[General Throatstomper]

I am proposing that Advance Wars be given a subsite, as Cyberscore seems to be the only site with Advance Wars rankings. There are technically 3 trackable games for this subsite, but there is a whole backlog of Japan-only releases, which should be discussed as potential games for competition. For now, I will assume that these are either impossible to play competitively, or the lack of translation/availability would render them mostly irrelevant for the subsite. There is also the 'Battalion Wars' series, which is as I understand it started as a 3D offshoot of the Advance Wars series and evolved into something marginally different; however, I am not sure whether competition is possible. For now, I will assume it isn't.

Games
Advance Wars
Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising
Advance Wars: Dual Strike

The scores and turns used for war room missions would be tracked. It would be possible to do so for normal and hard campaign as well, though the lack of mission-select for campaign mode would hamper submissions, unless a savestate were used.
 
There are several issues that warrant discussing about competition. They are:

-The use of "broken" CO's. Off the top of my head, I see Nell, Sturm, and Hachi as the biggest problems. Nell's regular attacks do erratically high damage; on a given turn in which the predicted outcome is 15%, it is possible to destroy the enemy in a single hit (if I remember correctly, her possible luck increase is anywhere from 0-85%), and her CO powers allow her to do drastically increased damage to multiple units with a more definite luck boost (I'm not sure on the exact percentage). Sturm is not affected by terrain and all his units have maximum attack, and Hachi is capable of automatically deploying full health infantry on any captured territory. While everyone is on an equal playing field, the use of these characters breaks competition in certain scenarios...but is it enough to warrant their banning?

-Save manipulation. There is a bit of luck involved with the battle formula/enemy AI...is saving before a turn and loading your previous state to either increase damage or have the opponent make a certain move if you don't get the desired result ok?

-The viability of campaign mode records. Is it too demanding of the player to require them to sift through mission after mission in order to submit records? If so, would savestates be a feasible solution?

-Whether tracking scores is redundant. There is a cap of 300 points for scores, and this is obtainable for almost every mission. Other charts may have several players tied, but here you're talking about roughly half of the submissions. While I think they should be included because some 300's are hard to pull off...is it competition worthy?

That's all I can think of for potential problems. If anyone has something to add or suggest, then do so.

[Ring Rush]

Don't forget survival mode for competition (individual levels and complete thing). And as we are currently discussing in chat, day scores for WR.

Also possibly combat mode scores? Or maybe even medal number (strangely enough having a 300 max)

[General Throatstomper]

This is more just to have it written down than anything else, but in chat we were just discussing double rankings. The idea is that since scores max easily, turns used would be a secondary factor in determining record place. In other words, a chart might look like this:

1) 300 40 days
2) 300 45 days
3) 260 20 days

The alternative for this is setting up two divisions-one tracking turns used for a perfect score, and another tracking turns used to just complete the mission.

The other alternative is to track scores and turns as separate entities, similar to what I proposed in my first post.

Edit: Rolken has confirmed that a dual-ranking of scores and turns would be possible. The general concensus is that this is the way to go. This takes care of how records will be tracked.

The major remaining points are:
-Campaign mode: rank or ignore?
-War rooms: separate by game or merge as one large grouping?
-COs: should every co be usable, or are some off limits?
-Turn resetting: ban or allow?

Discuss as you will when you will if you will.

[Rick_242]

So there are three trackable games? Not a whole lot for of games for competition :/ I say only make a center if a series has 6 or games but, that's my opinion whether or not it's going to be made is not my descision.

[Bilan]

Id say separate War Room buy game, and ban turn resetting. We all have to deal with luck at some point in competition, I see no reason you should be allowed to manipulate it to your liking here.

Obviously you could then argue SA1 Hunting and SA2 Hunting M1's for Time in defense of that though

[General Throatstomper]

They aren't comparable. While hunting m1's require genuine skill and extensive level knowledge, here you're doing something requiring a functioning dpad and game system. I think it was mike who likened it to savestating a run in a Sonic game-nearly every run would be perfect, sapping competition potential, and the developers didn't intend for you to do it (then again, they probably didn't factor things such as the Eternal Engine glitch on Dreamcast, but the other reason still stands...).

The argument against splitting the war room is that AWDS has every war room mission from the first and second games and the second has every war room mission from the first, meaning you'd be posting submissions for some charts 3 times.

There are still loads of things to work out though. But first, I think we should get an idea of how many people are interested in competing for Advance Wars.

If you plan on competing for Advance Wars, post and perhaps state your stances on the issues below, with a brief explanation as to why. While popular vote may not determine what will be ranked, it will affect some aspects of the AWcenter.

The Issues

-Should we track Campaign Mode?

-Should we have one large category for war room missions, or should we separate them by game?

-Should we ban the use of certain CO's (Max from AW, Nell, Sturm, and Hachi from AW2 and I'm told Grit and Colin from AWDS)?

[Ben]

I'll add my scores if this site is made.

The Issues

-Should we track Campaign Mode?

-Should we have one large category for war room missions, or should we separate them by game?

-Should we ban the use of certain CO's (Max from AW, Nell, Sturm, and Hachi from AW2 and I'm told Grit and Colin from AWDS)?

I think it would probably be best to track every stat possible.

War Rooms should definitely be separated by different games. The enemy AI is different for each game and so are the COs. Some maps in AWDS have alterations as well, and 4 different difficulty settings.

I can't see any good reason for banning the best COs. Most games are dominated by a few characters which are better than the rest, replacing these will just mean a few others will take their place.

As for the save state stuff, most people save at a certain point on a level and reset if they make a mistake. I don't think it's a very good idea to ban this. I bet most of the scores people have set for the games already use saving and resetting, most of my scores certainly do and I wouldn't consider it in any way cheating.

[General Throatstomper]

Based on input from the potential players, I constructed a mockup set of rules. Open criticism and ad hominem attacks welcome.

Rules
1) You may not save during a turn before moving all your units, and you may not reload previous saves to undo the result of an enemy co's moves.
2) You may not use Nell, Sturm, or Hachii in the war room.

...There aren't too many competition rules.

I'll make up a chart for the first Advance Wars tomorrow. I will be including campaign mode, though the tutorial missions will not be included.