How To Balance The Advance Wars 2 CO's? 

Ephraim225 made a custom Aw2 ROM with "most" of these changes, you can get it here: ▷ Download: discord.gg/zpNeXJJ 🕑 Timestamps: 1:19 Andy 3:22 Sami 6:24 Max 8:25 Nell 9:38 Hachi 11:53 Olaf 13:48 Grit 15:21 Colin 18:26 Kanbei 20:19 Sonja 22:16 Sensei 24:54 Eagle 26:53 Drake 28:38 Jess 29:41 Flak 32:13 Adder 34:26 Lash 36:04 Hawke 37:43 Sturm 39:19 Outro

I think removing Kanbei's defence takes away from his persona and makes him feel like another Max, Jess or Grimm. Being a swordsman he balances attack and defence and his well trained (and therefore more expensive) units reflect this. I would go for 10/10 or 15/10 rather than 30/0.

Kanbei's nerf is too out of touch with his lore. His units are supposed to be sturdy and expensive. He needs some sort of day to day defence buff, even if only 10%.

I feel Kanbei nerf is weird, is like a Grimm but more expensive and without the defense nerf

Removing Kanbei's defense feels like your removing apart of his personality. it how he seperates himself from the cast.

I think the issue with removing Kanbei's defense though is that to me defense was kind of his thing. In the sense that apart from Javier no other CO really specialized in it like he did and that it fit his persona of an honorable armor clad samurai who stoically weathers blows. That plus I personally always saw Sonja's counterattacking gimmick being an extension of this defensive focus with her being his daughter and all. Either way I feel the complete removal of defense feels weird and would prefer even a minor buff to both over the large buff to just attack.

Can I say as a flak main (yes I do exist) his changes are AWESOME. I always knew that he should have higher luck then nell to compansate for his bad luck, but his luck ignoring defence fits him so well I'm embarrassed I didn't think of it sooner.

I don’t mind most of these changes, however the one I do take a bit of issue with is Sonja’s suggested change. While I agree that she needs a more usable D2D, I think arbitrarily making her stronger in what isn’t supposed to be her element by removing her bad luck out of FoW runs contrary to how she’s designed. I’d make a few very simple changes to her instead. Firstly, add the following to her D2D: +5% Good Luck Per Terrain Star in FoW (the stronger her position, the more confident she gets in her tactics, nullifying her bad luck in forests and boosting it in cities/mountains). Secondly, Add two lines to her powers, one each. For her Normal Power, Add “Causes Fog of War Until Your Next Turn”. For her Super Power, Add “Causes Fog of War for 2 Turns”. The purpose of this should be pretty clear. Instead of saying “Sonja sucks out of fog so let’s give her something for out of fog” it lets Sonja Force the battle into an advantageous situation for a brief time, letting her take advantage of her strengths regardless of if FoW is present by default or not. It also forces an opponent to need to consider units they’d normally almost never consider when facing her (IE: when is the last time you seriously saw Recons outside of road-heavy or non-fog of war maps?). Sonja being Yellow Comets resident “ninja” would also lend credence to adding a FoW effect since smoke bombs are a pretty typical “ninja trope” and it would be a more flavourful buff for her without drastically over-nerfing anything in my personal opinion. Of course this is just my 2 cents, but ultimately we’d need to actually see how such a change plays out to know if it’s too good, bad etc.

In my own opinion, I think Kanbei should have lost firepower and keeps high defense instead. His troops are elite and he cares fiercely about defending both yellow comet and his daughter, I think it makes sense he'd be the defense master for AW2 with lack of Javier. We already have several characters that hit harder like Max/Jess. Not so much on defense.

20:02 One of the innate weaknesses of having a higher deployment cost is missing breakpoints to deploy units of a higher tech, this means kanbei with these changes has a strictly negative day to day effect (like jugger), providing a pathetic 4% increase in unit effectiveness to make up for this. so honestly this kanbei looks like a tier 4 co instead of tier 3.

Hachi still feels like a really op co. Colin feels fair, though, even though he's not much weaker. He might be too strong too. They're both probably the strongest cos in the new rom, despite the nerfs. Eagle, sensei, and Hawke also feel stronger than t3. Kanbei was murdered. I wouldn't pick nerfed kanbei in tier 4 matches.

I feel that Kanbei's and Hawke's nerfs are crippling, moreover Kanbei's nerf completely changes what his gameplay is all about. Kanbei's entire point (at least in my eyes) is having a slower start but accumulating units over the course of the match because of their increased defense. I don't have that much PvP experience, but while 0% bonus defense might be more balanced, it cripples the enjoyment and entire game plan of playing Kanbei. Nerfing his ATK and DEF to 20%/20% like in AW1 and reducing the charge he gets from losing units (due to the fact that Kanbei gets increased charge because his units are 20% more expensive) would've been better. The Power/Superpower changes are fair as they are. 30% DEF is still incredibly busted, even if he has a 20%DEF D2D. The Hawke nerf just feels so unnecessary since Black Storm rarely gets many uses per match anyway. Give the poor guy a better D2D at least LOL.

I think it might be a good compromise to give Sturm -1 terrain cost, at a minimum of 1. So for example it would take recons 2 movement to move through forest, down from 3. Shattered Throne had a CO with a similar mechanic.

I think Olaf should’ve gotten bonus defense in snow because that just makes logical sense.

So happy when I saw Andy. I also thought about the repair costs. Maybe keep his normal power at 3 stars, 3 repairs and +10 Def so he is like Brenner. Offensive super power and defensive normal power. I hate the Kanbei change. It doesn't feel like him anymore.

