Advance Wars: Re-Boot Camp offers a fresh take on classic tactical strategy, but even veterans of the original will find a few surprises tucked into this modern remake. Whether you’re a newcomer to military strategy games or brushing up after years away, these 11 tips will help you optimize your gameplay, understand the AI, and make smarter battlefield decisions.
1. Speed Up Your Gameplay
One of the first things you’ll want to do is streamline the experience to reduce downtime. Cutscenes and dialogue can be skipped by holding the Start button. Once in a battle, go into the options menu and turn off battle animations to speed up turns considerably. For even quicker enemy phases, hold the ZR button during the opponent’s turn to fast-forward through their actions.
These adjustments make gameplay feel snappier, especially helpful in lengthy missions where every second counts.
2. Learn Unit Stats and Logistics
Familiarizing yourself with each unit’s attributes is crucial. When selecting a unit, you can view its movement range, vision, fuel, and ammo. Terrain plays a big role: both movement and vision can be hindered by mountains, forests, or weather. Additionally, be mindful of fuel and ammo. Units that run out of fuel—especially aircraft or submarines—will crash or sink.
Refueling can be done via cities, bases, or APCs. Some units, like submarines, drain fuel faster when submerged. Running out of ammo can limit attack capabilities, forcing units to rely on weaker backup weapons or rendering them unable to attack at all.
3. Healing and Unit Consolidation
Health directly impacts a unit’s combat effectiveness. Healing on city tiles grants two HP per turn, but if you’re looking for quicker reinforcement, combine two damaged units of the same type. This merges their HP pools, immediately creating a more viable fighting force. It’s a critical mid-battle tactic, especially when reinforcements are far off.
Some COs, like Andy, also offer global healing through their CO Powers, saving you the trouble of moving units back to base.
4. Don’t Wait Too Long to Use CO Powers
Each CO has a unique ability that can shift momentum, from unit healing to movement boosts. Your CO Power gauge fills up during combat, based on the damage dealt and received. While it’s tempting to save your power for the “perfect” moment, holding out too long often results in missed opportunities.
Later in battles, fewer units remain, making the impact of powers smaller. A good rule of thumb: activate your CO Power soon after it becomes available, unless it would clearly be wasted.
5. Choose Beginner-Friendly COs
If you’re struggling, Max is one of the most effective COs for beginners. He grants a massive 50% damage bonus to direct combat units (like tanks and copters), in exchange for weaker indirect units. Since most early missions focus on head-to-head combat, his strengths often outweigh his weaknesses.
Andy is another solid choice for learners—a balanced CO without major disadvantages. Sami, while powerful in the right scenario, is best reserved for capture-heavy missions where infantry superiority is crucial.
6. Fog of War: Scout First, Win Later
Fog of War maps are the bane of many new players. The key isn’t to win on the first try but to treat your first run as reconnaissance. Push forward recklessly, gather intel, and restart with better strategic awareness.
Take advantage of the Remake’s free turn resets and map restarts. Also, forests now properly hide your units from enemy vision—a fix from the original game. Position units in forests or mountains to obscure them and boost visibility, especially using recons, tanks, battle copters, and submarines for their extended vision ranges.
7. Block and Trap with Choke Points
Choke points are narrow areas where only one or two units can pass through. Positioning strong units here forces the AI to either engage them or wait. Interestingly, if your defending unit is tougher than the AI’s attacker, the enemy often won’t initiate combat. This allows you to stall enemy lines while your indirect units safely attack from behind.
For example, placing a medium tank in a choke can stop a line of smaller tanks, letting your artillery safely clean up.
8. Bait with APCs
The AI has an odd obsession with attacking APCs. Even when more dangerous targets are nearby, it will often prioritize hitting the unarmed supply unit. Use this to your advantage: position an APC to lure enemies into range of your stronger units or into disadvantageous terrain.
APCs are inexpensive and expendable, and since they can’t attack, losing one won’t harm your firepower. This makes them ideal decoys for bait tactics.
9. River-Crossing Infantry Tricks
Infantry are the only units capable of crossing rivers on foot. This unique ability allows for alternative movement paths and surprise captures. To speed this up, use an APC to load and immediately unload an infantry unit across a river in the same turn. This gives them extended reach and positions them closer to capturing objectives faster.
Supporting infantry movement is essential for base captures and map control.
10. Boosting Technique for High Ranks
Your mission rank depends on three categories: Speed (how quickly you finish), Power (how much damage you dealt), and Technique (the ratio of units lost to units produced).
Technique can be tricky. To boost your score, spam cheap units like infantry from factories in the final turns of a match. Even if they don’t contribute to combat, they pad your total unit count, improving your loss ratio and helping you secure an S-rank.
11. Multiple Story Paths Encourage Replays
While the remake streamlines many elements, multiple story paths still exist. The CO you choose for specific missions and how you complete objectives can lock or unlock different routes. That means replaying with different COs not only enhances your skills but also reveals alternate missions and story branches.
The replayability of Advance Wars is part of its enduring charm. With each run, your knowledge grows and strategies sharpen—and with that, the fun multiplies.
These beginner-friendly strategies will elevate your command skills and help you conquer Advance Wars: Re-Boot Campwith confidence. From mastering fog of war to leveraging quirky AI behavior, there’s a lot to explore and exploit in this deep tactical remake. Now go forth, Commander—the battlefield awaits!
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