Important note about ai flak which might explain why he always seems to be more lucky compared to you: the enemy ai can see every damage roll before it performs them, allowing them to occasionally cherry pick a better luck roll as long as the units they're picking between have the same priority For example: if ai flaks mech could choose to attack between two of your infantry units that both have full health, it'll pick the engagement from which it has the highest luck roll. However if one of the infantry units has less health, it'll attack the lower health infantry, even if it gets worse luck on that engagement. Similarly, if there was a unit with a higher damage priority for his mech in range (ie a tank) it'll pick the tank first even if the luck for the tank attack is worse
I was hoping you'd include one of my all-time favourite quotes, Flak saying "Flak, huh? Dumb name tough CO!" which is something I could see Flak saying
@@lunarnights it's great, outside fog of war you get -15% luck as the only day to day, and your co power does nothing, except the generic +10% attack and defence everyone gets in advance wars 1.
My head canon is that Lash made the tech for both the normal and giga silos and just trolled the other nations into installing the inferior ones while getting the profits
Hey Lunar. I just found your channel, and really like the challenge videos. For this one, I figured it might help to know how luck really works, so you can take advantage of it as much as you can. Feel free to disregard, though, as it takes a bit to explain. What basically happens is as follows: 1. Start with the base damage that the attacking has on the defending unit. 2. Apply attack modifiers to damage. This includes CO day-to-days (passive buffs or debuffs), power, or super power modifiers. In AV2, all modifiers are percents that are added together and then applied. (This differs from AV1, where all modifiers were added except for the universal +10 power bonus, which was multiplied after all other modifiers were applied. In AV2, this +10 bonus is only applied to defense, and is additive like other modifiers.) After this, the value is multiplied by 10%*current HP, so damaged units have less attack. 3. Apply defense modifiers. Some COs, such as Kanbei or Sturm, have passive bonuses to defense (+30 and +20 respectively). Terrain stars also provide +10 to defense each. This combined bonus is multiplied by 10%*current HP, so damaged units have less defense, similarly to attack. Multiply the modified attack from step 2 by 100% minus defense. This value is what is shown to the player. 3. Calculate and *ADD* luck. Here is where it gets complicated. For most COs, luck is a random value from 0% to 9% that is added on top of your modified damage. Three COs differ: Nell, (who has a daily luck range of 0%-19%, with her power and superpower increasing the cap to 59% and 99%), Sonja (who has a daily range of _negative_ 9%-_positive_ 9%) and Flak (who’s daily range is -10% to + 14%.) After this value is determined, it is multiplied by 10%*current HP, so damaged units have less luck. Finally, multiply this value by 100% minus the damage modifier from step 3. This reduces your luck proportional to the opponent’s defense. After all of this, once the luck value is fully calculated, the result is *ADDED* to the modified damage from step 3. It does not have any attack modifiers applied to it. 4. Finally, run the attack. Damage is dealt to the defender, with the defender then using the same rules for the counterattack. This concludes one firing round in Advance Wars. As a result of all these mechanics, a few things are to be noted: 1. Most COs have an average luck bonus of 5%, meaning they will, on average and assuming 0 defense, deal half a hit point more damage than advertised. For Flak, his bad luck ends up pulling his average down to 2.5%, meaning he is, on a day-to-day basis, *worse* than almost every other CO in the game. His power brings his average up to 10% (compared to Nells 30%) and his super brings it up to 20% (while Nell enjoys a +50% on average). Right out the gate, he already suffers from a strict drawback with no benefits. 2. For most COs, luck is simply rolled, modified and then added. For Flak and Sonja, because they have both good (positive) and bad (negative) luck, they must roll twice. Good luck is rolled in the positive direction (0%-14% for Flak), then bad luck in the negative direction (0%-9% for both), then subtracted, bad from good. This results in their distributions not only averaging in the center, but also becoming more likely to actually fall in the center. As such, not only will Flak do less average extra damage than other, luckier COs, he will do less damage *more consistently*. This makes him not just bad, but consistently so. 3. Because defense outright reduces luck, COs with defensive abilities, such as Hawks and Lash, are much more resistant to luck damage. Also, every CO becomes more resistant to luck when they use their power, so strike wisely. Sorry again for the long winded comment. I’m just really into game design, so things such as the complex inner workings of seemingly simple mechanics fascinate me.