Mangs in this video seems to be going back on his word in the first video, he’s focusing a lot more on things being balanced than actually fun, Kanbei got neutered into another firepower specialist and Sami just wouldn’t feel the same with only +30% capture rate

I think Kanbeis nerf was misguided. I think he should retain his defense. But reduce firepower instead. We already have too many offense CO's and hardly defensive CO's. So a quick fix would swap the firepower and defense numbers. As for Sonja I feel as the ONLY CO that specializes in Fog Of War, she should be able to cause Fog with her super CO power. Or maybe her regular CO power without any added effects and make the regular CO power cost more stars or match the cost of Drakes regular CO power as he summons rain which causes fog.

“Babe, new Mangs dropped.” “I’m busy.” “It’s over forty minutes.” 🚗💨

I think some sort of snowball rework for Flak would be fun and fit him. Something like "whenever Flak attacks, every 2 HP removed (rounded down) increases all of his units firepower by 2%". For example, doing 1 HP gives no bonus, 2-3 HP gives 2%, 4-5 gives 4%, etc. Then his normal power maybe doubles that bonus, and allows half of the bonus to persist until the beginning of Flak's next turn. Then the super power might increase the bonus further, and allow the full bonus to persist. He starts smashing stuff and gets more into it the more he smashes.

The -10% on no terrain stars for Lash makes Navel and Air Units way weaker as Air units cant get any stars and Navel only in Reefs. I think that negative side was unintentional as its more of a overall nerf than buff ^^'

If you're going to remove Kanbei's defense bonus, you might as well just remove Kanbei. He doesn't feel like himself anymore anyway.

I agree with most of this, but I think Max is nerfed a little too much. I would give him -10% defense against indirects, instead of -20%

I like the changes, but Kanbei could need +10% Defense as a Day to Day. Flak seems pretty broken, but not sure how to change it.

The editing is really good, Love the presentation. Edit, KANBEI NOOOO

As an Olaf main, Olaf got one nerf from AW1 to AW2 that nobody mentions: the movement cost of treads in snowy forest went from 3 to 2. To tanks, only plains are affected by snow, so Olaf loses some advantage in forest-heavy maps. I hated that change, I would set movement cost back to 3 if possible.

I do not think this changes have been made with a balance mind honestly, but personal grudges. Max felt the only one that was really balanced ans still himself in the entire video.

I've been waiting for this such a long time

That might be too much for a simple balance patch but I would still like to see Sonja to create FoW like Drake and Olaf create their whether.

You've set into motion a course of events you may not comprehend. You are one step closer to stepping having to balance Caulder.

19:40 30% Firepower on all your units by itself is super strong. It's Max with a Comm Tower levels of Firepower, so this will allow Kanbei to just make insane pushes once he builds up his forces. The goal was Tier 3, but honestly this still puts him at top of tier 3.

Instead of the 100% kill bonus for Adder, he could also gets 1 Star Defense on roads (not bridges), just so using said roads to attack enemies is a bit less punishing for him and you are willing to risk using them this way a bit more...

I would balance sturm so he ignores terrain completely, including its defense but with the AWBW stats and powers. He'll be very good at traversing terrain but not as good at utilising it. That also means his infantry on mountains won't have that busted 60% deffense.

I love videos like these! The editing is very good too!

Out of all the changes i think that Kanbeis change is the worst. 20% more just for 130% firepower? No way. I think they should be 100/120 or change the power to defense instead. Yeah it is hard to balance out but losing so many funds in just firepower is bad.

My recommendation for Sturm: Instead of giving him 1 movement cost over all terrain, give Infantry the Mech movement type and give Tire units the Tread movement type. Retains the spirit of his blitz-tier movement abilities without being quite as strong (plus I think it would be in-character for Sturm to demand that his army slap treads onto his recon units)

32:50 He's going to end up spamming his super a lot more, bc he'll need the 20 firepower to break through cities bc AW2 doesn't have Comm towers. Really like the extra charge, lets him be a lot more aggressive. The thing that's also interesting is he won't gain the extra meter when he actually pops his powers, so he'll end up saving a lot and then will have the choice between 2 normals or a super, and he'll be able to take engagements that don't require move before actually popping his power.

My dream AW game includes remakes of all three games , (or maybe a continuation 👀) and a Balanced mode and Unbalanced mode.

