What's an airport, again? Let's play Advance Wars!

I was expecting to see "On Hiatus".

Sorry! I'll commit to getting it done this week.

that comes at the end of this month!

Welcome back to Let’s Play Advance Wars, after another long respite. We’re still stubbornly trudging through Green Earth, and this time it’ll be Sami facing Captain Drake in a battle of the belly-shirts. What’s going on in the Green Earth camp, I wonder?

Drake: By Neptune's beard, that was a rough battle!

Eagle: Come on, Drake! We'll be beaten again if you don't get moving!

Drake: Quit your jabbering and look around, Eagle. Only fools sail onto uncharted waters blindfolded.

Eagle: What are you talking ab...?

Drake: Orange Star did not attack Green Earth.

Eagle: But, we saw...

Drake: We saw what we were meant to see! And this goes beyond the battles in Green Earth. This entire conflict has been orchestrated from the beginning.

Eagle: But how...

Drake: Quiet! Now, if I'm right, we'll have to turn the tides on our mystery foe. The best way to test my theory is to battle Orange Star again.

Eagle: You mean... that wasn't Andy?

!!!

[As an aside: “We figured out it wasn’t Orange Star that attacked us! They’re innocent!”

“OK, what now?”

“Might as well attack them again to be sure.” Good plan, green guys.]



Nell: Bugs! Sami! Do you read me?

Sami: Yes, Nell. What is it?

Nell: It's about some units you're using. We need you to protect your landers! Orange Star is experiencing a shortage of them! If you lose those units, you'll lose this battle.

Sami: Landers? We have two of them. Do you mean protect both of them?

Nell: Yes, both of them!

Sami: Understood. We'll do our part. You can count on us!

Nell: I knew I could. Thanks Bugs, Sami.

Andy: Psst, Bugs. What's up with Sami? Have you noticed she acts differently around Nell?

Sure, Andy, why not?

Andy: You think she's looking for a promotion?

Sami: Hey, you! You're playing with fire, Andy!

Andy: Let's lay low a bit. OK, Bugs?

Never mind! Rewind time and say no!

Andy: Oh, OK. I guess it's just me.

Max: Yo, Andy! Sami's givin' you the evil eye!

Andy: I've gotta stop thinking. It just gets me in trouble.

There, that’s better. A lander shortage? Oh no! That doesn’t seem contrived in the slightest! Let’s take a look at the mission map and plan out our strategy.



We’ve got a wide selection of beaches on which to make our landing. The west-most beach is attractive as that peninsula would help to shield our landers from naval attack, there are plenty of forests to hide our invasion force in, and the road provides easy transit to the HQ. The beach on the peninsula allows our landers to travel the least distance, with each of them able to ferry a group over every other turn, and there’s still plenty of cover for the invasion force. The beach right in front of the HQ is also inviting, as its proximity to the HQ will allow us to immediately begin capturing the HQ – provided we can protect the capturing unit.

This diversity in viable strategies is a strong point of Advance Wars, as I’ve remarked previously, and this mission is no exception. I have no doubt the mission can be won using any of the three landing sites, and yet it’s not a cake walk using any of them. Allowing for different strategies is one of the things that makes Advance Wars very replayable.

I elect to invade via the beach on the peninsula, primarily for maximum lander safety. The mission briefing isn’t kidding; lose both landers and you fail the mission, even if all your troops are already across the ocean and the HQ is all but captured.



We’ll need to set up a defensive perimeter of sorts around our improved shipping lane between our island and the peninsula; Drake being the master of ships that he is, you can bet he’ll have a navy gunning for us. Our sub takes up point in the east, in a reef, and spots an enemy lander for good measure. Who knows what Drake’s planning to do with that.



Our cruiser takes up point on the west side of the lane and our battleship moves behind the sub on the east, both hiding in reefs. Drake’s navy will have to expose itself to us before it can attack our own.



