Vending Machine Services
Creator: Shikabane || First Published: 08/31/2026 || Players: 2 || Size: 25x17
Categories: New, Fog of War, Live Play
Rating: 0 in 0 ratings
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Comments:
Shikabane (08/31/2026 01:30am):
For FOW/Live
MontySigurdson (08/31/2026 02:06pm):
Not sure if I like the piperunner gimmick - it seems like there's some possible RPS since you can choose to move it (unknowingly) at the perfect time to deny the capture of the airport it doesn't have vision of initially. Which the other player would have to anticipate by capping both airports at the same time. So the gimmick leads to some extra hoops to jump through mostly. Once the piperunner is destroyed (I think using a Copter is best?), there's also some RPS with the double airport.

So I'd probably scrap the piperunner and the 2nd airport.

There also are several good defensive Arty forests near the frontline, maybe a bit too many.
soul4rent (08/31/2026 05:41pm):
Piperunners don't cause RPS because pipes are always visible in fog, so I'll re-new this. The defensive forests might be an issue
though.
MontySigurdson (08/31/2026 05:54pm | Edited: 08/31/2026 06:11pm):
Well yeah, you have vision on the piperunner all the time, but if you want an early airport you still have to plan ahead for the opponent moving the piperunner to cover the other airport (which is a bit of RPS since you don't know if they will move it). You can probably figure out a good time to move the piperunner by moveplannering the map beforehand and pinpointing the turn when the oppononent would usually start capping the airport that isn't covered. So the best way for the opponent to anticipate this is to have a 2nd Inf ready to cap the other airport instead if that should happen.

So it does make the early game a bit streamlined. You can choose which airport the opponent gets first but I'm not even sure if it makes a huge difference since both airports are flexible. As long as you can get one and the piperunner doesn't cover it, you can send Copters anywhere anyway. This is also where RPS comes in since even if you cap an airport, if the opponent moves the piperunner back while your Inf is still sitting on it, you still can't build air units.

Once you can build a Copter or a tank the piperunner will likely die and you can use both airports. So what the early piperunner does is to restrict early Inf movement for the players (if they want an early airport at least). If not, they can skip all the possible piperunner move RPS, delay capping the airports and kill the piperunner with a tank first.

So yeah, I'm sceptical about the piperunner gimmick adding much to the map. It looks very solvable, too, since you can prepare for each eventuality and there probably is an optimal way to do it depending on if you want an early airport or not.

Maybe it still works, but I kinda doubt it.
Shikabane (08/31/2026 07:29pm):
If they move the piperunner to cover the airport just... capture the other one. I dont think its a super big commitment to keep
1 inf in range of the opposite airport especially early on. Playtesting showed the piperunnner gimmick worked fine, i think
we're being too critical with all due respect, any 'rps' thing is kind of irrelevant when it doesn't affect early income in a very
meaningful way imo. there's plenty of forward caps to get and its fog so you can get away with delaying back caps for quite
some time

i thought about making them pre-owned but i dont think thats possible with a TA counter. at most the piperunner gets some
free slots and is annoying but not oppressive which is the point of it.



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