Andy: Honestly, I think if you’re going to add resupplying his units to his normal power, it should be on his Super Power as well, since his Super Power is just an upgraded version of his regular power. So it being part of his regular power but not his normal power is a bit odd. And I still think people would use it if it was part of his Super Power, just in case he really needs to resupply his troops. Sami: No problems here! Honestly it was kinda BS that if she could get a 1HP infantry close enough to your base she could just capture it immediately, even if you do need to focus on the infantry if you’re going against Sami. And, since she’s all about capturing, basically, giving her more defence, making it harder to kill her infantry, suits her, making it harder to stop her capturing when coupled when the defence cities/bases/HQs/etc have. Max: I'm not sure I like the reduced indirect defence nerf, but I do get it. I’m content with the power nerds though, a power and movement boost sounds like a basic thing, but oof, it can hurt a LOT. Nell: eeeeeeeeh… I’m really iffy on this one. The boost to her day to day is fine, I think, but I think the nerfs to her powers are a bit overkill. I would raise the regular power to 0-50%, since most other COs get a bigger boost to their day to day (usually from 10% to 20%), and if you really want to nerf her still, bring her Super down to 75%, but that might make it too weak and not really worth saving for over her regular power, Super Powers generally need a bit more 'oomph' and more of a boost than the regular power for its cost anyway, so 0-80% seems fine either way to me. Hachi: I would say that if you’re going to nerf Hachi, he should definitely be easier to unlock/unlocked from the start, but that isn’t really a nerf/buff issue. Just that if he’s no longer ridiculously broken he should no longer be the sort of reward he is normally. The nerfs themselves I think are fine, especially units being deployed from cities being the full normal cost, since cities being bases for a turn and then being cheaper on top of that was… ridiculous. I might extend that to infantry units too but then he could just use a giant wall of infantry to stall you while he builds up a huge army, making it non-infantry means that even if he deploys recons, he’ll be paying 4,000 rather than 1-3,000 per unit. And tanks will still be able to rip right through them, with his reduced defence. Olaf: I would say that maybe Olaf should get a defence boost in the snow, because it makes sense that he’d be able to like, pile up snow banks to help defend his units, even if it wouldn’t do much, and since it only tends to snow for one day at a time, it wouldn’t be too broken. Grit: I think that along with the range boost during his powers, Grit should get a vision boost, even if only to his indirects. I’m not saying to the extent of being able to use their full range, but just so they can fire for one turn without needing other units, like artillery getting their vision boosted to 2, Rockets and Battleships to 3. Maybe an extra +1 to vision on top of that during his super power, but maybe not. Might be too broken. But yeah, just to make it so his indirects can still do SOMETHING when he pops his power, in case he’s popping it to try and stage a comeback in Fog of War. Colin: That seems fair. Honestly his regular power was WAY too cheap and there was no reason to pop his Super Power other than flexing on someone who you’re already beating, and giving him more of a firepower nerf as well as a defence nerf makes it a little less intimidating when he rolls up with a massive number of tanks. Still scary, but not as much so. Also making it based on income is, as you say, a good way to completely neuter the trick of saving up money and then popping his super so you could just spam Neotanks. Kanbei: I… get it, but also I would have kept SOME of that defence, just maybe dropped it to 10% on the defence. The 30% on Super is fine though, because his units during his Super originally were just ridiculous, especially if they were parked on a city, to the point where it simply wasn’t worth attacking him when his Super Power was activate, except maybe if you could avoid getting counter attacked due to the boosted counter damage. Speaking of, I’m surprised that they didn’t make his super power be worth more, for that kind of power. Even with the slight nerf it gets. Sonja: This seems good. The bad luck in Fog of War is unusual, but it would be harder for her to plan out things if she doesn’t know exactly where the opponents units are. Heck, seems like 'bad luck' in Fog of War should be s mechanic of Fog of War itself, but managing concrete plans like Sonja does, it makes some sense that it’d be only her who gets the nerf. Sensei: I will say that maybe spawning infantry from every other city at 5HP might work, especially with the nerfed firepower, because that would also take away the money bonus from joining units as well as reducing his unit spamming, but just make it so he can’t spam mechs. I also think that his Super Power, for what it is, is a LITTLE overpriced. Eagle: The change to his Naval Units is… interesting. A little less movement instead of the massive firepower nerf… but as you mention, Naval Units are generally not a thing. Like, most of the stuff you can do with Naval Units can be done better with air units, excluding the Lander being able to transport vehicles. And there is even less reason to use Naval Units with Eagle, considering how his air units are buffed. I will say that I think his normal power is kinda busted, Air units getting a firepower buff and getting to move again, even at 5 stars, seems a BIT overpowered… And comparatively, since the rest of his units get a debuff, even if they get to move again just… doesn’t seem that appealing, because they’ll just get trashed on your opponents next move, if not on their counter-attacks. Drake: Honestly I would have kept a debuff for his air units, other than helicopters, perhaps. Maybe less of a debuff, but limiting their movement feels… weird. No longer limiting his vision in rain does make sense though, since that’s basically his weather. I would also have considered giving him a firepower buff in the rain, but that might be a bit much. And removing the fuel drain from his regular power does make his Super feel more worth it, he can’t just grind the enemy to a halt by always using his regular power. Jess: I mean, she’s basically the same, just buffing her vehicles more, which is needed, given how underwhelming she is in Advance Wars 2. Flak: Considering Flak's personality, I think a Grimm like set-up would work for him, maybe not quite as extreme though. But that would have been a complete change of the character. Buffing him though is definitely a good move, especially with ignoring defence. Because there’s still the chance that his attacks will do next to nothing. Very volatile, very Flak. I still think his powers and style worked well in Advance Wars 2, when he’s meant to be a dumb, bumbling idiot, but for the sake of balancing him? This definitely works. Adder: That is a very interesting day to day, but it does fit with him basically being a CO who relies heavily on his cheap CO powers. Also, considering his super power is more than twice as expensive as his regular power, it makes sense that you get something extra from it. Makes him a bit more interesting because while I know you like him, and like playing as him, Mangs, his play style was… kinda boring. This makes his playstyle more interesting. Lash: Lash, my girl! Also I think that’s a good deal on her power, her whole thing is terrain, so no terrain to use should weaken her more than normal. And the boost to her powers works well. Might need a little less cost in her regular power, but that might just be me. As for the penalty being a bit harsh… maybe, but it still definitely fits. Maybe a 5% penalty would be better. Hawke: I think the change to his power generation is a bit harsh, considering how much his powers cost. I might have reduced the costs a little, maybe to 4 and 7/8 stars. Sturm: Sturm is still pretty strong, huh. I guess that makes sense. I might have nerfed his meteor more, to only doing 5 damage, but getting rid of the boost he got with his super power was DEFINITELY needed, because the meteor softened you up and then he’d just sweep up the rest with no issues. He’s still a little too strong, I feel, but definitely a big step in the right direction.

As someone who loves playing Sami, I think her day-to-day capture bonus should be unchanged because it is part of her specialty and she's actually a whole lot of fun to play that way. Sure she does have a bit of a lead at the beginning of most small to medium maps, but to me it's not necessary to nerf her capture bonus. I would just lower her firepower to 20% and her Victory March should just boost her capture bonus to 300%. That way, only her infantry that have 7hp and up will be able to instantly capture. She would be forced to join some infantry together in order to secure more properties, which hurts her ability to block her stronger units afterwards. As for buffs, it would be cooler if her transports had +20% defense rather than being 20% cheaper. APCs are still kinda fragile and she might be able to take an extra hit with that buff. Maybe even both her powers could add another +1 movement to her transports. She would be even more unique that way.

