WARNING : This game is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT

[NemesisLeon44]

You can lower difficulty sliders for damage received, income received, and groove charge rate. On "normal" settings, this game is VERY HARD. Definitely harder than Advance Wars. The fact that you can DO BETTER and get up to 3 stars and S-ranks on these maps AND the option to RAISE THE DIFFICULTY exists are all astounding. There's definitely some depth and replay value here for those who love a challenge. Lower the difficulty if you feel the need (from the overworld map menu during the main campaign)

Personally, it feels wrong to me to change the difficulty at all. This game just fits together so well as a solid structure it feels wrong. I don't want to get MY I way I just want to do it the RIGHT way. I'm so pissed but I just keep retrying maps. This is the only game I've ever seen where side quests are harder than main quests. I WILL DEFEAT YOU, WARGROOVE YOU BASTARD!

[nvmvoidrays]

Originally posted by inchman tow:

I think I just suck at strategy games in general but after Act 3 Part 1 I am having a hell of a time with Sides 1 and 2. It's frustrating how outnumbered I am, the sheer power of the enemy no matter AI is too great for me. I've been ramming my head into these side quests for hours to no avail... Like, is that the rest of the game? Get outnumbered or get gud? Because if so I hate that, it feels cheap.

Act 3 Side 1 (Puppy in the Middle) is all about getting the right unit combinations to hold off the swarm of enemies. i was able to S Rank it on my first attempt by just paying attention and building the necessary units. you wanna make sure to keep the NE/W/S/SE villages captured. it'll give you enough income to build whatever you need each turn. they shouldn't be too tough to defend.

my suggestions would be this:

NW/Main Gate: Ceaser on one side, two Pikeman filling in the other gaps, side-by-side, for a critical bonus. Trebuchet in the corner to snipe the golem/trebuchet that eventually spawns. add in a ballista later, but get the units to plug the gap and then a trebuchet ASAP. you also want a unit to plug the gap in the wall or enemy units will run by you. sprinkle in a ranger or two and a few alchemists and you should be good. this side will get the majority of the attention because you're receiving two "lanes" of units. a Trebuchet will spawn around wave 8/9 and a golem a few waves afterwords.

NE: Pikeman covering the gap with a ballista tucked in the corner and an alchemist for emergency back-up. you should be fine here. there is a golem that spawns in the northeast corner, but, it comes on one of the final waves and you should be fine by then. if needed, put one additional pikeman just below the village and the wall to keep capturing it back to bait the enemies repeatedly into attacking it.

W and S: this side gets a lot of attention as well, but it's not nearly as bad as the other one. i was able to cover this side with two or three alchemists, two rangers and a knight or two to blitz the enemy rangers when they spawned. you want a ballista or two posted in the SW corner to shoot down the harpies that spawn and to snipe rangers/pikeman.

SE: this is the easiest side to defend. three pikeman, lined up in a row right after the village, blocking off all access. build a trebuchet/ballista when the ranger spawns and it's gg.

this map is all about outlasting the enemy and slogging through the slugfest.

Act 3 Side 2 (Who is Caesar?) is a touch annoying because Caesar starts with so many more resources then you. Ragna runs south immediately with the ranger closest to her while the one on the eastern side of your base just runs south and caps all the villages.

make a wagon as your first unit and ferry your ranger to the village before the bridge. post Ragna in front of the bridge with your ranger to one side of her, build a pikeman and ferry him to the front with your wagon and then save up for a trebuchet immediately to counter the ballista/trebuchet/golem Caesar builds. you want an alchemist next and then start slowly pushing with your trebuchet. by this time, you'll probably have the SE barracks captured and you can start spawning units from here and pushing at him from two sides.

i haven't beaten the campaign yet, but, it seems the side missions are definitely harder then the main missions, but, it's nothing that playing carefully can't overcome. it's when you're going for S Ranks that the game becomes annoying.

i've managed to S Rank every mission throughout Act 3 so far. Act 2 Side 3 gave me the most pause just because you only have 5 turns to do it in.

[Spark☆]

Originally posted by HighLanderPony:

Originally posted by The Sparkstar Scope:

Don't. Even. REMIND ME.
GOD, some of the stuff in Black Hole Rising is PAIN INCARNATE.

Another man of culture. *high five* ;D

Hell yeah.
And a confession: I prefer Dual Strike over AW2 partially because of the difficulty. It's slightly easier making it a more enjoyable experience.

[same]

game is much easier than AW1 imo
i'm almost done with the campaign and i've lost... 2? 3 times?

[HighLanderPony]

Originally posted by The Sparkstar Scope:

Originally posted by HighLanderPony:

Another man of culture. *high five* ;D

Hell yeah.
And a confession: I prefer Dual Strike over AW2 partially because of the difficulty. It's slightly easier making it a more enjoyable experience.

