Kathinja's Advance Wars FAQ! Version 3 9/28/01 +-----------------------------------------+ | Preface & Intro | +-----------------------------------------+ Hey all, I'm releasing another very early version of my guide, so I can start to get working and start to get contributions. Obviously it's very incomplete right now, but it will get better! - My email is artillery@mediaone.net - My AIM name is Gomfie - My ICQ number (I rarely use ICQ) is 13969813 If you want to contact me for help, please follow these sort-of "rules": - Please don't ask for help on missions I've not yet covered. - Please refer by mission NAME, not NUMBER. Asking for help on "mission 10" can mean either "Mighty Kanbei" or "Kanbei's Error". - Please include AW or Advance Wars in the subject. - Please spell whatever name you use to address me correctly. Unacceptable spellings of Kathinja include: "Kathninga", "Kathleenja", "Katninja", and the popular "Kathninja" I take contributions and give full credit! If you can provide a strategy for a mission that doesn't fall under what I've said, I'll include your strategy along with mine, with credit given for your portion. Please include the mission name and the CO you used when submitting strategies. Thanks! +-----------------------------------------+ | History | +-----------------------------------------+ Version 1 (9/21/01) (about 10K): - Very basic... mission path and three campaign stages. Version 2 (9/23/01) (about 30K): - Added the history - Changed the format - Added strats for mission 4A,5A, and 6A. - Added CO descriptions for everyone but Nell - Added unit descriptions - Added FAQ - Added secrets section Version 3 (9/28/01): - Lots! - Missions up through Sonja - More CO info - More groundwork - Much improved mission tree - Received a bunch of submissions, not everthing is in here yet. Thanks! +-----------------------------------------+ | Frequently Asked Question | +-----------------------------------------+ Q. Is this game hard? A. It's easy to learn, but hard to beat. There's an excellent tutorial, and the game is farly straightforward. However, there's a lot of depth and strategy, and there are many challenging missions later on. Q. How come I can't pick Max or Sami in Campaign? A. You can pick them later in the game. They come in as part of the story. Don't worry, there are many missions to use them in, later. Q. How can you play as Eagle/Drake/Grit/Kanbei/Sonja/Sturm/Nell? A. See the "Secrets" section, near the end of this guide. Q. How can I use Eagle/Drake/Grit/Kanbei/Sonja/Sturm/Nell in Campaign? A. Except for the last battle (which I'll post info about later), you can't use any of those characters in the regular Campaign. Q. What are the "Special" and "Vs." folders that you can buy in Battle Maps? A. These are new catagories of maps to play in Vs. and Link Battles. You probably want to save these to buy later, as you start with a ton of maps to play in, anyhow. Q. How can I delete a Campaign? A. Just start a new one and save over it. Q. How can I delete a Vs. match? A. Just start a new Vs. game and save over the one you don't want. Q. Please help me with Eagle's second mission/Enigma/Final Battle/Rivals! A. Big guides will be coming for these missions. Just hang in there! Q. How come some missions are skipped over? I need help! A. Don't worry your little heart. I'm making sure to play every stage as I write a strategy for them, so I'm bound to miss some branches as I do so. I will, however, end up covering all of the Campaign missions! +-----------------------------------------+ | Command Officers | +-----------------------------------------+ There are a lot of playable Command Officers (COs) in Advance Wars. Althought you'll only be able to play as three (Andy, Max, Sami) in the Campaign, you can unlock and use a lot more in the regular game. Here's a rundown of all of the COs. Andy ---- CO Power: Hyper Repair - Repairs all of his units by 2 health points and gives them all a slight battle bonus for the rest of the round. Strength/Weakness: None Andy is a great beginner CO and good in maps where there is a mix of strategies... Andy can also survive long battles due to his CO power, so don't be afraid to get in a big fight, you will win if you have at least equal units. Remember to pay close, close attention to what the enemy produces. Andy doesn't have any strengths, so he must react well to what the enemy is using and find an appropriate counter. For instance, Andy must always pack rockets and copters against Max, always use Recons and Tanks against Grit, and A-Airs and Fighters against Eagle. Only by countering his enemy's