I would have liked to see jess have a modifier on her vehicles that makes them less effected by movement impairment on terrain, but overall this seems to be a fairly straightforward and easy change to push forward Personally, I think something along the lines of 10-15% increase to vehicle firepower and 10% nerf to infantry firepower coupled with the ability to reduce movement impairment on all terrain by 1 for her vehicles is ideal for her but that's just me

Decided to do a write-up of every CO. Anything with a * is a "hey notice this line!". *TL;DR: Overall very good, but yeah, definitely take another look at Kanbei, Sensei, Jess, and Hawke! - Andy: I love the repair-based DtD. I was wondering why Rachel got one but not him, y'know? - Sami: No comment. Looks good. - Max: I question if -20% DEF is too much. -10% I can definitely see... maybe -15%? -20% just seems very harsh idk. - Nell: Mostly looks good. CO Power seems a little weak though, giving only +15% and then the Super Power giving +40% on top of that. I'd argue making the Power get +25% (50% Luck), and then the Super Power stays at 80% (+30%) would be better balanced. Super still gets more for saving, but now the Power isn't quite as weak, because it's a bit too weak here. - Hachi: Yeah, that looks solid. He might still be too good though honestly, lol. - Olaf: Seems fine as well. - Grit: Also good. Man, most of these changes are just really solid. - Colin: I wonder if anyone will still even pop PoM other than to BM at the end of a match, lol. Good changes. Nerf that little rich shit. *- Kanbei: Yeah controversial for sure. I'd argue +20% ATK and +10% DEF over +30% ATK. 30% is a LOT and not having the staying power Kanbei is known for, I don't really like that. I'd then make Morale Boost +10% ATK (plus the +10/+10 he gets from popping a power, so now his units are at +40/+20), and Super being +20/+10 (+50/+30). This also nerfs the Counterattack bonus a bit because +40% base DEF with that is just too high. I'd also drop the Power to 2 stars but leave the Super at 6 (so 2 small, 4 large stars). - Sonja: Yep, seems good. *- Sensei: Now does this work exactly like Eagle's power in that you move again *after* popping the power? If so, the Super's +ATK and Move Again kind of combat each other since you'd want to attack with the B-Copter, then pop Super, hey now you have +60% ATK (70 with the passive bonus), but you use the move part to run away instead of attacking again. If it can SOMEHOW be coded that you can pop the Super at the start of your turn and it just gives the B-Copters +1 turn so you can benefit from the increased damage on the attack, then that would be perfect. It's still a good change all-around and I like it, but this one technical limitation just limits the +ATK the B-Copters get a bit, y'know? Everything else is totally fine though. - Eagle: Yeah that looks good. I like that Eagle now has a choice of "okay well you can attack again like before and you'll get *more* ATK/DEF if you stay, otherwise you can flee like before". The difference between this and Sensei though is Sensei's B-Copters don't get to move again on his normal power, so he has to lose firepower on his Super and *not* lose it on his Normal, y'know? So yeah, Eagle's solid here, I love that change to his power. - Drake: Solid changes, yep yep. *- Jess: I'm sorry, I just disagree with the Infantry -10% ATK because it makes NO SENSE for her. I'd rather have seen non-Ground units take a -20% hit instead of -10%, or even nerfing her powers by 10% to compensate. Grit's -10% makes sense since he's bad at direct combat (and Infantry are technically direct units). Jess being a GROUND SPECIALIST and having WEAKER INFANTRY (who are GROUND UNITS) make absolutely no sense at all to me. - Flak: So way more volatile Nell? Yeah I'm okay with that. He's still going to be bottom tier because of the bad luck though I feel. -40% on the Super is... really low. - Adder: Oh... Oh wow. That feels... oh geez, that looks terrifying. I love it, but I question if that's too strong. If after testing it feels balanced, then yeah I'm *all* for this. That might be my favorite change so far. - Lash: I wonder if that would be overall a buff or nerf. It seems alright and makes sense, but I'm not sure if this puts her up or down. *- Hawke: Um... that's supposed to be 75% from losses and 25% from attacks (not kills, it's attacks), right? Otherwise that's a -75% from losses and a +25% from attacks. ASSUMING that's what you meant, these changes are solid. If what you actually have on the screen is intended, then this seriously needs another revision because you will NEVER see a Black Storm. Your loss rate goes down by 4 times but you generate MORE power from attacking??? This makes no sense. Also the visual for the stars is wrong as it's showing 6 small stars for his power and then 5 small and 4 big for his super. I assume the Super is right and there's 1 too many stars for the Power? - Sturm: Still seems very good, but yeah, I like this better.

I loved the ideas behind Flak and Adder. The reduction in attack and defense for Lash with no terrain stars is going to kill her air and naval units. Too harsh on Lord Sturm.

22:00 I really like how they balanced Sonja in Dual Strike, by giving her the Def Star Piercing and lowering her bad luck. Without extra defense, her counterattack buff really doesn't matter, meaning she is still always going to go for Counter Break in fog. I use Sonja in global league all the time (partially bc i hate myself lmao), and her bad luck is the one thing which really sets her back, because it means even with 20% firepower she can't break through cities consistently. A better balance would be to just do what they did in Dual Strike and replace her counterattack with defense piercing. Not only does it fit her character a little better, it gives her a bit of a niche in Standard, and in a game without Comm Towers, allows her to break through cities (albeit inconsistently) whereas most everyone else can't do that. I think that the piercing change by itself would put her squarely in a Tier 3 without Kindle, so you wouldn't even need to mess with her luck or powers at all even. Now my perfect Sonja rebalance would basically be Dual Strike Sonja with 2/3 instead of 3/2 power meter, because that would allow her to spam Enhanced Vision a lot more and gain the extra 10/10 all the time in Standard, but that might be a bit too strong if the goal is Tier 3 for everyone.

