Days of Ruin - I don't believe this. (Rant.)

So where to start? Ah yes: the Campaign. Right away, we notice that we have a forced tutorial *again*. Thankfully, if we want to replay later missions, we don't have to replay those damned forced tutorial maps. We can just replay any mission we have already cleared. So it's only a problem if we're starting a new file. Even then, it's not so bad...

...except the tutorial lasts 16 missions. Which is shorter than Dual Strike's, which was 18 missions, but not by much (only a measly two if you haven't done your math yet). Once again, past the tutorial, there are only 10 more missions. Of course, some of the battles already manage to get boringly long if you don't use a Day-To-Day guide. Especially Mission 10, where the Beast lacks the means to break through because the map has bottlenecks, but has a heavy force that results in you having to take a while to wear him down until you can deal a finishing blow. This can only be a sign of things to come in the last 10 missions, unfortunately.

The good news is that something like Greyfield's unit movement banning in Mission 13 is at least an interesting gimmick. It keeps you from spamming one type of unit. It's a shame Days of Ruin still has a rather shallow metagame, though.

Anyway, you don't get CO abilities at all until Mission 15, which comes right after Forsythe had been murdered thanks to Greyfield. As you see, CO abilities are the last topic of the tutorials--but they have been messed up and for some reason the AW communities put too much emphasis on using them anyway. But I'm not going to talk about CO abilities yet. I'm going to point out how late CO abilities are introduced: Forsythe is already dead, Brenner's CO unit is impossible to move and gets destroyed early during the mission, then Brenner himself, the defensive CO of the 12th Battalion, gets nuked and dies at the end of the mission. We already have 2 dead COs out of 12 before CO abilities comes into any noteworthy play in Campaign. Oh my--you're joking.

*sigh* Well, let's look at the last 10 missions. First up is The Creeper. Once you know what to do, it's just a simple Bomber rush to destroy the Talon Gun, thereby bewildering Mr. Fascinating's spoiled firstborn daughter. Those four units that guard the Talon Gun's weak point? They never move. Talk about Leap of Faith.

Panic in the Ranks isn't that bad. A little gimmicky but I'm not going to bash missions for it. I bash them for sucking.

Salvation can be compared to the map Last Stand in AWDS's Time Survival because your force will have no trouble beating the enemy force but it can be an annoying filler mission anyway. Fortunately, in Salvation, you can at least move around, and you get to hear Gage's theme, which is fitting music for the mood of the mission. But it's still bothersome that the enemy gets 2 silos right off the bat. Oh well. Unfortunately, this is the last mission in Campaign where you play as anybody but Will or Lin. Yes. Will, Lin, and Brenner are mission hogs. You don't get to choose which CO you use. The game forces it down your throat. Including in the Trial Maps.

Waylon Flies Again is where things start to get bad. Waylon starts with a massive predeployed air force and all of the production facilities on his side of the map controlled while you don't start with any production facilities. Your forces are just several infantry, an AA Tank, and AI controlled Lazuria forces that for the most part basically suicide, but at least has the courtesy of keeping one unit at its HQ which is safe behind your units--good thing too, because losing the Lazuria team results in instant failure. The problem with this map, however, is that you have to keep walling, like you did in Mission 10, because there are mountains getting in the freaking way of your ability to advance. I did this map recently and you want to know how long I took? 52 Days. I didn't even take as long on any of the first 15 maps in GBW3's Standard Mode, including the 2 navy-centric maps where I have a record of 40+ Days, because navy is HORRIBLE at dealing with land forces in that game; and in GBW3's Campaign, there are turn limits on every mission, with the "better" path if applicable requiring the mission being done in about half the time. I only got an S Rank in Waylon Flies Again because I kept units alive and I kept OHKing, resulting in 150 in both Power and Technique.

Well, next up is Lin's Gambit. Fog of War, navy, and rough sea terrain. If that's not setting up for a messy mission, I don't know what is. It makes the 40 Day limit the least of my worries. At least DoR does something right: make the time limit for just completing the mission high, so that Speed isn't automatically high--although the way Speed is scored ensures plenty of points anyway. Still, we just have to take care of the defense missions now, preferably by making the game check if the victory condition is ensured and automatically declare the mission cleared if it is. Anyway, Lin's Gambit.....as you may have guessed, the Fog of War is annoying. You'd want to use Flares because of all the terrain that can hide stuff (especially those damn indirects), but oh right: this is basically an island map. At Greyfield's HQ, there is several properties that can easily hide his stuff and you'd already have had to fight your way up on his east front to be able to have Flares to start exposing it. It's really annoying. At least you can bum rush it once that applies, though, since he shouldn't have too many units left.

