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A comprehensive guide to Advance Wars mechanics, covering COs, terrain, units, economy, combat, and victory conditions for new players.

This page is intended as a guide for newer players to understand the fundamental game mechanics necessary to play Advance Wars. It covers the basic principles of gameplay, including COs, terrain, units, economy, combat, and victory conditions. No in-depth strategy is included; this is a rulebook meant for beginners to read.

Please note that while it is based on the three original AW games, AWBW is not a perfect recreation of their mechanics and some differences do exist. These differences are covered in Changes in AWBW.

Fundamentally, Advance Wars is a turn-based strategy game with elements of economic management. Turns are handled sequentially, separated by 'days'. Most temporary effects, such as weather and CO powers, will last for one day.

COs

Chosen at the start of every game, COs (or Commanding Officers) have a range of different advantages and disadvantages. Most COs have a passive effect that is active permanently, but also have unique and powerful triggered abilities that can be activated after enough damage has been dealt or taken and their 'power bar' has been sufficiently charged. An oft-recommended CO pick for new players is Andy.

Terrain and Properties

Gameplay takes place on pre-built Maps which are constructed out of terrain and property tiles laid out in a grid. All tiles have a mix of defensive, logistical and movement attributes which together determine the flow of the game. Properties are special terrain tiles which confer benefits when owned by an army. Footsoldier units are required to capture non-allied properties. Capturing a certain threshold of properties can be a victory condition. Headquarters and Labs function as lose conditions if captured by an opponent. AWBW has one unique tile not from the original games - the Teleport Tile.