I agree with all changes and think AWBW should implement them. The Hawke change though is the exception just way too brutal. Without doing the exact math - 50% less from losses and 25% less from damage done would be about 33% slower charge, this would mean that his super would be about 13.3 stars instead of 9, that's just too much and would make him boring to play. Maybe change it to 35 from losses and 80 from damage and it would be a bit more balanced.

One idea I like for adder, and I don’t know how hard it would be to balance this in advance wars, is to give his units pass in some way. Kind of fits his personality and role of like an assassin for black hole, getting behind enemy lines and striking at more vulnerable targets. Again don’t know if this could be implemented or even balanced for advance wars but something that I think could work

I think changing Kanbei's daily bonus to +10% attack/def/cost would be a better nerf

some interesting changes. Not a fan of Lash getting a nerf in her day to day. It's not great to begin with considering you always need to take terrain into account to get anything. Sami losing her instant capping regardless of HP in her super just feels taking away part of her. Jess and Drake might be a bit too strong now. And the top tiers. They needed heavy nerfs but Kanbei might be hurt a bit too much...

Oh man, that Sensei power. I can only imagine how fun it would be to use. You could flank enemies and cut off reinforcements, you could pop a couple of infantry on enemy properties that would normally be safe and force enemy to divert resources, you could cut off reinforcements from the main front, flank indirects and slam them with mechs... so many interesting possibilities!

I mean, the worst thing about Kanbei on awbw was that they kept the 30/30 from AW2 for some reason I feel like making normal power more expensive, nerfing his super power, and a day to day 20/10 would have been better

Tbh, the problem of balancing char is we are too focusing on nerf down everyone to the same lv. I think better way is to buff lower tier to higher tier such that everyone is strong in their own way. I prefer if we buff everyone to tier 1.5 or even tier 1. Yes still agree to nerf tier 0 down. If we nerf too much it will just become who messed it up first for middle and lower rate people which is boring (and that happens to many moba or strat game).

what i gathered from this video is that around half of the COs seem to be in a bit of a "weird spot" or a "strange place" in advance wars 2

I feel you did our guy Kanbei really dirty. He is all about defense and I think taking away his firepower and a giving him a 15 or 20% defense as day to day instead would be fair

Kanbei’s Nerf just making him a more expensive Max that hits even harder when is super power is popped. One of Kanbei’s main gimmick is that he has high defense for his troops so that he have time for those units to survive and have the time to be able to recover his economy. If anything, I would nerf it as 15% ATK and DEF, and increase his cost to +35% - 40%. Heck, keep the 30% ATK and DEF and slap a +50% cost so that Kanbei’s players must REALLY spend their planning on saving his unit at all costs.

Thanks! I enjoyed hearing the game-theory-working

I have an idea how I'd balance Kanbei while keeping his high attack and defence, and costs. It's giving his units lower fuel and ammo capacity. Maybe 20-30% less, rounded up. -If someone like Jess doesn't worry much about supplies, then someone else could be a CO where you have to worry more about keeping your supply lines going. It's also to make death balls less viable if you don't pay attention to resupplying them. It also helps keep his powerful air units in check. -This is all balanced on a knife edge, in theory, of "What does it matter if you give air units in particular less fuel and ammo if they're meant to go out on the front lines and eventually be shot down?" -In terms of lore/flavor, it's "Kanbei's units have heavier weapons and armor, so they carry less fuel and ammo so they don't get slowed down" Though I don't know how well or not it would work out in practice.

Wow, that Kanbei change is so completely out of his character and design that I don't even get what they were thinking. He's basically just Grimm, but good? Why? His gimmick tbh is more about the defense and staying power than the offense. If anything they did it in reverse. Here's a compromise. He loses his offense entirely, but and he has passive 20% defense, but he only gets half terrain defense. So instead of getting 30% defense from a city, he gets 15%(if 35% defense on a city sounds crazy, news flash that's only 5% higher than normal units). This would allow him to keep his gimmick of having more durable long lasting units, but not making them dominate or be invincible. Also nerf the defense off Samurai spirit. I think the bonus 10% plus 50% counter attack is more than sufficient. He would still have an insane capture phase, but that's kinda the point because he techs up way slower and is required to get some decent income or he just loses.

Heckin cute Lash is absolutely cursed and I love her.

I feel like gameplay-wise, Kanbei's increased defense was a major part of playing him. I think from AW1, his playstyle was basically "He's a bit better in every way, as long as you have the cash." I also feel like his units should be not-quite-as-good as specialists' units, such as Max's tanks, Grit's ranged, or Sami's infantry. As for specifics, I'd make his D2D 20% Attack, 10% Defense, then probly add that much each power (so 40/20 then 60/30), try to work better counterattacks into his regular power and maybe his D2D too (say 10% each), and have each power cost 4 stars. I think that once you get the D2D and powers dialed in, the star cost is just a way to fine-tune the balance. Kanbei definitely doesn't "feel" like a 3/3 star CO tho. His power, even when nerfed, should feel extreme, and I think the star cost should reflect that. Also, with his higher deployment cost, he works well on bigger maps with more income, which tend to be longer and allows for more CO Power uses. I could probably write an entire rebalance stat sheet myself, but I'll stop myself here.

Custom CO: When a friendly unit dies on your turn enemy units next to it take 1 damage. 4 star power: friendly units that die during enemy turn deal 1 damage to enemy units next to it. 9 star super: any unit that dies on your turn deals 1 damage to enemy units next to it, friendly units that die during enemy turn deal 1 damage to enemy units next to it. I don’t know why I feel the need to give CO ideas in RU-vid comments instead of during the proper custom submissions but I do.