By the way, I counted the total number of maps with Fog of War in Campaign. It totals to 4, and 3 are within the first 16 missions, IE the forced tutorial. WTF. You control Lin for 2 more of the missions even though the FoW dies with Greyfield.

The Great Owl...oh my God. This mission is just horrible. There a whole lot of units to make your life miserable. You'll be thanking God there are no airports except for an easily controlled neutral one and your own, resulting in the enemy air units dying from lack of fuel. However, the time it takes for you to wait it out is long enough for IDS to build a bunch of AA units and War Tanks, making a Bomber raid impossible. So you'll have to slog your way through all those units. Believe me: it takes forever because the Great Owl's bombing zone leaves you with little room on the one front you can advance on (the other has River terrain impeding land units from using that front to advance), made even worse by your War Tanks' own horrible Movement Power, and Penny won't mind putting units in range to exploit the surplus of liberties she will get because you're trying to prevent units from being hit by the Great Owl. I ended up clearing it in 71 Days. WHAT. THE. HELL.

Amazing how the main villain's group clearly toying with you creates the *WORST* of the missions. However, we're not out of the woods yet. Sacrificial Lamb takes the Great Owl gimmick from the last level, and has it actually target the epicenter of your most expensive clump of units. Fortunately, the Great Owl bombs from only Days 2 to 5, and you can bait it off your navy by having 4 War Tanks out and around your HQ. A little bothersome, but at least you can attack the enemy force on two fronts once the Great Owl's bombing raid is over. This mission is actually good in comparison to what I had just went through a mission earlier.

And next up is Crash Landing. The map is really bothersome: it's flat out predeployed. And it's all about massacring Penny's forces, no terrain except the parts of the Great Owl's wing that can block units. The gimmick is that Penny has 6 reinforcements each time you destroy all of the units, until she sends out 6 Rocket Launchers. This is easily dealt with if you anticipate this and have your forces placed evenly to handle each of the two sides. Argh. Why is the real difficulty so variable?

Well, next is Lab Rats, and it's....not a bad mission, but it still takes a bit long. There's only one front and air units, but at least you can wall them off. Yes, you get units on Day 3 courtesy of Will's Big Damn Heroes moment that reveals that the Great Owl passengers survived. That's the level' gimmick; without it, you haven't a prayer against Tabitha's forces. Anyway, the stage is only 9 rows wide, which isn't a bad thing, but the way the game is, things basically narrow down to bland old walling.

Unfortunately, the level's gimmick can be abused to get a high score if you don't mind reloading for luck damage; this is done by destroying the AA Missile Launchers, which gives the air units that Will brings with him more free reign.

And finally, we reach Dumbrise Sunrise. Let me tell you: the Nest is frickin' cheap. There are two mortar launchers that hammer your units--one on each side of the Nest. Fortunately, their range is limited, but they do splash 2 spaces away with splash damage equal to the Great Owl's bombs. You can't even destroy the Mortar Launchers, and you don't get to use navy units, continuing the stupid trend of final missions without important navy, which is honestly stupid, because why have navy if you're not going to use it? Let me point to GBW3; in every map in Zone E (the last zone) of Campaign, there is navy warfare. You have to break through a massive fleet in Map 42 to reach Nidohegun Island Plan A (map 45) and the enemy still has FIVE Aegis Warships as part of its predeployed defense in the latter.

Anyway, the Mortar launchers at least alternate based on the Day number, along with their lasers' aiming direction, and which of the central lasers fire. However, the side hatches can also send out units for free--but luckily, they don't get to move right away, each of the hatches won't send out both land and air units (allowing for them to be pinned down), and the units at the hatches can't be used to Load Caulder. Which you'll be thanking God for. Why? Because Caulder is freaking broken. His loaded DUSTER can beat any of your Fighters. 180% Attack *and* Defense, on top of the 5 HP healing.

The problem, however, is that Mr. Fascinating starts with enough units to try to deter you anyway, especially with your units starting off southwards. So you'd really want to use a Day-To-Day guide, preferably the one on YouTube, which I use with reliable results, and even used as a start for simple routing. Yes, it's possible to rout Caulder's forces. I have done it before. But it's kind of a slog because, of course, Caulder is broken and abusing a gimmick more overpowered than the Factories in AW2, and only the AI's idiocy and lack of starting funds prevents him from killing you. And you can't get a good score. You also get the same ending: Mr. Fascinating dies thanks to your efforts even though he's all the way up within the Nest which you didn't attack except for destroying most of its l4z0rs far earlier on (you can't tell me you didn't destroy most of the lasers to keep them from zapping your troops), while your troops were all the way down there because of his brokenness, which would have given him time to retreat, and there's God knows how many territories for him to retreat to and terrorize you again. Although this case of Gameplay And Story Segregation isn't nearly as bad as the 7 Aircraft Carriers.

