Comm. Error
Creator: Scurge || First Published: 04/28/2016 || Players: 4 || Size: 39x21
Categories: None
Rating: 4.50 in 2 ratings
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Comments:
Scurge (04/28/2016 11:06am):
Ok, so this is meant to be a co-operative 2v2 map, which is why in the centre I there are
2 com towers to the south, and 2 labs to the north, so that - if they are being good
team-mates - both countries of whichever side can seize those middle areas can have the
firepower boosts and lab-restricted units (respectively). I was trying something different
with the sea-like areas at the top, hope it comes out Ok and possibly adds an interesting
alternative route for invading armies =D
I was initially going to make the map symmetrical top-to-bottom as well - aside from the
com tower & lab areas - but thought that would be too boring, but kept the side-to-side
symmetry. As it has turned out for now, the bottom half has the comm towers closer to the
starting locations, but the top half has a few more cities and slightly more and/or easier
areas movement-wise.
As for now, there is no FTA counter in as far as a starting inf unit or extra owned city
because with team play the turn order should work out ABBA, but if someone informs me that
even with that being the case there should still be a small starting advantage for one
side or another I'll amend it :-)

Let me know what you think ^^
ahanzhe1 (04/28/2016 04:04pm):
Hi there.
Most parts of the map're looking good, but the center bridges can be a little chocky, especially when there're no
airports. (the long supply lines'll help, though.)
liandry (04/28/2016 08:01pm | Edited: 04/28/2016 08:02pm):
towers a little bit stuck in the middle~ (did I get the lyrics right?)
How about putting them a bit apart and away from the middle so that:
1. Each team can get to a tower (instead of GE (right?) plopping infs there before everyone else)
2. Javier is not OP/broken

EDIT: HOLY CRAP 4 FREAKING TOWERS ON THE MAP RIFP

Scurge (04/28/2016 08:52pm | Edited: 04/28/2016 08:53pm):
Aye, in regards to the centre bridge I was considering making that a double-width one, and
am now considering it again.


In regards to the towers, I put the non-middle ones in to sorta promote teamwork; each
player of each team communicating with the other so as to ascertain which of them the
tower would benefit more, but I could just replace them with cities, or take one of the
centre ones away; if one team takes the lower centre area then the country that gets the
tower could just be the one that didn't get the tower closer to them.
Javier might be broken - especially with the map as it is ATM - but without any comm
towers he's not a great pick, and I'm sure the opposing team would much more heavily
contest the bottom-middle right from the start if they see a Javier on the enemy team, or
he could be banned...Interestingly he's not shown up so far, though; the first game on
this map 3 of the players are Hachi! O.o XD (and I'm the forth, playing Sonja, as it's FoW)
liandry (04/28/2016 09:30pm):
well yeah, I think the non-middle towers are fine
but the middle towers are (you know) right in the middle, which means that, despite turn order supposedly
removing the FTA, whoever gets the very first turn can rush said towers (or labs, but screw them anyway)
aaaaaaand bam! happy fun times for that player
check this out so you know what I mean:
http://amarriner.com/awbw_forum/viewtopic.php?t=8518
skip to Central key point part thingy
ahanzhe1 (04/28/2016 10:03pm | Edited: 04/28/2016 10:34pm):
As you said, taking one tower away would be a lot better, and since there're also some other central
properties
up top (cities), rushing the tower won't really be a problem. (Unless it's Javier) And the terrain around the
central
tower's a bit chocky (Easy to defend & hard to attack), which does help the first player.

And I'm assuming that you want each player to have 3 bases, so it might be a little better if one of GE's
base's switched with GS's, (or make it so each player would be able to reach the bases in the same time) so
it'll be the same distance.

A couple airports (for one team,) in the far away corners might be nice too, it can solve the chocky terrain
problem (not completely) while not being too favored for they'll be far away from the fronts.
Xmo5 (04/29/2016 07:40am):
Javier with 2 towers is what we call "broken", meaning he's so good with 2 towers that you virtually can't lose in an
otherwise fair match. When a team has 2 towers, it's very common for one player to pick Javier and get both
towers. Other broken COs include Colin, Grit, Hachi, Kanbei, and Sensei, so it's no surprise that 3 people picked
Hachi.

My suggestion is that for any serious AWBW games, you ban the broken 5. Other frequenters include Sturm (his
terrain bonus breaks the capture phase sometimes), Javier (2T+), Sasha (with a lot of cities), Lash/Kindle (high
density of dense terrain/cities near the front), and Sami (over-exposed key properties, infantry-friendly ground,
short supply lines, and a lot of cities near the fronts). There are probably others, but those come to mind off the top
of my head.
Scurge (05/04/2016 10:58am | Edited: 05/04/2016 11:01am):
Unfortunately you can't edit your maps while games are being played on them x_x; I was
going to:

Address the chokeyness of the middle by replacing two of the river squares in the centre
(and the squares side-wards adjacent to them) with shores(or shoals or whatever they're
meant to be called! XD), to suggest an area where the water of the river covered more
land, but essentially 'thinned' out as a result, before funneling back into a more usual
river, giving vehicles the ability to drive through that part. If people could also give their
thoughts on that, mostly from an aesthetic/geographical point of view, that'd be awesome(
please =3);

Switch the positions of GE and GS. In a team game, while GE gets the first move, BH and RF
move between them and their team-mate, so after the first turn GS is moving directly
before the new day and GE's next turn, so the one supplying the defensive 'wall' of units -
in such a strategy - would be the one at the back on the left-hand side, which strikes me as a
little silly, for want of a better way of explaining my thoughts on that;

Give the countries further away from them an infantry unit that's slightly closer to the
northern neutral factory on their side of the map than how close the other country's base is;