One thing to note about the luck mechanic, it scales with your enemy's defense. If they have less defense your dispersion is larger, if they have more defense, your dispersion is less (A little more complicated than that but you get the idea). So fighting Sturm with his 20% defense boost is going to be.........fun. You might as well not even attack on his super power because he steals Kanbei's move set and gets 50% defense for a turn :/ Oh man, you're asking the deep questions on missile silo's and pipe seams, well here goes a rant from a rando on the internet with too much time on their hands. So the pipes are claimed to be covered in a new armor that Lash developed specifically to defend against missiles. We can assume this stationary target, which is large enough to impede air traffic above it, is dummy thicc with armor. You obviously cannot miss it when shooting at it, but it has the same durability as a neo tank without terrain boosts. We can infer that neo tanks are fast and well armored, which makes them so durable. Pipe seams cannot move so they make up for this with lots of "Lash Armor". Lets also talk about the missiles real quick, because this ties into the equation. The missiles are shown to make some kind of blast and deal some damage to all unit types, even air units. Usually an explosion on the ground won't reach up high enough to affect air units unless it is something really big. We also see that city's or other terrain are not damaged by these missiles in any appreciable way. I will put forth the theory these missiles are not kinetic but mostly based on chemical/biological/electronic warfare. These missiles land at a spot then explode and release chemical/biological weapons that will kill some troops but not everyone. While also leaving the terrain unaffected (Aside from long term environmental damage). They may also release an EMP or something similar to knock out aircraft and disable other vehicles. Therefore the missile wouldn't have much affect on the pipe seam other than the physical damage from impacting. (This also kind of fit's with the Wars World theme of more carefree attitudes toward war. If we were flinging missiles at each other all the time then city's wouldn't be around very long and the wars would grind to a halt from attrition.) Combine both of these and you have a really durable pipe seam with a not so explosive missile. Which either deflects off or is dead stopped by the armor. Now why do infantry do 1hp of damage to it you may ask? I think we can safely say that infantry in advance wars are not exclusively armed with rifles. They likely have grenade launchers, mines, hand grenades, light mortars, other man portable weapon systems. Not the same as the anti-tank rocket launchers the Mech units have but still they have other weapons. Plus they also would have access to tools for entrenching. You combine these elements together and they could theoretically chip away at the armor and slowly weaken it. Eventually breaking through and severing the pipe seam. Obviously this is a process that takes 3+ months to complete, but Rome wasn't built in a day either. You can imagine a whole company of infantry laying siege to a pipe seam and slowly chipping away at it's defenses. Figuratively and quite literally. The same argument applies to cannons and laser towers. Now I think the better question is "Why are normal pipes unable to be destroyed?" (Besides the obvious gameplay reasons). Are these pipes made of an even stronger material? Were these pipes made by a god and are thus invincible? Did the allies just keep the pipes in place after the war? I will lose many hours of sleep over this disturbing revelation....
Huh, I never knew that about luck but it explains a lot. And wow, too much time but also exactly the kind of insight I was hoping for! Makes sense, though also raises some serious question about warfare ethics if they're firing chemical/biological missiles so casually. Then again...this is Wars World.
When playing the remake I alternated between blue moon and yellow comet. I thought it fit more logically that their both fighting at the same time. Love your content too.
I play through most of Blue Moon, except the factory mission. I then do all of Yellow Comet. After beating Yellow Comet, I play the Blue Moon factory mission. However, because I beat Yellow Comet, I can choose their COs during the factory mission. I pick Sensei, and I use his battlecopers to destroy the factory seam.