strength will he have good victories. Max --- CO Power: Max Force - All Ground vehicles get +1 move for the rest of the turn and an attack bonus. Strength/Weakness: + Non-Inf/Mech Direct Fire units deal +50% damage - Indirect Fire units -1 range Max is good for agressive players, and a strong CO in almost every situation. Use him on any flat maps that don't have many choke points. Use his Force power when you've popped a whole in the enemy line and you have the chance to storm some tanks into the enemy base are. Don't worry about loses that round, if you can get 3-4 tanks to the eney base, you will pull their force in half (those stranded in the field and those contesting with the invading tanks), and then your next wave of troops will acheieve victory. Max should always destroy all enemies instead of trying to capture the enemy HQ Sami ---- CO Power: Double Time - All of her Inf/Mech units get 1 extra move space and all of the move costs are reduced to 1. And an attack bonus. Strength/Weakness: + Infantry better + Infantry capt buildings 50% faster + Transports move faster - Direct Fire worse for non-Inf/Mech Sami is great for hilly/foresty/rivery terrian, obviously. Sami will have problems against many of the enemy COs, though. Grit can rock her Inf, Max too. Only try to beat either of them in a situation where you have airports (for B Copters). Kanbei will pose serious problems for Sami, as her tanks will be wet paper bags to his super power units. The only way for Sami to beat Kanbei is by snagging a plethora of resources and simply out-producing Kanbei. Grit ---- CO Power: Snipe Attack - All Indirect fire units get +2 range for the turn Strength/Weakness: - Indirect Fire better - Direct Fire worse Grit is the opposite of Max. Use Grit on stages with lots of choke points. Grit needs a lot of resources (to produce Md Tanks and of course his Artillery/Rockets), so practicng Inf/APC deployment before trying Grit. Grit should probably go for the capture instead of destruction, but if he can find enough sniper roosts he might be able to win via destruction sometimes. Olaf ---- CO Power: Blizzard - Covers the land in snow. All enemy units have big movement penalties on snow, but his units are unaffected. Note that roads and cities are unaffected by snow. Strength/Weakness: - Units are unaffectd by snow - Units greatly slowed in rain. Uh, don't use Olaf unless you want a challenge. :) His CO power won't help much unless you're playing some sort of custom map without roads. Additionally, his power only really delays a faraway enemy force, it won't help an ongoing battle and it certainly doesn't help you get into the enemy base faster. Eagle ----- CO Power: Lightning Strike - All air and ground vehicles that were used this turn can be used again. Strength/Weakness: + Air units better + Air units drain less fuel - Naval units worse Eagle is a very fun player to use, because his strength is unusual and "breaks" most enemy strategies. Most than any other player, however, Eagle needs lots of resources to win. He will simply fall on his face in small maps, though, because he won't have enough money to produce any of his powerhouse air units. Drake ----- CO Power: Tsunami - Deals 1 damage to all enemy units. Units get an attack bonus. Strength/Weakness: - Naval better - Air worse Owns water maps. 'Nuff said. His CO power is generally wasted against Sami and Andy, but is reasonable against big Max or Kanbei forces. Kanbei ------ CO Power: Morale Boost - All units get an off/def boost for the rest of the turn. Strength/Weakness: - All units +20% offense/defense - All units +20% price For the Kanbei War Room stages, Kanbei is your best choice. Max players enojy fighting Kanbei, because it is a great, challenging battle. While one might be tempted to roll over the enemy with K's superpower tanks and Md Tanks, remember that ALL of his units are powerful, and produce Missiles, Mechs, Copters, and ocassionally B Ships. Sonja ----- CO Power: Enhanced Vision - In Fog of War, EV will allow Sonja to see units otherwise hidden in forests and reefs. Strength/Weakness: + HP of her units is hidden to the enemy outside of battle + Farther vision in Fog of War. - Unlucky units (deal less damage than normal) Only really has any advantage in FoW maps, but I guess that she's like Drake in that she'll own those kinds of stages. Sonja needs to play sneaky in those stages, making lots of use of FoW. Who knows what Sonja would do on non-FoW stages. Sturm ----- CO Power: Meteor Strike - Drops a meteor from the sky, hitting the units in a pattern like this: X XXX XXXXX XXX X Everything hit by