AW-like games to look forward to

http://riskylab.com/warbits/
An IOS game that's very similar to AW, but with more cartoony looking graphics(in a good way), will have competitive online gameplay, and the devs plan on implementing custom maps - it'll cost 2$, and come out sometime this year. I'm not sure if there will be COs, but there's 4 nations like AW.

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=41573.msg1041313#msg1041313
At the current stage the graphics are a little weak, it'll come out on windows(maybe mac), custom maps will be long term goal, and the focus is on single player at this point. There will be no COs/COP. They also plan on charging "more than an app, but less than a 3ds game".

These are our current best choices for future aw-like gameplay; I'm probably going to go the warbits route because I'm not poor, and like portability/graphics.

What's AWBW's opinion?

only COP and SCOP can break the line.
i afraid that no power game will be very bored.

I understand that, and agree 100%, and not only that, but it makes the games a lot more fun. The problem though is that the "casual-pros" see it as a noob thing, and think it takes away from the gameplay, so these Devs try to cater to that.

joeli50 wrote:only COP and SCOP can break the line.
i m afraid that no power game will be very bored.

this can be true with a fair number of the "standard" maps that are used in the leagues, ...particularly once the map has been played a couple of times. Indeed some maps are such that even having COP/SCOP powers they still are drawish because power bar cant be charged without excessive risk.  In fact on some maps top official league player , the then leader, offer me a draw before play hardly commenced as it would be too boring.  I actually refused the draw and tried something unusual to create an imbalance and just ended difficulties for myself. I think he was getting bored with official maps but was too shy to speak out. (or didnt like arguing a point in foreign tongue).

Nontheless a few of the league maps are fairly nonstandoffish, at least if you try to win, in my experience (eg  "blood on my hands" i think. i ll check when AWBW is back up).

However i believe there are ways to design maps with lots more varied choices which make standoffs much more improbable than the typical competition map. (we might also consider customisation of units later)

The map making choices can come in various ways  , some examples:
  --having lots of battlefront (/fronts)
    - many contested properties / many contested strategic points
        (note that having only one or two contested properties may result in a    
         race followed by a quick win or stabilise into standoff again )
-- mixed base maps are really amazingly nonstandoffish.  There has never been a game on mixed base map reported as  resulting in standoff for fairly obvious reasons.
Gameplay strategy choices can arise also from
--unusual features of topography or
--larger selection of appropriate (strong) units
--(higher funds), or misile silos,
--having plenty of options regarding air or naval.
--Putting some predeployeds esp  black boat or landers can also widen gameplay options.

Basically the more wierd things on a map the better; the less likely it is to result in stalemate.

When there are lots of highly different but (apparently) good strategies  possible then theres more likely to develop an imbalance which by middle game could manifest in fluidity and further unbalanced plays and attempts at game winning.


In addition,  note that simply having FOG can often help discourage standoffs from developing (slightly map dependent). Do these new websites/apps cited by iordor support fog i wonder?.. fog can be quite tricky to implement and even marriners undoubted skill left a couple of funny bugs that occur from time to time in awbw fog.

AWBW already has quite a few non-standard maps which are fun and fair which have never been used in leagues simply because they seem strange.
However AW really needs to start pushing more into these non-standard areas as that is where the AW future lies. I would estimate at AWBW we only have explored maybe  one percent of the different possible types of good battle maps.

As first example , even the well known "mixed-base" type maps have never (?) been used in any league or serious competition.  Only after some serious games between top players will it be really clear to the community that these offer great battle opportunities.

AW has so much potential for diversification its difficult to recall it all.  
-- predeployed games which can be balanced with a bit of work.  
--infantry production bans with some predeployed infantry instead. (hey these infantry once you lose them then what , you gonna think twice about using them as meatshield in that case!) Without usual infantry spam and meatshielding then that is going to totally alter the usual standoff situation.

There are so many variables available to AW that its really only to be expected that there must be loads to explore.

"If the art of war were nothing but the art of avoiding risks, glory would become the prey of mediocre minds. I have made all the calculations, fate will do the rest."
-Napoleon(not the awbw player...)

