Battle of the Bulge 2v1
Creator: DASRTwelve || First Published: 02/11/2015 || Players: 3 || Size: 40x40
Categories: None
Rating: 0 in 0 ratings
For design map discussion or to get suggestions from other users, visit the AWBW Discord Chat!
Comments:
DASRTwelve (02/11/2015 08:57pm | Edited: 02/13/2015 02:24pm):
!!WORK IN PROGRESS!!

Rules:
CO Powers OFF
Clear Weather
Fog ON
No capture/days, standard funding

Banned Units: Landers, battleships, cruisers, neotanks and Megatanks.
Lab Units: Everything Else except Black Boats (meaning whoever gets the port in the
beginning can build black boats ONLY)

This is a map replicating the Battle of the Bulge. Green Earth is Germany, Red Fire is
England and Grey Sky is US.
Grey Sky represents the US in this because GE has to move first (otherwise OS)

Basically, GE is trying to rush to the base/lab cluster while RF and GS have to hold off.
This map is predeployed until someone gets a lab, then they will pretty much win. If GE
can't break through RF and GS's defenses, then RF and GS can calmly walk up to the labs
and capture them (be sure that if RF and GS prevent GE from getting the lab, each country
gets a lab). If GE breaks through, it can use it's bases to crush RF and GS. RF and GS
will be spread out more and GE will be concentrated towards its HQ. RF and GS and GE
should not have infantry close to the lab to ensure no nation will get an early capture
(and win).

The Bases cluster in the upper left represents Antwerp, the German Goal. The middle city
cluster is Bastogne, a heavily sieged city in the real battle. A base for whoevers troops
lie in there, and it will be useful after the Battle for the Labs are over. The port there
is so a black boat can be built there. As this is mostly a predeployed map, you definitely
want your units being repaired. The black boat is a small, but handy unit to have around
to repair your damaged Medium tank with the funds that you won't be able to spend for a
long time anyways.

dudeman33 (02/11/2015 09:15pm):
ehh okay it could be better

NDA|D007 (02/13/2015 12:39pm | Edited: 02/13/2015 12:41pm):
Now now dudeman33, that's not very nice.

Map author, this is a very interesting concept based on a significant historical battle.
It looks like a lot of work has gone into it and with the rules you have specified I think
it'll make for a good fun large-scale game.
Balance is always tough with pre-deployed asymmetrical maps like this but I can't see any
immediate issues. The outcome will very much depend on the skill of the commanders if
playing in FOW.
When you have finished tweaking the map I'd be interested to play a test run on it!

P.S. I'm not 100% sure but I think a blanket "ban" on units will also prevent them from
being built even if a lab is owned.
DASRTwelve (02/13/2015 02:23pm):
Thanks for the encouragement NDA! Dudeman here has yet to learn about AW mapmaking.

I had this idea for a project I was doing, but the project got scrapped. I did the map
anyways so here it is!

For the time being, I just need to figure out how many more indirects and tanks the Allies
need to balance off GE's massive army. Of course, the first turns are one-sided for GE,
and I'll need to find a way for the Allies to turn it around without 100% winning all the
time. I'll add side-goodies like more cities later too.

The blanket ban does do that I think. I tested one of my previous maps doing that and they
were prevented from being built.
Everdan (02/14/2015 06:23am):
Sturm and Lash need to be banned. Period.

Anyway, it's an interesting concept! GE has a massive army but RF and GS have enough scattered troops that
it might be possible to snipe off GE's units one by one.

First problem: Massive FTA. From the map design, it seems GE is intended to capture the central properties.
On day 1, GE's going to kill most of the troops on the western border, because they aren't on forests and are
visible to the recons, and are also in range of GE's many indirects. After that onslaught, there basically won't be
enough troops left to mount an effective defense. So in almost all games GE will secure the central property
clump with minimal losses. This wouldn't be so bad since they can't actually build anything, but the critical point
is that most of the allied infantry can be massacred by GE on turn 1, with the sole exception of the southern
infantries, and it's not too difficult for a competent player to eliminate those either, because you know where they
start off. Essentially, GE can afford to spend resources on a search-and-destroy mission against the infantries,
after which the game becomes a horribly long battle of attrition where GE has the upper hand because they
start with more predeployeds and only GE has units capable of capturing.

To fix this, I think you should reposition the allied forces so that they're either hidden or out of range of the arties
and rockets, and move the clump of properties closer to the east so it's not so quickly overrun. In particular,
you should really reposition the allied infantries closer to the base clump. Starting in the south-west corner
wouldn't be a bad idea. You can play with the distance and terrain, but the point is that the situation now forces
GE to rush towards the base clump rather than loll around killing infantry, which makes the game more
balanced.

Second problem: Terrain.
Also, FOW with forests is going to be a nightmare for both sides. No doubt this is your intention, but I think it's
going to be very difficult to effectively stop the GE troops because the allied indirects are crippled by the lack of
vision. It's not even fixable by adding recons because the forests can't be seen into. I think you should seriously
deforest the map, maybe having forests 2 or 3 spaces away from each other but not large clumps of trees
everywhere. Then the allied troops can hide their units in the forests while maintaining a decent vision range.

Third problem: Balance.
As it is GE probably has waaaaaaay too many troops. GE has 11 Md tanks, 9 rockets while the allied forces
have only 5 of each. GE also has an extra megatank, recons for vision, and more infantries. Granted, the allied
forces have more tanks and arties, but because they're so scattered it's going to take a long time for them to
pose any sort of threat. In the meantime GE's Md tanks will just roll down and happily destroy anything they find,
with the megatank acting as backup. And this isn't even counting all those troops GE can destroy on day 1.

I suggest cutting GE's troops to 7 Md tanks, 6 rockets and giving them a couple more arties. I admit I don't
know exactly how many is enough to balance the game, perhaps others will have better suggestions. But this
way it won't be so one-sided. Or if you're fixated on GE having a large number of troops, maybe you can create
a piped-off section of reinforcements with heavy terrain and a few pipe seams to delay their arrival. This section
should contain half the Md tanks and a couple rockets. That would give RF and GS the time they need to
organise their defences.

Right now, the map probably gets around 4-5 out of 10. With the suggested improvements I can see it being
bumped to a 6 or 7.

There are probably other things I could say, but this comment is getting a bit long as it is so I'm going to stop
here. PM me when you're done and I'll take another look at it. Cheers!
DASRTwelve (02/14/2015 02:19pm):
Turning CO powers off also gets rid of their d2d abilities, so no CO bans are necessary =]

I'm still currently working on balance. The Allied forces are definitely far from balanced
right now. (I'm still working on it) The point of GE's first turn is to run rampage
through the Allied defenses, so the Allied front line needs to be a bit underpowered. This
leaves the question of how the Allies can get baack at GE with GE still having a chance at
winning the battle. The Allies will get more units and Bastogne will be a lot more heavily
defended. I'm thinking of adding an area where there are a couple copters and bombers
behind pipes for RF and GS such that if GE takes too long, the air units will run out a
wreck GE, since in the actual Battle of the BUlge, Allied planes were hampered by the bad
weather, but could take off after the weather cleared.

THe middle base cluster will be rather useless once the planes-time-limit is introduced
because it's more important to rush the bases and get an AA defense set up rather thhan
lol around with black boats while your medium tanks get bombed to death (I'll make sure GE
has a slightly weaker AA defense)

I think you're right about the forrests There is simply not enough vision for either team.
and GE could sneak and APC and infantry to get the bases, although it'll take a very long
time.



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