We waste no time in getting a shipment of units across to the peninsula, with our strongest ground units, our Md tank and rockets, first ashore. We’ll be ready to send another shipment over next turn and every turn thereafter until all our units have crossed.

We end our turn, and Drake does nothing visible other than to remind us to protect our landers:

Drake: Let's see. All I've got to do to win is to send those landers to the bottom of the sea. That'll keep 'em from comin' ashore! Up and at 'em, mateys!

But, Drake, we’re already ashore!



We begin our second turn by moving our Md tank and rockets up into forests, hiding them from enemy ground forces and clearing the beachhead for another shipment of troops.



A recon (for vision) and tank (most powerful unit left) are next ashore. Our recon spots a cruiser off the west side of the peninsula, but the only thing we’ve got that it can hurt is our sub, and it’s got a long way to go to get there.



Our battleship could fire on the enemy lander, but all that will accomplish is building Drake’s CO power bar and bringing us closer to a debilitating Tsunami. Prudence wins out over bloodlust this time. Let’s see if Drake’s ready to come out and play yet.



Oh yes, he is, bringing a sub and battleship into our range and messing around with an infantry and a mech up north. Unfortunately for Drake, he’s unknowingly sailed his navy right past most of our own.



Our cruiser opens the attack on the enemy sub, rendering something that could easily one-shot our landers into a minor inconvenience. Good job, cruiser, you’re almost done with your part of this one.



Our Md tank advances to another forest, again revealing no enemies. Come on, Drake, you’ve got to have some tanks or something back there!



Our sub and battleship enjoy open season on the enemy battleship, removing it from relevance by reducing it to 1 HP.



Our rockets decides taking out the enemy sub is a better use of its time than the infantry or cruiser and finishes it off. OK, friendly cruiser, you’re done. You can go home now.



We ferry another tank and an APC loaded with a mech over to the peninsula. Over to – wait a second, Drake, why do you have that big grin on your face?



Oh, right, that’s why. That was fast.



What a powerful battleship you’ve got there!



That’s all Drake can muster in terms of attacks, though he does finally bring a tank into the fray. That tank unfortunately spots our rockets, which means we’ll probably have to take it out.



Like so, with a lucky attack on the second one!



Our battleship moves up to try to be relevant in the ground battle and our rockets, lacking good cover to move into, hit the enemy infantry.

We bring another infantry and mech across to the peninsula. We’ve now got everything except one last infantry across; the naval battle is won and focus has shifted to the ground battle, which hasn’t yet seen much fighting. We end our turn.



Uh-oh; our Md tank takes an indirect (artillery, I think) attack from an unseen area, and an enemy Md tank comes in to finish it off. That’s a big blow to our ground forces.



Drake doesn’t do much else we can see on his turn, only moving his infantry up a bit. We take over minus that Md tank but otherwise unscathed.



Might as well get this out of the way, huh? I’m typically terrible at knowing when to spend Sami’s CO power, usually waiting far too long to use it, so I use it here. It charges up relatively quickly; maybe we’ll get a chance to use it again.



Our indirects lead off, combining to destroy the enemy Md tank. Good thing, too; they’re the only things we have left that can really touch it.



After sending one of our tanks up to further cover to scout more (and coming up empty), our other tank and recon advance, taking out the encroaching infantry as they go.



We move the rest of our units up and call it a turn. Our sub goes scouting east and finds only another useless enemy lander. I wonder if those landers are mainly meant to fill up Drake’s CO power meter? Well, I’m not falling for it.



Drake stays cagey on his turn and we’re no wiser than we were before. Oh well, let’s continue the advance.



Our recon discovers an artillery, and we send our APC toward the enemy HQ…



…only to run right into a hidden mech, leaving our APC sitting out in the open and in artillery range. Our back tank takes a bite out of the mech, which also threatens our APC.



