Headscratchers / Nintendo Wars

New entries on the bottom.

Planes

• Why oh why can a plane not fly over anything, including an immobile pipe, or a submerged submarine?
  • A better question is how can any indirectly-firing unit fire over the pipes that are too high to simply fly over, but only one can hit air units.
    • I think it's because the Artillery and Rocket Trucks only have fixed positions and ammunition, whilst the Missile Trucks have radars and guided missiles, therefore necessitating the need of Missile Trucks, because they probably use a special missile type that is super effective against Planes, but absolute garbage against any other troop type.
    • The third game shows that the pipes are not especially high in the Piperunner's attack animation. There is simply no in-story reason why helicopters, fighters and bombers can't fly over them.
  • A submerged submarine is extremely hard to spot; if you spotted one, would you just fly over it or stop to inform command of its position?
    • I take issue with the idea that you can 'stop' a plane in mid-flight.
    • Idle circling around the area. They spot the Submarine, then fly around it since the sub can't shoot back as they relay its position to you.
  • Also weird is how things can't drive under planes.
    • They don't want to get bombed.
    • What about fighter jets?
    • Flight School 101: Turbulence.
    • In the world of Advance Wars, helicopters cause so much turbulence that battleships can't sail under them without sinking. Likewise, submarines cause so much turbulence that a plane flying thousands of feet above would crash if trying to pass over.
  • I guess the reason aircraft can't fly over pipes is that the pipes must emit an electromagentic force field which prevents it, so it isn't a case of the pipe being too high, it just has countermeasures, which can't discriminate between friend and foe.
• Similar to planes, the birds in Dual Strike must be gigantic, as the parallax shows that they aren't closer to the camera, they're actually almost the size of entire cities.

Andy's CO power

• Andy's CO power repairs units. In Advance Wars, most units are actually groups of 5 (for example, if you build a "light tank", it is a group of 5 tanks), and damage is represented by some of the members dying.
  • My god, the soldiers are all robots! This explains everything!
    • Especially the part about a kid who seriously used the phrase "What's an airport" can be able to become a Commanding Officer.
    • That would explain a great deal about the casual nature of fighting and how little COs seem to care about casualties.

Repairing Infantry

• On a similar note (also possibly Fridge Horror)... Repairs to tanks, copters, and such could be hand waved as the drivers are fine, it's just the vehicles that need repair. However, how do you explain Infantry/Mechs? Especially when you have them repairing on a city instead of with a CO Power? Are they "refilling" their unit by taking civilians out of the cities?
  • Sensei's power is a paratrooper airdrop; something similar could be in place to reinforce city-occupying units.
  • Could also be that the soldiers aren't all dead until the entire squad is destroyed, the soldiers are just wounded, and 'repairing' them is medical staff tending to the sick and wounded.
  • I always assumed that it was a combination of healing wounded troopers and just replacing losses with volunteers/conscript, depending on which army you're talking about.
    • "Mechs" is short for mechanized units. Despite their human appearances and looking identical to regular infantry outside of what weapons they use, the mechs are at least a somewhat mechanized. They could very well all be robots (or cyborgs) for all we know. Since the infantry looks very similar to the mechs, they could be robots or cyborgs, too.

Automated Factories

• In Days Of Ruin, the factories are fully automated and build what are implied to be unmanned drones...that's all fine and dandy, but then tell me, why are human solders shown driving them? Furthermore, how do the factories build INFANTRY units?!
  • The factories have your soldiers in them once you capture and secure it. Factories fund and supply weaponry to the soldiers.

