Part 46: Green Earth Campaign in Review (by Alien Arcana)Would have posted this sooner but I ran into some issues with my internet.Green Earth Campaign in ReviewEach nation's COs work a little different with regards to Campaign missions. Olaf and Grit's missions were fairly well mixed. Kanbei held the line in Yellow Comet, with Sonja hidden away behind him. And now we find Drake waiting patiently for us to arrive in Green Earth proper, unlike Eagle who has been (and will continue) harassing us at random intervals regardless of whose campaign it's supposed to be.I can't really talk about Eagle's difficulty curve since he's so spread out (I'll cover him in the individual missions) so instead let's talk about the difficulty of Drake's missions. Not so much a step up as a step sideways.
It captures Green Earth's essence nicely. I can feel the force of Eagle's superior air units, Drake's powerful & fuel-efficient ships, and Jess' awesome and powerhouse vehicles!
Kanbei and Sonja forced you to refine your skill, to develop advanced tactics to deal with units that could out-fight you or out-maneuver you. Drake is different - he forces you to adapt to unusual objectives, shifting battlefield conditions, and flat-out unfair starting positions.As a general rule, Sami's missions are considerably more bullshit than Andy's. I believe Sami is meant to be hard mode in Green Earth. It happens that I've never played Max's run of missions either (playing Campaign twice to unlock everyone was quite enough Campaign for me) so I won't have too much to say about those.Mission 3: Air Ace!Ah, Eagle. The master of the skies picks a fight in a region with no ports or airports and isolated HQs, and doesn't bother to pack a T Copter. Good thing we did.This map is the very first time you fight an air force outside of Field Training (read: an air force not designed to destroy itself against your defenses on the very first turn).
Missions like this inevitably give you a single missile launcher to start with, and doing well is all about getting the enemy planes in range of the missile without endangering too many of your other units.My favorite strategy in these situations is the 'firewall'. Park the missile where you think it'll do the most good; position your most valuable and/or fragile units right next to it on all four sides, then completely surround the entire package with tanks, anti-air, and chaffy units like infantry.
This way, the important units are safe from harm (unless Eagle manages to blow a hole in your firewall) and any air unit that comes in to attack is automatically in missile range. Smaller firewalls can also be used to ward off enemy fighters - just park the copters side-by-side against the edge of the map and fence them in with chaff. You can then clean up Eagle's fighters at your leisure.Of course, it's quite possible other players have their own ways of dealing with air forces - the point is that you'll have a lot of trouble with Air Ace!
Until you stumble onto something that works. Whatever you find, remember it, because you'll be needing it later on.Air units aside, Eagle has several other lessons to teach. The first is an elaboration of one from the previous mission, Gunfighter! - namely, watch your opponent's CO Meter. Lightning Strike is absurdly painful if you're not ready for it, especially if Eagle still has air units available - if there exists a path to your T copter, those fighters will find it and end it.
Of course, once Eagle is grounded, his CO Power's kind of a dud - the paths here are very narrow, and getting to move twice doesn't help much if a big ol' mid tank was blocking the first move.Like Gunfighter!, this mission gives you access to a factory - the trick is that this time Eagle's also got one. Granted it's kind of out of the way, and he has to grab it first. But if you lose your T copter, that base will turn the map into an absolute slog, as his income works out to be about the same as yours.
(To the best of my knowledge, there's no way to stop him from getting it - all you accomplish is to sacrifice your copters and sidetrack his air force for a turn.)If you did manage to save your T copter from the fighters, of course, you're golden - just drop a mech on the HQ, block the Eagle tank with the copter itself, and you can't lose!Unless of course you were so impatient to finish the level that you neglected to actually kill the bomber. Then you might have a problem.But surely nobody'd be that dumb, right?Mission 8: Sami's Debut!Ugh. See, here's the thing. I don't mind Fog of War the way Grit and Sonja do it, where you're playing hide-and-seek with artillery and tanks.
Advance Wars 2 Green Earth Missions
Even Drake's brand of FoW, as we'll see, isn't too bad. But with Eagle there's a problem: Air units do not mix well with Fog of War.Now, if it's my air units we're talking about, I find can't use them for much, because there's so many things that can one-shot them and I can't hide them in forests and reefs. Well, okay, maybe I'm just too timid about air units. I do tend to have a cautious playstyle.But when it's the AI's fighters and bombers?
