It seems that Chicago is now plunged in to the 8th circle of hell. You know its cold as hell out when the majority of the top of Lake Michigan is frozen over. I pity anyone who has to work outside in these conditions.
Anyways, back on topic. I had just heard some interesting facts about the new Advance Wars game coming out. First off, COs are no longer just some face with the army who can invoke their CO powers when the time seems fit. Instead they are to be attached to a unit, much like in Civilization where you attach a General to a specific unit. The General then provides specific bonuses to those troops and after destroying enemy units with your General led units, your CO meter will rise. With this you can either use whatever the CO ability might be, but if you chose not to use it your General will provide stat bonuses in a specific radius around around him. The larger your meter the greater the radius. So it becomes a choice either to use one CO power to deal a decisive blow to the enemy or just stockpile and bide your time til your army gains power.
Another change to the gameplay is the fact that APCs can now build temporary naval and air bases. Not sure if this is a specific type of APC but eitherway this provides a whole new tactic to the game. No more having to rely on air and naval bases that are somewhat out of range but now you can hold a choke point and just build temp bases to push at the enemy.
And another interesting addition is the motorcycle units. From what I read they move fast (similiar to recon units) and they can capture points. Despite the fact that they are going to be weak to probably every type of unit, this will provide that "rush" ability that most people are looking for opposed to the turtle tactic.
I'd be lying if I were to say that these changes don't make me nervous, since the tactics that I built up from the previous Advance Wars games seems to be almost obsolite with these changes. Am I still excited for this game though? You better believe it.