Finished AW2 multiple times, mostly to unlock Sturm. He's awesome to smash the AI with. Still haven't finished DS. The campaign kinda drags on so I keep dropping it. Going to finish it sometime though, cool game.

[Spark☆]

Originally posted by HighLanderPony:

Originally posted by The Sparkstar Scope:

Hell yeah.
And a confession: I prefer Dual Strike over AW2 partially because of the difficulty. It's slightly easier making it a more enjoyable experience.

Finished AW2 multiple times, mostly to unlock Sturm. He's awesome to smash the AI with. Still haven't finished DS. The campaign kinda drags on so I keep dropping it. Going to finish it sometime though, cool game.

Funny, I took several stops from DS over the years because of that too. Only recently did I finish it, and lemme tell you, it's totes worth it. Best game in the series.

[george constanza kinnie]

As much as I'm enjoying this game, I didn't expect it to get so hard so soon...

[Blue]

Not that bad, I beat the campaign about an hour ago. Admittedly I only got S ranks on random missions, including the one I considered the hardest mission ( I guess they make good rankings easier for the difficult ones? I find the easier missions are harder to S rank )

[Meow]

I think the Advance Wars Hard campaigns are tougher, the AI in this game isn't all that great and a lot of the time you can either rush the HQ or the commander because your score is based entirely off of your turn count so you don't have to worry about your technique score.

I've already S-ranked the entire campaign and have beaten all the arcade modes (which are pretty much the same thing every time because you just dragon/trebuchet rush the HQ so your commander doesn't even affect the strategy for each map). Online play has been fun so far but the small map pool again leads to me just using the same strategy over and over, obviously players wise up to the fact that a dragon is coming for their HQ and they try to counter it but characters like Tenri and Nuru make online so easy when you surprise warp a big unit into position to crit kill and win the game.

[NemesisLeon44]

Originally posted by Meow:

I think the Advance Wars Hard campaigns are tougher, the AI in this game isn't all that great and a lot of the time you can either rush the HQ or the commander because your score is based entirely off of your turn count so you don't have to worry about your technique score.

I've already S-ranked the entire campaign and have beaten all the arcade modes (which are pretty much the same thing every time because you just dragon/trebuchet rush the HQ so your commander doesn't even affect the strategy for each map). Online play has been fun so far but the small map pool again leads to me just using the same strategy over and over, obviously players wise up to the fact that a dragon is coming for their HQ and they try to counter it but characters like Tenri and Nuru make online so easy when you surprise warp a big unit into position to crit kill and win the game.

What do you do when faced with someone using the same strategy?

[-=Maure=-]

Really? The S Rank only takes into account turns taken? no matter how many units I lose?

[NemesisLeon44]

Originally posted by Tuchanka:

Really? The S Rank only takes into account turns taken? no matter how many units I lose?

yes, that is true. the map editor reveals this fact as well.

[Meow]

Originally posted by NemesisLeon:

Originally posted by Meow:

I think the Advance Wars Hard campaigns are tougher, the AI in this game isn't all that great and a lot of the time you can either rush the HQ or the commander because your score is based entirely off of your turn count so you don't have to worry about your technique score.

I've already S-ranked the entire campaign and have beaten all the arcade modes (which are pretty much the same thing every time because you just dragon/trebuchet rush the HQ so your commander doesn't even affect the strategy for each map). Online play has been fun so far but the small map pool again leads to me just using the same strategy over and over, obviously players wise up to the fact that a dragon is coming for their HQ and they try to counter it but characters like Tenri and Nuru make online so easy when you surprise warp a big unit into position to crit kill and win the game.

What do you do when faced with someone using the same strategy?

Depends if you're going first or not, if you do happen to be first that means your strategy will work first because it doesn't matter if the opponent's dragon attacks your HQ at the same time as you because yours will kill first. If you're going second you can try to trick your opponent into investing money into useless units. I won a game last night by opening up with a few naval units (turtles, which are pretty cheap) which caused my opponent to follow suit, he built harpoon ships as well. All the time I was saving cash on land by only building spearmen until I had my groove. Then I just teleported in a trebuchet and crit his commander to death. Honestly though if you're going second you just play reactively to your opponent. If you see them saving funds on a map with a tower make a pre-emptive witch and you'll probably screw their whole strategy up.

[Elindos Phar & Family]

I hope they would not dumb the game down.

[Bwian]

The Advanced Campaign maps in the original Advance Wars were ruthlessly difficult just to win, let alone get an "S" rank. Kanbei still haunts me.

Wargroove is probably about as difficult as the Dual Strike Hard campaign. The missions aren't too hard to win, but getting the S rank takes a bit of skill with a dash of luck.

[Metalsand]

It really isn't that much harder than Advance Wars 2. Mostly it's just a matter of trying to learn the new unit counters and mechanics.

There's only two missions in this game that really gave me trouble - the one where they introduce your "bomber" style aerial units, and the final mission.