Advance Wars: Dual Strike/Gameplay

So, what is Advance Wars: Dual Strike? It is a Turn Based Strategy (TBS) game. In it, you will face your opponents by constructing units to complete a goal. During this process you and your opponent will alternate turns. I will describe how these turns work and give you an idea of game play. To understand the specifics, though, please go to the corresponding sections. The default goals involve destroying every unit the opponent has or capturing his headquarters. This will be the objective of all games, with the exception of many campaign missions The best way to describe what happens is to look at how the game progresses turn by turn. First off, turns in Advance Wars are grouped into days. Each player gets one turn per day. At the start of any given turn the weather may change randomly if the Random weather setting is on. Also, if certain effects changed the weather for a set number of days, then the weather will default to normal at the start of that player's turn following the set period of days. One note, unless a map is set to a specific weather condition, it will always start as normal for the first day. There are four possible weather conditions: FoW (Fog of War) is a condition on the map. The only part of the map that remains visible through the entire game is the terrain such as woods and plains, properties will be shown but who they belong to will remain a mystery unless they belong to you. To see the enemy units on the map, is where vision comes to play. Every unit has a vision range, in FoW vision range is equal to the area that they can see through. For example, if a unit had 5 vision, it could see everything withing 5 squares of it. Infantry and mech's vision will increase by 2 when they are on a mountain, making them useful scouts. Before we start on the advantages of FoW, there's one more thing about it. The terrain types forest and reefs, a unit in it of another army cannot be seen by your unit's vision unless your unit is right next to it. This can help with setting up ambushes and hiding essential units. Now, to take advantage of it. Hide units such as rockets and battleships in reefs and forests, then lure them out into range with a unit such as a battle copter or a recon. When one of them moves into range, OHKO it, and it will never get a chance to find you.
 * Normal: The standard and has no special effects.
 * Snow: Causes all units to use 2 fuel/movement point spent.
 * Rain: Whether FoW is on or off, it is now on and all units have -1 to their vision range but the vision range will not go below 1
 * Sandstorm: All indirects get -1 to their maximum range but their maxinum range will never go below the mininum range.

Indirects are a type of unit that attacks without being next to another unit. Rather, they attack from a distance whcih lets them attack without fear of being counter attacked. However, vice versa, if they are attacked, they can't counter attack either so be sure to protect/hide them. These are incredibly useful in FoW because they can strike without being seen. They have a minimum and a maximum range that they can target which will change depending on the unit. Also, to keep the game fair, the indirect units are unable to attack on the turn that it moved.

Almost all units have fuel. Whenever a unit moves it uses its movement points. Depending on what type of terrain the unit is moving over and the movement type it will use different amounts of movement points per square. Regardless, for every movement point spent the unit uses 1 fuel. Air and sea units also use fuel each day. If these units still have no fuel following the repair/supply phase then they are destroyed. Along with weather, any effects that last for a given time will wear off at this point in the day after the applicable number of turns. Now that you are all caught up, the next part after the weather involves money. For each property you control you gain money every turn with the exception of communication towers. The standard is 1000 g per property but can be changed depending on the map in a versus game. Any property except the communication twoer that can be captured will bring in money, this includes an HQ. In a one on one battle, capturing an HQ will typically end the game. However, in larger battles it will usually just eliminate the player whose HQ was captured. In that case, the HQ will become a mere city. Airports, Bases, Cities, HQs, Ports and Towers can all be captured and thus will bring funds each turn. Following the money portion of a turn, comes the repair/supply part. At this point all units that can be repaired and supplied will be. Certain units can repair and/or supply other units. The APC can supply units and the black boat can repair and supply units. Also, most properties can repair and supply certain units that are on them. Cities repair ground units, and a property that builds units will be able to repair a unit that it builds. However, the repairs cost money. You will need to pay one tenth of the total price of the original unit for each HP restored

Now, at this phase, land and sea units that recquire fuel but are out of it will sink/crash Now the fun begins. You can move units, build units, attack, capture and use powers. Whenever you attack or are attacked, you will gain a small amount of CO power meter. This is used to execute your CO powers. Powers have many effects from healing your units to launching missiles at the enemies. You have CO Powers, SCO Powers and Tag Breaks. All of these and their effects are discussed in detail in section 8. Capturing can only be done by Infantry and Mechs. Properties that can be captured have 20 capture points. To be capture all 20 points must be depleted. When an Infantry/Mech captures a property (which is done by moving on top of it and choosing "Capture") it will deplete the property's capture points by its HP. Thus, a 10 HP Mech will take 10 points of the 20. So, a full life unit will require 2 turns to capture. Certain effects can change the rate or effectiveness of capturing for Infantry/Mechs. What team the property belongs to is irrevelant to the amount of time it takes to capture Building units is done on bases, for land units, airports for air units and ports for sea units. Each unit has a price and if the player does not have enough money, then the unit cannot be built. Units cannot take any action the turn they are built. Moving units is done by selecting the unit and choosing a square within its applicable movement range,which is highlighted, and moving there. Remember how fuel costs and movement points the various movement costs of different terrain affect where a unit can move. Also, if a unit is hidden, either due to being unseen in FoW or hidden, like a Stealth of Sub, and the path the unit is trying to move crosses it, the unit will forcibly stop due to the "trap" and be unable to take any action. Following an accepted movement, the unit will be able to see from its new location. However, it cannot attack units that just now went into its vision range. When a unit is moved, a player can undo the movement before it is accepted and if it was not trapped. If FoW is turned on, all of these unaccepted movements will still cost fuel. After a unit moves, it can attack if it is not an indirect type unit. Units can also attack without moving, but if they do so they will be unable to move afterwards. When a unit attacks, to determine the damage refer to the damage table in section 6. Various attack and defense bonuses will alter how damage is dealt. First, consider the attack bonuses. If a unit has X% attack, he deals the listed damage times X%. Easy enough. Then consider defense. Subtract the defense of the unit being attacked from 200%. So, 200% - X%. Then multiply the damage calculated after factoring in attack bonuses by this value. You will note that 200% defense makes a unit immune to all damage. During attacks your CO Gauge and your enemies CO Gauge will fill up. Please see section 8 for more info on that. And that concludes a basic tutorial on how the game mechanics work. Now read on to learn more!