that pattern will be reduced to 2 hp (if they have 3 or more hp), lose one hp (if they have 2 hp), or die (if they have 1 hp) Strength/Weakness: - - Uh, who knows. :) Use Sturm against AI players, as they won't really know to spread out their units. I don't believe Sturm has any power units, so treat Sturm like Sonja and Drake and look at the battle conditions before choosing him. Sturm will harm himself with meteors, so don't drop them too close to his own units. Nell ---- CO Power: Lucky Star - This allows her units to be exorbodantly luck in their damage, occasionally dealing 50% or even 100% extra damage! Also, they get a plain attack bonus added to their dmg%. Strength/Weakness: - Her units are slightly more lucky I wish I had Nell! Her power seemed pretty silly until Inglix did some testing and found that she get really extreme damage bonuses from her CO Power. I can't give any strategic info on her, yet. :( +-----------------------------------------+ | Mission Lineup! | +-----------------------------------------+ The Campaign missions in AW branch somewhat, with different CO's having different missions and with the secret missions in the game. Here's a diagram of how the missions play out. The mission numbers are very screwed up, that's why it's so hard to say "I'm on mission 16 and I'm having trouble. The name of the mission is what's important, along with the CO you're trying to use. A=Andy M=Max S=Sami AP=Andy's Path MP=Max's Path When the letters are clumped togethers, like AMS, that means that the missions are the same for each character. When they're separated, like A/M/S, the missions are different for each character. A1 It's War! | | A2 Gunfighter | | A3 Air Ace | +----------------------Choose Andy or Max / \ / \ AP4 MP4 Max Strikes! | | AP5 MP5 Max's Folly?/Sniper! | | AP6 MP6 Olaf's Navy!/Blizzard Battle! | | | MP7 History Lesson! | | AMS7 8 Sami's Debut! | | AMS8 9 Kanbei Arrives! | | AMS9 10 Mighty Kanbei! | | AMS10 11 Kanbei's Error? | | +-----+-------------------Beat Kanbei quickly (see Secrets) /| |\ / | | \ / | | \ / | | \ M11 | | 12 Divide and Conquer! | | | | S12 | | 13 Sami Marches On! | | | | A13 | | 14 Sonja's Goal | | | | | | | | +----+-----+----+---------------Pick Andy, Max, or Sami | | | | A/M/S14 11 12 15 Captain Drake | | | | +----+-----+----+---------------Pick Andy, Max, or Sami | | | | A/M/S15 12 13 16 Naval Clash! | | | | +----+-----+----+---------------Pick Andy, Max, or Sami | | | | A/M/S16 13 14 17 Wings of Victory! | | | | +----+-----+----+---------------Pick Andy, Max, or Sami | | | | A/M/S17 14 15 18 Battle Mystery! | | | | AMS18 15 16 19 Andy Times Two! | | | | AMS19 16 17 20 Enigma! | | | | A20 17 18 21 The Final Battle! | | | | +----+-----+----+---------------Pick Sami on some missions(see Secrets) /| | | | / | | | | / A21 17 19 22 Rivals! | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------End! +-----------------------------------------+ | Missions - Normal Campaign | +-----------------------------------------+ It's War - Mission 1 -------------------- **Story: ++CO Choices: Andy --Enemy CO: Olaf (Blizzard) First turn, split your opening force in half, getting hits on the tanks in the process. You may want to send two Tanks up North, Olaf likes the North and generally attempts to send his troops that way. Make sure not to move any of your southern units into the range of the rockets (check the range of the unit by putting the cursor over the enemy unit and holding B). Next turn he'll move some units up to you. The only thing you really need to do is take out the Rockets. The rest of the units won't give you too much trouble, but remember that it's sometimes better to bring two enemy units down to 4 health than to kill one unit and leave another units free to do big damage on one of your guys. On his second turn will likely use his CO power. This'll slow down your units, but if you took down the Rockets and weakened the Artillery, then will be fine. Next turn, use the road (which is unaffected by snow) to travel along and cause some big damage to his units. Your northern force may be weakening a little, but that's ok. As long as one force is strong, you'll win the mission. Next turn he should only have a small amount left. If you can lure his Md Tank out, then hit it with your Md Tank and your Artillery. Otherwise, rush every unit you have into their base and do lots of damamge before the Rockets do too much damage to you. This should pretty much end the mission, depending on how you performed, you'll get a score. I hope you did well! :) Gunfighter! - Mission 2 ----------------------- **Story: ++CO Choices: