Should IS Make a Fire Emblem Game based on Advance War Mechanics?

[Cute Chao]

Personally, I'd just rather see a new Advance Wars and a new Fire Emblem separately.

The faceless peons being sent to their deaths that you can keep emotionlessly generating more of just don't interest me like Fire Emblem's unique and individual characters do. I like AW for what it is, and I like the COs, but I prefer it to stay as it is. Maybe they can give it a more medieval tone for a change, but even so, it would not be Fire Emblem to me.

Edited May 3, 2018 by Cute Chao

[Tuvy]

20 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

What didn't you like about advance wars? 
 

Its similar to fire emblem but without everything I like about it. The characters, medieval setting, supports, cool animations, and individuality of characters doesn't exist. I don't really play fire emblem for the hardcore tactics. I play it because it offers different play styles and strategies for doing 1 thing. What I mean is that you can approach a chapter in many ways. When I played advanced wars I could only ever beat levels by looking up guides. (+ I'm not amazing at tactics in general and dislike the combat system in advanced wars. I think its way to confusing for its own good.)

[Tuvy2]

22 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

They killed Brenner in Days of Ruin.  

Spoilers my friend.

[Shoblongoo]

51 minutes ago, Tuvy2 said:

Spoilers my friend.

Its been 10 years; I think we're well beyond the statute-of-limitations on spoilers.
 

2 hours ago, Tuvy said:

Its similar to fire emblem but without everything I like about it. The characters, medieval setting, supports, cool animations, and individuality of characters doesn't exist. I don't really play fire emblem for the hardcore tactics. I play it because it offers different play styles and strategies for doing 1 thing. What I mean is that you can approach a chapter in many ways. When I played advanced wars I could only ever beat levels by looking up guides. (+ I'm not amazing at tactics in general and dislike the combat system in advanced wars. I think its way to confusing for its own good.)

...I see...

I love "hardcore tactics," and I get why Advance Wars is not a game you would like if you don't (and are just playing with guides instead of trying to puzzle-box the maps with your own strategies).

It doesn't have the storytelling or character depth of fire emblem; thats for sure. But purely in terms of gameplay depth and strategy elements, I've always found AW to have alot more going on in the gamplay department.

Which is why I had the idea that a game with AW mechanics and gameplay elements in a fire emblem setting and story one sort of bring together the best-of-both-worlds, and make for a perfect game. 

Fire Emblem Setting = Better then Advance War Setting
Advance War Gameplay = Better then Fire Emblem Gameplay

Fire Emblem Setting + Advance Wars Gameplay = Perfection

...for a hardcore strategy buff who also likes getting immersed in an epic fantasy setting, at any rate...  

_____

Older comments I want to respond to on the previous page, so I think I'm going to have to split this into two posts  

[Tuvy]

46 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

Its been 10 years; I think we're well beyond the statute-of-limitations on spoilers.
 

...I see...

I love "hardcore tactics," and I get why Advance Wars is not a game you would like if you don't (and are just playing with guides instead of trying to puzzle-box the maps with your own strategies).

It doesn't have the storytelling or character depth of fire emblem; thats for sure. But purely in terms of gameplay depth and strategy elements, I've always found AW to have alot more going on in the gamplay department.

Which is why I had the idea that a game with AW mechanics and gameplay elements in a fire emblem setting and story one sort of bring together the best-of-both-worlds, and make for a perfect game. 

Fire Emblem Setting = Better then Advance War Setting
Advance War Gameplay = Better then Fire Emblem Gameplay

Fire Emblem Setting + Advance Wars Gameplay = Perfection

...for a hardcore strategy buff who also likes getting immersed in an epic fantasy setting, at any rate...  
 

I don't typically use guides but I HAD TO in order to beat the 5th chapter/level in days of ruin. Its not just characters advanced wars is missing though, its the classes, the re-classing, the promoting. There really is no unit growth in advanced wars. (there is but its not huge)

[Shoblongoo]

16 hours ago, Nym said:

Anyway back to the topic at hand, @Shoblongoo the reason why it would a bad idea is because of the supply mechanic.

I think that would be a pretty easy mechanic to implement in Fire Emblem flavor

Fuel = Fatigue
Ammo = Weapon Durability

A.P.C. = Merchant Wagon

The A.P.C. was a unit in AW that cost 5,000 gold to deploy and couldn't fight, but could fully restore Fuel and Ammo to adjacent units. Building an APC allowed you to keep your fuel and ammo topped off on treks across long maps, as you advanced on enemy territory, without having to constantly turn around and resupply back at your own bases.