Probably a dumb idea but something struck me recently, What about a Black Hole campaign? Where you literally start as Sturm on the Final Battle where its likely a free win and then go backwards through the normal campaign, ending in the tutorial where your Flak with like 2 infantry to win? Would that be possible? As I said, dumb idea but came to mind recently and thought it might be funny.
I don't want to spoil any plans for the channel, but let's just say I may have already been exploring this possibility back when I was learning some code for Flak ; )
Interestingly, there actually is room for an alternate strategy in Nature Walk, that Mangs highlighted in his deathless run. That being, keep most of your units back and send a single tank tiptoeing through enemy lines to your HQ.
Blue moon after Yellow comet, because Kanbei is the optimal ally for the Blue moon factory mission, and Max is very good in the Yellow comet one anyway. Any middle missions in theory don't matter for order, but I do one continent at a time, first three > lab > second three that unlocked > factory
I like to think there are always faction people working that we just can't see, making those cities produce 1k funds and build all those units. So, these dudes would be able to repair the pipe seam if they knew that this bigass missile would only hit once. I think they would be much less likely to try and run out there to fix it if 5 dudes were lighting it up day and night or there was an artillery shelling it endlessly.
I don't even need to watch the video to know. Yes, but only if you want the hardest missions to be an exercise in tedium as you wait for the RNG to co-operate.
@@Mr_James_And_Watch Well, I'm not a man but it's amusing that we both did. Both had it planned for a while too and didn't know the other was working on it so honestly the odds are quite slim!
What about trying to beat advanced wars 2 without a CO?(playing all missions as COs with no day to day powers, Andy, Olaf and Adder, without popping COP or SCOP)
I tried to do a similar run with your patch but it won't let me pick the same CO for the other spots. Not sure if I am missing something but I did use the patch you linked! Any help would be appreciated!
my guess on the missiles is a largely coding thing also since bombers usually do 95% no buffs, a single missile could put it w/in a single hit of destruction
T Minus 15 gives you Andy normally, I don't think you should worry about not being able to double up on Flak. It's not like Andy does the heavy lifting on that mission anyway.
Does Flak actually say those things? Like the "As long as i am here, orange star will be safe."? Or are those actually quotes said by an orange star co?
![ILLSLICK - KILLSHOT REMIX [FULL VERSION]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RIK8RrqIAzE/mqdefault.jpg)
7:02 "Sami pretends she did somethin where clearly Flak did all the work. *On both side* ." That really killed me
"We can now return to the giant missile for some Flak and Flak versus Flak action."
Apes together strong.
23:10 Flak did have a plan. It was to smash. The plan worked.
A true master tactician.
A CO that has random luck rolls while capturing cities would be hilarious.
Important note about ai flak which might explain why he always seems to be more lucky compared to you: the enemy ai can see every damage roll before it performs them, allowing them to occasionally cherry pick a better luck roll as long as the units they're picking between have the same priority
For example: if ai flaks mech could choose to attack between two of your infantry units that both have full health, it'll pick the engagement from which it has the highest luck roll. However if one of the infantry units has less health, it'll attack the lower health infantry, even if it gets worse luck on that engagement. Similarly, if there was a unit with a higher damage priority for his mech in range (ie a tank) it'll pick the tank first even if the luck for the tank attack is worse
I was hoping you'd include one of my all-time favourite quotes, Flak saying "Flak, huh? Dumb name tough CO!" which is something I could see Flak saying
Flak fights for the strongest side. Unfortunately for Black Hole, Flak *is* the strongest side.
What a cliffhanger, can't wait for the second part of this challenge
Coming soon!
You could have put the tcopter into the cruiser to keep it safe. Assuming you could spare a turn.
I tried AW1 war room with AW1 sonja, a while ago. AW1 sonja is worse than AW2 flak, especially vs cpu.
Sounds like I might have some AW1 Sonja missions in my future!
@@lunarnights it's great, outside fog of war you get -15% luck as the only day to day, and your co power does nothing, except the generic +10% attack and defence everyone gets in advance wars 1.
@@michael_betts I know Mangs said -20% luck in AW1
Nah the real stuff is AW2 Drake since the final level has no water in AW2 meaning Drake is the hardest to use
I love the Command & Conquer-esque intro!