Andy --Enemy CO: Grit (Snipe Attack, long range indirect fire) Remeber through this mission to check the range of Grit's units... they're longer than other COs and if you're not careful you'll get killed quickly. First turn, I suggest moving the Tank on the forward city. Then move the Artillery "behind" it, between the Tank and the river. Put an Inf into the APC, drive the APC near the left edge of the screen, and drop the Inf into the river. Move the other Inf upward. Build an Inf and a second Tank. During his turn, Grit will probably attack you with his Tank. Next turn, hit Grit's tank with your Artillery. You probably want to keep your units somewhat back this round so you can attack in force next round. Bring your newly build tank forward and build one more Tank and Inf. Keep capturing and beating Grit's Infs. Next turn, move a tank forward and hit the artillery. Next turn he'll take a hit from the other artillery, but you'll also draw out his tank, which you can take care of in your following turn. Save your money, so you can afford a Md Tank, you'll need one later. Hopefully soon you'll be done with the upper buildings, start moving your Infs over to cause a distraction. Then march in all of your southern forces, eventually you'll get the win. Air Ace - Mission 3 ------------------- **Story: Andy and your player march to a deserted southern island, hoping to recuperate before their next attack on Blue Moon. Unfortunately, they find a new army there, not Blue Moon! Eagle, the Air Ace for the Green Earth army is there. He was under the impression that the Orange Star army was beaten down. Now, he desires to test this new Orange Star regiment! ++CO Choices: Andy --Enemy CO: Eagle (Lightning Strike) Eagle's CO power is very deadly. He uses it at the end of his turn, and then all of his non-infantry units get an additional attack! Be VERY careful of "oh, I'll take that out next turn" plans, you might not have those units next turn! Anyhow, move your A-Air forward and take out the Copter. Keep your air units very close to the bottom of the screen, there are Fighters flying around that will make very quick work of your air units, if they're in range. You'll probably lose your air units eventually, but just don't lose them to carelessness. As you move along the road, take over the buildings and take out the troops and other meager troops. One big warning, though... as you get further up, there's a big mean bomber looking to do some damage, get your A-Airs ready! If you do manage to keep your T Copter safe, this stage is a cinch. Just fly an Inf over to his HQ and capture. Otherwise, you better start pumping out a lot of Md Tanks , because that's what he will be making. The rest of the mission is straightforward, though. Good luck! Max Strikes! - Mission 4 ------------------------ **Story: Andy's getting ready for another battle against the Blue Moon when a muscled, blue haired man shows up! He introduces himself as Max, a CO for Orange Star. Depending on who you send (Andy or Max) you'll get a different mission, connotated by me as A4 or M4. This syntax is used for the rest of the missions, but the number gets really ugly by the end. -_-; **Pick either Andy or Max, you'll end up with one of the two following missions: Max Strikes! - Mission AP4 -------------------------- **Story: Max complains a little about having to babysit Andy (which Andy gets a little mad about!), but they put this aside to start the battle. ++CO Choices: Andy --Enemy CO: Olaf (Blizzard) Take out the close Battleship with your B Ship and the Sub. Make sure not to go in range of one of the other B Ships as you do so. Next move up your MD Tank and the Art/Rocket behind it, and move up your other units as well. Load up some of the Inf into the lander and start to make your way to the enemy HQ's island. Again watch out for the B Ships. Next turn just hang back with your ground units, so you don't lose so many. Take out the remaining B Ships, then sail your Lander over to their base. After a few turns, you should have the capture and the win! Max Strikes! - Mission MP4 -------------------------- Max's Folly? - Mission AP5 -------------------------- **Story: Max meets up with Blue Moon's Grit. They used to be friend under Orange Star, but Grit left and now they've got to fight. Grit challenges Max to survive for 5 days. ++CO Choices: Max --Enemy CO: Grit (Snipe Attack) Not too hard, just know your goal. The thing that needs to be done is that the Infantryman heading to your base needs to be stopped. So what you have to do is get a Tank right next to your HQ on the 4th turn to kill/wound