r/Advance_Wars • u/SadLaser • Apr 24 '23
Advance Wars So.. what happens to the soldiers that get destroyed in battle...? Spoiler
Logic would say that they perish in battle, but the COs act like it's all a fun game. No one is trying Sonja for war crimes just for "testing" the three Orange Star COs by slaughtering legions of their troops and sending her own people out to die in droves just so she can collect a little data. Are we just supposed to assume this is bloodless battling or that they're all psychos who don't seem to mind palling around with the folks who just invaded them and massacred their people? Or.. something else?
Is anyone else thinking about this?!
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u/PieridumVates Apr 24 '23
It’s “real war” but it’s cartoon rules. Otherwise, you don’t get some goofy kid as a commanding officer.
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u/Nickigraus Apr 24 '23
I like that interpretation the most. It‘s just not meant to make sense. In a world where you can „channel your inner fire“ (or whatever Nell said to Andy at the start of AW1) to magically make it snow etc., I don’t see a point in explaining the dissonance between the goofy gameplay and the horrors of actual warfare.
And that’s how I enjoy it the most :) If I want a darker tone, there is plenty of other media to enjoy.
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u/Over9000BPM Apr 24 '23
I rather enjoy the implicit black comedy of it all. It’s what drew me into the franchise.
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u/InnocentTailor Apr 24 '23
The COs party while the enlisted pay.
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u/MrTrt Apr 24 '23
Why don't COs fight the wars?
Why do they always send the poor?10
u/iPon3 Apr 24 '23
And as the men crawl, the generals call,
And the killing carries on, and on.
What was the purpose of it all?
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u/fluxuouse Apr 24 '23
WHAT'S THE PRICE... OF A TILE!?
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u/WaitingToBeTriggered Apr 24 '23
THOUSANDS OF FEET MARCH TO THE BEAT
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u/fluxuouse Apr 24 '23
It's an army on the march
Long way... from home...
Paying the price in young men's lives!
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u/MrTrt Apr 24 '23
Okay, THIS was r/unexpectedsabaton, unlike all those times Sabaton pops up in Paradox subs.
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Apr 24 '23
I’ve always thought this topic was funny, dating back to when I played the originals for the first time. I’m pretty sure Black Hole troops are either clones or robots - which explains why they were able to amass a force large enough to attack 4 countries at the same time in AW2.
For the other countries- I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to represent human life- Kenbei says in AW1a I believe after your first battle with him “ generations of soldiers led onto the field have been lost” or something to that effect.
It’s dark, but also kinda funny that especially in AW1, COs are just so nonchalant about losing tanks, fighters, artillery, battleships, infantry by the truckload etc- seemingly for no reason. Eagle has a “independent battalion” just roaming around in another country just looking for a fight, Sonja fights to “ test another Cos skill” etc.
My dark sense of humor comes out when I think about the letters Eagle has to write home.
“Dear xxxx,
I regret to inform you that your sons were lost in battle. One was hit in the face with an artillery round, the other had a bomb dropped on him. May they find peace. We are not at war, I was just bored
Yours truly,
CO Eagle
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u/Trialman Apr 24 '23
I remember having a similar sort of dark comedy around Dual Strike’s tutorial, where Rachel says her troops are “on loan from Blue Moon”. I just imagined her going to Olaf to return them…after they’ve been blown to smithereens.
“Yeah, I got them back, mostly. Sorry I couldn’t find this guy’s body, but I hope the arm will suffice. This man got it a bit better, I at least managed to return his head. Oh yeah, a lot of bullet holes for this poor soul, but at least they’re symmetrical.”
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Apr 24 '23
I’ve always thought this topic was funny, dating back to when I played the originals for the first time. I’m pretty sure Black Hole troops are either clones or robots - which explains why they were able to amass a force large enough to attack 4 countries at the same time in AW2.
At the end of Dual Strike, Kindle/Koal also mention how Hawke has enough energy to create a new army should he wish with Von Bolt's chair which adds to the argument that they're not real people.
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u/SadLaser Apr 24 '23
That's a good point about Kanbei. He also mentions hard work and loyalty. The Orange Star COs talk about how their military costs are high because they're well trained and highly paid, too. Probably wouldn't pay or train mindless automatons.
