Advance Wars: Dual Strike/Strategy

Now that we've covered the basics of the game, we'll learn about playing effectively. First some units of notice, then some good rules to know.

Units of Significance

These units are units that have a large part in the game such as, battle copters, mechs, and so forth.

Battle Copter Battle copters are one of the games most rounded units. They are cheap at 9,000, only 2,000 above a tank and packs the same amount of firepower. They work extremely well in the beginning of the game to weaken infantry to stunt the enemy's economic growth and to pick off vehicles. However, any anti-air type unit will make mince meat of it so it will become toast once fighters and carriers get out.

Stealth Fighters Stealth fighters are a mix between a fighter and a bomber. It can do both of the jobs but doesn't do them as well. However, it gets a very important bonus, the ability to cloak itself. When cloaked, it becomes unhittable by all units with the exception of fighters and stealth fighters. It's a unit that's most usable at the end of the game because of it's price, 24,000. To use it very effectively, build 3-5 of them and cloak them all. Sneak them up to the enemy and strike the indirect units in the back, then use them against the tanks when your army comes through.

Neotank Neotanks are generally the best of the tank series. They have a movement of six, better than the medium tank. The machine gun is powerful enough to kill most infantry in one hit and the cannon is perfectly able to fight against other neotanks, medium tanks, and normal tanks. The only thing that can stand up to it in direct combat is another neotank and a megatank.

Mech The mech is a version of the infantry, it has a slightly stronger machine gun and a bazooka. The bazooka is as powerful as then tank cannon. With it's bazooka, it's made into a fine choice for capturing bases in a contested area early in the game. It still captures bases and destroys light vehicles.

Repair

When you repair, you pay one tenth of the unit's price for each hitpoint. Right now you might be thinking,

"One tenth the price for one HP? That's a ripoff! I could have a brand new unit for twice the price and do it in one turn AND have a weakened unit!"

Hear me out though, repairing is worth it. We'll put it this way. A unit at full hitpoints is worth more two times the cost of a unit that's half destroyed. The hurt unit will deal less damage when striking first, take more when striking first, and does less damage if any in a counter attack. The reason a full unit is worth more than twice the cost of the hurt one is because it will take less damage when attacking first.

If you have a unit at five hitpoints and a base, the logical thing to do is to repair unless you need the base. If you spend the money to make another one of that unit at full hitpoints, you will have for the full price of one, one good unit and one pretty much worthless unit. If you repair, in three days for the price of half of the unit, one good unit. Now about repairing technically, at a base that can repair it, you will restore 2 hitpoints a day with the exception of Rachel who repairs 3 a day.