Regardless, thank God the story is infinitely better than Dual Strike. And you don't beat up or mock either robots or old men on life support. And now, we have HC. Let's do Days of Ruin. (The first mission, not the game.) What I remember is that.....uh, give me a moment. It's the first mission in the game, so I should remember what changes apply in HC..........WAIT A MINUTE! THERE'S NO HARD CAMPAIGN IN DAYS OF RUIN! Instead, we are stuck with 10 non-tutorial missions, some of which are boring.

So let's take a look at War Room, or Trial maps, which are accessible in your Campaign file. Actually, let's not review them individually. It would take too long. But I'll say this: their size, length, and difficulty are all ridiculously variable. IS couldn't make up their minds which maps should go where. It's a frickin' joke. And Jay Islands, oh my God. Fog of War, navy, *and* difficult terrain, just like in Lin's Gambit, except at least here you can use Flares to decent effect. But I still ended up taking 83 Days, and I scored 369 points, so the 100 Speed Time is in the 40s or higher. But wait. Lin's Gambit has a 100 Speed time of fewer than 18 Days. What is with this inconsistency? WTF "Intelligent" Systems.

There's no other one player modes, thank God, because I don't want to write God knows how much on the single player. So let's look at the multipl-wait. Medals are back, generally unchanged, and even more stupid anyway. At least in Dual Strike you could see how much is needed for the lower rank Medals. Oh, and guess what? You have to build/destroy the same amount of a certain unit to get the respective medal, no matter what it is. This will inevitably result in *MORE* farming. Can you tell me you didn't get the Infantry Gold naturally in Dual Strike? I sure can't recall having to farm for that.

So where was I? Ah yes. The multiplayer. First up is the COs, because boy do I have a bombshell just waiting for them. First is the Strength Without Weakness for every CO except (ironically) Caulder, who has to pay for his repairs. (Hey, that's an idea: Andy should pay for COP repairs--but have him able to repair units manually. I'd feel better if COPs had more risk to them.) Sure you have to pay 50% extra on a unit and the COs have different zone ranges, but you can put somebody like Brenner or Forsythe into an Infatry, pay basically nothing, and have a unit that goes in the back lines able to survive near the front in addition to boosting the front lines.

CO Zones is not a bad idea in and of itself, but I would feel better if they also provided SLIGHT weaknesses. The only thing stopping Lin on a pure land map from being AW2 Kanbei without the costs is her lack of decent CO Zone.

As for COPs, you get them from dealing damage from within your CO Zone, which also expands 1 space after 30 HPs of damage, and another after another 30 HPs of damage, with the COP fully charged. (Please note that there is a glitch that results in your unit within the CO Zone not providing for the meter if it's counterattacking a unit outside the zone. It could be intentional, actually, but I don't like this happening either way.) Using the COP reverts the zone range. How do I feel? Well, at least floods are discouraged a bit because of the impartiality of the charging from attacking, but I think the game is trying to reward attacking way too much by not having the COP charged up at all by having units damaged like in the previous AWs.
Let's review the individual COs, in order from what I feel is weakest to strongest:

*Tasha - oh my God. Revenge Girl is decent compared to other COs only if there are any air units on the map. And her zone sucks. For what? Air units having 150% firepower? That might be good in theory, but the Battle Helicopter sucks at dealing damage to any decent units, making a 50% firepower boost kind of moot, and Bombers already kill units. All it means is getting through terrain or defense more easily. Her COP sucks in comparison to others' too. +2 Movement Power to air units? Air units are already mobile. What's the point, really?

