Topic: Advance Wars 1+2

Beat the first game. S ranks for the majority of levels, but there are a few tougher ones I have to go back and re-do to get S ranks, including the final battle. Love how all of the unchosen levels where campaign splits would have been in the original pop up in the post game. So I have a bunch of new levels to play as well. And all the war room stuff. And, of course, the Advance Wars 2 campaign.

SO much content.

For now, though, I'll likely lay off the game, except for maybe trying out the online multiplayer mode soon.

Happy to see this still seems to be selling pretty well on Amazon. Hopefully it does well enough that Nintendo commissions WayForward to do more remakes, or maybe even a new game.

@dystome Request sent. See you on the battlefield some time.

@Reyren I've been struggling too, but im not at the final map yet. I had to restart mission 16 multiple times last night. Unlike most strategy games I've played, I feel like there's a specific way you need to win the map. In FE or mario + rabbids, you can win in multiple ways.

@Reyren So, when I did the final battle, I went in with Max and... either Eagle or Grit. I think Eagle. I think Kanbei works well instead of Max, though. Anyway, I don't know if you start off with identical units, but with Eagle, being an air-themed commander, he started off with fighter jets. Both Andy and the other CO should also start out with Anti-Air units. The most important early goal in the map is to take out his air support. Particularly his bombers. He'll still be able to make more, but bombers/fighters are expensive and will come slow. You also want to make sure you're quickly seizing territory. Always prioritize airports/factories, but every new city will mean more treasure in your war chest as well.

So early game should be flying up fighters and rolling up your Anti-Air units to attack his air support (try to keep your AA out of range of his tanks when possible, but if you have to sacrifice one to take out a bomber, it's not a bad trade considering the value of each respective unit), but otherwise focus on seizing territory. When possible, kill infantry/mechs that are nearing Andy's territory, because you don't want him seizing territory. Even if you can't kill a unit, delaying the capture for a turn or two more is still valuable. Andy's base will probably get overrun during the match, but you want to make sure there aren't infantry taking over territory.

In terms of positioning, you know the road on the right-hand side of the map that the right-most CO uses to get tanks over into the center? Try to have an Anti-Air over there at at all times, because new air units typically fly down that way when attempting to enter the fray. At least, they do on Normal difficulty.

Oh, and this should be obvious by now, but try to space out your units to minimize the damage his meteor thing does. A neat trick is that his attack appears to damage his own units, so if you notice he's about to pop off with his power, crowding around a bunch of his units can be valuable. I don't think the Meteor Strike can kill units either, so another potential way to lessen its impact is to crowd a bunch of already severely damaged units together and see if you can bait his attack toward ineffective targets.

One other thing: when you begin to invade Sturm's territory, keep in mind that he can't produce a unit if another one is already on a facility. Even if you can't seize a factory or whatever, crowding it with bodies is also valuable.

Good luck!

@Reyren
Try using different COs I used Andy, eagle and kanbi.
Edit: oops I just saw someone say the same thing as me lol.
But yeah strum is op but I think eagle is more op because he can move twice.

Alright, so I'm struggling quite a bit with mission 23 on the first game. I can't see the best route to take after multiple restarts. The enemy just keeps respawning more and more enemies before I could even get to the HQ side of the map. I'm getting the floor wiped with me, and would love any suggestions.

I just can't get past this mission. It's been 2 full nights now and I can't make any headway 😡

People said Danger Times Nine was hardest level in the second game...was it made easier? I looked up guides and, I dunno...only real difference I've noticed is that I don't get Rockets trapped in that piped area. lol

Wow. Day 37 and finally beat mission 23. Can anyone tell me of the final battle will be as hard? Only spent like 5 hours on 1 mission so I'm trying to gauge if it's worth it.

@NintendoByNature Last mission is hard, but far less tedious, IMO, as the level layout is simple. If you find you're having trouble with it, I gave another user some tips on the last page.

@Ralizah ok sounds good. I think my biggest problem are the bases where enemies can keep respawning until you can take over which can be tiresome. Thank you!

Are the War Room maps meant to be harder than the campaigns? I tried the first one (Spann Island) and really struggled (ended up completing it in 33 days with a D rank).

I figure now that I've beaten the Advance Wars 1 campaign (100% completion turned out to be beating every mission, nothing to do with ranks), I'll move onto Advance Wars 2 campaign.

I've never dealt with the War Room stuff before, like...at all...even in the DS games. lol

Anyways, ran into a bizarre glitch, hopefully if a new game comes at some point, they don't use Unity again, ugh. Anyways yeah during a mission my cursor just, vanished. I could still select units via the R and L buttons, and a few other things, but that was it. Couldn't move anything around at all, thankfully it was fixed when I left the map and came back, though.

Slight rant incoming: Well, I gave it a fair shake. I just can't beat the last mission and it stinks to get so far and not see the game through. What's worse is I played on casual! Tried for a good 2.5 hours. Not to mention the 5 or so hours of mission 23. Well over 20hrs for the game and didn't even roll the credits. I just can't go another 10 minutes of being hammered by the enemy and just spawning new allies only to be pummeled the very next turn before they even move.

Honestly, these last 2 sections dragged the game down for me, which is a shame. Since the announcement, I've been looking forward to this and I have to say it's my biggest gaming disappointment in 2023. I absolutely love the strategy game genre but it felt like it was in its own ballpark. For the record, I think wayforward did an amazing job from top to bottom. It's the core gameplay itself and the difficulty.

Its probably something I was doing wrong the entire game, but it felt too restricted which hampered my experience. I never felt In control of the missions like I do in most other strategy games. For the most part, I felt like i was playing catch up on defense as opposed to offense that I'm used to in rabbids or FE.

Glad others got to enjoy this, but it's my time to move on. I don't think I'll even touch AW2 at this point if it's anything like the first game. End rant

The final bosses in this series have always been a nightmare to deal with mainly because of their powers. No idea who is worse, but Sturm does cause tons of damage to a group of units. Maybe Von Bolt was like, slightly easier since he does less damage and stuns your units for a turn.

...I forget what Caulder does, no one cares about him. lol

@Colonel_Mustache glad it's not just me!

@NintendoByNature I got lucky with the final mission, sometimes the enemy made really stupid mistakes like always targetting APCs rather than units that can attack when in range and not creating anti-air/missile units when I was constantly using bombers with Eagle.

@Grumblevolcano I've had that happen with a couple missions where I walked away unscathed and shouldn't have been.

Oh yeah, forgot about that, saw a youtube video talking about how in the original games the AI REEEEEEAAAAALLY hated APCs, T. Copters, and Landers. So you could always use those as decoys/bait and stuff. Turns out the AI remains unchanged in the remakes.

Does EAGLE cheat in campaign mode , when he uses he's special powers he gets health replenish and 2 goes. 👎😃

Eagle's non-infantry can move twice with the Super.