Well, this map looks like it could get peculiar quickly. Let's see what shenanigans will ensue today.
The chapter refuses to entertain the notion that Will will actually be staying with the Mayor after this, clearly.
Oh, hi, The Beast. Guess we're having words with you today first.
Such is all the man has to say. It's times like these that you really realise what's missing- a generic lackey character to respond to The Beast's mad ravings in the affirmative. Fire Emblem loves having random people respond to a chapter boss's dialogue, but Advance Wars prefers to keep its generics to a minimum- and even then, they just use soldiers from each army. There is no generic soldier design for the Raiders faction, and so The Beast talks to an empty half of the screen.
Now to switch to us. Not too far from The Beast, although I noticed a lack of Ruins tiles on the preview map. What army base?
Stripped bare, apparently. Gives me the image of tanks cobbled together with all the metal that was nailed down.
Translation: Despite appearances, they do, in fact, know one end of a barrel from the other.
...On one hand, yeah. On the other hand, that's quite the hard line for a man who believes in the inherent goodness of his fellow man. No hope of getting the raiders to turn a new leaf?
...Actually, sounds like a Lin line.
Will hoping to impress Brenner by taking some military initiative. One of those units looks new, and I think this is our first time with a recon in red.
This mission will be the introduction of a mechanic that Fire Emblem fans hate, and Advance Wars fans... hate far less. But before we get into what Advance Wars does to make it more tolerable, a quick remark on Will's comment- this is one of the first times where Fog of War is given a distinct mechanical justification. I mostly comment on this because, the first time it appears in Advance Wars 1, Max describes it as "see that grey stuff that blocks your vision?".
This line, right here, is the linchpin of what makes Advance Wars Fog of War so good. In Fire Emblem, all player units could see a uniform three tiles away (certain units had a bigger or smaller number, but the number was flat in all directions), and the enemy could see everything. In Advance Wars, there are concealment mechanics that work even on the AI's all-seeing eyes.
Starting with Advance Wars: Dual Strike, they took it one further and actually made Fog of War fair. If an unconcealed unit is not in range of an enemy's vision, the enemy will not recognise it and make no effort to avoid it until it moves its units in such a way to spot it. At worst, the AI may be vaguely aware of where your units are, but it sure as hell can't Fire at you unless it has vision on you. Who knew the game was more fun when it was fair?
Lin wasting no time leaping into the action, and actually meaning it. In contrast to the last three maps, where our units served under Brenner, this map will be a Lin map. At this stage in the game, there is no mechanical difference between Brenner and Lin, but we will notice it because our turns will have Supreme Logician playing instead of Hope Never Dies.
Lin may have started proceedings, but we still have some business to take care of before we can start moving units. Namely, this infantry seems to be orphaned from his comrades.
Things are looking grim for him, not gonna lie.
He is also going to demonstrate a key mechanic unique to Advance Wars fog- Ruins and Woods tiles are considered "concealed", and a unit occupying one of these squares can only be seen by the enemy if they have a unit directly adjacent. This mechanic was obeyed even in the GBA Advance Wars games, meaning that while Fog had many of the same issues as FE fog, there was some counterplay to soften the blow. Usually, though, it just means screening forests for hidden indirects- and finding good forests to hide your own.
This seems to be a bit of a bug going on here- Lin advises us to move infantry units on mountains, but poor Bravo out on his own has no nearby mountain tiles to move to. While moving to a mountain tile is a good survival strategy for an isolated infantry, Lin is about to tutorialise a mechanic, implying we're supposed to be doing this with the move we have.
The footsoldiers down with the rest of our units can reach mountains in one move, so this line should really be reserved for them.
"I spent weeks buried under rubble. Even if I had a textbook, you can't expect me to read it, can you?"
Fire Emblem has Torch items, Advance Wars has "sit on a mountain and pull out your binoculars". Far better for the systems it has, but this usually tends to be a mechanic that gets sidelined quickly- in maps other than the basic tutorial maps, footsoldiers usually have more important things to be doing than sitting on mountains providing vision, and you vastly prefer the portability of a recon always having five vision.
Let's see if we can't figure out a good place to stick this fellow later.
For now, let's show off those high vision scores on these mountains.
All right, so what the heck is this unit? This unit is completely new to DoR, as a matter of fact.
And yet somehow, Will has already studied up on it. Flares are a special kind of unit that are specialised for Fog of War to a degree even recons are not.
I think Will's use was always contingent on his ability to follow other people's ideas, not make up his own.
Lin suggests shooting a flare and revealing where our enemies are hiding. Sounds a bit tricky, admittedly- let's see if we can't get some help on the subject.
Lin, do you have any suggestions on where to shoot a flare-
...I guess it's about time the Tactics room stopped making sense.
Terrifying the remaining daylights out of Will, I think.
I think it's a little early for us to be calling Lin/Will a mother/son relationship, isn't it? Brenner hasn't even come around to keeping him on hand!
Yes, The Beast is actually going to go through with this.
His advice is actually pretty terrible, given the mission, but when it's our enemy giving the advice, there was only so much quality to be expected.
I wonder if that was meant to be disinformation.