*Greyfield - I almost thought that Greyfield followed the "boost favorite area generally, COP assists worst area more/most" formula that the Green Earth COs in AW2 did. But oh right. He also boosts a few air units. So what he do anyway? Well, he provides heavy defense for his sea units. Rather ironic considering the crews would be under threat of being hanged for insubordination. Okay, maybe it makes sense. Point is, Greyfield boosts his sea units. As well as his Seaplanes and helicopters. Because the navy wasn't made cheaper in this game. Tells you how much influence land units have in this game, huh? His COP? It restores supplies to all units, which Jess did before, but Jess was the land CO. The only land units that I can think of that benefit from this are the Mech and the Rig. Every other land unit has little problem getting itself resupplied. Fighters and Bombers use up fuel but they have quite a bit of it at least as opposed to the Seaplanes. Meanwhile, Gunboats have limited ammo issues and Aircraft Carriers can't restock their Materials naturally. So much for following the formula. He's pretty much situational anyway.

*Waylon - another situational CO. And in those situations, Waylon is actually overpowered. His daily stats are overall not quite as good, but he has a larger zone, resulting in faster COP availability. Then his COP provides....wait for it......ridiculous air unit defense. Watch as his air units take like 1/4 the damage, making you helpless against his whailin'. Does this tell you something? Like maybe that the game makers are sure that air units suck? Okay, they can at least move around easily, but you know how Shedinja in Pokemon has only 1 HP but can only be hit by super effective strikes? Yeah, a similar case applies here, except air units actually have some degree of defense, but they are in a game where they can be stopped by dived submarines. Forget it, let's move on.

*Penny - oh God, a weather CO. She is completely unaffected by any weather, all of which hinder armies so no weaknesses there. Then her COP changes the weather for 3 Days. Which one it is is variable, but the point is........ugh. I bet her friend Mr. Bear is having a field day with how annoyed I am.

*Forsythe - basically AW1 Kanbei without the hiked up prices, but with only units within the zone, however big, getting the benefits. Of course, with all the Sw/oW COs, this doesn't say much. And he has no COP and his zone can't get bigger. This makes him only good for small maps where his massive zone kicks in right away. With all the SoW COs, you actually have to applaud him for fighting and surrendering like a soldier instead of using Caulder's banned weapons.

*Lin - as I said above, the only thing stopping her from being AW2 Kanbei without the increased costs is her ridiculously small zone. Her COP also makes use of the same effects as Sonja's Enhanced Vision, which itself was situationally overpowered. Fog of War was improved, but not all that much.

*Will - Will may never give up but he only provides attack boosts for direct-fire land units. It's not even a major one; it just provides a few magic numbers here and there, which of course is why there should be SoW anyway. However, what is a problem is his COP providing +2 Movement Power for those same units. Yes, including infantry. Can you say marathon Mechs?

*Tabitha - spoiled arrogance that has her calling others weak and stupid may get Tabitha a powerful unit, but her refusal to understand The Power of Friendship results in her zone being limited to her unit at the start. (This is made more punishing by the aforementioned glitch on the COZ mechanics. That's why I have her considered weaker than Brenner; otherwise, she'd be inbetween Brenner and Gage.) Her 180% firepower unit will rape anything it does decent damage to. Meanwhile, her other units can help her make a wall, preventing her unit from being killed because of its 180% defense. Even her unit has no way of making sure her army busts through it against a decently organized army even with no CO Loaded, which is the only reason why she isn't flat out broken. But by contrast, her army if organized correctly won't even *FEEL* the boosted COs' attack boosts. And heaven help you if her COP ever sees the light of day against you, because it nukes a clump of your units and makes her units a bunch of 150% Attack and Defense insanity that will most likely capitalize on it.

*Brenner - since he's the game's local founder of the quote "where there's life, there's hope," Brenner appropriately concentrates on defense. And he has a massive zone (3 spaces) from the air of trust generated by his determination to protect others. It applies to all units. Okay, so Will only focuses on land units and has a zone of 2.....but Brenner, who die before COPs come into decent play, has a zone of 3. Their boosts are the exact same amount, for God's sake. Ai yai yai. Anyway, his COP heals all units by 3 HPs each.....not too useful except for emergencies, compared to the fact that he would have a zone of 5 if he has the COP available in the first place. Where's the relative balance in this?

*Gage - attack boosts to sea and range-fire units. That's not much. But his COP is so broken. +2 Range for the range-fire units. Can you say Snipe Attack? I knew you could.

*Isabella - and Isabella takes the basics of Will and Gage, mashes them together, and uses it to be one hell of an overpowered CO. I told you SoW was bad. I didn't think it would be *that* bad.

*Caulder - ironic how Mr. Fascinating is broken yet more interesting than most of the other COs. It's rather...fascinating. He has no COP, but he doesn't need it with his natural large zone (the same size as Brenner's), power boosts equal to Tabitha's, and massive healing to all of his units in the zone at the start of the turn. What makes him interesting, though, is that his healing costs money, and also doesn't feed or reload the units automatically except by Rigs. See? At least he has a weakness. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to repel an attack from Mr. Fascinating for stealing his catch phrase.