4:26
I love the self-deprication. And it's true, to boot.
My head canon is that Lash made the tech for both the normal and giga silos and just trolled the other nations into installing the inferior ones while getting the profits
the flak memes are gud as allways
Had a lot of fun making them
Hey Lunar. I just found your channel, and really like the challenge videos. For this one, I figured it might help to know how luck really works, so you can take advantage of it as much as you can. Feel free to disregard, though, as it takes a bit to explain. What basically happens is as follows:
1. Start with the base damage that the attacking has on the defending unit.
2. Apply attack modifiers to damage. This includes CO day-to-days (passive buffs or debuffs), power, or super power modifiers. In AV2, all modifiers are percents that are added together and then applied. (This differs from AV1, where all modifiers were added except for the universal +10 power bonus, which was multiplied after all other modifiers were applied. In AV2, this +10 bonus is only applied to defense, and is additive like other modifiers.) After this, the value is multiplied by 10%*current HP, so damaged units have less attack.
3. Apply defense modifiers. Some COs, such as Kanbei or Sturm, have passive bonuses to defense (+30 and +20 respectively). Terrain stars also provide +10 to defense each. This combined bonus is multiplied by 10%*current HP, so damaged units have less defense, similarly to attack. Multiply the modified attack from step 2 by 100% minus defense. This value is what is shown to the player.
3. Calculate and *ADD* luck. Here is where it gets complicated.
For most COs, luck is a random value from 0% to 9% that is added on top of your modified damage. Three COs differ: Nell, (who has a daily luck range of 0%-19%, with her power and superpower increasing the cap to 59% and 99%), Sonja (who has a daily range of _negative_ 9%-_positive_ 9%) and Flak (who’s daily range is -10% to + 14%.)
After this value is determined, it is multiplied by 10%*current HP, so damaged units have less luck.
Finally, multiply this value by 100% minus the damage modifier from step 3. This reduces your luck proportional to the opponent’s defense.
After all of this, once the luck value is fully calculated, the result is *ADDED* to the modified damage from step 3. It does not have any attack modifiers applied to it.
4. Finally, run the attack. Damage is dealt to the defender, with the defender then using the same rules for the counterattack. This concludes one firing round in Advance Wars.
As a result of all these mechanics, a few things are to be noted:
1. Most COs have an average luck bonus of 5%, meaning they will, on average and assuming 0 defense, deal half a hit point more damage than advertised. For Flak, his bad luck ends up pulling his average down to 2.5%, meaning he is, on a day-to-day basis, *worse* than almost every other CO in the game. His power brings his average up to 10% (compared to Nells 30%) and his super brings it up to 20% (while Nell enjoys a +50% on average). Right out the gate, he already suffers from a strict drawback with no benefits.
2. For most COs, luck is simply rolled, modified and then added. For Flak and Sonja, because they have both good (positive) and bad (negative) luck, they must roll twice. Good luck is rolled in the positive direction (0%-14% for Flak), then bad luck in the negative direction (0%-9% for both), then subtracted, bad from good. This results in their distributions not only averaging in the center, but also becoming more likely to actually fall in the center. As such, not only will Flak do less average extra damage than other, luckier COs, he will do less damage *more consistently*. This makes him not just bad, but consistently so.
3. Because defense outright reduces luck, COs with defensive abilities, such as Hawks and Lash, are much more resistant to luck damage. Also, every CO becomes more resistant to luck when they use their power, so strike wisely.
Sorry again for the long winded comment. I’m just really into game design, so things such as the complex inner workings of seemingly simple mechanics fascinate me.
