they would be with better AA movement).

- The 1b1a still looks quite weak as it's still pretty prone to getting overwhelmed (airport can be locked with AA in 2 turns and if that's successful, the 1b just gets swarmed by the 2b).

Overall a B IMO.

EDIT: Re-Newed after changes.
MontySigurdson (07/25/2025 03:46pm):
Day 3 Recon can deny the airport capture, so I think that is too good of an opener. In general the map feels a bit too one-dimensional due to slight chokiness / limited movement options, so I think B-rank is ultimately fine here.



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