*leaves, comes back 5 minutes later a little battered as if he had just fought off a broken CO, but smiling with pride none the less*

There. Where was I now? Ah yes. I had finished with the COs and saying how imbalanced they are. I will move onto units. (In the next post.)

Remember all of the trash units in AWDS? Gone. All of it. Huzzah. But alas, things can't stay this this good.

I want to point out that most units have had their ammo reduced. This can be attributed to the post-apocalyptic world, but then you see units with the same amount of fuel. What? (Wall Banger.)

Let's start with the basic Infantry. They deal less damage to the less armored vehicles now. And they cost more. 1500G. This may be trying to stop the Infantry spam, but this actually backfires because they are needed to capture properties. Without the money from the properties, you can't build the stuff the higher cost is trying to encourage in the first place.

This is made worse by a new unit: Bikes. For only 1000G extra--the exact amount provided by a property on a given Day--you get a unit that moves faster than Infantry along with better defensive power. Its Movement Type is Tire B, which means rough terrain will slow it down if not stop it, but most plausible maps would have plains so that tanks have decent room for maneuvering, meaning the only thing making Infantry more plausible will be properties that are 6 spaces away or less than 4 spaces away. The Bikes should have had lower defense power than Infantry so that they wouldn't be able to meatshield.

This is not to say the Bike is a bad unit in design. Smart attacking should actually be rewarded heavily. And the Bike can be used to capitalize on strategic mistakes by taking properties before the opposition can do as much about it. However, this is why poor usage of the Bike needs to be heavily punished. Low defense would have served better than the inability to load onto a more expensive, perfectly destroyable, and quite possibly more wasted transport. (It can Load onto the Lander still, but the Lander is more expensive too.)

Mechs.....their only major change is that they don't deal as much damage to AA Tanks and they cost 500G less, totaling to 2500G. There are a couple of other changes, but they are rather minor. They can be spammed just like Bikes without too much issue. But at least Bikes are around to punish Mech spams. The problem, however, is general infantry+indirect spamming.

Recons got minorly buffed in dealing dama-what the? 28% to 55% to AA Missile Launchers? It's more surprising than worth a complaint though. Anyway, Battle Helicopters beat it up more easily now, but that matchup is lopsided to begin with. And I doubt somebody is going to give up a Recon just to damage an enemy chopper.

Flares are a new unit, and I thought they were just gimmicky. Turns out that that besides lighting up locations in Fog of War, they're cheap armored infantry killers. Well, not quite. They don't OHK them on Roads, although neither do many units, sadly. And they're far slower than Recons too. But at least we have a good non-FoW use for them that just needs to be emphasized better in a future installment.

AA Tanks....well, now they fare even worse in combat the regular Tanks, but they take less damage from both infantry and indirects.....wait. They should be dealing more damage to infantry instead. What is "Intelligent" Systems thinking? That defense boost is a minor buff. As opposed to the increased defense against Bombers and Battle Helicopters. The latter is bullshit because the Battle Helicopter VS AA Tank matchup has been lopsided even in GBW3. The former is also stupid. Just have more AA units for God's sake, not more powerful ones. Especially now that the AA Tank is 7000G.

The Tanks......oh my God, thanks to AWDS's stupid handling of the tank levels I can't God damn make a good comparison via the comparison chart used on an AW site. I have to use the two games' individual damage charts, comparing the AWDS "Medium" Tank (which will henceforth be called the Main Battle Tank) with the DoR War Tank (which I'll call the Battlestation).

Anyway, first is the Light Tank, which takes slightly more damage from auxilary machine guns. However, they take less damage from indirects. They're slightly improved, but the way the game is set up, you may be hard pressed to use them effectively anyway.

And let's talk about the Battlestation next. It doesn't get the range fire you may see the ones in Battalion Wars 2 use. But it does replace the old MB Tank in terms of power. It has slightly less defense against Light Tanks, but gets more against Bombers, AA Tanks, and indirects. Hmm...do you people think the old MB Tank was overpowere-......wait a minute. Its machine gun got a considerable boost against certain vehicles from the old MB Tank. Why is that even necessary? The Battlestation has 5 ammo. When is it ever going to be stuck with the machine gun? Because Recons kamikaze onto it to waste its cannon ammo? That didn't work against the Megatank, which was uber expensive on top of the lower ammo count! Why would it work on the Battlestation? And for God's sake, there's so many 105%s? Jesus. It has Bomber Damage Range Syndrome. This is part of why I hate the way AW decides base damage. It's made worse by messing up any hope of implementing custom units or even Loads And Loads of Units (Characters, but you know what I mean).

