Map Makeover - Blood Valley

As pretty much every person who has ever designed a map on AWBW knows, it isn't easy to make a great map. There are tons of questions to consider, ranging from "how many cities do you need?" to "is FTA properly balanced?", and even to "would that forest be better off here, or here?", and it's hard to get it all right. As a result, there are quite a few fun maps on the site that do a lot of things well, but are a couple minor flaws away from being truly excellent maps.

Of course, part of the Map Committee's job is to give people advice on how to edit and improve their maps to help these maps over the hump. Sometimes, though, it's just easier to show than tell. So I'm starting a new feature on the blog today called "Map Makeover", where I'll take a map with a few minor problems, and remake it into what I consider a "fixed" version.

Today, I'll be talking about this map made by tst5384:

Blood Valley

Overview
Blood Valley is a fairly well-made map, and shouldn't be terrible for casual games. It's pretty mountainous and a little choky, but it makes up for it with relatively light terrain (read: lots of roads) and a lone base that can be easily pressured. The map is well balanced; recon-rushing of the neutral base isn't possible, the towers are central but not contested, and the city count is relatively even for each base. It has nice positioning for the preowned bases, which allow tanks to make it to the fronts in a quick amount of time, while not forcing routes for units to take. The corner neutral base is also a nice dynamic, as it provides a bit of a 2 vs. 1 base situation after coming into play a few turns in. Finally, there is a strategic decision to be made about breaking the pipe seam, which takes an arty a couple of turns to break but allows units to more easily support the properties behind the mountain range. All in all, not a bad map.

Where It Went Wrong
First, let's consider the neutral base. The corner positioning is nice because it allows attacks to come from a different direction than the preowned bases, and it opens another front in the corners to help prevent stalemates in the center. Unfortunately, the terrain around the neutral base is waaay too heavy. Mech spam from this base is a natural tactic, since they can get over the mountains and rivers quicker than infantry, and can get to the fronts more quickly and cheaply than tanks (as shown in the below game by Teal Galaxy - played by Abroxas).

Another problem with the heavy terrain in the corner is that it closes off mobility in the area. It's hard to get anything except mechs and infs out from near the base quickly, and it's even harder to reinforce the neutral base area with units from the main bases. This makes it easy to get pinned in the corner.

Second, let's look at the HQs and airports, which both suffer from being positioned further back than necessary. The HQs are way back by the preowned bases, which means that a game ending by HQ capture will only happen once one side has been driven way back from the fronts. Similarly, the airports are stuck in the corners, where it takes 3 days to get into a useful position.

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After the makeover, let's see what the edited version of this map looks like compared to the original:

Blood Valley

VS.

Bleeding Valley

Changes
1. Neutral base moved slightly forward. This allows vehicles to more easily move towards the front.

2. Terrain in the neutral base corners greatly reduced. This reduces the viability of mech spam and allows for more vehicle mobility in the corners.

3. HQ moved into a less protected area. This creates a need to protect the HQ in case of a base trade, and prevents decided games from dragging out.

4. Airport moved forwards a few spaces. This changes it so that air units are only 3-4 spaces behind units built from the bases, which makes air units more viable. This is especially nice because of the relatively high funding and chokiness of the map.

5. Extra path added through mountains to support neutral base/HQ. This gives more mobility and options for switching units from one front to another. Also helps prevent possible surprise HQ capture.

6. Towers moved slightly backwards. This makes the cities the focal point of the central battle instead of the towers, making it harder for one player to gain a 2-tower advantage over the other.

Until next time,
Walker

Grand Tournament Round 1 Games

Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of updates over the last couple weeks. It's been a bit busy for me with school kicking up and with plenty of stuff going on around AWBW keeping me too preoccupied to feel like writing much. One of the biggest things going on, as most of you should know, is the start of the Grand Tournament II, which kicked off last week. In honor of that, I'll leave you all with some of the Round 1 games that I'm keeping an eye on:

Group A: Ultra Storm vs. Desklamp
This is probably the best matchup we'll see in Group A for the group stage (although Desklamp vs. Rush_FTK is getting interesting too!), with Desklamp being Ultra's biggest threat to win the group. The Drake mirror is fairly rare for low tier games, and I expect not to see many copters...

