Advance Wars Aircraft Carrier post

Game Boy Wars 3 also has an Aircraft Carrier unit. It is, again, the most expensive unit there. In fact, I should mention that GBW1/2/Turbo has the Aircraft Carrier unit and it WASN'T the most expensive unit there but it worked more like a diet version of the Dual Strike Aircraft Carrier unit. I'll go into the GBW3 one, though, because it's more relevant.

The Aircraft Carrier in GBW3 has both range fire and loaded unit healing, so that's already a decent start. Of course, GBW3's mechanics work in its favor: no having to choose between moving or attacking on the same Day as well as DoR-style launching on transports as a whole both make it better than the Dual Strike Aircraft Carrier without fail, ignoring the insane price gaps issue plaguing GBW3. I will, of course, get back to you on pricing stuff, because like you say, solid concept, bad execution. Let's cover the concept first.

I will point out that GBW3 has 2 Aircraft Carrier sizes: small and large, with small being the less expensive and more mobile of the two, but also with significantly less range and lower Loading capacity to make sieging ability less adept, though what is around still can allow for a mobile offense to layer pressure at multiple points of the map more easily in accommodation of Work Cars or some such. The Large Aircraft Carrier would by contrast be more interested in a surgical strike where the group of air units come out to blast away at a target location. You can see how the player gets options there. Oh, and by the way, both have auxiliary HMGs for close range combat, although Lite Land units aren't exactly the best justification for getting these things and even if Anti-Tanks were in GBW3 and included as such, there would still be better options for answering ATs.

What is particularly worth mention, though, GBW3 has actually more air unit types than Dual Strike and Days of Ruin's pooled types combined, at 10 types discounting the Promotion additions (compare to DS and DoR having 8 total between them), although this is mitigated a bit for the purposes of this post by GBW3's Aircraft Carriers being unable to load the City Bomber (which bombs terrain), the Supply Plane, or the Transport Plane. However, what is worth mention is that there's an Anti-Submarine Helicopter, or at least it's named that by the Japanese naming because it uses torpedoes for its explosive weaponry, but the torpedoes also deal higher damage to surfaced ships than the regular Bomber's equivalent does, at the drawback of having lesser defense power and mobility than said regular Bomber's equivalent when it's up against GBW3's plentiful anti-air among navy units. The Anti-Submarine Helicopter is also comparatively inexpensive even if Materials still does prevent its spam, so that's something to give the Aircraft Carrier a way to contest naval threats in a subtle manner.

GBW3 also has the Interceptor. Think a Fighter that can shoot air-to-air attacks from multiple spaces away. Considering GBW3's handling of range fire mechanics, you can see how these things can just as easily scream Demonic Spiders as enemy units in Campaign.

This stuff really comes back to how all 3 games (GBW3, DS, and DoR) have something just plain missing with the Aircraft Carrier, but given the best of both worlds, it would be fully justifying the price tag. Have GBW3's options and interest-driven abundance of naval anti-air, DS's extreme tempo efficiency, and DoR's support capabilities, and you have something capable of a lot. GBW3's Anti-Submarine Helicopters mixed with direct build capabilities would permit a subtle way to address Submarines, and having both heightened anti-air as well as a recovery point safe against air-to-air attack would better emphasize Attackers and Bombers over Fighters when air superiority would no longer rely on having all the Fighters. As for going against land? Yeah, the guy on land would be forced to build Anti-Air Tanks just to stand a chance, but that sort of stall effort would run afoul of later Battleship support.

Suffice to say that the DS/DoR Aircraft Carriers have stifled potential.