*sigh* Anyway, the Battlestation's Movement Power sucks, but it's your best chance of having a living unit at the frontlines.

Let's go onto the new MB Tank. Well, not much to say. Its stats are right inbetween the two tanks. That doesn't say a lot. Moving on...

We have the three indirects: Artillery, Rocket Launchers, and AA Missile Launchers. Of course, they're the same as they have been in the AWs. Mainly a few defense changes here and there, assuming indirects are even known for defense in the first place. Oh, but you know something lame? The Artillery and Rocket Launchers deal less damage to surfaced subs for no reason whatsoever. Why? I don't get it when anybody who has surfaced subs in range of those two indirects is a moron.

Actually, AA Missile Launchers have been improved. They have more Movement Power, assuming that helps them (if there's enough Plains, they're still not getting to their destination proper fast enough); and they have a 3-6 range now. That would not a bad thing because it covers more parts of a wall, if not for The Wall being broken as it is. But I still wish there were more AA units instead of simply more powerful ones.

And another new unit: the Anti-Tank. Well, it did worry me at first, but it's not that bad a unit idea. Okay, first complaint: why can it attack helicopters? There's just too many things wrong with that. There were more AA units in Battalion Wars, but unless you were counting that fluke of an Anti-Air Missile Vet, they weren't Anti-Tank units. There were stationary guns, but they do poorly against Gunships. They weren't the least bit good at Anti-Ai-

Marshal Nova: One of my Gunships is down. This only makes me more determined to have my revenge, Kaiser Vlad.

WTF? I wasn't even near the Battlestations and their AA vehicle backup. Nova, you suck. How did you get your Gunships killed? Actually, you know what? Forget it.

So where was I? Ah yes. Second complaint: the low amount of simplicity. It can attack from a range of 1 to 3. There wasn't any unit in AW1, AW2, or AWDS that could do that. It can't move and attack on the same turn *at all*. And yet, they can counterattack direct-fire attacks? Okay, so where are my units that have Second Move like mounted units in Fire Emblem 4, 5, 9, and 10? God knows how much that would help against infantry and indirect floods.

Complaint #3: its defense is too frickin' high. There are only two units that deal more than 55% to the AT: the Rocket Launcher at 65%, and the Bomber at 80%. Both units are strategically lopsided against the AT anyway. This high defense leads me to...

Complaint #4: its vulnerability against infantry swarm. This is not a bad thing in and of itself. We could just as easily have the AT at the same armor class as infantry (though unable to capture), since GBW3 did that with several vehicles already. So why is it a complaint? Because it is a Guide Dang It. You could probably go through the whole of Campaign never suspecting that infantry machine guns actually do cost-effective damage against it. The AT is slow for God's sake. That alone could easily deter players from deploying it at decent frequency. Granted, the idea of the AT taking more damage from machine guns isn't bad, but this is the reason why damage based on the exact matchups is just messed up. Use the unit categories, not the individual units.

Well, the AT still isn't a bad idea at all. Just poorly executed.

The APC, now known as the Rig....well, now it has a new function: building a Temporary Harbor or a Temporary Airport. Why not bring back the Constructor from GBW3? It would likely cost somewhere in the late quadruple digits, yes, but you're not seeing decent ships or air units frequently unless funds are high enough. And the Rig can build only one of either, period. (This is barring Greyfield's COP, actually, but let's forget there are COs for a moment here.) Rigs can restore each other's fuel, but not their materials. And you can't restore the materials by placing them on any properties. Okay, so IS does at least make it possible to restock ammo and fuel but not materials. But why such an extreme rule? Property limit keeps too many Temporary Harbors/Airports from being buildable to start with. And it take 2 Days to build one anyway, which, by the way, is an idea to stop Bridge abusing: have bridge abuse easier to turn into a Nice Job Breaking Building It Hero CO. One turn development of properties can stay, though.

But I'm getting off track, although it's just as well, because the Rig is otherwise the same.

Oh well, so as we see, little has really changed on the land front. A few new units, a few changes here and there, but in general, infantry + indirect abuse is still too strong. The infantry focus has changed, sure (you can debate whether it has focused to Mechs or Bikes, it doesn't matter to me in the long run), but the basic flood still ruins the metagame.