Kanbei's changes... I'd have to agree that they were pretty harsh with him. His whole thing was that he has the best trained and best equipped troops, but that made them more expensive and fewer in number. And yes he is known for the "why the (bleep) won't it die" responses. So taking away the defense outright except for powers does feel extremely harsh. Guess the Grand Masters really don't like Kanbei. Flak... I feel like yes he is a bruiser, but he's also undisciplined, hence his damage being all over the place by default.

I think a cool idea for Lash would be to give her air units terrain bonuses when she uses her powers. She doesn't really have a reason why her air units get no bonus outside of gameplay mechanics and this would make her more similar to the terrain specialists in Dual Strike who always give air units their bonuses. Plus with Lash's craziness I think it is justified that she can come up with some wacky reason her air units can benefit from terrain. For Adder I like the faster power charge, but my idea was to make him the forest CO specialist, a bit tame I know but I think it's better than making a brand new CO just to fill out the terrain specialists roster. To make things more interesting I thought of a unique way to also make him an anti-forest CO l, by having infect enemies in forests with damage each turn with his powers. Whether it should be only for his super power or for both powers and how many turns it should last would be up for someone more experienced with balancing to decide. Poison and forest abilities fit his snake theming. For Hawke I think he should have Adder's increased power charge for killing but keep the reduced charge for taking damage, if not lose it entirely. This fits his personality of valuing victory above all else and fighting style of overpowering his opponents I feel.

Lots of cool changes. I really like what you guys did to Sensei.

The only major change I disagree with is Sensei. Why not just reduce the infantry's HP and/or take more stars?

I couldn't agree with the changes to the YC CO's. Here are some ideas: Beginning with Sonja, having bad luck or not depending if FoW is present isn't elegant. Besides, no one would use Counter Strike cause with Enhanced vision no one would want to attack you anyway. So instead, I would remove Sonja's luck completely (even the positive), let her powers cause FoW for a turn and reducing Enhanced Vision cost to 2 stars (but it wouldn't give extra vision). It works because Sonja's powers will now work for std and it would lead to a very different but interesting gameplay between std and fog. As for Sensei, you changed his concept quite a lot. I would keep his day to day as it is ( but remove the +1 movement to landers and APCs) and would only touch his powers. Very simple changes, he now spawns 10HP infantry at his •bases• ready to act, with a power bar like ***###. Boosting his unit count but not as much to make him broken. Nothing gamewinning. Finally, you killed Kanbei's soul, he is all about deffense. So a very easy change you could make to balance him is, instead of his overpowered 130/130 give him 100/120 stats (+20% deffense), obviously with 20% higher costs. Morale Boost will now cost 3 stars but adjusting the values to the 100/120 stats, and Samurai Spirit only adjusted to the 100/120 stats. It would be more loyal to his original concept, his units would remain strong but they wouldn't hit as hard. Also keeping in mind that the +20% production costs would still a pain in the ass for his mid-game.

Looking forward the dual strike co balance changes.

it's not because you are able to play a game really well, that you necessarily know a lot about the interaction between different game systems and structures and design i think some of these proposals reflect that lol

For Andy, the day to day could have been that fusing units that reach 8 or more health make them fully repaired or that any fusion would grant +1 or 2 HP than expected. It might be as thematic good for a repairman but more practical. For Sonja, why not make her power/superpower activate fog of war like the rain/snow specialist ? It would make sense and make her playstyle more defined. Kanbei, thematically, could have had something like more defense but less attack by default and the opposite when a power is active, like a Samuraï that gives up all defense for a powerful attack at just the right moment. He's supposed to be a threat, and without his defense, he feels neutered as it is in the video.

I’m not a professional at AW, I’m not that great all things considered. But the Kanbei nerf feels like it’s not doing anything guarantee he can never match his enemy in terms of numbers. In a way it’s like everyone else is Collin against him (By that I mean out numbering him heavily). And he basically becomes a walking super power with it being cheaper and actually giving him the bulk needed to have staying power. Maybe I’m wrong but the fact he is paying more only for his units to be a slightly more powerful Max feels harsh.

Nope. Give Kanbei back his defense. Atleast 10-15%.

I feel like Kanbei should have a 10% day to day defense buff, 20% for his power and 30% for his super. Take away his day to day offense buff but I’ll be damned if I’d want to play a Kanbei with no defensive bonus, it’s core to his identity and play style.

i think 110 firepower and 110 defense for kanbei w same deployment cost would be fair. i really don't like that new kanbei, he dosent feel like kanbei anymore.

I don't know if I like any attempts to balance Sturm in general. Being overpowered is his entire flavor to me.

16:40 It actually feels a lot more boring. I think he should keep the fact that it builds on his existing funds. That creates a fun dynamic of trying to save up your units and not go too hard in using them. I feel this falls in to the trap of many balance attempts where you are taking away a lot of what makes the CO's distinct and fun to play.

I strongly believe Flak and Jugger need a complete, ground-up rework. Powers that only tweak numbers are the worst, and RNG based commanders all the moreso. In a project I've been working on we gave Flak some berserker type abilities (increasing his damage if he charges into the enemy full speed) and Jugger gets more machine based abilities ( disabling a few mechanised units like a mini Von Bolt). I'm not sure how flexible rom hacking is but I always encourage crazier solutions.

Okay with the 4 things he wasn't able to code, here's my suggestion: Andy: Hyper Repair and hyper upgrade give you a small portion of funds to make up for the lack of reduced repair costs. Flak: Either decrease the opponets defense somehow OR modify the ranges so they still average to Nell's average (-10 to +35 on d2d, -15 to +55 on power and -20 to +100 on SCOP). I know the numbers aren't as clean but this does bump him up so that he, on average, is as good as Nell. (Maybe you could justify -20 to +60 on normal and -25 to +100 on SCOP as he can't go below zero damage). Honestly I'm not entirely sure on the exact numbers Adder: Reduce cost of super by 1 star. Perhaps increase attack by 5-10% on normal power Hawke: Increase cost of super by 1 star. Perhaps reduce or remove D2D after popping normal power

I feel like Flak's power and super power should potentially slap his opponent with worse luck. Factor in his own swingy-ness, it just kinda drags your opponent into the madness of damage going absolutely donkey kong.

