Although Advance Wars By Web is, on the whole, very faithful to the original games in terms of mechanics, there nevertheless still exist some small differences between them that should be kept in mind, especially if you are a new player coming from those original cart games. These differences can exist for a variety of reasons - improper modelling, typos in unit values, or for balance reasons, and are likely to remain such as the playerbase has become used to them.
Beginning development in 2004, most mechanics in AWBW are based upon the ones seen in Advance Wars 2 - content from Advance Wars: Dual Strike was added with the release of that game 1 year later, but AW2 mechanics generally supersede those of AWDS, should there be any discrepancies. Any unique content from Advance Wars: Re-Boot Camp is not included.
This is not the AWBW changelog - for that, please look here. This article only discusses the mechanical differences between AWBW and the home games.
More specific changes are shown below:
CO Balance Changes[]
In general COs in AWBW will have their AW2 abilities, with the broad exception of Dual Strike COs who naturally use their abilities from that game instead. The other exceptions are:
Drake - Mostly uses his AW1 stats, with an additional +5% defense to naval units. This defense bonus also does not count as a terrain bonus, meaning it does not diminish as his units lose health (see Damage Formula).
Flak - Uses his Dual Strike stats, with +10% good Luck values across the board compared to his AW2 incarnation. This brings his stats more in line with Jugger.
Sturm - Uses his AW1 multiplayer stats, with 80/120 units and the AW1 multiplayer COP with the addition of his classic AW2 SCOP. His SCOP does not boost his stats as it does in AW2, and exclusively targets only the highest concentration of funds, as opposed to his home games where it may pick one of three different target selections.
Von Bolt - His SCOP does not affect his own units, unlike the cart version of Dual Strike. Like Sturm, he also can only target the highest value available to hit, where in Dual Strike the laser may strike based on maximum HP loss.- Rachel - Her SCOP has slightly altered targeting on the first missile, which exclusively calculates based on footsoldier HP (with doubled weighting of capturing units) as opposed to merely weighting it higher (again with higher weighting to capturing units). The first and third missile also do not check for her own units in the blast zone. None of these missiles require vision to strike.
- Kindle - Her SCOP global firepower bonus now only considers cities instead of all properties.
In Tag games, it is possible to pick the same CO twice (such as Andy + Andy), and Tag bonuses/tag breaks are not available despite Tag COs being present, so it is not possible to move units twice with both SCOPs charged.
CO Powers[]
As an exception to AW2 mechanics taking priority, CO powers will grant a universal +10% firepower and defence to all units as it does in AW1 and Dual Strike, rather than just +10% defence as with AW2. Any COs present in AW2 whose powers granted firepower (such as Max) have had their firepower on these powers reduced by the same 10% to compensate and keep their numbers identical.
Using a CO Power with extra progress made towards the Super CO Power has reduced costs in AWBW - in AW2, doing this would deduct up to 20% of the cost of the COP as a penalty, whereas in AWBW no penalty is applied.
Gameplay[]
Functionally, AWBW plays like the original games with battle animations disabled and sound muted. This means that animations cannot be used for the purposes of working around Sonja's hidden HP ability, nor unit movement sounds be used to give away army compositions in Fog of War. Other changes include:
- Pipe Seams use the damage table for the Neotank in AWBW and not the Md. Tank, and are not affected by luck.
- The order of operations during the resupply phase at the start of the turn is slightly different in AWBW - the resupply phase for units next to friendly APCs occurs before fuel deductions instead of after it. As such, units on very low fuel that would crash or sink during their next upkeep calculation in the cartridge games will instead survive in AWBW.
- Repairs will only take place in increments of exactly 20 hitpoints, or 2 full visual hitpoints. As such, a unit that is at 75HP (visually 8) will be repaired up to 95HP (visually 10) whereas in the vanilla games, the unit will be repaired up to the highest whole visual hitpoint (which would effectively make it a 25HP repair).
- Movement takes place only after the movement for that unit has been confirmed. This contrasts with the vanilla game, where a unit can be ordered to move, but can cancel it before confirming to refund the turn at the expense of Fuel. This means it is no longer possible to 'scout' in Fog of War for units by repeatedly moving and cancelling a move action until the unit traps itself on the scouted enemy. In exchange, however, units that move and attack in Fog of War but die during the attack will provide full vision in between moving and attacking.
Transport Units[]
Transport units work noticeably differently in AWBW.
In the cart games, unloading can only be done at the end of a unit's movement, and doing so will end that unit's move if it has not already done so. This also means that if the unit is trapped, or attempts to unload into a tile occupied by a hidden enemy unit and is trapped in the process, the transport will be prevented from unloading entirely.
In Advance Wars By Web, transports may unload at any point in their turn, even if they have already moved, and doing so does not end the unit's turn either, effectively making unloading a free action. This has a few interesting applications such as using transports to freely extend the movement range of multiple units by 1 tile, but it also means that trapping it does not prevent it from unloading the embarked unit.
Map Editing Restrictions[]
- Main article: Design Maps
AWBW maps can be significantly expanded over vanilla AW maps, both in terms of number of participants (a maximum of 16 players), size (they can be far larger than the base 30x20 limit of the vanilla Design Room) and functionality through extra features such as pre-used Missile Silo tiles which do not spawn with a missile and are effectively used as defensive terrain with low movement cost without the ability to be captured like a property.
Predeployed units have no limitations whatsoever in AWBW, unlike in the vanilla game where a unit can only be placed on a tile it can legally traverse. As such, AWBW often features maps where units are on illegal terrain, such as naval units on HQs or non-Piperunner units on Pipes.
HQ Mechanics[]
In AWBW, multiple Headquarters can be placed on a map for any country. Losing any one of those HQs will result in a defeat for that player.
In the absence of any Headquarters on a map, a check is made for preowned Labs. These Labs can then take on the loss condition function of the HQ instead, which can be useful if its differences from the regular HQ are desired - they provide 1 less Terrain Star, they do not provide any income or repairs and, unlike HQs, all Labs owned by a player must be captured in order for that player to be defeated. A map cannot have a mix of players using both Labs and HQs for their base of operations - all players must use the same type or any Lab players will not be considered a valid faction.
Ghost Units[]
- Main article: Ghost Units
In vanilla Advance Wars, units placed on a map without a corresponding HQ to go with them become "dummy" units that still exist on the map but will not move as they have no AI assigned to them. In AWBW, these units can still be seen in the map preview, but in game they will disappear, and will also disable unit production and creation for the tile they were placed on. Most far forward production tiles such as Airports are likely to be ghosted on balanced competitive maps.
Teleport Tiles[]
- Main article: Black Tiles
Teleport Tiles or Black Tiles, which have their own special category in the map gallery, are exclusive to Advance Wars By Web and do not exist in the original games. They are the only tiles with 0 movement cost, but units cannot end their turn on one, so in practice they are used to 'teleport' units around the map, often wrapping around completely to the other side if necessary. Their functionality can enable many creative map types and game modes that are unique to AWBW.