One thing to note about the luck mechanic, it scales with your enemy's defense. If they have less defense your dispersion is larger, if they have more defense, your dispersion is less (A little more complicated than that but you get the idea). So fighting Sturm with his 20% defense boost is going to be.........fun. You might as well not even attack on his super power because he steals Kanbei's move set and gets 50% defense for a turn :/
Oh man, you're asking the deep questions on missile silo's and pipe seams, well here goes a rant from a rando on the internet with too much time on their hands. So the pipes are claimed to be covered in a new armor that Lash developed specifically to defend against missiles. We can assume this stationary target, which is large enough to impede air traffic above it, is dummy thicc with armor. You obviously cannot miss it when shooting at it, but it has the same durability as a neo tank without terrain boosts. We can infer that neo tanks are fast and well armored, which makes them so durable. Pipe seams cannot move so they make up for this with lots of "Lash Armor".
Lets also talk about the missiles real quick, because this ties into the equation. The missiles are shown to make some kind of blast and deal some damage to all unit types, even air units. Usually an explosion on the ground won't reach up high enough to affect air units unless it is something really big. We also see that city's or other terrain are not damaged by these missiles in any appreciable way. I will put forth the theory these missiles are not kinetic but mostly based on chemical/biological/electronic warfare. These missiles land at a spot then explode and release chemical/biological weapons that will kill some troops but not everyone. While also leaving the terrain unaffected (Aside from long term environmental damage). They may also release an EMP or something similar to knock out aircraft and disable other vehicles. Therefore the missile wouldn't have much affect on the pipe seam other than the physical damage from impacting. (This also kind of fit's with the Wars World theme of more carefree attitudes toward war. If we were flinging missiles at each other all the time then city's wouldn't be around very long and the wars would grind to a halt from attrition.)
Combine both of these and you have a really durable pipe seam with a not so explosive missile. Which either deflects off or is dead stopped by the armor. Now why do infantry do 1hp of damage to it you may ask? I think we can safely say that infantry in advance wars are not exclusively armed with rifles. They likely have grenade launchers, mines, hand grenades, light mortars, other man portable weapon systems. Not the same as the anti-tank rocket launchers the Mech units have but still they have other weapons. Plus they also would have access to tools for entrenching. You combine these elements together and they could theoretically chip away at the armor and slowly weaken it. Eventually breaking through and severing the pipe seam. Obviously this is a process that takes 3+ months to complete, but Rome wasn't built in a day either. You can imagine a whole company of infantry laying siege to a pipe seam and slowly chipping away at it's defenses. Figuratively and quite literally.
The same argument applies to cannons and laser towers. Now I think the better question is "Why are normal pipes unable to be destroyed?" (Besides the obvious gameplay reasons). Are these pipes made of an even stronger material? Were these pipes made by a god and are thus invincible? Did the allies just keep the pipes in place after the war? I will lose many hours of sleep over this disturbing revelation....
Huh, I never knew that about luck but it explains a lot.
And wow, too much time but also exactly the kind of insight I was hoping for! Makes sense, though also raises some serious question about warfare ethics if they're firing chemical/biological missiles so casually. Then again...this is Wars World.
When playing the remake I alternated between blue moon and yellow comet. I thought it fit more logically that their both fighting at the same time. Love your content too.
Next challenge: Sturm takes onto the entire world all by himself. Beat all the Normal Campaign maps by having Sturm be the enemy CO.
No way is Kanbei saving those 10 cities in time…
@@darklordliam I think that if you ignore the lasers you might have been just enough time to park a MD Tank on one
These win quotes said by Flak bring up lore questions.
I play through most of Blue Moon, except the factory mission. I then do all of Yellow Comet. After beating Yellow Comet, I play the Blue Moon factory mission. However, because I beat Yellow Comet, I can choose their COs during the factory mission. I pick Sensei, and I use his battlecopers to destroy the factory seam.
Damn you really stepped up the production value on this one, fucking awesome work
Probably a dumb idea but something struck me recently, What about a Black Hole campaign? Where you literally start as Sturm on the Final Battle where its likely a free win and then go backwards through the normal campaign, ending in the tutorial where your Flak with like 2 infantry to win? Would that be possible?
As I said, dumb idea but came to mind recently and thought it might be funny.
