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This section assumes unit literacy rather than explaining basics turn by turn. The goal is to help you read threats, trade efficiently, and commit safely, regardless of map or CO. If you want the video explanation, it's here: Expert Guide to Unit Usage & Movement

1. Range Literacy Comes First

• Every decision starts with range.
• Always account for movement range, attack range, and counterattack range.
• Indirect units define no go zones.
• Use range preview constantly. Hold B on a unit to view its range while moving the map.
• Range mistakes are still the most common source of avoidable losses.
• Missiles, rockets, artillery, and battleships all punish lazy range checks.
• Even in winning positions, missed range checks can still throw away units.

2. Movement and Capture Fundamentals

• Infantry and Mechs are your main capture units.
• Infantry move 3 spaces.
• Mechs move 2 spaces.
• Cities heal ground units and help sustain map control.
• APCs and Transport Copters can move Infantry and Mechs into better positions.
• APCs also refuel units, which matters for fuel hungry units like Subs and aircraft.

3. Units Are Defined by Role, Not Cost

Direct Units:

• Infantry / Mechs: Capture, block, and trade. Mechs are cost efficient and can threaten heavier units with bazookas.
• Recons: Fast pressure and scouting tools. They are especially good at mobility, but Mechs can still punish them efficiently.
• Tanks / Medium Tanks: Pressure tools, not scouts. Medium Tanks are the strongest standard land threat and should be respected immediately.

Indirect Units:

• Artillery / Rockets: Area denial, not frontline brawlers.
• Rockets have more range and power than Artillery, and are usually the more dangerous indirect.
• Missiles are situational anti air traps and are strongest when the enemy must move into their coverage.
• Battleships are effectively the Rockets of the sea.

Air Units:

• Battle Copters: Flexible and dangerous, but fragile if anti air coverage is still active.
• Transport Copters: Utility units first. They are often worth sacrificing for position, tempo, or HQ access.

Naval Units:

• Battleships: Ultimate naval indirects. They dominate from range but hate close pressure.
• Cruisers: Anti air and anti sub gatekeepers.
• Submarines: Stealth ambush units that punish Battleships and Landers.
• Landers: Strategic transport pieces whose value often outweighs their combat value.

4. Matchups Are Rock–Paper–Scissors

• Think in forced responses, not price tags alone.
• Cruisers beat Subs and threaten air.
• Subs threaten Battleships and Landers.
• Battleships pressure Cruisers and anything else they can hit safely.
• Missiles only hit air.
• Rockets and Artillery hit land and sea.
• Medium Tanks overpower unsupported ground units.
• Mechs can still trade well into expensive targets in the right situations.

5. Sequencing Wins Games

• Correct order prevents retaliation and improves conversion.
• Let the enemy move first when patience improves your punish window.
• Indirect attacks often go first.
• Reveal hidden threats second, especially Subs.
• Commit direct units after the board is clarified.
• Clean up exposed units only after the dangerous pieces are accounted for.

6. Supremacy Before Expansion

• Do not rush landings into contested zones.
• Secure naval or air superiority first whenever possible.
• Unsafe landings are usually delayed losses.
• Delaying a landing is often correct if enemy Battleships, Battle Copters, or Indirects still control the area.
• Once supremacy is established, expansion becomes much safer and often inevitable.

7. Value Based Trading

• HP is secondary to position, threat removal, and denial.
• Trade based on battlefield function, not just unit cost.
• A 20,000G unit usually matters more than a 9,000G one, but a weaker unit may still be the right target if it opens the board.
• Sacrificing a damaged Transport Copter or Lander can be correct if it absorbs attacks and protects more valuable assets.
• One health transports still transport just fine, so low HP does not always remove their strategic value.
• Sometimes the correct play is preserving a stronger unit even if it means losing a cheaper combat unit.

8. AI Behavior Is Exploitable

Common tendencies:

• The AI overtargets transports.
• The AI often commits to obvious medium tank pushes.
• The AI will walk into missile or indirect traps if pressured.
• The AI can also choose capture lines over stronger attack lines.

Use these habits to bait, delay, block landings, and force inefficient trades.