The Fighter....well, not much has changed. But it now has 5 Vision, which is useful thanks to the 9 Movement Power and new FoW mechanics. However, hidden stuff still stays hidden unless you fly by it. What a shame.

Bombers now cost a little less. Huzzah. They take less punishment from Fighters too. Yay. But they deal less damage to AA land units and Battlestations. Boo, especially the part where they deal less damage to AA land units.

Battle Helicopters, oh my God have they been nerfed. Their defense has been toned down. Granted, it wasn't too good in the first place, but it is really bad when the War Tank can actually have a chance against them. Their attack power against vehicles has at least been upped in general.....but they can't do diddly squat to AA Tanks or Cruiser. What?!?!?!? GBW3's Battle Helicopters can't do enough to Anti-Air Tanks to beat them without considerable boosts. Why is this downgrade necessary?

Transport Helicopters haven't been changed. Nothing to see here, folks.

The Duster is basically a Fighter B. It's even called "Lite Fighter" in the Japanese language mode that you can access by ARing. I feel it is a little underpowered for 13000G. But this is Advance Wars: Days of More Underpowered Units.

Seaplanes......hoo boy. I really hate this unit. Long story short, it just overcomplicates the Attacker. Want me to explain? If so, good, because I don't want this to be a Shut Up Hannibal directed at that. I'd be no better than Near from Death Note, really. (Not that Light's rationale exactly indicated the wisest person in the world, for the record.) Well, first up is the fact that it has better attack and defense than the Duster. What the h-GBW3's Attacker wasn't as defensively powerful against air units as the Fighter B in the same game. And you spend only 2000G extra, or would, if not for a factor that brings up my next point: it can only be built from the Aircraft Carrier. WHAT?!?!? THIS TAKES IT TOO FAR ALREADY! What is wrong with a simple all-around air unit? It's going to be shot down by a Fighter anyway. And it has low ammo to begin......with....what the? Seaplanes have only 40 Fuel, making them stuck in their fueling areas? *laugh-cries*

Well, now that we are past that disaster of a unit, even if I'll never get over it, we are at least at an infinitely better unit idea: the Gunboat. 6000G for a 7 movement ship that can transport an infantry unit and attack enemy ships is worthwhile. Its defense is a joke, but oh we-....wait a minute? 1 ammo? I can't think of many units with only 1 ammo in the entire series. And in fact, I just checked: there's only two units, both in GBW3, with one ammo for a weapon, and one of them is the Mech, which uses Javelin fire, while the other is an S unit. Even the cars have 2 rounds each for their primary weapon. And yet we have a ship that has only one frickin' ammo, when there aren't even any ships that can resupply other ships. It doesn't even deal more than 40% to anything but Landers or Gunboats. What, the issue was Gunboats being spammed? That doesn't change the fact that they should have had 2 or 3 ammo instead. As it is, they're cost effective on CRUISERS.

Speaking of Cruisers, oh good lord, they get worse every game. They were annoying enough to catch in AW2. They got overpowered in AWDS because they could attack ships and there was no cost effective way to kill them unless there was a ridiculous number of ships--let alone Battleships--to start with. And here, they can actually hammer Battleships even worse. Although at least now Battleships can move and fire so the Cruiser won't have as easy a time being cost effective by abusing its.......Anti-Ship Missiles? YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!!! They are supposed to be sub killers, not ship killers. And they take the name of a weapon used by an actual Anti-Ship unit in GBW3, the Aegis Warship. Why can't we have the Aegis Warship anyway? Oh right, that would make too much sense.

*sigh* I forgot to mention: the navy units at least costs less now, for all the good that does it. I'll be glad when it's not such a mess.

Let's take a look at the Submarine. It's pretty much unchanged except for that it has more Movement and Fuel. WHY?!? Subs also dive automatically when they are newly built (not predeployed), something to remember whichever side you're on. Of course, Flares and moving by won't reveal a hidden sub. You got me as to why for the latter.

The Battleship has had a major overhaul. No longer is it a 2-6 unit that can't move and attack. It can now move and attack on the same turn. Of course, this comes at the price that attack power is lower and range is 3-5. That doesn't stop it from being overpowered, of course. There is a reason why ranged-fire units couldn't move and attack in the original Famicom Wars, after all. However, I believe move and range fire could work with certain restrictions. If you want to know what sort of restrictions I believe in, just ask. Right now, I'd rather get this done with.