...being able to deploy a merchant wagon to perform essentially the same job in an AW-style fire emblem campaign feels natural to the setting, and not too far off from the role merchant wagons have historically played in the series. (i.e. as long as you have one, you never have to worry about running out of weapons on a big map) 

16 hours ago, Nym said:

For what I've seen until you more building than your opponent, it's a very slow and boring battle.

By the time you have substantially more properties and are massively outbuilding your opponent, you've basically already won. From that point on you're just carrying out the victory march.The main substance and excitement of the gameplay comes from everything you have to do to get to that point:   

• Efficiently expand into unoccupied territory to get an economy going early, and acquire sufficient funds to build units faster than you're losing units
• Establish effective defensive formations to fight off enemy incursions into your territory, with minimal loss of units on your own side.
• Get to a point where you're taking out enough enemies and preserving enough of your own units that you have a unit surplus, and can start sending your own invading forces into enemy territory.
• Read how the battle is progressing--which units are popping up in which places--and identify the correct time-and-place of vulnerability to go on the offensive with your invading force.
• Establish area-denial capabilities in vulnerable enemy territory with your power units, and keep your light infantry alive in said territory long enough to start capturing enemy properties

...Obviously there's lots of map variety and special objectives and pre-deployment patterns that can change it up. But thats the basic anatomy of an ordinary map...

Some maps are quick and fast-paced. Some are slow and grindy.

Its hard to really get an appreciation for the gameplay just from watching youtube videos, without ever actually playing the game. 

14 hours ago, BrightBow said:

The biggest bullocks in that game is probably Greyfield/Sigismundo on any map with a harbor. 

Unless the harbor is in a some unavoidable chokepoint--and I can't think of too many maps where that would be the case, naval maps tend to be really big and spread out with lots of open water to move units and beachheads for unloading landers--you just avoid the harbor. 

Putting a commander in a naval unit is really, really expensive. Its a massive investment in a unit that can still be taken out pretty easily as even with full command bonuses: a battleship is always going to lose to a submarine, a submarine is always going to lose to a cruiser, and a cruiser is always going to lose to a battleship.

Sticking Forescythe in a duster is cheaper, gives you command zone (5) on a flying unit with 8 movement, and lets you pick-and-choose which areas of the map you want to buff pretty liberally. And basically gives you a unit with aerial combat capabilities close to an unbuffed fighter jet + the ability to pick off infantry and damage light vehicles, all for less than the cost of building an unbuffed basic fighter jet.

Greyfield is indeed better on maps where you can chokepoint abuse harbors. But thats a pretty narrow niche.

 

15 hours ago, BrightBow said:

Anyway, I don't see a problem here. I mean, her CO Zone is literally 0. 

...and her command unit immediately hits the field with +80% armor and damage. 

Deploying her in a basic tank costs 10,500. Gives you a unit that can one-shot any other ground unit except opposing tanks. And gives you a unit thats actually outperforms than unbuffed medium tanks, despite medium tanks being more expensive to produce, and can even tangle with megatanks with a little bit of terrain and artillery support. 

-You absolutely must destroy her command unit before it gets 3 kills (again--oneshots everything thats not a tank-- and 80% armor buff lets her command tank play very aggressively without too much fear of mech swarm or atrillery fire as long as its in a forest or on a city

-Once her command unit gets 3 kills and gets command zone (1) going  she's going too very quickly snowball out to command zone (2), because if you couldn't stop 1 buffed unit from getting 3 kills you probably can't stop 5 buffed units from getting 3 kills.

-Once she has her command zone up and is giving 50% armor and damage buffs to everything around and protecting her command unit--you lose. At that point she's going to have an unstoppable formation of super-units able to lockdown whatever portion of the map it moves to, and push you out of the area while her infantry capture everything.

-Icing on the cake: her CO power is basically sturm's meteor strike at 6-star availability. Which is exactly as gamebreaking as it sounds. And her command zone (2) is so busted that half the time you don't even wind up using her CO power once you've charged it, because you'd rather just keep your running train with that formation of buffed up super-units then nuke the battlefield.  (if you're using her CO Power, its because you're in a position where you can immediately just fuck an entire army to death and close out the map)

______

...the only time Peri (lol Freudian slip) is ever bad is if a map is big enough and spread out enough that wherever she sends her command unit--you can expand and invade by sending your units somewhere else. There's no chokepoint or central hub where you're forced to fight her, and where if she sends her command unit there's no way around it.

Most maps are small to midsized, groundbased, and have a bridge over a river. Or a narrow pass through forests or mountains or seas.  Or a central cluster of cities that you must fight to control and won't have adequate economy if you avoid. Or are just small enough that there's really only one area to fight over. 

These are maps where P Tabitha's (Tabitha) command unit cannot be avoided, and where nothing any other CO can do is as dangerous as those buffs.

Tabitha is the best CO in the game.