CO Unit

• Speaking of Days Of Ruin, I find the concept of CO units a bit weird. No matter how may times the CO unit dies, the CO themself is always completely unharmed and back at the HQ within the space of a single day. I can imagine Will jumping out of a ruined tank or bailing out of an exploding plane, but how on earth does he escape from a sinking submarine? Furthermore, when the CO "boards" Infantry or Mech units, one would assume they are grabbing a rifle and tagging along to fight in their squad, meaning that when the infantry dies, the CO unit is being repeatedly shot until they can no longer remain conscious, and yet they are still good to go the following day. Furthermore, how does every single CO in the game (even young Isabella and Penny) automatically know how to pilot tanks, ships, planes, and fire rifles & bazookas?
  • WMG: The unit in question always has a specially designed escape pod which is capable of returning the commander back to base swiftly. The personnel are willing to sacrifice their lives for the good of the commander and the greater army. In effect, an inversion of Going Down with the Ship.
  • In fact, the entire series has been a bit weird with COs; in the first 3 games, everyone spoke to each other as if they were talking in person and occupying the same space despite being implied to be on opposite sides of the map inside their HQs. For example, after AW2's "Lash Out" mission, Nell tells Sami to "Drag that brat over here", only to find that it was a dummy; did she drag it through the ocean or something?
  • The implication here is that Nell, Sami, and the rest of the command team are enabled to storm the enemy HQ by virtue of routing the enemy or indeed an infantry unit storming the base. Then they can talk with the enemy CO directly... unless said CO has made a tactical withdrawal. Before that, they maintain radio contact to exchange barbs and taunts.

Naval units and fuel

• Why do naval units use fuel even when they're not moving and sink when they run out? Who would design a ship that lacks the buoyancy to stay afloat without fuel? For that matter, why do air units use fuel even when they're over land and not moving? Wouldn't it make more sense to be able to land an aircraft when it's not in use, since it doesn't waste fuel and makes said aircraft harder to spot? (I understand that the former is for gameplay purposes, since a naval unit stranded where land units can't attack it would make maps without any ports or airports unwinnable, but being able to land an aircraft would actually be pretty cool and add a new layer of strategy: "Should I land this helicopter for now and risk making it more vulnerable, or should I use precious fuel to keep it in the air?")
  • Out-of-universe, boats self-destruct when they run out of fuel to avoid map clutter — if they're out at sea, an APC can't reach them. In-universe, they're probably being scuttled to protect military secrets (com-codes, maps with positions of friendly units, stuff like that). Also, since you mention buoyancy, ships often require bilge pumps to stay afloat during long trips... but we're talking months/years, not days, so that probably doesn't factor in.
  • "Fuel" in this case might represent rations. At least in Days of Ruin, it's probable that the automated port facilities don't produce warships stocked with provisions, leaving the sailors stuck with whatever they haul aboard, until resupplied.
    • It might be that the seas may be a little rough while you're seamen are sailing around, and Reefs are hard as hell to navigate, therefore leading to the consumption of fuel. Subs fuel rations probably signifies their Air.
  • Regarding air units, the fact that they're flying over land doesn't mean they can land, at least not without facing lots of unnecesary risks. While copters could land and lift on plains, this terrain is not suited for planes to do either of them as they need a paved road to lift up. Forests are totally undesirable to land since the planes could get damaged if they try to do that in a place full of trees. Cities, and naval ports would have paved roads but the buildings leave little if any room to manouver. HQ's and factories are large buildings with probably little space for aircraft. And trying to land on mountains or hills is rather impractical to not say suicidal because of the terrain. TL DR, most land tiles aren't just suited for planes to just land there and avoid fuel consumption. Even the roads and bridges might not be made to support aircraft. Though it begs the question about why copters can't land in those tiles as they don't face the same difficulties the planes do, being able to lift up vertically as well as being smaller.

Volcanoes

• In Black Hole Rising, Mission 29 ("Rain of Fire") has a gimmick where a volcano would erupt daily, causing damage to any units sitting in an unlucky spot. Whose idea was it to build that many cities at the base of an active volcano?
  • If your question is about the number of cities, maybe it is to represent the idea of many people living here (as well as providing some strategic objectives); if it's about the idea of building a city at the base of an active volcano, well, that's Truth in Television: there are about 4 million people currently living at the base of Mount Vesuvius, fully aware of what happened millenia ago.
    • Geothermal electricity?

"Kid" Commanders

• How does one explain how a kid can be the commander of an army, especially Andy? The guy who seriously used the phrases "What's an airport" and "Really? Continents?"
  • Considering that Andy's power is implied to represent him zipping around the battlefield and personally fixing all of his units, Nell presumably puts up with his incompetence as the price of fielding an impossibly gifted idiot savant mechanic.
  • Also, you could Hand Wave Andy's lines being there mainly to excuse a tutorial for the player's sake, even if it's a bit silly in-universe.