The rest of our turn will be spent trying to salvage that APC. Not only is it the quickest way for us to get a capturing unit to the enemy HQ, it also contains our only remaining full-health mech due to Drake’s Tsunami. The APC is crucial to our speed score. To that end, our other tank hits the enemy artillery and our battleship finishes off the mech.



We move the rest of our ground units up. Especially notable is that our rockets have finally managed to make it a little bit upfield; let’s hope they’ll be relevant again.



One of our landers has picked up the last infantry on our home island. We’ll run straight to the enemy HQ with it as a backup plan. Sami’s increased movement range for transports really helps at times like this.



Our sub does some more scouting – and runs right into a sneaky enemy battleship. Full disclosure: I lost in my first attempt at this mission when this battleship one-shot my last lander, which was foolishly trying to land an infantry too far east. So I have had some forewarning, but this battleship doesn’t move; you likely wouldn’t even notice it if you stayed west of the HQ.



It’s an odd turn for Drake. Despite all of our units out in the open and in range of whatever nastiness he’s got, he doesn’t move anything new into our sight. A hidden rockets hits our recon and his artillery does attack our APC, but can’t do much damage to it in its weakened state.



One of our tanks shows no mercy in ending that artillery. Well, recons are usually a low-priority unit for AI targeting, so that rockets attacking our recon probably means it’s off to the west somewhere. We’ll go ahead and make a run for the enemy base, reasoning that if anything were there defending it, it would have already come up and attacked us.



Half right, I guess? The base is clear, but that rockets is a lot closer than I thought it would be. That’s actually a blessing, as we can hurt it now that we can see it.



Our battleship and rockets make short work of the enemy rockets. It’s nice having our indirects in good, supporting position for once. I could get used to this. Usually the advance progresses too quickly for them to keep up.



The rest of our ground forces move up, and our remaining tank scouts out the forests northeast of the HQ. Still all clear. This might be easier than I thought. Let’s land our backup infantry so anything hiding can’t attack both of our potential capturers.



Well, there’s a surprise. Thankfully, the artillery can’t attack either of our capturers, so it’ll default to the APC. We’ll lose it, but it won’t really hurt the war effort – that APC has done its job.

Our sub could attack that last battleship, but that would provoke a Tsunami, and nobody wants that. So it just sits there intimidating the battleship.

As predicted.



This, though, is a surprise. Drake has a tank in reserve that comes in to cripple our infantry. Good thing we’ve got the mech there too.



As our turn dawns, we’re in very good shape to end the battle in two turns. Thanks to Sami’s capturing bonus, our mech can take a hit and still finish the capture next turn as long as it stays at 4 HP or better. We move our battleship closer in, but it probably won’t get a chance to fire again.



Our two tanks cripple Drake’s tank, leaving it at 2 HP and setting its AI to “run away”. I inexplicably end the turn here; sure, we’ll eat a Tsunami next turn and the artillery can still attack our mech, but it can withstand the blow with the HQ’s sizable defense bonus. I had forgotten about Sami’s capturing boost and was assuming the mech would lose a turn by being damaged.



Drake’s tank doesn’t quite run on his turn, but it doesn’t really do anything useful either (yes, that’s 0 damage done). Look how afraid he is! Drake’s artillery can’t see anything in attacking range, and his battleship keeps having that staring contest with our sub, so we pick up right where we left off.





Rockets, tank, battleship, and tank combine to take out Drake’s tank and artillery, and we’re home free. A turn later…



…we capture the HQ! I know there was a request for a rout victory, but it’s really a pain on this map. All those expensive enemy naval units lead to multiple Tsunamis against your forces; it’s much easier to leave them alone. That battleship on the rocks in particular is very difficult to destroy – our sub took a potshot at it on the last turn and only did 2 damage. Yikes.



Drake: Curses! I've been defeated. Time to hoist sail and flee!

Sami: I won... somehow.

I suppose the writers were getting tired at this point.

