Kanbei's Error? (Advance Wars (Advance Campaign))
"Kanbei's Error?" is Mission 10 or 11 of Advance Wars. Although it is not too hard on the default campaign, its Advance Campaign incarnation is widely regarded as one of the hardest levels in the Advance Wars franchise and easily the hardest in the game.
Objective
The player's army must capture fifteen Properties before Kanbei can capture fifteen of his own.
Why It Sucks
Note: This will focus on the Advance Campaign variation of the mission.
- It has fog of war, which obscures enemies within the fog. This gameplay element is extremely unfair, since although you can't attack nor see enemies in the fog, they can see and attack your units. Moving a unit right next to an enemy unit will not uncover the enemy unit until you confirm the movement, thus making it so you cannot attack the unit in the same turn as the movement. However, the enemy AI goes by different rules and can attack straight through the fog!
- Kanbei already has lots of airships at the start which are all obscured by the fog of war at first. He already has at least four Fighters, two Bombers, and two Battle Copters.
- To make the disadvantage even more exaggerated, Kanbei's units have more attack and defense than other commanders' units.
- The fact that Kanbei already has four or more Fighters at the start makes it really dangerous to try to infringe upon his area before taking them all out. Fighters are designed to destroy other air units, and could only be taken down by your own Fighters or by land units. Fighters also have nine movement which is the highest of any unit in the game, making it impossible to get away if you've got your unit in range. He also has Bombers which specialize in taking out land units.
- Also, Fighters don't move until an enemy unit is in range to attack. This can cause a false impression that there are less Fighters to take out than he actually has.
- Kanbei has exactly fifteen buildings that he already controls or that are close to one of his starting infantry units. Meaning that if you focus too much on trying to take out his army, he will capture the fifteen buildings required for him to win the mission by day 6.
- All of this adds up to a deadlock situation. You can't take your time to take a more defensive approach since he can capture 15 buildings very quickly in a few days. You can't rush your way to defeating the army in a few days either because his army is too strong and your army is too weak at first. So what are you supposed to do??!?