9. Board State Reassessment Every Turn

• Re evaluate the full board at the start of every turn.
• Check which enemy unit is the strongest remaining threat.
• Re check naval, air, and indirect coverage before moving.
• Do not assume last turn’s plan is still correct after CO Powers, repairs, refuels, or repositioning.
• Battleship range, missile coverage, and landing zones should be reassessed constantly.

10. Target Selection Logic

• Remove the most dangerous unit first, not automatically the most expensive one.
• If two threats are comparable, remove the one that most constrains your next turn.
• Rockets are often a higher priority than Artillery because of their range and cost.
• Medium Tanks should often be focus fired immediately because they dominate land trades.
• Once the main threats are gone, remove support units, capture units, and remaining transports.

11. CO Powers and Timing

• CO Powers are strongest when timed around actual board conversion, not just for small value.
• Hyper Repair is weaker when there is little damage to repair.
• Firepower boosts are best used before decisive attacks, not after the board has already mostly resolved.
• Always consider whether the power should be used before moving key units.

12. Endgame Conversion

• Once control is established, remove the last real threats first.
• Block or punish reinforcement routes and landing zones.
• Clean up capture units and damaged leftovers.
• HQ capture should feel inevitable, not rushed.
• If the HQ is open, prioritize getting the right capture unit into place safely.

13. Discipline Never Turns Off

• Keep checking ranges even when the game looks over.
• Respect missiles, rockets, artillery, and battleships until they are fully removed.
• Most late game mistakes come from relaxing fundamentals.
• The one admitted mistake in the demonstration came from not respecting indirect range closely enough.
• Strong positions are still lost by players who stop doing the basics.

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Deployment Guide

This section follows unit efficiency and deployment fundamentals, not gimmicks or speedrun tricks. The goal is to maximize income, minimize waste, and convert advantage reliably. A video description is here: Expert Guide to Cost Effective Unit Deployment

1. Core Deployment Rules

• Always build units every turn if possible.
• Infantry first: captures create long term advantage.
• Cheap units enable expensive units, not the other way around.
• The central objective on most maps is control of the middle.
• Income > positioning > kills > HQ capture.
• Never miss a capture if a unit is already in position to take one.
• Property count eventually becomes unit dominance.
• If your units are too jammed up to advance effectively, do not waste CO Power just because it is available.

2. Early Game Unit Priorities

• Infantry: capture, screen, absorb damage.
• Tanks: best early all purpose unit for combat, vision, and safe pressure.
• Recons: useful in Fog of War for vision, but often replaced by tanks because tanks combine vision with stronger combat.
• Transports: only when terrain or map design requires them.
• Transport Copters are worth it on maps where early mobility meaningfully accelerates captures.
• On open maps with short travel times, direct units are usually better than early transport investment.

3. Vision & Fog of War Discipline

• Fog of War changes unit value significantly.
• Infantry on mountains provide major vision spikes.
• Infantry normally have low vision, but mountain placement can reveal large areas.
• Tanks act as safe vision anchors and have enough vision to replace Recons in many situations.
• Avoid single unit scouting. Use layered coverage.
• Forests punish careless aggression because hidden units can ambush advancing forces.
• Use range and terrain checks constantly.
• You can hold B to view a unit’s range while moving around the map.
• Blizzard and other weather changes can alter the tempo of your push, so reevaluate before overcommitting.

4. Infantry Walls & Protection

• Infantry protect artillery, air units, and captures.
• Cheap units should absorb hits whenever possible.
• Never expose high value units without a screen.
• If an enemy infantry is sitting on a city, account for the healing and defense bonus before deciding how many units you need to remove it.
• Two unit attacks are often correct when they preserve concealment or reduce counterplay in Fog of War.
• Put Infantry in front of Battle Copters and other expensive units when you expect a counterattack.
• Surround capture units in the endgame so they cannot be chipped off the property easily.

5. Combat Efficiency Rules

• Usually attack the most dangerous or most expensive threat first.
• Anti air often becomes the top priority if you are relying on Battle Copters.
• Use the cheapest unit that can secure the kill.
• Avoid unnecessary counterattacks unless the trade is favorable.
• Preserve unit count. Repairs matter over time.
• Terrain delays matter, so plan pathing in advance.
• Attack from stronger terrain when a counterattack is possible.
• Forest tiles often provide better defensive trade points than roads.
• Do not overkill low threat units when proportional force is enough.
• If a weaker unit can finish the job, save the stronger unit for the next threat.
• Tanks are often the cleanest way to soften anti air before committing Battle Copters.

