[AW2: WR Challenge 2025 #29] Sea Puzzle (300 S-Rank/Drake/18 Days)

Days To Beat: 30

Why's it called Sea Puzzle? Where's the puzzle part of it?

You can DEFINITELY notice how significant Drake's bonus movement is on Naval in this level, especially during his COP/SCOP. Grit's also a REALLY good choice here. You can definitely abuse COP/SCOP range with Grit's Battleships and clean up earlier than Drake against the AI.

Honestly, I just wanted to enjoy a mostly Naval battle in AW for once, so I wasn't up to playing this more than a few times to lower the days using Sami or something else. I'm fairly certain there's a very cheeky HQ capture you could do with Sami, but someone else can enjoy figuring that one out. I just want to see the Battleships run over everything, lol.


Changes to COs in this level:
= Drake: honestly, insanely buffed(because Naval is insanely buffed)
110/110 up from 100/110 Naval units, 80/100 up from 70/100 Air(Still a bad option but, eh)
COP no longer halves fuel, causes Rain, +2 movement for Naval units
SCOP only hits for 1 damage, Ground units 110/100 from 100/100, Naval 120/110 from 100/110 and +2 movement
= Max: Adjusted?
3/7 from 3/6 COP/SCOP
Indirects have 90/90 stats from 90/100
COP gives Transports +1 movement
SCOP gives Transports +1 movement, stats are 187/100 from 160/100, only +1 from +2 movement for Direct units

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Most important changes(in my opinion) from the Readme:

Gameplay:
**Snow doesn't slow Naval units, or Vehicles on Plains(I.E. a Tank can still move 6 spaces over Plains during Snow instead of 3 from before), 3 Tread and 4 Tire on woods(same as Rain)
MD Tanks/Subs act during "Indirect" phase now(Earlier, so they'll attack first)
Missile's have +1 range, movement, and vision
ALL ships can now traverse shoals, rivers, and bridges(but not unload on rivers/bridges)
Battleships CAN ATTACK AIR UNITS. They do base 45 to Fighters, base 65 to Bombers, and base 75 to Copters
Cruisers take 20 less damage from Bombers(85 to 65) and B-Copters(55 to 35), making them actually counter these units!

Cost changes:
Mechs 2,500G from 3,000G
Recons 3,500G from 4,000G
APCs 4,000G From 5,000G(surprisingly important in optimizing)
Rockets 13,500G from 15,000G
Anti-Air units 7,000G from 8000G(in line with tanks, very nice change)
Missiles 9,000G from 12,000G(Missiles are so viable now)
Battleships 20,000G from 28,000G
Cruisers 10,000G(!) from 18,000G(Extremely viable now)
Subs 12,000G from 20,000G(You're going to need those cheap Cruisers)

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Important Note: These are going to be mostly optimized runs! Some levels will be less clean than others(Especially Dark Woods and Hawke Is Coming because I'm not spending more than 20 hours optimizing any level, particularly Hour+ long ones).

The AI might--and likely will--move differently, and your RNG for the luck damage might be different (I.E. 76% might be an 8 for me, but a 7 for you, which will prevent the unit from retreating to heal at 2hp or less!). Be aware! This is a War Room mod, so unit production happens a lot, and every unit has a chance to be built with varying AI "profiles" that determine how they behave. Without RNG manipulation(in which case, you're basically TASing) they will differ greatly. BigusDingus has an excellent write up on this mechanic, and I will likely do a future video explaining how the AI functions to help people at some point if I remember/get around to it.

Levels that can be done by any CO will usually be done with Andy (and no COP), though Andy does get some use in this campaign as I think he's quite good now!

As always, remember to like, favorite and subscribe if you like the content. I'm just posting these for posterity and anyone interested!
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Mod here: https://www.warsworldnews.com/wp/hack...

BigusDingus' AI Notes Here
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n...

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