him. The rest of the mission is keeping your units alive. Remember that Grit has long range, you should be very careful of this. Always unload the APC at the end of the turn in case it gets killed. A good move would to use the APC to drive up to a mountain range, then deploy the Mech onto the mountain, where next turn he can take on an enemy unit. Sniper! - Mission MP5 --------------------- Olaf's Navy! - Mission AP6 -------------------------- **Story: Having lost with most other types of units, Olaf tries a large navy against you. Grit points out that a Navy-only approach won't work, but as usual Olaf would rather start fighting. ++CO Choices: Andy, Max --Enemy CO: Olaf (Blizzard) This stage is preposteroutsly easy. Just move all of your land units to the north end of the screen and cross the northernmost bridge! You'll have to take out a few units (two tanks, Rocket hidden in a tree just across the bridge). However, this's a very easy mission, have fun! Blizzard Battle! - Mission MP6 ------------------------------ History Lesson - Mission MP7 --------------------------- Sami's Debut! - Mission AMS7/8 ------------------------------ **Story: ++CO Choices: Andy, Max, Sami --Enemy CO: Eagle Basically, your plan is to escort your T Copters to the enemy base and capture. There's a number of strategies in doing this, here's one of mine. Move your A-Airs forward to kill the Copters. Then, you must move your two B Copters and your Fighter to protect your A-Airs, like so: C F AF or AC AC AC Otherwise they will be Bombed. Move the rest of your army forward, even onto the bridge, but NOT past the bridge. Otherwise they will be Bombed. ;) Next turn, the lower bomber may move in range. If so, just hit that Bomber (with the Fighter). Also, either move all your non-transport units up at once, or get in a defensive position. You want to aim to kill/maim the other Bomber by the end of next turn. I find that blitzing can be very productive. If you can kill/maim both the bombers and the first fighter you meet, you've pretty much got the win if you cling to the top edge of your map with transports... just watch out for the second fighter and get the Inf into base range before your transports are steered away. Kanbei Arrives! - Mission AMS8/9 -------------------------------- **Story: ++CO Choices: Andy, Max, Sami --Enemy CO: Kanbei I recommend Andy, but any CO can do well here. First take out the two Rockets with your Md Tanks. Move your long range units up, but don't put them on the most forward cities. Next round, pull your Md Tanks back to those cities. Then just blast everything as it approaches, you'll have the win in no time. Once you know to stay back, this mission is a breeze. Remember to finish this mission in 8 or less turns, if you want to fight the Sonja missions. Mighty Kanbei! - Mission AMS9/10 -------------------------------- **Story: ++CO Choices: Andy, Max, Sami --Enemy CO: Kanbei Andy is again a great choice. Use your Southern Rocket to hit the Artillery. Use the Eastern Rocket to hit his Rocket. KEEP THE TANK AND MD TANK WHERE THEY ARE. Next turn, the enemy's troops will move up and attack, but they'll be weakened and unable to kill your guys. Leave those front line enemy units be, don't attack them. Instead, destroy the further-back enemy units and keep adding to your Kanbei's Error? - Mission AMS10/11 ---------------------------------- **Story: ++CO Choices: Andy, Max, Sami --Enemy CO: Kanbei Move your Fighter up to the left of the Bomber and attack it. Move your Missile two units east, and your copter one north and one east. Move your A-Air two north. Pop an Inf into the T Copter (bring it to the north island and drop the Inf) and use the other one to start capturing something. Build some Inf. Next turn some enemy aircraft will fly in. You should be able to knock out the Copter with your Missile and deal damage to the Fighter. Your B Copter should fly forward or harass an enemy unit. Move your T Copter back to base. If your lucky (or if things happened how they happened to me), the Fighter should go after your T Copter and the Bomber should go after your Inf who just finished capturing something. IF that happens, you have no more real threats. Just use a B Copter to take out the enemy Tank on the far northern island, and land Infs on that and the middle island. You shouldn't have any trouble beyond that. Divide and Conquer! ------------------- **Story: ++CO Choices: Max --Enemy CO: Sonja The one thing you DON'T want to do on this stage, contrary to the title, is divide your troops. Keep them together and move up the left side of the screen. There are rockets