Yeah, they don't have that problem. His fighters and bombers can see perfectly well where most of my units are, and can zoom on-screen from farther than I can possibly see to assassinate my units. With Eagle in particular it's even worse - if I'm unfortunate enough to advance into suddenly-airplane range on the turn his Lightning Strike charges, I can lose a quarter of my army in a single turn.Sure, I could set up a firewall as before, but the problem is that a giant bunched-up mass of units like that is the antithesis of normal Fog strategy.
You can't hide your units in trees if they have to maintain a roughly diamond-shaped formation. I can either rank up, and expose my units to indirect fire, or disperse, and expose them to Eagle's invisible jets.I have nothing else to say about this level. It's annoying, it's making me wait for my Yellow Comet goodness, and it's really not a good introduction to the new CO at all. Why they gave a name like Sami's Debut to anything but a property mission I just can't understand.Mission 15A: Captain Drake!This is one of those maps where you win or lose in the first few turns. There's no ports, so if you can kill his battleship and submarine, Drake becomes just as vanilla as Andy. On the other hand, if you get your solitary lander killed early on, you're in for a long, grinding fight across the southern bridge.Thus, the core of this mission is making proper use of that lander. You don't want Drake to get too much of a hold on that central island, but you also don't want to expose yourself too much until you've got his navy under control.
At the same time, you're also fighting an extremely cramped battle in the southwest.As in Sami Marches On!, Drake won't load anything onto his landers as long as there's a land route to your units (which in this map means 'always'). Honestly, I'm starting to wonder if the AI thinks all transports are made of gold and candy, and that's why they overvalue the enemy's and hold back their own.My strategy for this map is to immediately land my artillery on the central island and start shooting at Drake's infantry. The infantry won't attack as long as there's cities to capture, so the arty's safe as long as I keep it away from the battleship. With the center island under control, I pull the lander back to safety until I control the seas. Then, and only then, do I start landering infantry.
Part 33: Green Earth IntroductionGreen Earth Introduction -Over half of our country is under enemy control, though.Yes. And it's high time we took it back, Drake.Jess, you're back!Yes, I am. I couldn't continue my training abroad with my homeland in danger.Your timing couldn't be better! It's become a ground war, and neither Eagle nor I are any good at that.Knock it off, Drake! She delayed returning until she knew she'd be met with fanfare, that's all!What are you talking about?Stow it, Eagle.The enemy took us by surprise, nothing more.
I can liberate Green Earth on my own, without you underfoot, Red!Jess, don't mind him. He's angry is all.I'm not worried about him. I was just thinking that the more things change.You know, with Eagle in the skies, me at sea, and you on the ground, we're nigh invincible! Let's get our country back!Welcome to Green Earth, and our newest dysfunctional family of COs, Eagle, Drake and Jess - specialists in air units, naval units and vehicles respectively. With only ten missions to go (eight here plus two in Black Hole itself), we're entering the home straight of Hard Campaign. However, although we've done nearly three-quarters of the missions, there's still a lot to do, because Green Earth is hard going: nearly everyone seems to have at least one mission they hate here.Still, to paraphrase Drake, I'll muddle through somehow. So let's have a look at our options:Option 1: Sea Fortress Eagle vs.
Hawke's erected a giant fortress in the middle of the sea and - gasp - surrounded it with anti-aircraft measures! Can Eagle turn the form book around?
I have to say I used to really hate this mission - I'd often end up struggling through with only a handful of units left - but on my last time through Normal Campaign I managed to 300-point it so hey, maybe my attitude towards it is changing. Predeployed only, no chance for neotanks.Option 2: Drake's Dilemma Drake and Kanbei vs.
Green Earth Products
Hawke has Drake surrounded, but an unexpected ally joins the party. This is a fairly easy mission to win, but a pain in the neck to score well on: to win, all you need to do is take down a pair of Black Cannons, but Hawke has a ton of units, and it's tricky for Drake to destroy enough of them in one turn to get 100 Power. I'll see what I can do, though. There's a small chance of neos getting built, but it's unlikely because I'm short on properties.Option 3: Sinking Feeling Jess vs.
With Black Hole's battleships in for repairs, Jess looks to sink them all before repairs are complete. I know a lot of people hate this one, but it's actually my favourite mission in Green Earth, so I'd be quite happy to do it first. It's also the lab map mission - but saying that, I really don't like the Green Earth lab mission.
Advance Wars 2 Green Earth Lab
So even if we do this one first, I'd rather we did a couple more Green Earth missions and introduce all the COs before attempting to grab the lab. Oh yes, and it's the last time we fight Lash, too.So, where do you want to go next?