Advance Wars is a game that demands players think critically about every move in order to succeed. Even when playing on the casual difficulty setting, it's common to be forced to retry using a different approach. Carefully examining your options and the level layout, is crucial to succeed. It can be overwhelming when considering CO powers, unit strengths, and terrain advantages.
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Here, we've lined up vital tips for first-time commanders. Being able to think quickly and having a cunning edge in battle is necessary to carve your way through the campaign. With the help of these tips, you'll be able to brew up some of your own devastating strategies.
When hovering over a unit, pressing the ZR button will bring up the details on that unit. Here you can see the number of spaces a unit can move, their vision, fuel, and ammo. Use this menu frequently to better understand allied and enemy units in case you forget how that specific unit functions.
Under the "Weapon 1" and "Weapon 2" section, you can also see how effective these units are in combat against other unit types. In this section, circles mean your unit has higher power against the specified unit type and triangles mean your unit has less power against the specified unit type. For example, tank units are great for taking out ground vehicles, but do less damage to ships and subs.
Various types of terrain exist that can affect your units' movement, vision, and defense. Each ground unit suffers a movement penalty when trying to move through terrains like forests and mountains. However, the terrain can also offer a boost in defense based on the number of stars next to the defense stat. Mountains and buildings offer high defensive boosts for ground units.
Lastly, an increase in vision can be applied to units that are in the mountains during Fog of War battles. Forests can also be used in Fog of War battles to evade enemy sight.
Don't forget that enemies can make use of these advantages as well, so pick your battles carefully.
Primarily, APC units are used to move foot soldiers around more easily and provide fuel to adjacent units. APC units can also be used as a means of distracting enemy units.
If you have an APC unit within the enemy's attack range, the enemy will often solely target your APC unit. Even if you have units at low health or trying to capture the enemy HQ, the APC unit is a high-priority target for the enemy. Use this sacrifice to effectively buy time or save your other units low on health.
Capturing buildings early on in any battle is vital as it provides a means to repair your units. Units that stay at a captured building will recover 2 HP per turn. You can also repair units by joining together two of the same unit.
Units at full health deal more damage, so keeping your units healthy should always be a priority. You can make use of Andy's CO Power Hyper Repair, which restores 2HP to every unit and boosts firepower and defense.
Capturing buildings not only provides units with a space to repair, but also increases the amount of funds you will receive on each day. You should focus on capturing enemy buildings as this will decrease their funds. Capturing a building leaves units vulnerable and having less health makes the capture process take longer.
Be sure to protect any unit in the process of capturing. You should also take advantage of the APC units and Transport Helicopter units to move long distances and quickly capture enemy buildings.
Sami's CO Power, Double Time, is great for capturing buildings as it increases movement range and speeds up the capture process.
By holding the B button over any unit, you can see the range of their attacks. You can also press the A button on enemy units to see all the spaces they can move to. This is especially useful for indirect units as some of them can't launch counterattacks at units that attack them directly.
The placement of your units can affect an enemy's range of attack. Placing units on bridges or narrow paths can create blockades. Using infantry or APC units for blockades is best as they are cheaper units that can easily be replaced.
In the top right corner of the screen during an enemy turn, you can see the enemy's CO Power meter. Overtime, this bar fills after attacking another unit. Keeping close watch on this meter is important as enemies typically use their CO Power as soon as their meter is full.
By pressing the A button and selecting CO from the menu, you can see the descriptions for the COs involved in the battle. It's here that you can see an explanation for the enemy's CO Power. Use this information to position your units properly and decide which units best counter this CO Power.
At first glance, infantry units seem underwhelming. These units have low movement range, weaker damage output, and lower defenses. However, these units are one of the few that are capable of capturing buildings. Having infantry units also allows the possibility of capturing the enemy HQ which results in an automatic victory.
Mech units also tend to be ignored due to their very low movement range. While the movement is abysmal, Mech units can decimate land vehicles with their bazookas. APC units work well with mech units to move them greater distances.
Both mech and infantry units can ford rivers. They are the only land units capable of this.
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