hiding in trees, you'll pretty easily learn their positions as time goes on. One's just about your starting position, one's up at the next group of mountains/trees, and then there's on right near the enemy HQ (as well as more on the right side of the screen, but whatever. Sami Marches On! ---------------- **Story: ++CO Choices: Sami --Enemy CO: Sonja Move you battleship and sub into the reefs, they'll be safe there for now. Anyhow, I'd go for the lower island first, there's less to capture and it's pretty easy to hold up once you have it. I'd go with the Tank and a Mech, with the Mech in the APC, maybe. Also, IMO the safest place to put the Lander is in the neutral dock, it's far away and your Lander should be mostly safe there. For the north island, I'd put the Md Tank and a Mech (in the APC if you haven't used it) in the upper Lander and drop that one off, preferable dumping the Md Tank into the forest. Leave the Cruiser where it is, it may lure a Tank over (the Tank won't deal any damage). Next turn, if all goes well, the enemy tank will drive up to your ship and take a shot at it, but no other enemies will appear on-screen. Blast the Tank with your Rocket and B Ship. Start to capture the south factory with the Mech. Keep your northern forces in the trees for now, but move them up a little. Build another Tank at some point. Next turn ship the Recon and an Inf up to the northern island. Take out the enemy sub if it approached you. To the south, capture the factory and attack the enemy tank if it's nearby. Reveal the Artillery in the north. It's hidden in the forest, one space above the area between two city spaces. Take it out with the Md Tank. The only real threat (besides the obvious line of Tanks in the south) is the B Ship, most likely parked three spaces to the right of the north island's factory. Hopefully you save your sub. :) After the B Ship is gone, just capture all of the properties you need for the victory, it shouldn't be too bad. Sonja's Goal! ------------- **Story: ++CO Choices: Andy --Enemy CO: Sonja Move the B Ship to the reef. It'll see a Sub. Hit it with your Cruiser, then finish it off with your Sub. Next turn, take out the Rockets, and Move some guys up the left route. Shouldn't be too much trouble, just keep moving your guys up the side, eventually you'll get a good amount of guys landed and you can go for the KO. If anything is keeping you down, send me an email and I'll clarify and put some more strategies in here. +-----------------------------------------+ | War Room | +-----------------------------------------+ The War Room is a very fun aspect of Advance Wars. You get to play against all of the characters in a single mission skirmish. I'll be adding individual strategies for these missions as time goes on. +-----------------------------------------+ | Units | +-----------------------------------------+ (Reformatting and FoW info soon) Inf - Obviously use for capturing, but they make good decoys as well. Be aggresive with your capturing, otherwise you'll be in for a long battle. In FoW, they can see very far when perched on mountains. Mech - Mountain Men. These guys crawl over the highest peaks with ease, and can be the deciding factor in a choke point brawl. However, they generally need transport, which leads to... APC - Use these guys often. Not only are they able to transport Inf/Mechs and refuel/ammo you other units... they also draw AI fire like you wouldn't believe! They make the ultimate decoy. Recon - Good for taking out Inf, and also for taking out rockets and artillery parked on roads. Since Recon have so many movement spaces on roads, they can surge into the "safe area" around rockets and Artillery, allowing them to be safe. They're fairly cool to hide in Forests in FoW, since they have a far vision range. Tank - Takes out troops and every ground unit besides Md Tanks. You're better of building two of these instead of an Md Tank, unless your enemy has Md Tanks at their line. Md Tanks - Don't overdose on these guys, they're too expensive to waste. Break a small hole in the enemy line and get this guy intside their base area. They're very hard to flush out and you will probably get 4 kills with it before it gets destroyed. A-Air - Most underrated unit! Not only do they have good speed, decent armor, and obviously air kills... they also shred inf and mechs, as well as kill off wounded APCs, Tank, Recon, and other A-Air. You should use a lot of these (until the enemy accumulates tanks). Rockets and Artillery - I have not mastered these units and as such can't give good advice. Try hiding them in forests in Fog of