Game Boy Wars 3/Gameplay

Gameplay

Two countries, Red Star and White Moon, are warring against each other. The player takes control of the forces of one of the two countries, usually Red Star in single-player, on maps with square tiles. As the commander, the player must direct his or her forces to either destroy all of the enemy forces or capture the enemy's capital city. In pursuit of this goal, the player attempts to take control of the cities, factories, airports, and harbors on each map.

The player and the CPU player (or the 2 players in multiplayer) take turns (or phases) in moving their army, which can have up to 50 units. Each of the units can be given an order, such as attacking. Units can be land, sea, or air units, and can be built from near the player's capital using gold and materials obtained from any of the player's properties. Constructors and Supply Trucks must be deployed from factories but can also use the player's capital for repairs or resupply. Land units can be sent out from cities or factories, air units from airports, and vessels from harbors.

Game Boy Wars 3 also has a lot of units to choose from, from foot soldiers for taking control of properties, to cars for decimating enemy Anti-Tank weapon users, to tanks for taking control of the land, to planes for handling aerial warfare and making it important, to helicopters for providing support during air superiority, to vessels for controlling the seas. Each unit is strong against certain units and weak against others, and taking advantage of these strengths and minimizing these weaknesses is the main challenge of this game.

Gameplay differences

The Game Boy Wars subseries differs from the Intelligent Systems-developed games (including Famicom Wars and the subsequent Advance Wars games), showing signs of being influenced by a similar strategy game, Military Madness, also developed by Hudson Soft. These similarities including its use of a hexagonal (instead of square) grid, and greater emphasis on rock-paper-scissors gameplay (where unit A defeats unit B, unit B defeats unit C, and unit C defeats unit A).

There is also a greater emphasis on control of territory in addition to head-to-head unit matchups. Each unit has a "Zone of Control" extending to the six adjacent spaces, and in this zone the attacks of allies are incrementally more powerful and the attacks of enemies are incrementally less powerful. (Certain units, including the Bomber, have attacks that affect all of the enemies in their zone of control; these attacks, known as Anti-Land weapons, represent saturation or suppression attacks instead of direct fire.) Units also have "Initiative" ratings: instead of the attacker always striking first, the unit with the higher initiative rating strikes first, often granting the advantage to the defender, which also encourages movement in groups and control of territory.

Game Boy Wars 3 is unique in the Famicom Wars series but similar to real-time strategy games such as Warcraft in that it has a second resource the player must manage in addition to money, called "materials." Both money and materials are required to build new units; more-powerful units require great deals of money, but materials costs are instead more of a cap on the number of total units that can be built.

Game Boy Wars 3 also has a handful of other incremental improvements typical to sequels, including an improved map design mode, an improved unit information window, and a new interface for issuing orders to units.

Campaign Mode

GBW3's Campaign Mode is unique in the series, although it parallels Fire Emblem's gameplay to an extent. Barring the obvious, the first thing that the player may notice is that he/she gets to redeploy units that had survived, sending them out at no material cost for deployment. This is part of the Arrangement system. Each surviving unit can be sent out from any property that can be used for building the unit to join the battle, by going to the Unit List (top choice on the Map Menu), selecting a unit marked with a Kanji on the lower-right corner of its portrait, selecting the first choice (Arrangement), and then choosing the property where it is to be sent out from. The property that is used for Arrangement is clogged up for the remainder of the phase, making it impossible to Arrange more units than available properties. Surviving units retain experience amounts while having their HP, Fuel, and Ammo restored when the map is cleared.

When a unit that is able to Promote reaches S Rank, it will be ready to Promote the next time it waits for Arrangement. Most of the time, the Promoted unit is better, though key changes may require strategies to be changed accordingly or even make the unpromoted form preferable (since Promotion changes are permanent). Promotion will also reset the unit's experience amount, making it Rank D (the lowest Rank Level for a unit).

Exclusive units

These units are not in Advance Wars, and with certain exceptions aren't in any other installments of the Famicom Wars series.

• Rockets and Artillery, while present in other games, are different class units instead of Rockets simply being stronger than Artillery. The former primarily takes out foot soldiers in Game Boy Wars 3, while the latter gets rid of the war vehicles.
• Transport Truck - a lightweight infantry transport that can move faster than the APC.
• Constructor - can pave roads, develop properties, build Plains, build Air Checkpoints (for simple refueling of air units), and bridges. Has minimal battle abilities.
• Combat Buggy - useful for attacking other light-armored land units. Lightly armored itself, so it has immunity to Anti-Tank weapons and resistance to explosive shells, but low defensive power, meaning vulnerability to weapons that have reliance on accuracy in real life (IE rockets, grenades, and machine guns).
• Battle Car - a car with an Anti-Tank weapon, making it good for cost-effective attacks on war vehicles. Unit type is the same as the Combat Buggy's, giving it the same defensive strengths and weaknesses.
• Infantry Fighting Vehicle - an APC armed with an Anti-Tank weapon.
• Tank Destroyer - a tank that has Anti-Tank capabilities (though ironically, the Tank unit outbattles it 1-on-1; but at least the Tank Destroyer turns AA Tanks and other heavy-armored land units into scrap without too much trouble).
• Fighter S - an Interceptor aircraft, having ranged-fire Air-To-Air missiles. Can't attack land units while the Fighters A and B in this game can. This unit is listed because it is the only air unit in the entire NW Series that has ranged-fire capabilities, besides the Battle Helicopter S (which has minimal differences in its role from the Battle Helicopter) in this same game.
• Attacker B - a VTOL jet. Can be treated like a helicopter with supplies or loading, and has the advantages of a jet as well, but suffers the weaknesses of both, as it burns fuel quickly and has low defense for a major dogfight. (Note that the Attacker A has similarities to Super Famicom Wars's own Attacker (having the same low ammo amount, all-aroundness, and unit type), making it not worth listing here.)
• Transport Plane - a heavy plane capable of loading cars, trucks, foot soldiers, or Constructors. Defensively very weak as an air unit, with low Movement Power to boot. (Note: this unit was also in Game Boy Wars 1/2/Turbo, but it was capable of loading the same units as a Lander (with no penalty for loading bigger units too), making it a far bigger strategic threat. But it could only be deployed in Fog of War.)
• Supply Plane - a heavy plane that can refuel jets. Has the same defensive abilities as a Transport Plane (barring slightly higher Movement Power).
• Anti-Sea Helicopter - useful against sea units and can attack Subs, but otherwise nearly useless.
• Aegis Warship - capital ship with very high defensive power as well as extreme firepower vs. air units and ships, but unable to attack anything else, making them vulnerable to Submarine attacks.
• Aircraft Carrier - can be deployed in either one of two sizes, and can carry helicopters or jets then refuel and repair any Loaded ones, as well as use Vulcans to attack enemy units from a distance. VERY expensive just to build, and it has to rely on escorts to survive vessel attacks as well, upping its price for effective deployment even more.
• Tanker - can refuel other sea ships.
• Mercenary units - units obtained only with Radar Stations by using the GBC Mobile Adapter. Typically better than their weaker counterparts though, but the player can have only one Mercenary unit deployed at a time. Usable only on Campaign.