The perfect S rank here surprised me, as we could have finished off the mission a turn earlier without much trouble. As I said, though, I failed this mission the first time; it’s easy to get careless with your landers and wander into the enemy sub or one of the battleships. My loss in particular was after a hard-fought battle got me one turn away from victory; the sudden defeat was crushing, but deserved. Why get careless with a lander when its destruction means failure? No reason but hubris, going for the rout when victory was already assured.

It’s a well-designed mission, with the choice of landing sites and unpredictable enemy unit formations leading to a great variety of tactics that can result in a victory.

Next time, we’ll be facing Eagle instead of Drake, again with our choice of Orange Star CO and a separate map for each. Who will it be this time?





Eager Andy?





Cool Max?





Or steadfast Sami?

You decide! Andy’s and Sami’s missions do look strikingly similar…

Andy needs to steal Sami's promotion, so I vote Andy.

I sure was happy to see a notification that there was an update to this LP. its one of my favorites.

I'm voting for Andy
Encouraging the rivalry between that smug pilot and a kid who thinks using his brain is a bad idea.

The Andy/Sami map here is the more interesting one, IMO. So go for that one.

Max is always ready to go, and it would be a shame to waste that.

I think the Max map looks more interesting

Max?

Max?!

MAAAAAXXXXXXXXXXX!!1

It's Andy right now!

But yes, thank you for the prodding. I'll get on it.

How did that happen? Last I checked Max was winning or the vote was tied!

Stupid Andy... and his dumb stupid face...

Welcome back to Let’s Play Advance Wars! After a couple of battles against the old sea dog, Drake, we’re back to facing our old friend, Eagle. And what better way is there to welcome Eagle back than with his putative rival, Andy? It’s naivete versus air power! Let’s check in on Green Earth:

Drake: Aye, like I said, that's a rough opponent. Doesn't this old sea dog deserve some smooth sailing now and then?

Eagle: Drake! Listen... About our earlier conversation...

Drake: Ahoy there, Eagle. It's time for you to test the waters. Battle Orange Star yourself and see if my theory holds any water.

Eagle: I think you're right.

Another day, more men sent to their deaths to confirm a nearly-proven theory. Fun! There’s a little too much padding in this part of the game.



Andy: This’ll be the third time I’ve faced Eagle. It’s about time to wrap him up for good. I’m gonna get him and make him tell me why he’s been chasing me!

Sami: I must be dreaming! Andy! Are you getting serious on us?

Max: Are you feeling OK, pal? You comin’ down with something?

Andy: Gimme a break, guys! I don’t think you understand what it means to be me.

Look at Andy, growing up before our eyes! It’s great how his teammates jump on him as soon as he shows some signs of intelligence. I bet they’d ship him off to the emergency room if he could explain to them what an airport is.

Let’s get refreshed on the map:



We’re pretty evenly matched in this one; I’d actually give us the edge based on our forces being closer to engagement than Eagle’s. Our bomber and B copter can attack his ground troops right away, while his bombers all start far away from the front lines. We’ve also got a missile truck, which ought to come in handy against Eagle’s air armada. Eagle does have a surfeit of bombers, but we should be able to handle those if we stay out of their attack range. This mission will come down to winning the air battle and making sure Eagle’s Lightning Strike doesn’t come at an inopportune moment.



We start by moving our fighters forward while staying out of Eagle’s fighters’ range. It’ll be key to neutralize his fighters as soon as possible in order to win the air battle.



Next, our bomber and B copter make attacks of opportunity against Eagle’s ground troops while his fighters and anti-air are too far away to respond, crippling Eagle’s rockets and hitting one of his tanks.

This shows how important the air units are on this map; with just one turn’s worth of attacks, we’ve done major damage to Eagle’s ground troops. Eagle will do the same if we aren’t careful to cover our own troops with air defense.



The safe zone for our ground units is up to Eagle’s lead bomber’s range. We won’t be able to safely move past the first mountain range until the air battle is won.