Black Hole Innovations

• Why is Black Hole nearly the only nation that ever seems to design new units? The Neotank, the Piperunner, the Black Bomb, and the Black Boat were all designed by Black Hole. The only new unit that is not taken from Black Hole design is the Megatank, Aircraft Carrier, and Stealth Fighter from Dual Strike.
  • Aside from Olaf's Early-Installment Weirdness, I assume the other countries were happy minding their own business and so had no need for developing more war weapons.
  • Conflict drives innovation. It's implied that before Black Hole started messing around, nations were mostly in peace. The tutorial in AW1 implies some of the weapons being produced (like MD Tanks) are relatively recent things. However, until AW2, there had not really been a widespread conflict; even the events of AW1 are relatively small. Meanwhile, Black Hole is a force actively seeking conflict and an advantage over the Allied Nations, so it makes sense they are pouring more into research and development (not to mention having Lash...).

Army with no CO

• So in Days of Ruin, you get maps where you at least begin with no CO, even if someone takes the mantle partway through. How would that work within the game's universe? Unlike allied forces, you can fully control these troops, but who on the battlefield would be telling them what to do?
  • It's not a stretch that there is actually an unnamed CO in charge of the army and that the named CO are the only ones skilled/charismatic enough to actually have CO abilities. Presumably, whenever the crisis preventing the CO from acting until turn X ends, the CO steps down from his temporary position and lets the pros handle the situation.

The APC

• Why can't the APC provide fuel to itself? It is obviously able to provide fuel and ammunition for up to four other units per day. Furthermore, two APCs can keep each other fueled with no issues at all.
  • Possibly, they're supposed to prioritize other units before themselves, so they'd avoid wasting supplies on themselves in case someone else needs them?
• And for that matter, how does an APC resupply a plane in mid-flight, or as stated before, a submerged sub? ALSO also, an APC never runs out of fuel or ammo to give to other units, but its own fuel count can still run out normally.
  • The subs could maybe be hand waved by having some kind of submersible pods or something that send the supplies down. No idea for planes, though.
  • For aircraft, they use the Fulton Recovery System to refuel mid-flight.

Fighting amongst each other

• While we understand that Advance Wars 1, 2, and DS are meant to be lighthearted, why is it that battling each other is greeted as friendly, considering that other people's lives are lost in the process such as soldiers? Or are they playing a simulation and not real armies? This is in referring to missions like Rivals (Andy Vs. Eagle), Lightning Strikes (Allied Nations Vs. Grimm and Sensei), and Verdant Hills (Allied Nations Vs. Jess and Javier).
  • Maybe these missions are treated as "training exercises" in-universe, with both sides using blanks in their guns and dummy warheads (and plenty of radio messages to the effect of "Unit X, you've been destroyed, remove yourselves from the battlefield.").

Non-Lethal Damage

• Is there any in-universe reason why CO powers, Missiles (not the Anti-Air unit) and Black Bombs can't strike the killing blow? I understand that these sources of damage would be game-destroying if they actually killed units off, but that doesn't apply in-universe. Furthermore, we are shown how Hawke kills Sturm with his power at the end of Black Hole Rising.
  • I'm pretty sure CO powers are actually magic and have set rules that the player never actually fully knows. CO powers not being able to deal the direct, final blow is one of those restrictions, with Hawke managing to bypass this restriction exactly once. In addition, while many CO powers can be explained away by superior tactics, supply lines, excellent opportunities, and/or equipment modifications, there's also at least 2 people (Drake and Olaf) who can directly influence the weather on command with their CO powers. Another guy (Collin) can make his units temporarily stronger via his war funds without actually spending any money (does knowledge of the money motivate his tropes for exactly 1 turn somehow?). Sasha CO's power has her destroying her enemies CO bar (whatever that means in a realistic context) by apparently crashing the market if the name is any indication, including the COs who influence the weather, despite the market seemingly having influence over that.

The cities of Olaf’s town

• In the mission “Toy Box”, the story is that it takes place in the ruins of Olaf’s home town, after Lash destroyed it. This gets quite strange with the properties on the map including cities, alongside everything else taking up the same amount of area as one of these cities. It seems pretty odd to have cities be part of a town, considering that towns are generally smaller. (This could also easily be mutated into a question about the actual scale of the maps in general)
  • Well if you look at the size of the "cities" compared to the size of the roads it seems like they represent homes or apartments rather than a full scale city