Fimbulwinter [v0.95]
Creator: andymans || First Published: N/A || Players: 16 || Size: 49x49
Categories: None
Rating: 1.00 in 1 rating
For design map discussion or to get suggestions from other users, visit the AWBW Discord Chat!
Comments:
Linten (12/02/2025 08:31pm):
The map is simply too large, and the player count too high. Anything above eight players is constantly a slow slog of a resign fest with fractured balance due to the empty bases. Then you're asking people to cross a 50x50 map with plenty of sea and blockades in the center.

Do you have any idea how many turns, and how much time in waiting that accounts for? The map will go on forever and not in any real fun or decisions behind it.
andymans (12/15/2025 01:28pm):
> constantly a slow slog of a resign fest

> The map will go on forever and not in any real fun or decisions behind it.

You just described pretty much every FFA game I tried to be involved with in AWBW lol.

So I am on a personal quest to try to make a better FFA experience. I think there's a lot of untapped potential there, but the way it's put into practice right now just usually doesn't make for a fun experience, on whatever map. The general experience you're talking about is actually what I'm trying to *solve* with this map. It's ubiquitous in general for FFA on AWBW as far as I can tell. Generally my strategy has been:

* Symmetrical and balanced early on but still with some variety to the map
* Vet the players beforehand so that early-leave-ers are minimized so it's not a resignfest (seems necessary whatever map you want to play, even with 8 players)
* Make some tipping points in the map so it comes to a definite conclusion instead of developing to a tedious late game slog
* Shorter time limits so it doesn't take years and years to finish a game

You can see it in action on an earlier version of this map: https://awbw.amarriner.com/game.php?games_id=1504247

So the big decisions for players to make are who to ally with, and when to try to expand to the center. You can see in that game that Blue Moon expanded too early and got swamped in their HQ for example. There are also some tweaks since then, you can also see that it's too much of a disadvantage for the corner players still, being isolated from the center which is unfair for them. And also I tried to shrink the center's labs together so it's only really one person or one faction who winds up with control of them. (The labs in the middle unlock some units, so the battle for definitive control of the center is the "endgame" and you don't have to have a long tedious slogfest across the map, people will either resign or get beat in a tidy fashion (or draw or w/e)).

Doesn't seem like a waste of time for the people involved. Compare to this 16p game you were in on a different map, with 25% of the players gone by day 5 and the resignfest continuing after that: https://awbw.amarriner.com/game.php?games_id=1449363

IDK, I am still tweaking, this version has some further attempts to balance out access to the center between corner people and side people, but let's see how well it will work in practice.

I do actually agree with you about 16 players just being too many. I mostly am making 8p maps, and I saw that some people play 16p and decided to try and see how it worked. I think 8p is just better. Actually, the main reason I have been starting up some games on this form factor is just to test a script I am using to try to weed out the early leave-ers. Doing 16p games gives a lot better feedback for me on the script than 8p games. For fun-ness of game, I think there is more variety to be had (and the games go quicker) in 8p and there's no real advantage to including 16 people, I think going forward after this map I will stick to 8p.



Advance Wars is (c) 1990-2001 Nintendo and (c) 2001 Intelligent Systems. All images are copyright their respective owners.