(and, lastly(but CERTAINLY not least)) work on a fix towards the comm towers issue! I was
going to replace the two comm towers closer to the teams with cities and leave the middle
two as I want that centre to be hotly contested but also involve the sacrifice already
present for it - which is leaving a the labs and larger number of cities to the north to
be taken by enemy forces if too many of one's own forces are committed to capturing the
south so as to take (and/or defend) the comm towers - BUT also make that area easier to
access so that attacking it is easier for both sides, making it harder to keep a hold of
it, so just getting there first isn't so important, speaking of which I was going to
remove the mountains adjacent to the two upper bridges for that part.
HOWEVER I think some people would prefer me to leave the two non-central towers as thy are
and instead replace one of the towers in the middle with a city (and, just so we're clear,
I'd have this option leave out the removal of those aforementioned mountains next to the
bridges), so I'd like to put that last point to a vote:
2 comm towers in the middle but that area being slightly more accessible/open whilst
replacing the other two with cities, or only one tower in the middle and keep the other
two as they are? :-)
Xmo5 (05/05/2016 09:42am):
Yeah, not being able to edit maps while games are being played can be a hassle, especially
when you don't start the games.. and they just keep going. Definitely the #1 reason why I
never get around to editing maps- by the time the games end on them, I forget that I was
going to edit it to begin with!

Anyway, I think the shoals in the center would be a good addition. I'd recommend having
the middle 3 river tiles (one is a bridge right now) be shoals (or bridges, or something
you can cross) instead of making a bunch of bottlenecks. I'd leave the bridges. In terms
of the concept/aesthetics, I think it's perfectly fine, and it's actually one of my
favorite ways to make aesthetic river crossings. For example, you can (ironically) look at
my map "Bottleneck Creek"- http://awbw.amarriner.com/prevmaps.php?maps_id=62125

Team turn order should always always always be ABBA. It serves to counter FTA. (More about
that later) I also recommend starting funds to be minimal; 2 bases and an HQ for each
player would be best.

As far as towers are concerned, you really should lose the central towers and labs. It's
okay to have contested towers and labs, and I even prefer and encourage it. However,
placing them at the exact center line (plus or minus a space or two, maybe more depending
on the map) just makes things ugly. Personally, I'd open up the bottom and the top and
then place towers and labs just over the safe side of the river (which should be easier to
cross). I'd suggest having a tower on one side and a lab on the other, so that each team
has a safe(ish) lab and a safe(ish) tower, but opposite the other team's opposite type.
And if you really really wanted to make things better at the expense of a lot of changes,
I would make the fronts uneven. Basically, give Team A more power in the north and Team B
more power in the south. Combined with the tower/lab suggestion, that means each team
would have a safe lab and be driving towards the enemy tower which is more exposed. (or
the other way around). Basically, you want the battle to progress, so giving each team a
way to force through an area while losing another area is a great way to do that. It's
especially interesting when that impacts the center which is "dead even" and prone to
stalemates. If the center is stalled, but Team A breaks through the north while Team B
breaks through the south, they can both reinforce the center battle *from "enemy"
territory* and really force some strategy and planning into the mix.

I know that's a lot to throw at you, but they're just ideas to consider. The important
parts are: Keep turn order ABBA, open up the river crossings and clear some mountains in
N/S fronts, and don't leave any important properties too close to dead center.

Good resources to look into:

FTA Guide: http://www.takeyourturn.net/t878-fta-guide-i-introduction-to-fta#5100
Map Making Guide:
http://www.takeyourturn.net/t877-map-making-guide-i-introduction-to-awbw-map-design#5099
Scurge (07/02/2016 11:02am):
I've only quickly made some minor changes here, mostly towards making crossing the river
easier; I have added airports to the map, replaced some mountains towards the bottom with
forests so the upper two bridges can be used by vehicles to access the centre isle down
there, replaced the mountain between the labs with a breakable pipe seam and changed the
river either side of it with shores, and added a load of shores in the middle as well,
representing an area where the river spreads out over its flood plain, covering more land
but as a result becoming very shallow, allowing vehicles to drive through, possibly
becoming more of a swamp than anything else, which is why I added the forest in the centre
there( other than it being another shore just looked weird); the movement penalty the
forest has to vehicles means it could represent a boggy area quite well :-)

I've also swapped GE and GS's starting positions for the reasons I gave some time ago,
moved the neutral bases/factories one space each and given the countries of each side that
have their bases further away from the neutral bases and airports (of their side, of
course) an inf unit to start with that can get to any one of those properties in exactly 3
turns, whereas their allies' units will have an extra space to travel, so even if teamwork
and/or communication between allied players isn't great at the start, each country should
still end up with three bases and one airport.

I renamed the map (the new name pertaining to the whole comm-tower situation, but also
relating to the teamwork-based dynamic of the map; the allies with the best co-ordination,
etc. should win as a result of their good communication and teamwork =D) and worked a
little towards the comm-towers issue; the two towers close to each side has been replaced
with a city, and - while they're still on the middle isle at the bottom - I have moved the
towers away from the exact centre a little, as well as making that area more accessible,
especially to vehicles (two bridges each side can now use instead of only one) but I do
intend on a more major rework in the future, turning the whole or at least middle of the
map to rotational symmetry, moving the labs away from the centre and the comm towers
further away from the middle, and then switching one comm tower with the lab of the same
side, resulting in one safe-ish tower and lab for each team and giving one an easier time
to push over the middle of the map at the top and the other an easier means to do the same
at the top, in line with earlier feedback, but those changes will unfortunately have to
wait for a day where I have more free time x_x;

ATM I'd still be interested in how the changes I've made so far would alter gameplay, so I
may set up a map-test-based game sometime in the next few days :-)



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