The Gears of Your Strategy (Part 2)

Hello and welcome back to my Advance Wars (will be referred to as AW) guide. Today I will be talking about how the game works plus other helpful information. Please note that distance will be to referred as squares on a board. I also cannot cover all the units as that will be far too extensive for the length of the guide. Finally, the following images were sourced by me by screenshotting the game on my computer.

Like I said in my intro, the game works somewhat like chess. Lets start with the pieces on the board; in chess you move one piece per turn. However for AW, your pieces (units) can ALL be controlled in the same turn where each unit can move, act or in some cases both at the same time. Just like chess, each distinct piece has their own pros and cons which need to be accounted for in order to succeed in a battle. 

Units have/do: 

(Refer to "DoR" category on the hyperlink table)

Mobility 

    1A. Slow speed (2 or 3 squares)

    1B. Moderate speed (4 or 5 squares)

    1C. Fast speed (6 squares can be considered fast)

    Note: Mobility is affected by terrain which will be discussed in the next section.

Offense

    2A. The ability to attack from range at # of squares away WITHOUT moving. (Referred as Indirect unit)

    2B. The ability to move AND attack another unit ADJACENT to their tile. (Referred as Direct unit)

    2C. The ability to move AND attack another unit AT RANGE from their tile. (Referred as Hybrid)

    2D. Capture property squares (Factory, Airport, City, Port, Comm Tower, etc)

Support

    3A. Transport other units

    3B. Supply other units

    3C. Create other units

Stats

    4A. Health - How much damage a unit can take before being defeated (All units have 10 HP)

    4B. Defense - Reduces incoming damage by a percent

    4C. Attack - How much damage one unit deals to another

    4D. Range - How far a unit can attack from its current position

    4E. Vision - How far a unit can see during Fog of War

    4F. Fuel - The limit to how many total squares a unit can move. If fuel is zero on a unit, it can't move.

    4G. Ammo - The limit to how many times a unit can attack before needing resupply.

Fog of war is a mechanic where the player cannot see the opposing units without scouting them out using the vision of one of their own units. Fog will be discussed more in the map mechanic/terrain section.

Let's get to the gameplay. Upon arrival of your turn, you may select your units be pressing them with your cursor. You may also check ranges by pressing B (on a DS console). From here you may choose to control them like in the following image.

The green squares are how far your units move and the red are the targets in range of attack. Units may move through friendly units but never enemies. In this case, we have the Infantry unit; the most common unit in the game which can fight other infantry, protect vehicles or capture buildings. This unit is a Direct unit that can move 3 squares max on most terrain. 

After the attack is complete, the unit will inflict damage to the target which varies based on defense stats and be blacked out indicating that it has done its action for the turn. In this case, the black team unit has dealt 5 to the Red team unit and the red unit counterattacked for 2 (in reality 2.5). Before I describe what counterattacking (CATK) is, note that the attack stat of a unit is also affected by their current health (HP) stat (Lesser HP means lesser damage).

This brings up the next unit mechanic, counterattacking. CATK is when a unit defends itself from a direct attack. This defending damage is based on what health the defender has after the attacker hits. In the case of the picture previously, the red unit hit back for only half of its attack stat because it was at half HP. 

In a more advanced situation, an attack can be resisted entirely or for the most part, resulting a full  strength CATK to the attacker (shown on the right image). The reason for this is that every unit has interactions with each other though some may not interact at all. In this case there is a Tank (red team) which is another direct attacker unit that is the jack of all trades in mobility (can move 6 squares max), offense and defense. The Tank in this situation is nearly immune to an Infantry attack thus causing it to take nearly 0 damage. Many situations exist and this is just one of them.

Finally before I wrap up this section, I would like to talk about Indirect units. As described earlier, Indirect units attack from afar but may only chose to move OR attack in a turn. Indirect units such as the Artillery can deal massive damage with zero risk to their HP because distant targets cannot CATK. Indirect units may also attack over all terrain and over any unit so beware of your unit positioning. The Hybrid unit is only seen as a Battleship which moves AND attacks at distance but its not too common so I will not go into further detail.

With a well balanced use of Direct and Indirect units, one can achieve a tandem effort between units where one protects the other which can give a strategic advantage. This will be discussed in the advanced section much later on. Stay tuned for part 3 where I will cover map mechanics.