Alright, first a little backstory. I ran an Advance Wars fansite for... jees almost two years. We had (most likely still have, although I can't confirm it) the most advanced strategies and guides for the game literally in existence. GFAQS, official guides, anywhere. We had a damage calculator where you could put any two units from any two COs on any terrain and tell you what the dmg percents would work out to. Thats how hardcore AW fans are.
Eventually a programmer created a program to let you make AW maps on your PC... it saved them as their own file format and everything. One thing led to another, and eventually a couple people actually created programs to play AW online, on your PC. It wasn't perfect (no loading/dropping of units, for example), but it was still cool. Finally someone created a prog that would let you load these fan-made map files into the game, for vs. matches.
~~~
But I digress. Enough with the backstory. My site's PHP programmer created a Design Maps database, where people could register accounts, submit the maps they'd made, rate and comment on other people's maps, etc. You could then view maps in one of several categories, such as 2P, 3P, predeployed, or just view the top rated maps, etc. Things grew very quickly and eventually there was over 1000 custom maps in the database. Some sucked... some were better than what Nintendo themselves included.
Anyway, to condense a lot more info, The dbase of 1700+ maps and the PHP system itself was lost for over a year... until last week. Its back up and running, and at the moment has 208 maps, with 10 or so being added a day:
http://www.underthemountain.org/awn/designmaps/index.php
I have absolutely no connection to the site anymore, other than being its founder. I IMed the current admin and STRONGLY encouraged him to sift through the old 1700 maps, take the best 500 or so, and put them back up at a rate of 20 or so per day. It looks like he's taking my advice.
CLIFFNOTES:
Visit this link to check out a dbase of hundreds of fan-made AW maps, updated daily, split up into a multitude ot categories.
DISCLAIMER:
Yes, I used to run this site, but that has nothing to do with this topic. I haven't had any connection to it in over 18 months. I'm making this topic out of excitement as an extremely hardcore AW fan... it just feels really really good to look at all these maps and start formulating strategies in my head.
Sample maps (complete with rules, should you want to recreate them on your cart
Author's comments:
(Rainforest, small rivers... and the big Amazon river represented by sea squares. For a better effect play with Rain weather.)
2-players self-producion map in which you really start with nothing. But you can't be slow to get to the land below Amazon river or who know what will happen to your HQ...
Rain, $2000, Fog of War.
Author's comments:
In this War Room map, the OS player must play successful having both good air and naval skills. You can try a land invasion, but the limited space for the land units to travel will make it difficult.
The two enemies have equal forces, and you must balance your army to win. Or, you can try a fast and heavy strike to one side, and use its funds to attack the other foe. Fog of War, while making the playability twice better, will make the map much harder - and really difficult to beat in the required S-rank time.
Notice how there are various environments in this map.
Mountains, river, big channel (sea tiles), a forest, a metropolis area (area around OS HQ)... 
Quick note: Drake = male duck, not the CO.
Although this one wasn't made using the random maps generator, I still think that it looks somewhat like a true AW War Room map. : )
----------------------------------
Blue Moon: Drake
Green Earth: Eagle
Settings: War Room Default
Perfect Speed Score: 26 days
Difficulty: Very Hard
Eventually a programmer created a program to let you make AW maps on your PC... it saved them as their own file format and everything. One thing led to another, and eventually a couple people actually created programs to play AW online, on your PC. It wasn't perfect (no loading/dropping of units, for example), but it was still cool. Finally someone created a prog that would let you load these fan-made map files into the game, for vs. matches.
~~~
But I digress. Enough with the backstory. My site's PHP programmer created a Design Maps database, where people could register accounts, submit the maps they'd made, rate and comment on other people's maps, etc. You could then view maps in one of several categories, such as 2P, 3P, predeployed, or just view the top rated maps, etc. Things grew very quickly and eventually there was over 1000 custom maps in the database. Some sucked... some were better than what Nintendo themselves included.
Anyway, to condense a lot more info, The dbase of 1700+ maps and the PHP system itself was lost for over a year... until last week. Its back up and running, and at the moment has 208 maps, with 10 or so being added a day:
http://www.underthemountain.org/awn/designmaps/index.php
I have absolutely no connection to the site anymore, other than being its founder. I IMed the current admin and STRONGLY encouraged him to sift through the old 1700 maps, take the best 500 or so, and put them back up at a rate of 20 or so per day. It looks like he's taking my advice.
CLIFFNOTES:
Visit this link to check out a dbase of hundreds of fan-made AW maps, updated daily, split up into a multitude ot categories.
DISCLAIMER:
Yes, I used to run this site, but that has nothing to do with this topic. I haven't had any connection to it in over 18 months. I'm making this topic out of excitement as an extremely hardcore AW fan... it just feels really really good to look at all these maps and start formulating strategies in my head.
Sample maps (complete with rules, should you want to recreate them on your cart
Author's comments:
(Rainforest, small rivers... and the big Amazon river represented by sea squares. For a better effect play with Rain weather.)
2-players self-producion map in which you really start with nothing. But you can't be slow to get to the land below Amazon river or who know what will happen to your HQ...
Rain, $2000, Fog of War.
Author's comments:
In this War Room map, the OS player must play successful having both good air and naval skills. You can try a land invasion, but the limited space for the land units to travel will make it difficult.
The two enemies have equal forces, and you must balance your army to win. Or, you can try a fast and heavy strike to one side, and use its funds to attack the other foe. Fog of War, while making the playability twice better, will make the map much harder - and really difficult to beat in the required S-rank time.
Notice how there are various environments in this map.
Mountains, river, big channel (sea tiles), a forest, a metropolis area (area around OS HQ)... Quick note: Drake = male duck, not the CO.
Although this one wasn't made using the random maps generator, I still think that it looks somewhat like a true AW War Room map. : )
----------------------------------
Blue Moon: Drake
Green Earth: Eagle
Settings: War Room Default
Perfect Speed Score: 26 days
Difficulty: Very Hard
