As soon he has enough units on the field to charge his SCOP in a manner that does not lose him the game, he can start saving money and build the bare minimum necessary. Being able to build from cities at half price means that he does not have to play the game by its rules. Not only does Hachi have a respectable day to day ability, he tops it off with a broken COP and a completely broken SCOP. Any reliance on transports, naval or a lot of air units also tends to hurt Kanbei, as he pays premium for units that do not become that much better. On bigger maps where infantry units meet each other later than vehicles and the game is unlikely to be decided with the first battle, he can be overwhelmed by the funds-based broken COs. His stats make it impossible to fight any of his units with the same type of unit, and often makes it impossible to fight him at all.
The emperor of Yellow Comet tends to win against nearly everything as long as the map is small to average-sized. Nell is sometimes considered a broken CO, but is luck-reliant and thus lumped in with the other luck COs she's either roughly as good or better than the tier 1 COs given average luck and a lot better if lucky on the right shots. Sturm is not powerful enough to fight the broken five, but his perfect movement breaks almost all maps and as such he is often banned in tier 1. Grit and to a small extent Sensei can be made less broken by map design, but are generally powerful enough to run over tier 1 COs and contest the other brokens. Kanbei is basically always broken, except on maps so convoluted and massive that nobody would ever play on them, or maps with exactly 1000 starting income per preowned base. Hachi and Colin are broken regardless of map, as having more funds available simply isn’t something that normal COs can contend with. The broken COs break the rules that other COs have to follow, having abilities that lead to them either having a lot more funds or extremely cost-efficient units. On maps favoring or disfavoring the particular abilities of the individual CO, they can easily go up or down a tier. Tiers (Standard Play) Broken Tier (Tier 0)
The other category is the luck tier, which consists of the COs that rely solely on luck, going counter to the basic idea of competition. The COs of the broken tier (tier 0) are typically strong to an extent where they completely destroy their competition – it is easier to win with a tier 4 CO against a tier 1 CO than with a tier 1 CO versus a broken CO. There are two special categories of COs that are usually banned from competitions. Traditionally, the tier list for standard settings is based on an average map with 3 bases and 1 airport, around 17-22k income, at least 2 fronts and balanced terrain. Mass damage or otherwise game-deciding powers are stronger on larger maps or more generally maps where it is easier to avoid combat without losing too much in income. Cheap and movement/firepower-based powers are a lot more useful on the same type of maps that encourage early combat, as they are better if a larger part of the army actually makes use of the boosts. As a rule of thumb, powerful day to day abilities are always good, but lend themselves to smaller maps with lower overall funding, where games can be decided by small vehicle advantages and the fight for contested properties. Especially COs that strongly favor a specific type of game will thrive on maps that allow for those games while struggling on maps that do not. It is important to understand and keep in mind that CO strength can be very map-dependent. Those tiers provide the basis for the banlists of games in tournaments, the Global League and the automatically created public Z-games. To ensure a fair competitive environment where not only a select few COs are used, they are ranked according to their strength into tiers. Green Earth - On the mission Sinking Feeling, capture the southernmost city on the island towards the west.While AWBW offers a large selection of COs, not all of them are equal in strength and therefore viability. Yellow Comet - On the mission Show Stopper, capture the southmost, westernmost city. Orange Star - On the mission Flak Attack, capture the city just north of your HQ.īlue Moon - On the mission Toy Box, capture the southmost, westernmost city. Each force needs to do this to access Neotank technology. You must then clear a hidden mission to earn unlock the Neotanks. Beat Campaign mode with overall rank of A.Ĭapture a specific city on each map to earn a lab map.