Nerfed Merchant Union comes with transport taxes, that's why the -30% deployment cost is cancelled for cities

I feel like tier 2 is a better sweet spot for balancing, but love almost all the changes

Part of me was thinking you'd have Flak gain a little of his Andy's Adventure stats mostly with Anti-Air XD

About Kanbei, I believe that +20% defense and +10% attk would fit him more. His abilities should also be remastered: CO should stay offensive, giving him +50% attk, but lower his defense bonus to 10%. SCO should become more defensive, you could boost his defense up to 50%, attk rises to +15% and just keep his +50% retaliation bonus. Try this.

Sturm without the movement bonus sucks, good idea. I think global damage is still to strong

With these changes, Flak now seems like a demolition expert. what good is hiding in mountains and cities when the demolition expert just damages it all.

I hope Nintendo listens to these and considers it before bootcamp

Just a quick one that +1 movement is really good, and +2 movement is really really good. It allows units to attack units they may not have done before. Andy D2D is an interesting idea, but I’m not sure if it would encourage people to repair units. I feel having +1 Repair (like Rachel) fits his theme more, and might encourage people to repair their units if they can be healed quicker. COP should be 3 stars, while healing 3HP. Having it as 2HP I feel the user could spam it too much. SCOP is really good that he can heal all units by 5HP. I would either add an extra star to the cost, or remove the +1 movement. Sami I’m not sure about the -20% cost for Transports. Maybe have that instead of the +1 movement, but not both. The other changes I like. Max Max is a tricky CO to use because -1 Range is actually painful. Artillery may as well be deleted when you use Max. You’re most likely focus on Direct Units when playing as him. The -10% firepower on Indirects is overkill, and I would do what AWDS and not nerf them. That -20% Direct Defense would make me not use Max even more. His powers I would change like so: xxxXXX COP: Directs: +30% Firepower COP: Directs: +60% Firepower +1 Movement +2 Movement is too good along with firepower boost. Nell I like the changes, but would make gauge: xxXXX Hachi His D2D I like. It’s like a reverse Colin. His SCOP I would remove the -30% cost. If people want that, then they activate his COP instead. Olaf Instead of +10% firepower, what about giving him +10% defense instead? The +1 star for SCOP makes sense. Grit I agree with all the changes, but I feel the -10% firepower for Infantry is a bit hash. They should not be affected. Since his Indirects don’t gain a firepower boost, I feel his Directs can have a -10% firepower instead of -20% firepower. Colin Do the opposite of Hachi. -10% cost, but -10% firepower. The COP is an interesting idea. Would need some play testing to see what this is like. For his SCOP, just use Kindle’s SCOP where +3% firepower per owned property. It still fits Colin, and is less broken. Kanbei His D2D I agree that his defense boost should be removed. The counter-attacks seem overkill for his SCOP. I would purpose: xxxXXXX COP: +30% Firepower SCOP: +60% Firepower, Directs +1 Movement, Indirects +1 Range Sonja Don’t introduce bad luck. For her powers, they should introduce Fog of War. Sensei The D2D changes makes sense. The problem with these power changes is, on non-air maps, he is pretty useless. For his powers, I feel this could work: xxxXXXXXX COP: Spawns T Copters on Cities at 6HP SCOP: Spawns B Copters on Cities at 6HP Eagle I would stick with AWDS Eagle, but with some minor changes: D2D: Air Units have +10% defense and 2 less fuel, Navel Units have -10% Firepower COP: All units firepower is -60%, but Non-Infantry can move again SCOP: Non-Infantry can move again Drake Just to clarify that the -1 Vision only occurs when Fog of War AND Rain are activated. Rain on its own causes no vision lost. While this is rare in AW2, I agree Drake should not have a vision lost (maybe the same for Sonja?). D2D would be the opposite of Eagle. D2D: Navel Units have +10% defense, +1 Movement and -1 movement over reefs, Air Units have -10% Firepower His power changes seem fine. Jess +20% firepower for vehicles was broken in AWDS, so why bring it back? Just stick with +10% firepower for vehicles, no changes for Infantry, and the rest -10% firepower. Her COP I feel shouldn’t resupply her units, only for the SCOP. Or remove the +1 movement during her COP, and make it +1 for her SCOP. Flak Not sure about messing around with how luck works. Personally I would just have -10% luck during powers. D2D have -10%/+35% Adder For his D2D, I would go with: - Free movement over Woods (because Snakes like to hide in them) Or - Use the “Star Power” Rank from AWDS, fill up Power Meter by 10% I feel the +20% Firepower might be overkill. +2 movement is very scary, and the extra firepower might make him too powerful. Adding an extra star may balance that. One crazy idea is instead of extra movement for Indirects, he gets extra Range? But that might not fit his theme. Lash If Lash is a low tier CO, why give her a weakness? All that needs changing is her gauge: xxXXXX Hawke Hawke is fine. Yes he gets +10% Firepower, but he has a long power bar, which is his weakness. No need to change him. Sturm Having -1 movement cost is a strong ability to have. I say keep this, but only have his defense reduced. No firepower boost. Should be affected by snow and rain. 6HP for Super is fine.

i like the idea of balancing is make all suck the same instead of buffing all of them. i guess there are always 2 ways to see things

That collar on Hawke is hilarious.