I don't want to spoil any plans for the channel, but let's just say I may have already been exploring this possibility back when I was learning some code for Flak ; )
Interestingly, there actually is room for an alternate strategy in Nature Walk, that Mangs highlighted in his deathless run. That being, keep most of your units back and send a single tank tiptoeing through enemy lines to your HQ.
4:50 The T-copter is safe if you place it in your Cruiser
Blue moon after Yellow comet, because Kanbei is the optimal ally for the Blue moon factory mission, and Max is very good in the Yellow comet one anyway.
Any middle missions in theory don't matter for order, but I do one continent at a time, first three > lab > second three that unlocked > factory
Now for the real challenge of only sonja
I like to think there are always faction people working that we just can't see, making those cities produce 1k funds and build all those units. So, these dudes would be able to repair the pipe seam if they knew that this bigass missile would only hit once. I think they would be much less likely to try and run out there to fix it if 5 dudes were lighting it up day and night or there was an artillery shelling it endlessly.
A neat theory.
4:20 I found that joke stupidly funny 😂 👍
That intro. Nice
I'm so proud of this one, lol. If you watch the background screens during it, they're constantly changing too!
5:57
Drake, how can you turn over to Black Hole?!
Subs are in the movement order group that is immediately after the group with BCopters and the other 6mov attackers
I generally stick with one continent until finished. I tried switching for each new mission once, but it kind of ruined the flow I think.
4:54 Ah, another person who forgot copters can be loaded onto cruisers.
Wow, I really like the editing! Great job!
Thank you!
I subscribe to the canon that the Flaks are a hive mind
I thought this would be aa only. Woops
I don't even need to watch the video to know.
Yes, but only if you want the hardest missions to be an exercise in tedium as you wait for the RNG to co-operate.
i need a cut of this vid where it's only everytime 'flak' is said
Aaah somebody else giving this a go, my first episode of the campaign as flak went up last week c:
It's a fun challenge. I filmed back in Oct-Nov, but am only just getting it uploaded now.
@@lunarnights yeah, same here lol
What are the odds that two men decide to do a Flak only campaign challenge at the same time lol.
@@Mr_James_And_Watch Well, I'm not a man but it's amusing that we both did. Both had it planned for a while too and didn't know the other was working on it so honestly the odds are quite slim!
For Missiles and Seams: maybe the missiles damage is too spread out to harm them and need more focused force.
A good theory!
Another commenter also suggested it might be some biological/chemical/emp missile and that's why the seams are unaffected.
Would it be possible to beat the campaign if the enemy was only Sturm? (Or Kanbei xD)
rip nell
What about trying to beat advanced wars 2 without a CO?(playing all missions as COs with no day to day powers, Andy, Olaf and Adder, without popping COP or SCOP)
dual strike with two jugger or jugger flak
FLAK SWEEP
When is someone making a hack that just makes Flak the hero of a completely rewritten story similar to the GhebFE mod for Fire Emblem 8...
I tried to do a similar run with your patch but it won't let me pick the same CO for the other spots. Not sure if I am missing something but I did use the patch you linked! Any help would be appreciated!
I usually do comet first and moon later
I thought I already saw this video but apparently you and Shiki 'Sho' Kiryu Sega-Chan had the same idea and posted videos 3 days apart lol
my guess on the missiles is a largely coding thing also since bombers usually do 95% no buffs, a single missile could put it w/in a single hit of destruction
You do realize you can place transports in cruisers right? The tutorial mission says so.
I do, but I always forget in the moment, lol.
does flak get his indirect bombers or lake battle ships
Ah yes
Advance Wars 2: Flak Hole Rising
T Minus 15 gives you Andy normally, I don't think you should worry about not being able to double up on Flak. It's not like Andy does the heavy lifting on that mission anyway.
Reboot camp version when?
Your double Flak jokes throughout remind me of:
th-cam.com/video/qSUntITltQ8/w-d-xo.html
Whats your problem with my man Grit hmmm?😡
Does Flak actually say those things? Like the "As long as i am here, orange star will be safe."?
Or are those actually quotes said by an orange star co?
If you are decent at the game and know how the AI works, this is not hard