Well, next up is the Lander. Again, no major changes. I thought there was a boost in Movement Power, most likely because the GBW3 Lander moves only 4 spaces--although it could also carry 3 units as well instead of 2. Still, I must have thought the AW1 Lander had 5. Turns out the AW1 Lander already had 6.

And last but not least, the Aircraft Carrier. It's been revamped, but far from optimally. Its AA ordinance is a horrendous machine gun, let alone for its price. Why? Because it's "primary weapon" is the ability to build Seaplanes. If you read above, you know how much I just detest Seaplanes. Worse, this has Materials, so the Aircraft Carrier can't restock on this, even though it costs 15000G to build a Seaplane anyway. It should have been possible to build *any* air unit because there are no air units that will break this any more than the Seaplane could have, and the Aircraft Carrier is useless without the availability of an air force (friend or foe), a problem which for its obscene price is just begging to have something like a Submarine breathing down on it unless there is an air force. And since we're on the subject, Producing a new unit not only can't be done after any movement, but uses up the Aircraft Carrier's turn. The former should not be applying. Well, the good news is, the Aircraft Carrier can repair loaded air units, and as long as it hasn't moved yet, Loaded units that haven't moved on earlier the same Day can move right off and do whatever they can such as attack--a happy medium between standard transporting and GBW3's method of transporting (which is the same as in Super Robot Wars). Oh yes.

It's a shame the units are still far from balanced. The ideas are actually decent, as opposed to the trash in AWDS.

Well, let's go onto Fog of War, and boy is it improved, although slightly. Your units reveal not just the spaces around them, but where they moved near enough to see as well. (Exception is subs, for basically no reason whatsoever.) In addition, there's Flares to expose stuff in distant hiding places, allowing you to know if it's safe to advance. However, Intelligent Systems thought it was a good idea to make properties hide units, with Airports hiding air units as well. I don't, because it just slows down the game, which is probably why only 4 missions in Campaign even has Fog of War.

Oh yeah. There's leveling up now. But oh God, it's worse than in Super Famicom Wars. You level up units by killing enemy units. And it's simple as that. Too simple, in fact. Oh, but the bonuses are freaking meager. Rank 1 provides 5% firepower, Rank 2 provides another 5%, and Rank 3 provides another 10% along with 20% Defense.

I should mention about the damage formula: now defense's role has been changed into being a division factor. Unfortunately, this includes everything that boosts defense, which stacks. Terrain defense boosts get subject to Law of Diminishing, and aren't as influential anyway. It's stupid. What are we going to do though.

So let's talk about terrain. There haven't been too many changes, so let's get to the changes. First is the switch in defense between Forest and Cities. This is good because Cities already provide repairs, so there's not too much incentive to go into Forests over Cities if they don't provide better defense. It's unfortunate for Forests that Terrain boosts suck, because 3 stars would have been a premium in the older AWs, as opposed to taking off a little less than 1/4 the damage when Cities take off 1/6 already.

Bridges let sea units cross. Sea units can even stop on them, because there wasn't programming to let units move on spaces but not stop on them in Fire Emblem 4. (At least Landers can't unload on them.)

Harbors won't let unallied vessels except for Landers or Gunboats pass. I'm not sure about this.

So let's look at the new terrain, because there are no other changes to the kept terrain. (Pipes were removed, good riddance.)

Wasteland is basically a Forest with City defense and no hiding in FoW. It had City defense in GBW3 too, but its Movement Costs were even higher than the ones for the Forest, and even hindered infantry. Ruins is basically Plains with FoW hiding. Rather cheap.

Since there's no other new land terrain that lets you move through it (Meteors can control Plasma and have health, while Fire lights up the area it is in in FoW--none of those three allow movement), let's look at the sea terrain. There's two types of new sea tiles: Rough Seas and Mist. Rough Seas provide 2 stars of defense but no FoW hiding and the same movement costs as Reefs. Then there's Mist, which provides only 1 star of defense and FoW hiding. These two types of sea tiles aren't much at all, but they are a start. Anything that makes naval warfare better is all too welcome after what we had in Famicom Wars.

Then there's the Communication Tower, which instead of providing attack, provides attack and defense at 5% each; and the Radar Station, which reveals stuff 5 spaces around in FoW. I'm rather indifferent about these two, to be honest.

Well, scoring has been changed for the better. See my topic about scoring for more details. However, I think protecting units for high Technique has too little emphasis still, and Power is easy to get 100+ in often. Also, I think there should be a maximum of 125 points (rather than 150) in a given area. Also, I think it's high time there's a new area put in, although I'd like to see what you think first before saying anything.