I also wonder if The Beast would ever care to attempt disinformation on his enemies when there is shooting to be done.
You said it, not me.
One moderately interesting thing going on here is that The Beast is listed as having 5 units, despite the fact we can presently see zero. The information on the top screen does obfuscate some information, but not the most important number.
Anyway, here's the information on our Flare unit. Flares apparently are armed with machine guns, but are mostly used shooting their flares at range. The "13 square area" is a diamond of tiles of radius 2 from the selected square, and is often known as "missile range" by Advance Wars players- because the range is that of a missile silo from AW2.
Like so. It seems our Flare only has a range of 5 squares, and I can't really get this flare close enough for my liking.
Let's just park ourselves here. It's worth commenting that this movement shows off another new mechanic to DoR Fog: Sweeping. Once a unit has committed to its movement, it will not only have vision on its new square, it will also have vision on every square it crossed to get to its new square- including in woods and ruins it passed. At the start of your next turn, your vision will be reset to what your units can see from their current squares, but this can help make it easier to expose units hidden in ruins and woods- for good and ill.
This mechanic is the reason units don't move at all until they have committed to their movement. A small price to pay.
The unfortunate bike showing off the mechanic meets a swift end.
I form a half-defensive line, half-concealed force, preparing myself for what may lie in wait.
All right, let's see what we can do about Bravo here...
Apparently, weeping. There is no forest tile in range of Bravo's movement that is neither occupied by one of The Beast's units, nor spotted by one. Paired with the fact two of them are high-vision recons, and Bravo is pretty clearly not supposed to make it out alive.
At the very least, the vanguard is not drawing that Mech away. It would've been poor consolation.
Time to see the damage.
Bravo is quickly destroyed, and shows off another element of the Sweeping mechanic- if a friendly unit is destroyed, the vision it had is not reset until the beginning of the next player turn. That recon that landed the finishing blow is in what looks like a fogged tile, but we still know it was there, and can make a note of it to avenge our fallen comrade.
In a surprisingly pulled punch, the game reveals that for Bravo, we are playing on Casual Mode and not Classic. The poor Rubinelle soldiers otherwise doomed to The Beast have been spared to live another day.
Complete with Lin giving a very Fire Emblem-esque lecture on the consequences of getting a unit destroyed. With the Advance Wars flavouring of highlighting that our units are resources and not people with dreams and feelings.
Days of Ruin has its ways of incentivising keeping units alive as opposed to sacrificing dead weight. But no Advance Wars game will ever really manage to sell the idea that we're keeping our units alive for any moral reasons.
Anyway, on our turn, we can see the infantry have also taken the time to worm their way closer.
Let's keep those guns where I can see them, laddies...
Now, do you remember that bike I blew up at the start of the map? That makes one of us. I am going to be spending a lot of the rest of the mission vaguely remembering the way the Advance Wars trilogy loved hiding a unit in a corner of the Fog of War tutorial, and preparing myself to be ambushed. No, The Beast has five units, I've destroyed one, and we're currently aware of the presence of four- there are to be no ambushes by hitherto unknown units.
The arty comes forward. There's no future in keeping it where it is unless I don't want it shooting.
The bike takes first shot at the mech, hoping to suffer the least unpleasant retaliation, but that sting was pretty effective.
The recon chips the bike, but I am more interested in getting its high vision to tell me about The Beast's recons than I am actually doing that damage. I'm also containing the enemy where I want them, too.
A look at the enemy's movement potions. Whether they can launch an attack depends on what that bike does.
The mech was the clear problem, and helpfully, it's also the unit I could actually do something about. If a recon tries shooting at mine, I have a counterstrategy.
And this mech will give me some more offensive wiggle room.
Hmm. The recons decided to go to ground. Here we can also see that our flare was good for one turn of visibility.
We have three shots, and might as well refresh it.
Mech finishes the bike, because it clearly can't do anything else.
Infantry goes scouting for enemies. Here's me forgetting that Sweeping exists. In my defence, I haven't played much of DoR, and particularly not in ages.
Arty has to move in closer. Hopefully the recons don't hide again.
The tank and recon work together to delete this one. It is only thanks to the lower defensive value of terrain at low HP that this worked out- the recon was predicted to do 23% at full HP, which leaves a shade too much damage to the bonus luck for my liking.
As we arranged it, we got a successful destruction.
Your move, The Beast.
A fair one. Albeit one with one major flaw.
Pew.
Pictured: Me preparing to find that mysterious sixth unit I hallucinated.
Which is also why I'm landing the final blow with this mech. I want the tank ready to roll.
My confusion when The Beast started complaining about losing. I bet he wishes he had another man more than I do.
Apparently, the promise of a lack of consequences for his actions went to his head. This guy may have been too used to a lack of consequences before the meteors...
So you keep saying.
Oof. Harsh grading on that one. A forced loss of a unit, a few attempts to attack with weaker units to enable our stronger units to move further, and... actually, why were we penalised on speed? Were we supposed to get those recons closer somehow? I don't really get how one would've done that faster. Still, an S is an S.