We move our front units up to the edge of the safe zone. We’ve got a mech loaded in the T copter; it’ll make a run to Eagle’s HQ in case the rout takes too long.



The rest of our units move up as much as possible. The key unit is our missile truck; it’ll have movement priority at all times so that it can help with Eagle’s air units. We end our turn and let Eagle have a go.



Eagle: Despite Drake’s conviction, I find it hard to credit his hypothesis. Andy! I’m coming for you!

Eagle! I thought you said you believed Drake before we got started! I guess he was overtaken by bloodlust upon seeing Andy’s goofy mug.

As for his turn, Eagle, moved his units up but didn’t attack anything. He moved one fighter into our fighters’ range while covering it with the other one. This will force us to begin the air battle this turn; retreat our fighters and Eagle’s bombers will wreak havoc.



Our fighters seize the initiative and gang up on Eagle’s lead fighter, knocking it out of the skies. One of them will take a hit from Eagle’s remaining fighter, but the tradeoff is worth it.



I mess up the screenshot, but our bomber and B copter are still free to operate in the south, and our bomber takes out Eagle’s 5 HP tank while our B copter finishes off his rockets.



On the ground, we move our units back a bit to stay out of bomber range, hoping that the bombers will foolishly give our missiles and anti-air a shot at them. Eagle’s CO power meter is about 7/8 full, though, so we may have a serious mess on our hands if he manages to fill it up before the end of his turn. Other AI COs always use their CO powers at the start of their turn, so it’s not a concern if the meter isn’t filled then, but Eagle always uses his at the end to get the most mileage out of Lightning Strike.



Eagle’s remaining fighter hit one of ours and one of his tanks pounded our recon, but he didn’t get his Lightning Strike off and he left a bomber in the kill zone. Not a good turn for him.



Here’s how close Eagle was to getting his CO power off. Good effort, but not quite.



We add insult to injury. We don’t have that many injured units that this will help with, but it’ll at least be a big boost for the fighter that Eagle attacked. The general attack and defense boosts are always nice as well.

Q: What happens when missiles meet a bomber?



A: That. Andy flashes the victory sign for us in his glee.



Our fighters go first, taking a big bite out of Eagle’s last fighter and wounding his penultimate bomber. Where is the last one? Chilling out in the southeast corner of the map. It hasn’t moved yet and doesn’t look like it will anytime soon.



Now that the enemy fighter menace has been greatly reduced, our T copter makes a run for the enemy HQ with a mech onboard. It’ll be our insurance policy in case the rout is taking too long.





Eagle’s anti-air has finally entered the picture in the south, but it’s open to attack by our bomber and the threat is quickly neutralized. Our B copter starts in on Eagle’s Md tank. Back in the north, our own Md tank and our recon team up to wipe out Eagle’s lead tank.

We use the rest of our turn to move the rest of our ground forces up as much as possible. The wooded terrain means that it’s very slow going for everything but our mechs and infantry. We pass the baton to Eagle and await the inevitable Lightning Strike.



Eagle’s fighter takes our T copter down to 6 HP, his bomber knocks our APC to 3 HP, and his Md tank does 1 damage to our B copter before the inevitable Lightning Strike. Then he takes the same tape and rolls it again, finishing off our APC. It’ll be the only unit we lose, as Eagle’s units are very weak after a Lightning Strike.



Here’s the scene in the north at the start of our fourth turn. The south is pretty much the same as it’s always been; that last bomber still hasn’t moved and our own bomber and B copter still have free rein.



Our missiles get one last crack in, felling Eagle’s last bomber, and our full-strength fighter finishes off Eagle’s last fighter. The skies are ours; the only air unit Eagle has left is the recalcitrant bomber in the southeast. The damage percentages are so high because Eagle is coming off his CO power; he’s the only CO who is weaker the turn after using it instead of stronger. All the more reason he really needed to make that Lightning Strike count.