The genius tactician wants risk, and wants to push his opponen past his confort zone into blundering - this is what the best chess players do such as kasparov: they put the position into such a complex situation that they crumble under his tactical genius, and vision.

This is no different in AWBW; the best players actually make calculations, and push their units forward giving the enemy either two choices - either to attack you increasing your COP bar, and opening themselves up for counter attack, or fall back losing ground. The best players actually calculate out all the numbers and sacs they need to get their COP.

---

Regarding FOW:

FOW is pretty much auto draw because it increases the power of the meatshield/artillery strategy. A player doesn't know what he's running into, so he doesn't know how to break the wall to get into his enemies walls. He could sac an INF to get information on his enemy, but by doing so he would be blocking his own troops from attacking - the opponent mixes his walls again on his turn, and the situation repeats.

FOW also takes away a main part of the gameplay since a huge part of the game is out building you opponent, and this allows cheesy things to happen in the game, because you don't know if your enemy is spamming tanks, or copters until it's too late.

---

I'd be happy to test some of your game ideas with you - I got some things I could gripe about them, but would rather not until I try them out for myself.

I may be a relatively inexperienced AW player, but my experience with FoW has been pretty much the opposite. In fact, I'd go so far as to say Fog of War makes games less stalemate-prone. Fog of War allows for so many tactical applications that aren't found in normal games. From what I can gather, the reason why infantry/indirect walls is such a prevalent strategy in the current metagame (apart from the fact that breaking through infantry walls in a single turn is difficult and requires careful setup) is the fact that since you know where all of your enemy's units are, you can carefully set up your own units so that the enemy can neither maneuver around your wall nor break through it.

In Fog of War, things become more complicated. You can't always reliably shield your indirect units and keep them out of reach of enemy units, since you don't know where all enemy units are and where they can attack from. Obviously you can tell where units are likely to go and from which direction they will likely approach from, but there's no guaranteed certainty like in non-FoW games, which makes it more interesting. There's always that one chance that the enemy snuck a tank into that forest without you noticing. You could send an infantry unit to check it out, but if you do, your wall will be weaker. It creates interesting tactical situations and maneuvering, and offers players more of a challenge by requiring them to gather information.

As for the second part, not knowing what your opponent is building, again, just makes the game more interesting. Instead of falling into boring counter-play and spamming the one unit that wins the Rock-Paper-Scissors fight against the opponent's main unit, it teaches players to prepare for everything, forcing players to field a wider variety of units so that they can adapt to any plan that the opponent enacts. If anything it makes the game less likely to fall into infantry/indirect walls, not more.

But then again, I'm just a new guy with less than a 100 matches under my belt, so what do I know?

At Iordor/dragunov.

The genius tactician wants risk, and wants to push his opponen past his confort zone into blundering - this is what the best chess players do such as kasparov: they put the position into such a complex situation that they crumble under his tactical genius, and vision.

Just wondering where did you get this idea from. In chess circles they distinguish strategy from tactics (combinations).
Computers are just wayout masters of calculating tactical combinations.  Whereas humans excel at intuitive ,strategical, vision  (which is more difficult to program into a computer , it is sort of put in by hand,  For example a bishop pair is given a tiny advantage over knight plus bishop ..the programmers put this little gem in which they hear from the GMs who learnt it from experience and intuition .
Top GMs are of course all very good at calculating but most of their difficult choices are intuitive strategical. This is the only way they can beat/hold up against computers and it is the way they try to beat each other.  They prefer strategically sound positions. Yes they will often use tactics /calculations to manoevre to a better position or simply to take advantage of their superior pressure and finish the game.
In fact even club players can be surprisingly good at looking deep when they study tactics books.  Grandmasters actually avoid messy tactical positions against lesser players, because they dont want to run risk of human calculation error.  In GM v GM games, the one who is losing positionally may throw caution to the wind and try to complicate the position hoping for a lucky tactic whereas the player with better position tries to avoid complications.