She may not, but clearly I did. I took some time trying to figure out where the wayward unit came from, and I was no less illuminated looking at this screen. It is only when I did this writeup that I noticed the bike that was in the opening volley.
Now then, time to head to Freehaven and see if the Mayor appreciates us any more from this side of proceedings.
Because we've sure given him a lot to appreciate.
Brenner goes right to telling the Mayor what he- somewhat fairly- expects to happen.
And the Mayor decides to say no.
Looking back, I kinda think Bravo should have died, but for new reasons- Brenner's anger at the Mayor denying him what seemed like a cut-and-dry oral contract would be reinforced if Brenner actually lost men doing what the Mayor asked him to.
And yet, what I am hearing is that you had already decided that you wouldn't be taking Will in no matter how many raiders Brenner blew up.
The Mayor, openly and flagrantly denying his saviour a promise: "Look, I keep my promises!" The Mayor is not a very popular character, and honestly, I think recent developments have only reflected worse on him.
You and me both. The world goes to shit for a few weeks and already people are losing their literacy.
The mayor tries his best to change tack to a far more reasonable position, perhaps too little too late.
He declares that there will be a council meeting of some description that will determine whether Will will be accepted into the community. No doubt Brenner would be tasked to clear out more raiders while he waited.
Brenner sees right through his bluster.
The kind of line that just makes you want to punch a man in the face.
"You are very frustrating to talk to."
The Mayor notices Brenner's frustration, and controls the conversation by painting Brenner as the sort of man likely to turn his weapons on the civilians. Out of wholecloth.
Brenner instantly disarms that threat, and puts the Mayor on the backfoot. And makes a damn good point- given how little he cares about Will, what guarantees do his people have that he won't do the same thing to them should it prove expedient?
Answer me that.
Brenner goes back to that time when the Mayor himself was in Will's shoes, to try and speak to the man Brenner thought he would be meeting.
The kind of man who took Brenner's words to heart, and swore to live by them.
The man Brenner sees now is a man who won't live by his own words, let alone Brenner's.
I think, when you absolutely refuse to acknowledge the substance of the argument being posed and continue to attack your opponent's character, you lose the right to pretend your position holds any value.
Will decides he's absolutely sick of this conversation.
I don't think I'd want to stay, either. And I think it's time Brenner stopped trying to force the issue.
Will wants to help Brenner directly. And he won't be at home in a community led by a man who holds Brenner's name in contempt.
This is a position that Advance Wars can claim. With how quickly you can lose units in an Advance Wars battle, joining an army is rather likely to end in a quick death.
But it's the life Will had been training for before the meteors, and right now, it's still the more appealing option here.
Brenner decides that letting Will tag along is going to end better than trying to force things with the Mayor.
And even with luck...
Well, that's enough talking about an absolutely deplorable man, let's go spend some time with someone much more pleasant.
We haven't touched base with that girl Will picked up since the end of her introductory chapter, and it seems she has spent most of that time being kept in bed, recovering, and from the sounds of things, not particularly responsive to her environment.
With that said, the time she spends around Will is better than her usual.
Since Will only sees her time around Will, he doesn't realise how much of an impact that really made.
Physically OK, yeah. But mentally...
Will goes in, and tries to light up her world a little more.
A little. Damn. And here I thought that background you were standing in front of had grass. To be fair, the lack of sunlight hurts the plants more than the people, but still... lack of greens is going to suck.
Imagine finding a plastic flower and thinking you came out of things with a good knick-knack.
It's called a botanist, Will. And honestly, I'm not sure Lin will be any better informed. Real flowers? Maybe. But more for the practical uses than the aesthetics.
Cattleya Isabella is a real plant, and does seem to be particularly famous among cattleya orchids for its aesthetic value- the perfect kind of plant to be around in plastic form. And it even kinda looks like our girl!
The girl, having noticed it's been two chapters and she still doesn't have a name, decides to take matters into her own hands and share the flower's name.
Will isn't exactly wrong. I actually went and looked up how "cattleya" is pronounced, and it's not exactly intuitive- it's more like "CAT-ley-ah" than "cat-TULL-ya".
There's an interesting divergence here with Dark Conflict. Most characters (except, strangely, Lin) have different names between the Days of Ruin and Dark Conflict localisations, and Isabella is among them. In the Dark Conflict translation, Isabella eventually settles on the name "Catleia", which sounds close to the technical pronunciation of cattleya.
I'll also be honest, I'm fairly sure the Isabella of "Cattleya Isabella" is referring to an actual woman, but I'm having trouble tracking down who she was and why they named the flower after her, so I can't comment on whether using the real woman's name reflects on the character well or not.
At least Isabella enjoys being a named character at last.
Lin interrupts this moment by pointing out how far away Will and Isabella have drifted from pre-meteor courting rituals. Most boys don't typically name their girlfriends.
Will asks the obvious question.
And Lin answers it in quite possibly the most hilarious way possible. Presumably, she's keeping an eye on Isabella given her intimate knowledge of an army's workings. She was not prepared for Will and Isabella to go all sappy on her. But after a point, it got too awkward to leave.
(Yes, the conversation does end here.)
Next time: We meet a more co-operative noncombatant.
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