Our T copter has arrived at Eagle’s unguarded HQ, though it’ll still take our mech a couple turns to make the trek to the HQ.





In the south, our mech finally gets into the action and our bomber and B copter continue doing what they do. Our B copter has finally run out of ammunition for its main gun, meaning it’ll be relegated to mopping up infantry with its machine gun for the rest of the mission.



One of our fighters heads down to take out the inert bomber. The other will join it next turn.





We end our turn well in control in the north and south, and the rest of the battle is just mop-up. It takes us three more turns to finish off Eagle’s units, and the rout ends up tying with the capture in terms of speed.



Our bomber does the honors.



Andy: C’mon, tell me! Why have you been chasing me?

Eagle: Don’t play the fool with me, whelp! Do you expect me to forget what you did to Green Earth?

Andy: Huh?

Eagle: The look on your face during the assault… I’ll never forget! Never!

Andy: No! You’re wrong! It wasn’t me!

Eagle: What do you take me for, boy? I saw your face!

Andy: I’m telling you, it wasn’t me! Why would I be out attacking other countries? Why?

Eagle: Hmm… Very well. I’ll take you at your word… for the moment. There are Drake’s thoughts to consider, as well. But don’t believe for a moment that I trust you. If I find out that you’re lying to me, you’ll curse the day you were born!

Looks like Eagle’s finally coming around! But how did he see Andy attack Green Earth if Andy was back at home playing with blocks at the time?

This mission is a relatively easy perfect S rank. It can go wrong if the air battle is mismanaged – Eagle’s Lightning Strike has the potential to ruin things in a hurry – but the player has the advantage in this one, with slightly better units and much better initial positioning. It’s odd to have such an easy battle near the end of the game like this.

Of course, if we’d chosen Sami and had to fight the same battle with Sami’s weaker direct units, in fog of war with no way to hide our air units, it would have been much more difficult.

Next time, we’re back against Drake with our choice of COs and missions for our last Green Earth battle. Which CO will take on the old sea dog for the last time?





Happy Andy?





Confident Max?





Or Fed-Up Sami?

The choice is yours!

An idea I had: would a couple people be interested in playing a two-player versus game against each other? If so, I'd be happy to run one via PMs and post it in the thread with commentary afterwards. It'd be interesting, I think, to see how strategy looks when the AI isn't involved.

Look also for my take on the comparative rankings of units and COs before too long!

why is this not already happening

i will destroy all of your puny armies

Disclaimer: I may not actually destroy your puny armies.

Sami really likes battling Drake.

Sami!

Let's push Drake to the Max of his limits.

the Sami map looks interesting to me.

AW1 is a little broken in the competitive sense. The optimal strategy for human versus human play on a deployment map might not be exactly what you were expecting.

If you do it on a pre-deployed map, it'll work better, but those often aren't exactly balanced.

To be honest, I don't really know what to expect, as I really haven't played versus another human. I'm interested in seeing what happens, though!

We still need someone to sign up to play against aturtledoesbite to get the game going, though.

It's Max's turn.

Who haven't we played as recently? I vote for that person.

Regardless of who is chosen, I demand to see explosions! Destroy everything!

This is just what I read years ago, but deployment maps wind up being kinda boring because regardless of your CO, the same strategy is best:

Mech rushing with artillery/rockets backing you up.

Close. Infantry are apparently better, even though they have trouble killing anything but mech.

The fundamental problem is that one tank beats one infantry, but it doesn't beat seven infantry, and spending all your gum-up-the-map money on infantry means having more money left over for the indirects that are actually capable of dealing damage.

3-3 Max and Sami! If nobody breaks the tie by the end of the day, I'll flip a coin.

And turtle, if no one signs up to face you before the next update, I'll do it. As long as we don't play fog of war I won't have any informational advantage.

Sounds good to me.

I'm going to get destroyed.

Let's just assume I edit all the posts to say Sami and let's move on?