Your videos just make me feel more hungry for advance wars 1+2 lol :D

"B-but I'm on a city!" "Lol", says Flak. "Lmao."

Colin and Kanbei seem to have been hit a bit too harshly. Colin's normal power being +50% income AND costing an extra star feels like an overcorrection after further weakening his units. Kanbei without D2D defense, but keeping the full +20% deployment cost means he is way weaker than other COs day to day.

"How to Balance the Advance Wars 2 CO's?" but Mang's face gets brighter the longer the video plays.

What we did with Colin in the royale hack was swap his powers and a few other changes and he seems fine now

Awesome video, but I want to see more replays please. They are so fun to watch.

I know this is late, but I think trying to balance all COs to tier 3 is fundamentally a problem. I know a lot of players prefer buffs to nerfs, as nerfs often just remove what people liked about the CO in the first place. I would have shot for low tier 1 to high tier 2. Everyone is still pretty strong, and can beat any other CO in the right conditions, but not everyone has the exact same raw power level. Being able to manage your own very strong powers and avoid your opponents strong powers adds a lot to the fun. I don't think making strong powers weaker as a general rule is the way to go.

I think this new Adder would be a threat. Damn, he's awesome, like that.

These are all really interesting changes! I would absolutely love if AWBW could allow a more experimental CO selection--something like trying out these balance changes, or even experimenting with brand new CO's as well!

(17:16) Colin's Super Power only cost 6 stars originally anyway, not 7, so no actual change was made to its cost there.

Maybe it's just me, but New Adder just sounds ridiculously broken. His entire schtick was that he has the shortest power meter in the game, but to make up for it, the powers themselves aren't as flashy as other COs'; they're just simple movement bonuses, which tend to get swallowed up in rough terrain. By allowing him to charge his short power meters even faster with no compensation on his meter length, you're effectively ensuring that the Adder player gets +1 movement basically every other turn, because the average value of engagement between both armies over the course of a turn is almost always going to be far above the value of two stars. And remember: he gets all of this _with absolutely no downside._ Here's how I personally would have done it: *Day to Day:* Power cost increase after each power use is reduced by 50% *Power:* +1 movement. 3 stars *Super:* +2 movement. Up to three times per unit movement, if the unit encounters terrain with a movement cost greater than 1, reduce the cost to 1. 6 stars The idea was to give Adder a slight nerf in the early game, where his powers cost slightly more than they do currently, but to compensate by greatly increasing his deadliness over time. By the time each player has used their powers five times, Adder will only be dealing with a 150% cost increase, whereas the opponent's power cost will be doubled. This also ends up being a direct buff to Adder himself; at this stage in the game, you're looking at 90000 for a five-star Super in his current form, versus 81000 for a six-star Super in his updated form. The goal is to punish players who engage in long, drawn-out battles with Adder; as the match goes on, Adder will be able to use his powers much more frequently than you, and the advantage is eventually going to snowball until Adder's troops are bearing down on you, and your own troops have no means of escape. The key to dealing with Adder is to take him out swiftly, preventing him from gaining too much advantage from his powers. If you let Adder build up his forces for too long, and you let him activate his power too many times, it'll only be a matter of time before his army ends up overrunning you. I also wanted to make his Super more viable (as I suspect was your intent with the +20% firepower bonus in your version). In its current form, it just doesn't grant enough of a benefit to justify costing more than twice as much as his normal power, so the typical Adder player just ends up spamming Sideslip over and over ad nauseam. By making Sidewinder straight-up double the cost of Sideslip and giving it a new, unique mechanic, it not only prevents Adder players from activating Sideslip on consecutive turns, but it ensures that it has enough value for the added cost to warrant using it instead of just engaging in mindless Sideslip spam. That mechanic in Adder's super bears some explaining. Say that, with your +2 movement, you want to move a tank (8 move with the bonus) across three plains tiles and into some woods. After crossing the plains, you'd only be able to move two spaces into the woods before running out of movement. With Adder's new mechanic, however, the first three forest tiles the tank encounters would have their movement cost reduced to one, effectively turning them into plains tiles. At the fourth forest tile, however, the cost would return to 2. Under this system, the tank is able to move an additional _two_ spaces into the woods versus if it were operating under normal movement costs. This same mechanic applies to tires encountering plains and forests, infantry crossing mountains and rivers, naval units entering reefs, and all units in snow and rain. It's not straight-up "ignore terrain penalties" like Sturm or Lash, because I didn't want to make the added benefit over his normal power too strong. That's why I didn't go with something like "reduce all terrain costs by 1", since it would still just end up turning most of Adder's units into Sturm/Lash units, and when you factor in +2 movement into the equation, you can see where that starts to become an issue. However, Adder's unique system still allows him to penetrate a little further into rough terrain than normal, effectively ensuring that Sidewinder will almost always give Adder a distinct movement advantage over Sideslip. It also gives him a unique advantage in adverse weather that even Sturm and Lash lack. The only ones with better mobility under such conditions are Olaf and Drake, and even then they only benefit under one weather condition; neither benefits from both the way Adder would. This effectively helps make Adder a hard counter against Olaf and Drake, since during his Super, his troops greatly mitigate the weather effects those two COs impose (though it sadly provides no help against rain's vision penalty).

Bug Report for the ROM of this patch: Lash moving any unit next to any enemy units crashes the game in the War Room. I've got it on video, so I put the link in the replies (just in case comments with links get deleted). The build should be the one that came out July 23 (just yesterday, and I believe it's the only live build out so far).

so far in the rom's co descriptions, i noticed that nell still has 0-100 for her super power, flak's luck tweaks seems to be fully implemented, just not his ability to ignore terrain. adder and hawke's changes to power meter gain was probably a little too hard to touch so no text to reflect that. sensei's "move again" power applies to all infantry that left any transport, not just tcopters

36:04 guess whos my new favorite CO now