War. Good when you ened to leave protection at your base, in the 2v1 War Room stages. Missile - I'm not sure I'll ever master these, as I'm an offensive-minded player... However, I suspect that these too are essential in the 2v1 War Room stages. Battle Copter - Great unit! Take out enemy copters with these, for some reason the attacking chopper will shred the defending chopper. They're also great against almost all fo the ground units... another great unit along with the Recon for breaking through a tough Artillery/Rocket barrier. Don't dare attacking A-Airs with this, your chopper will get InstaGibbed^(TM). :) Transport Copter - I really only use these at the beginning of the round to get my units across water, to get the lead in captures. Otherwise, they're too vunerable to A-Airs. I guess they'd be ok for MedEvac if you're looking for a good score, too. Fighter - Due to the cost, you should only start building this after your opponent builds 2-3 air units (or 1-2 bomber). However, they're fast and annihilate any other air unit without breaking a sweat. Try to party over a mountain or water, so it's harder for A-Airs to get at you. Bomber - Once you rout your enemy's air defense, this will be the knife to their throat. This unit absolutely decimates everything on the ground. Insta-kills are the norm for the Bomber. Remember, though, you can build two copters for the price of a bomber... Lander - I'm a little wary of these, only utilized them when you know the enemy doesn't have subs. Great from dropping A-Airs and Tanks into the enemy base, though. Drake fears these, because he does not have good base defense and if you can sneak these around his front line, you'll rake in the kills. B Ship - Hide them in reefs in Fog of War. :D :D :D Also, park them near beaches and pick off all kinds of foes. You can also use them to cover enemy naval bases. You can park your B Ship in an enemy naval base to stop his production. Cruiser - Hard to use, but very good buddy for a B Ship when you don't have FoW. Also, try stashing two T Copters full of Mechs in a Cruiser... the enemy rarely goes after Cruisers and thus these guys can get close to the enemy. Sub - These things are fatal. Their diving ability is dangerous, though... only dive when enemies are actually near. Unless you only have one dock, you should always return these guys to base to refuel. +-----------------------------------------+ | Secrets/Prizes | +-----------------------------------------+ Play Sonja's Missions --------------------- Beat the first, second, and third Kanbei missions in 8, 10, and 12 or fewer days, respectively. Play Eagle's "Rivals" Mission ----------------------------- Pick Sami for each mission in Green Earth territory. These missions take place after the missions against Kanbei and Sonja. They are called: Captain Drake, Naval Clash, Wings of Victory, and Battle Mystery. Advanced Campaign ----------------- After beating the regular Campaign, hold the Select button as you start your next Campaign... you'll play a very very hard version of the regular campaign! Unlock Grit ----------- Choose Max instead of Andy as your Mission 4 CO. Then win the Campaign with that same Campaign. Unlock Kanbei ------------- Beat Campaign Mode. Unlock Sonja ------------ Beat Sonja's Missions. Then win that same Campaign. Unlock Drake ------------ Pick Andy for the 4 missions that take place in Green Earth, then win the Campaign with that same file. The missions are called: Captain Drake, Naval Clash, Wings of Victory, and Battle Mystery. Unlock Eagle ------------ Beat Eagle's "Rivals" Mission. Unlock Sturm ------------ Unlock and purchase Grit, Kanbei, Sonja, Drage, and Eagle. Unlock Nell ----------- I have no verified this myself, but I'm told that getting all S's in War Room and clearing the Advanced Campaign. Will unlock Nell. No word if you also need to have Sturm, though I'm sure getting Sturm will be pretty easy if you can handle getting the other requirements. +-----------------------------------------+ | Credit | +-----------------------------------------+ Edge21 (slewis@cc.gatech.edu) sent me a bunch of good misc info that needed to go in the guide. Thanks a bunch! Inglix researched a bunch of info about Sonja, Sturm and Nell. Thanks! Diablo Trexneus (diablotrexneus@aol.com) gave me the idea to put the "spell my nickname" rule into my contact info. +-----------------------------------------+ | Footer | +-----------------------------------------+ Don't copy my stuff. Don't put my material on your web page. This guide should only appear on GameFAQs. My email is artillery@mediaone.net. Have a nice day!