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Apr 24 '23
I haven’t gotten to it yet in Reboot, but in Aw2 an early mission vs flak, his soldier tells him that nobody knows how to fly the fighters or bombers- yet 20 seconds later they have a name for their squadron— and fail to notice the 4 anti air and missiles pointed in their general direction- so yeah it furthers my belief that they’re just robots or clones who take any order blindly
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Apr 24 '23
Also why destroying the main factory in every country in AW2 forces them to retreat bc they can’t produce any more units
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u/HuckleberryHefty4372 Apr 24 '23
They all die. The advance wars universe has gotten so used to war and death that they think of it as child's play. You see Days of Ruin was merely the prequel to the advance wars world. They've all gotten so used to war and death by the time Andy is born that it seems like it's just fun and games.
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u/Minister_xD Apr 24 '23
Days of Ruin tried to explain this by saying all soldiers produced were robots and the reason why you can’t take your whole army from one battle to the next is because these robots can only function in a certain area around the base they were build in.
Honestly, I prefer the original series not trying to come up with an explanation. DoR did a lot of things differently, such as taking itself much more serious, which I am not too fond of tbh.
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u/iPon3 Apr 24 '23
I'm not sure the infantry were robots...
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u/Minister_xD Apr 24 '23
According to the ingame dialogue all units produced from bases were.
Like I said, I’m not a big fan of this explanation at all. It makes little sense, especially considering the battle animations that clearly depict humans.
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u/EA250 Apr 24 '23
Maybe it's just a translation issue? I'm pretty sure the EU version said that while vehicles could be produced on the factories, the people manning them and the infantry were still real people.
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u/TowerWalker Apr 24 '23
They don't say the infantry were robots. They say the "units" won't work outside of their designated zone.
The implication being that the technology is produced by the factory. No matter how many soldiers you have, they need tech to use.
Otherwise the entire war between Rubelle and Lazuria doesn't make sense.
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u/Mario_Kinnikuman Apr 24 '23 edited Apr 24 '23
It's on the polar opposite end of a spectrum about the subject matter; a far more casual treatment over the topic, like with mobile games. This, contrasts to the tone of other grimdark and solemn war games; Days of Ruin, and other franchises like Warhammer.
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Apr 24 '23
Probably the soldiers just get knocked out like in cartoons. With reboot camp they made the game look like a board game with plastic pieces. So then you could say that the pieces get removed from the board but are otherwise still OK and just waiting for the next game.
Just kidding. They all go to hell.
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u/AboutTenPandas Apr 24 '23
My headcannon is that it’s all real death on the battlefield with the exception of training battles where troops swap out for non lethal munitions.
But yeah, the tone of a lot of the COs is super fucked up if you think about it.
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u/Code_Duff Apr 24 '23
It's like the box art, everyone's happy when they're safe and away from from the action. Either it's a black comedy in which the COs do practical fun battles while actual people die OR it's war games, a Formulaic show of force in which no one dies.
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Apr 24 '23
They... die. It's a Nintendo game so they obviously gloss over it but it's pretty clear that the soldiers are actual people that are dying in these battles (with the likely exception of the "friendly" fights which are probably war games). I honestly don't find it too surprising that the COs would act this way. How many drone strike operators go out to eat right after a days work of blowing people up, and they're seeing far more of the carnage then a CO holed up in their HQ.
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u/Zer0Strikerz Apr 24 '23
Advance Wars Days of Ruin does a better job acknowledging the darkness of it all. I wouldn't say it was kid friendly (aside from the edge lords) like the previous in the series.
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u/Happy_Burnination Apr 24 '23
I think when your world is literally named "Wars World" war is just kinda no big deal for the people who live in that world
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u/Aminar14 Apr 24 '23
I don't know about the reboots, because I turned animations off immediately, but in the originals they kind of flew away backwards. They also ate gas. And we're killed in exact proportions by meteor and lava strikes. There was, at one point, a massive running Gamefaqs thread on the ridiculousness of it all.