6. Cost Effective Core Units

• Primary Units: Infantry, Tanks, Artillery, Battle Copters, and Anti Air.
• Situational / Late Game Units: Medium Tanks, Rockets, Bombers, and Naval Units.
• Heavy units are win closers, not win starters.
• Fighters and Bombers are strong, but usually too expensive to rush unless the board specifically demands them.
• Naval units are usually delayed unless the map has enough sea to justify them.
• Artillery are efficient only when screened and routed properly.
• Position matters as much as raw range.
• Rockets matter most when normal Artillery cannot reach the key zone in time.
• In practice, your most common high value builds are usually Infantry, Artillery, Tanks, Battle Copters, and Anti Air.
• Heavy units only become attractive once your economy is large enough that you can afford them without slowing total deployment.

7. Terrain, Pathing, and Movement Costs

• Plan routes before committing builds.
• Roads accelerate land pressure.
• Forests reduce movement for tread and tire units.
• Air units ignore most terrain movement problems and are especially useful on forest heavy maps.
• Artillery pathing matters; deploy them from bases that shorten their route to the actual fight.
• Sometimes the correct build location is chosen purely because it saves a turn of movement.
• Move tanks before Infantry when needed so your own captures do not block your better combat units.
• On offense, direct units usually path better than defensive indirects through cluttered terrain.

8. Midgame Transition

• Scale production with property count.
• Shift from indirect pressure to direct advances when pushing.
• Maintain unit flow. Never stall production of new units.
• If the battle is becoming drawn out and your infantry count is high enough to screen properly, adding Artillery becomes more efficient.
• If the fight is still fluid and mobile, Tanks and Battle Copters usually stay better.
• As income rises, build enough direct units to cover both land and air threats rather than saving too early for heavy units.
• When advancing, direct units are generally stronger than static defensive pieces.
• When defending or holding a line, Artillery and Mechs become more efficient.

9. Matchup and Trade Discipline

• Tanks are the default answer to most early and midgame land pressure.
• Anti Air are excellent against Battle Copters and can also punish Infantry well.
• Mechs are dangerous on mountains and against expensive land units.
• Infantry are often the best cost effective answer to weakened Mechs.
• Tanks generally beat Anti Air head to head, though terrain can change the trade.
• Sometimes breaking matchup rules is correct if it removes the most important enemy unit now.
• A damaged Anti Air may still be worth finishing with a Battle Copter if removing it opens the map for your air units.
• Mechs on mountains are especially dangerous and should not be ignored.
• If an Anti Air is on a base or city, account for the healing before deciding whether chip damage is enough.

10. CO Power and Tempo Discipline

• CO Powers are strongest when they change real combat math, not when used just because the meter is ready.
• If your army is too blocked up to move or attack effectively, saving the power is often better.
• Firepower boosts often create new kill thresholds for units like Artillery and Battle Copters.
• In Advance Wars 1 style math, +10 firepower can be enough to turn a non kill into a clean finish.
• Defensive or repair powers are less valuable when there is very little meaningful damage to recover.
• Use powers to enable conversions, not to decorate a stagnant turn.

11. Endgame & Scoring Optimization

• Continue building units until the final turn.
• Damage enemy units near the HQ before HQ capture where possible.
• Block bases, airports, and ports to prevent the opponent from building new units.
• Once you have clear property superiority, use it to overwhelm production rather than sitting on the lead.
• A lead in captures should convert into a lead in deployment, then into cleaner trades and map control.
• In Campaign and War Room, building extra units on the final turns can improve Technique score by increasing total deployed units relative to losses.
• Even when HQ capture is available, it can be correct to damage or destroy more enemy units first if score matters.
• In the late game, cheap units are often best for blocking production tiles and surrounding the HQ.
• Bombers, Rockets, and other heavy finishers become more reasonable once the map is already won and money is no longer the bottleneck.

12. Core Philosophy

• Efficient units, constant production, disciplined positioning, and cost effective trades win consistently across Campaign, War Room, and Versus.
• Start with captures, protect your income, and let deployment advantage snowball.
• Build with purpose, move with terrain in mind, and trade with proportional force.
• Keep building, keep capturing, and keep forcing the opponent to answer cheaper threats with worse trades.