Well this is at the GM level. Lower level in clubs, i supose there are lots of great tactical players who love to complicate against everyone, even when they know they shouldnt. Well they arent professional so they dont lose money, but they may lose a few points.
I guess a lesser GM if he really needs a win he might try to complicate the game, but normally his best chance for survival would be to play positionally and hope for a draw which is quite common for GMs.

Answering Myroc
-- you already sound quite experienced.  If you have played anywhere near the 100 games that you mention, and if many were 1v1, and if you thought a lot while playing (not just rapid fun/carefree games), and you only broke golden rules for very special occasions, and you beat newbs easily and put up strong resistance against league leaders then you already have experience enough to argue points. Keep it up!

re. the aw stand-off and fog argument:
First i think we must be careful about which kind of map we are talking about and which conditions be it fog or with CO powers etc.  We gotta be careful of over-generalisations.
Some years back I argued in the old forum about the kinds of maps which are more prone to standoff, and it seems clearly different in fog off or with fog on. And i have sample maps of the extreme cases as design maps under my username with the rationale in map comments. Unfortunately there was never any real debate and no play-testing of this topic, which was a real shame.

The awbw site is down , but as i recall the argument was fairly simple. if you put important stuff (property or strategic locations like hills or forest) near the battle front lines then the map encourages advancement, whereas if theres a wide barren no-mans land then it is difficult to advance and encourages stand-off.  Clearly in fog, forests play a major role, whereas in non-fog forests are much less important and hills and river topology is major factor.  This indicates that good fog maps are not necessarily also good in non-fog and vice versa.

(unfinished , I ll post more later)

Heh, should of waited til you got finished - wrote all this up to find that you're changing yours! Guess I can't finish mine until you finish yours...   

@myroc: I was going to reply to you, but blanci already did, and I agree with him - this game is too map dependent to actually analyze with generalities. What's true on one map isn't necessary true on another. I would like to add though that FoW on AW4 is pretty solid, and fun, but that's because you can hear what type of unit he's moving around and plan around that a bit, or try to use it to deceive your opponent, and the flare of course - however, on AWBW there isn't such a sound option to hear into what he's doing, nor is there a flare. Another part of my problem with fog is that it slows down a game that's already slow, but at least the flare, and sound makes it easier to push on someone who doesn't want to resign when he's already lost. I guess we can disagree over this, but that's my opinion.

---

@blanci
I think you missed the "vision" part of my sentence, and that's precisely what strategy is - a vision. It's seeing your tactical possibilities, and picking the best options that achieve your strategic aims.

You also should realize that tactics define strategy. To understand the operational level of something you first need to understand the tactical/micro - what you are capable of determines your capabilities, and strategical options, and the same with your enemy.

I'd like to make the claim that intuition IS calculation - it's calculation, experience, and knowledge that's been repeated over, and over so many times that it becomes unconscious. The *feel* one has about a position is really nothing more than internalized calculation. That's why one thing that's recommended for chess players is to constantly go over tactics, positions, and historic games.

For modern grandmaster? Sure, but before computers changed chess there were many top level grandmasters who actually dominated their opponents with tactics, and aggressive play - Tal, Fischer, and Capablanca for example. You have to remember that modern-chess has been under the microscope for about 500 years, and has more books, and knowledge around it than all other games - every GM is going to completely understand endgames, opening books, tactics that we currently have about them, and even more so now days with the internet, and computers, so of course it's going to be extremely hard for a GM to out play another GM now days, but AWBW is no where near the level of knowledge that chess has, and never will be. An AWBW player who master AW tactics to the level chess grandmasters do would be unstoppable unless he helps other players learn, or they try to learn themselves, and master it like he has.

I honestly don't want to pontificate too much on GMs, and what they do, because I'm not one, but from my understanding the modern top lvl GMs fight, and win with theoretical ideas such as trying a novelty 20 moves into the roy lopez that opens up a file, or something.

However, and to end on a relevant point- AWBW is no where near that level of mastery over the game yet, and I think it's a valid point to state that at our current level of understanding of the game, and the transient maps that we play on we can safely assume that the best player is the best tactical player, and always will be.