Group B: taviroww vs. Cereal Killer
Taviroww is my favorite to win Group B, but Cereal Killer and ymouba both have a good chance if one of them can get a win. CK gets his shot at taviroww in Round 1 in a Max/Andy matchup. At first glance, I'd say that Max has the advantage over Andy. Taviroww appears to be rushing for a tower in the south, although it's on CK's 2-base side, so who knows how well that will work out for him.

Group H: NGC6240 vs. Diwa
If this game ever gets started (still on day 1, with NGC down to 0 days on the boot counter), it could be one of the more intriguing Round 1 matches. Diwa sits at 1st in the Global League and is the favorite going in, but he chose a low tier CO (Jake) against NGC's Andy. This is the match that I predict will decide 1st/2nd place in Group H.

Group I: khdou vs. sarastro
It's hard to say how this match will go, considering that khdou is very much an x-factor. Sarastro has done well in the Global League (13th place as of right now), with good results against better players like Black Mont-Blanc, while khdou is 5-0-0 in the league with no recent games against top competition. This game will be something of a measuring stick for the two players, and will quite likely determine who takes the #2 spot in the group.

Group K: SM Ephraim vs. felix45
Best two players in Group K (in my opinion, although airob could possibly make a claim to that title too), on one of my favorite maps of all-time, Jake mirror, what's not to like? I think felix should be able to handle SM Ephraim, but SM has had surprising results against top players from time to time, so I wouldn't be too shocked to see an upset here.

Group M: black_wave vs. ichbinsehselber
Two of the top 15 players on the site, and this game will almost certainly decide who wins Group M. Nuff said.

Group N: excrimophalus vs. TotalFire
Old, proven veteran in one corner, challenger trying to make a name for himself in the other. If I know excrimo, this game will progress very slowly, but I'm calling an upset alert here. My official prediction: TotalFire takes this game (and not by boot!).

Group O: TGAL05 vs. japanj
Another match between two solid players, but the CO matchup here seems a little lopsided. Maybe TGAL05 knows something we don't about Jess, but I have a feeling that TGAL is not going to be very happy about what Eagle does to her... Still should be an interesting match regardless.

Group P: akiyoshi vs. dorian5
In a funny twist of fate, two of the Japanese players ended up in the same group, and get an early meeting in the tournament. Dorian5 is probably the better of the two, and certainly the favorite to win the game, but I doubt it will be easy. Adder mirror keeps things nice and normal, too.

I'll try to get around to writing a Global League review sometime in the next 3-4 days, so until then.
- Walker

Player Spotlight 1/13/12

Welcome back to another Player Spotlight! It is with pleasure that I introduce our featured player for this edition: Abroxas.

Introduction
Abroxas is a 22 year-old student who was born and is currently living in Germany. He is now studying History and Slavistic Philology (for those wondering, Wikipedia describes this as the study of Slavic languages in written historical sources - you learn new things every day!). One of his main interests is history in general, which is one of the driving reasons he's studying it, and he enjoys reading historical books. He also reads belletristic books (back to Wikipedia, belletristic is "a term that is used to describe a category of writing which involves all literary works valued for their aesthetic qualities and originality of style and tone"; e.g.: poetry). Abroxas also enjoys playing older video games occasionally such as Advance Wars, Fire Emblem, Donkey Kong Country, or Earthworm Jim, and additionally enjoys extreme or experimental music.

Although he originally joined the site in 2005, Abroxas was only interested in FEBW at the time. Understandably, he abandoned it quickly and left the site until early 2010 when he discovered AWBW. He's been around pretty consistently over the last two years, and has developed into a solid mid-level player. Abroxas has done moderately well in the Global League so far, holding 48th place out of 130 players with his 7-3-0 record as of this morning. He has also participated in the Colosseum consistently over the past few seasons, from Season 3 to Season 6, and has been in Division 4 since Season 4. He is currently 0-1-0 this season, having lost a high funds game to tale in Month 1. Along with those two competitions, Abroxas has been a regular participant in AWBW Cup tournaments, and is 2-1-0 in those tournaments, with a loss to julberndt in the November Cup and wins over Oopth and Roswell the Black Rose (by boot) in the December Cup.