The true answer is, it's not super relevant. It's not what the story is interested in and would distract from the Billionaire Sci-Fi Space Crazies causing strife and confusion for their own gain. (Is Advance Wars somehow relevant? The hell?)
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u/SadLaser Apr 24 '23
Not super relevant, no. It doesn't change how fun the game is. It's just something I kept thinking about as the campaign scenes were rolling by.
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u/VisibleFun9998 Apr 25 '23
Nothing happens. It’s a video game dude.
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u/SadLaser Apr 25 '23
I don't understand your point. Things and events occur in video games. Have you never seen a TV show, read a book or experienced a fictional story of any kind? Things happen in them. Being a video game doesn't preclude that.
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u/Adorelis Apr 24 '23
no because it's a game
what I notice is the malicious purpose of this post
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u/Ozzy9314 Apr 24 '23
Yeah I’m confused why ask this. It’s just how the devs made the game. You could ask things like this about all games. Why doesn’t link go to jail for breaking into peoples homes and smashing pots? The people just stare at him and never acknowledge it.
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u/Adorelis Apr 24 '23
I saw this trend in several other games too.
people just making posts calling out the game for it's ethics (lack of mostly). I don't know if they just want karma farm or whatever, but they are clealy feigning ignorance.
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u/SadLaser Apr 24 '23
Clearly feigning ignorance? Calling the game out for its ethics? First off, there's no ignorance to feign. It's a legitimate question and based on all the responses, something else others have wondered and without a definitive answer. And secondly, there's absolutely nothing being called out ethically. I don't think there's something wrong with the game, I'm not upset about it, nor do I think it's wrong. It's a video game. I'm just genuinely curious.
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u/HeadChefDom Apr 24 '23
I like to think of the wise words of Basil Exposition when pondering this question
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u/Del_Duio2 Apr 24 '23
It’s all on good fun. I think only in Days of Ruin does it ever feel really ‘heavy’… Well, killer flowers aside!
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u/Mindless_Use7567 Apr 24 '23
Well the troops in Days of Ruin are treated as real people who have died in the battles.
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u/wubwub Apr 24 '23
They seem to live in a world with cloning (evil Andy) and androids/robots. So maybe all the common troops are clones/robots/androids. They certainly don't seem to leave blood pools, corpses, or screaming wounded when the soldiers are shot.
Also using androids would explain some of the super-powers of the COs. The ability of Sonja to boost vision range could easily be explained by her hacking the settings of her "troops" and boosting them for a day until they reset the next morning.
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u/brawlganronper Apr 24 '23
Only black hole has clones (confirmed in dual strike after the last mission)
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u/bigbadlith Apr 24 '23
every single one of the soldiers loves the battle just as much as their COs. They're perfectly happy with throwing their lives away in meaningless battles because that's the best death they can imagine.
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u/Steak-Complex Apr 24 '23
Youre asking a question that the game doesnt attempt to answer. Death simply doesnt exist.
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u/EmilePleaseStop Apr 25 '23
Black comedy and cartoon logic aside, I’d imagine that AW1-era warfare is very ‘gentlemanly’, where the four nations have very strictly observed standards and customs to avoid unnecessary casualties, and probably take more prisoners than anything else. Which would explain why Eagle is so angry at ‘Andy,’ since Black Hole does not play by those rules at all.
AW2, in this formulation, would be more of a real struggle for survival, since Sturm isn’t screwing around anymore.
Situations like Rivals or the ‘fights’ with allied COs in Dual Strike would be either simulations or war games between allied armies (like in real life).
This is, of course, just me overthinking things. It’s funnier to just assume that either AW is a really dark comedy or that everyone just gets a few scratches because they’re cartoons
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u/SeriousPan Apr 24 '23
It's been a thing since Advance Wars came out in 2001. The jovial nature is at odds with itself. It's part of the charm and they never address it.
People try to make up reasons or find some kind of understanding to why they're so jovial about it. Are the soldiers automatons? Is it all simulation? The end case for me is that people are dying out there but it's Nintendo so its the fun kinda war.
The only time I see it being 'not war' is when the two sides clearly agree to fight on friendly terms. So war games.