K, guys, the devs from the upcoming ios game Warbits have personally asked me to join their upcoming alpha version of the game, which will be coming out in a few weeks. Any other turn-based veterans that might want to participate can do so by emailing them: reilly@riskylab.com

Blanci wrote:

joeli50 wrote:only COP and SCOP can break the line.
i m afraid that no power game will be very bored.

As first example , even the well known "mixed-base" type maps have never (?) been used in any league or serious competition. Only after some serious games between top players will it be really clear to the community that these offer great battle opportunities.

mixed-base type?
Do you mean the map like Truth Is? a GL maps still using.

@joeli. The map you refer to is only partially mixed up.
However this is enough to stretch out the battle with extensive front,
and is therefore quite a fun and good map to play.
There are various long term strategies one might try.
Its not obvious where to push hardest,
and there s more useful unit choice possible here.


Actually this question and others need answering in new posts in other threads as this one is getting complex and derailed and people interested in these new topics would never search for them here...

Well, this is pretty much everyone active on the forum anyways - all we need is mori, and sulla to join in here, and we'd have a full party, lol.

Also, what about those innovative maps you were talking about blanci? Down for a game sometime on them?  

I find Super Battlelands to be more appealing visually, but I'm not interested if it doesn't allow for good competitive play.

In that regard Warbits seems to be the better choice, although I don't own an iPhone.
Can't play that one either, then. Why don't they increase their potential player base by developing multi platform?

Some of the off-topic posts might really fit better into Strategy or Design Maps subsections.
The future members will thank us if we keep the basic structure.

Hey, guys! I'm the art side of Risky Lab, the two man team working on Warbits.

After Iodor reached out to us I did some detective work and found this little corner of the internet. I'm glad I did, the discussions I browsed are very insightful. We're at the point in Warbits where we have a very playable game, it's just missing a few key features that we need to be well thought out before we start on them. Would you guys be willing to have a discussion about our future plans and help shape the final game? I think we're going to set up a private forum for Alpha players sometime soon.

That sounds great. How exactly would Alpha testing work?

Well having an iOS (iPhone/iPad) device is the first requirement. Anyone is still more than welcome to come discuss the game mechanics but obviously it would help if you're able to play it.

Those interested will need to sign up for TestFlight. Once that's all set we just invite you and approve your device to run the game. Which at that point you'll be able to install and play Warbits.

Before we get to any of that we'll let you guys sign up on our forum so we can get a little organized.

So anyone that would like to join the discussion just shoot an email to howdy@riskylab.com and we can get started!

So a few updates

We have our forum software all set up.

I've been working on an old school game manual for new players. I think this will give you a pretty good idea of how our gameplay is same/different compared to Advance Wars.
WarbitsManual.pdf (2Mb)

Currently we are working on an update that will streamline the experience for new players as far as setting up and playing games online goes. Hopefully we'll have that done very soon.



We could really use some help shaping the last 20% of the game. Even if you don't have an iOS device we'd love to hear your thoughts.

This may seem like a stupid question, but will clouds give defense points to non-air unit, and how will the clouds work exactly? Is it something that simply goes over over existing terrain, or will it be its own terrain?

Also, I'm still interested in the alpha/beta; I have testflight - do you need my email, or something?

Clouds will only appear over water and act as forests for Air units. We don't have sea units so yes only air will gain the benefits. Maybe Probe as well because its a weird edge case unit. He can travel 1 tile into the water.
We haven't implemented them yet but I think they'll give a defense buff but eat up more gas.

I have your email so I'll send out more info to individuals soon.

Hmm. I like a lot of the ideas, just thinking over the specifics right now. Gunships being the same price as Lt Mechs, rather than being 1000-2000 more expensive, means that on maps with airports, the first Gunship built will exert a lot of early pressure. The Ranger is interesting, I've messed with similar ideas in other AW-style modifications. I definitely like some of the individual terrain ideas, and the Probe.

Oh! I'm glad you caught that, the Gunship cost is actually $10000. I'll fix that now.