Games and Recent Results
Abroxas has been doing well overall recently. His last loss in competitive play was on 12/31 against grandline (currently ranked #62) in the Global League. Since then he has taken down two consecutive opponents in the league, triumphing over Janusmarine (#46) on 1/03, and then winning again against black-kaito (#76) on 1/08.

Currently Abroxas has 5 Colosseum games running against a variety of opponents, as well as 2 AWBW Cup games and 4 Global League games. Notably, he is playing interesting games against:
walkerboh01 in the semifinals of the December Cup (and doing quite well if I may so myself)
hetchel in the Colosseum
Sheryl Nome in the Colosseum

Interview

Walker: How did you choose the name "Abroxas"? Is there any significance/meaning behind it?
Abroxas: I picked that name as a general nickname many years ago. I didn’t know from where I had got it, but it sounded really cool and unique and so I have been using it until today. Later I discovered from where I must have got it: In “Yoshi’s Island – Super Mario World 2” there have been these black, wingless creatures which have been walking around patched drapery moons. Well, they are meant to resemble ravens, so I read. Their boss, seized up by Koopa magician Kamek and originally known as Rafael the Raven, has been known as Abroxas in the German version. In later games of the Yoshi series the whole raven-species has been called ‘Abroxas’.

Walker: How did you get interested in AW / AWBW?
Abroxas: I do know Advance Wars 1, but never played it excessively. I was discovering the AW series via Fire Emblem when I was enjoying ‘Path of Radiance’ a lot shortly after it came out in late 2005 (both series share the same developer: Intelligent Systems). I’ve started playing AW2: Black Hole Rising then. The same goes for AWBW: I was checking how FEBW was doing after I left it roundabout five years before. I noticed that AWBW worked quite well and so I gave it a try since playing AW online sounds much more interesting than playing FE online.

Walker: Which AW cartridge game did you enjoy the most?
Abroxas: Hard to say. I think it is AW2: Black Hole Rising because I was enjoying the campaign so much. Nowadays I’m playing the AW:DS war room frequently for the sake of the CO repertory.

Walker: What is your favorite map on the site? Do you have a favorite CO to use or country to play as?
Abroxas: I didn’t play on many maps and most of them only once. But I do remember el rio acelguate loco! being very enjoyable. I usually prefer multi-fronted maps and I just happen to like the unorthodox design of this map.
My favorite CO is Sensei, because I loved copter spamming back on AW2. In AW:DS he has been considerably crippled in terms of copters, but I still like his powers because mech spamming can be so much (fund increasing) fun with the old geezer. But since he’s broken I rarely use him in AWBW. From the non-broken COs I like Sami the most, but my profile doesn’t resemble this clearly since she is often banned and when she’s available she often is a semi-optimal choice.
I’m not sure about favorite countries. I love green colors so I use Green Earth and Teal Galaxy often.

Walker: Did you think or do something as a newbie on the site that you look back on now and laugh at?
Abroxas: My very first game was against fdkanns in the old league. Of course he crushed me. I was not sure if it was polite to give up and to deny the opponent of the fun of beating up the remaining troops. So I asked him if I would be allowed give up. Retrospectively, that seems rather awkward to me. He replied positively, though. He was also so kind to give me some basic advices on my play. That helped a lot because I rarely played against other human players before.

Walker: What's the most memorable moment or game you've had on AWBW?
Abroxas: Well, the answer is mostly what I’ve written above. I’ve never lost so badly (though Black Mont-Blanc comes close to it) since then.

Walker: Do you have any goals for yourself on the site? What accomplishment would you be most proud of if you could achieve it?
Abroxas: I’d be very proud if I could manage to compete with the current top players of AWBW. My goal is to improve my game step by step.

Walker: Is there a part of your game that you think you need to improve on most? How do you try to improve and what do you think is most useful for your improvement?
Abroxas: I think I need to improve my capture phase because sometimes I end up slightly disadvantaged against routine players on maps on which it is not clear when exactly you skip nearby cities for contested properties and when not. I try to observe more ongoing games of competitive games (such as the ones of the League) to learn from others. The AWBW blog is also a promising source of inspiration.

Walker: Have you ever thought about designing maps for AWBW?
Abroxas: Yes, but I abandoned it soon. I was always lacking creativity and most time I spend on AWBW I invest in my ongoing games. I might give it a try, but most likely in remote future.

Walker: If there was one thing you'd add or change about AWBW, what would it be?
Abroxas: Since I like FoW, I wish for a bug-free FoW mode.

Thanks to Abroxas for participating! As always, if you'd be interested in being featured for the next Player Spotlight, please send me a PM.

Until next time,
Walker

Global League Review 1/07/12

Sorry to everyone who might have been expecting a Global League Review last week, but it was a slow week for the league and there wasn't quite enough for an entire review. No doubt it was due in part to the new year and the end of the holiday season. But now we're picking it up again this week, with a surprising development in the top 5, and a considerable amount of movement in the top 10. It's also nice to see that the Global League is holding right around 125-130 players - currently at 127 at the moment - despite a steady stream of dropouts.

Global League Top 5

1. Diwa - 1147.26, 17-1-5 (Last review: 8)
Last week: 2-0-1

It's been a great week for our new #1 player, as he exploded up from 8th to 1st in the span of 2 days with a win over quizless and  another against Duke of Blue Moon. The 49-point rating increase was just enough to barely place Diwa ahead of dorian5.

As for his games, the game against quizless was a Jake mirror on Shadows chase you endlessly (which is becoming one of my favorite maps, incidentally). The game remained fairly even with heavy fighting on the southern island, and then Diwa struck with Jake's SCOP first, delivering a game-ending blow to quizless. The game against Duke is one that I last time mentioned Duke had a great chance of winning. It was a fairly aggressive Hawke/Eagle match on Highway to Hell, with the two trading punches for much of the first 16 days. Then eventually Diwa began to gain ground on Duke's HQ front, leading to a large funds advantage and Duke's eventual resignation.

It remains to be seen how long Diwa can hang onto his lead spot. He has tough games currently against several of the other top league players, including Chilin-xiaoniao3, Walker, Black Mont-Blanc, and benbever, but with no games against any of the top 6 players, he might be able to hang on for a while. His most likely next game to finish is against itsmyflow, which is on day 9 on Puyo~.

2. dorian5 - 1147.10, 16-0-0 (Last review: 1)
Last week: 0-0-0

3. Ultra Storm - 1142.75, 13-0-0 (Last review: 2)
Last week: 0-0-0

Neither dorian5 or Ultra Storm have taken a second league game, leaving their game as the lone one between the two. And although Diwa has changed their battle from a fight between #1 and #2 to a fight between #2 and #3, the game between dorian5 and Ultra Storm will still ultimately decide who gets back up to the top spot. Another couple turns of the game have passed, but we can no longer view the replay as dorian5 has built a stealth (countered immediately by a fighter from Ultra). Ultra appears to be in bad shape, as dorian has won the southern island and is way ahead in funds (+5500) while about even in unit value on the field. Never count Ultra out for a comeback, but this one is certainly not going his way right now.

4. Hellraider - 1130.83, 10-0-0 (Last review: 3)
Last week: 0-0-0

Nothing new going on with Hellraider, as his lone game with Chilin-xiaoniao continues to be stalled by Chilin-xiaoniao's vacation. The last time Hellraider finished a league game was now over a month ago, and his current game is still only on day 4. I expect no updates here in the near future, although getting kicked from the top 3 could have an effect on the number of league games he's willing to play at one time.

5. felix45 - 1125.98, 12-2-1 (Last review: 4)
Last week: 0-0-0

No changes in Felix's record the last couple weeks either, although his game with Duke of Blue Moon on Rainy has progressed some. Felix holds a strong advantage and looks to be making a push towards Duke's HQ area, but the next round of SCOPs will likely decide the winner. Meanwhile, Felix is on the verge of victory in another game, this one against quizless, although he will have to wait until after quizless returns from vacation to claim the win. If Felix can manage those two wins, he will likely jump all the way to 1st in the league! I wouldn't be surprised at all to see him in the top 3 soon, regardless.

Best of the Rest

6. fdkanns - 1110.22, 27-5-0 (Last review: 6)
No changes for fdkanns since last review, but it may be worth keeping an eye on this dogfight between he and sarastro on Shangri-La. It's currently on day 12, and looking pretty even.

7. Chilin-xiaoniao3 - 1099.94, 29-4-0 (Last review: 7)
Still on vacation, nothing new going on.

8. Duke of Blue Moon - 1096.33, 29-9-1 (Last review: 5)
Duke's loss at the hands of Diwa has dropped him down a few spots, although he still is hanging around in the top 10. He has made a remarkable comeback in this game against Kiririn thanks to the power of Winter Fury, but will have to be careful in this game against YURA.

9. Ancient Paradise - 1086.84, 27-9-0 (Last review: 9)
Like Hellraider, Ancient Paradise only has one game running, and it's against Chilin-xiaoniao. Don't expect to see his rating changing any time soon either.

10. black_wave - 1083.40, 81-36-13 (Last review: 12)
The last time black_wave was in the top 10 was back on 10/16/11, but a recent string of wins has helped him leap back up to claim the final spot. He's gone 4-1-2 since the last review, with wins against MYM, TotalFire, and mxdcyw2000 among them. The loss was against quizless. Currently he has interesting games against SmackCakes and itsmyflow.

Almost There!
11. quizless - 1082.24, 48-24-10 (Last review: 13)
12. ANT13 - 1073.73, 31-9-7 (Last review: 10)
13. walkerboh01 - 1057.79, 14-2-1 (Last review: 11)
14. benbever - 1042.91, 4-3-5 (Last review: 14)
15. TotalFire - 1039.20, 38-15-17 (Last review: 17)

Dropping Out
Black Mont-Blanc - Dropped from 15th to 16th place (0-0-0 since last review)

Notable Newbie
Deaninator - 942.54, 7-0-0

With 418 games played on the site, Deaninator has obviously spent quite a lot of time on the site previously. However, he's new to the Global League, having just entered the league during the last review and sitting at 0-0-0. Since then, he has rattled off 7 straight wins, elevating him to the lofty position of #31 in the league. Let's take a look at those wins:

12/29 - Mr--Clean resigns what seems to be a fairly even game on City of Storms.
12/30 - Win by boot over carlos98342.
12/31 - Win by boot over Longinus_SP.
1/01 - Win by boot over bh.bh.
1/01 - Mr--Clean resigns again, but it's a more lopsided game on Highway to Hell this time.
1/02 - Lolabunny bites the dust[/url] in a game on Shangri-La.
1/06 - HCG becomes the 7th victim in a blowout on nb4DS.

3 wins by boot are certainly good for a rating boost, and makes the 7-0-0 start a bit less impressive. However, 3 good wins over solid mid-level players in lolabunny and Mr--Clean suggest Deaninator should not be taken lightly. Jury's still out on just how good Deaninator is, although a tough matchup with taviroww will likely give a good idea.

By the Numbers
7 - Undefeated players with more than 5 wins. They are: dorian5 (16 wins), Ultra Storm (13 wins), itsmyflow (11 wins), Hellraider (10 wins), Black Mont-Blanc (8 wins), Deaninator (7 wins), and ichbinsehselber (6 wins).
1 - "Chilin" account left in the league, which belongs to Chilin-xiaoniao3. There were as many as 7 or 8 in the early days of the league.
975 - Rating required to crack the top 25 of the league. On 12/13/11, a rating of only 960 was required.

In Other News...
As of January 1st, 2012, the top 3 of the Global League will be inducted to the AWBW Hall of Fame, if they can manage to hold their spots for 2 consecutive weeks. Right now Diwa has been holding 1st place for one day (since January 6th), and dorian5 and Ultra Storm have been holding at least 2nd and 3rd place for 6 days (since January 1st) respectively. Hellraider had been in 3rd until January 6th, when he was ousted by Diwa.

There were several players outside of the top 15 who have made good pushes up the rankings in the last two weeks. Most notable were:

1. Deaninator - Rating: +142.54, Standings: +65 (currently #31)
2. SD3 - Rating: +873.21, Standings: +42 (currently at #57)
3. Taviroww - Rating: +68.80, Standings: +24 (currently at #36)
4. Cereal Killer - Rating: +48.02, Standings: +15 (currently #28)
5. Shompiador_kalabaza - Rating: +48.08, Standings: +13 (currently at #38)

Until next time,
Walker