Game:

Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising (2003)

Duration: 43:20

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Didn't you hear? The war is un-postponted and will be arriving soon!
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Your days are numbered, advance warriors! After which I'm sure we'll do nothing but devolve into various complaints about what's different and what's the same... and also the fact that there's still two other games in the series that WE got outside Japan that probably won't see the light of day for another couple decades.

Y'know, detail-obsessive stuff like that. Since having cartoon war machines dish out single-digit damage at percentage-based ratios can't help but drive people to such data-driven extremes.

We know who we are. Now move that Artillery already!

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Campaign
Mission "14": Nature Walk

I want to say, in my history with the series at large... THIS is the one that most fully acquainted me with the bizarre nature of how the AI is scripted to "understand" Fog of War. And a little bonus consideration for stuff involved with the idiosyncratic unit turn order algorithm.

It's one thing if it's an unintentionally rigid and obtuse side effect to trying to make a distinction between the polar opposite notions of the game knowing EXACTLY where every unit in play happens to be at all times (the game's controlling... erm... the game, after all!) and thus having an unfair advantage versus the game pretending it has no idea where ANYTHING is at any time and thus fumbling about even more helplessly than its human adversaries. It's an entirely separate matter in my book, however, if they actually started playing around this eccentric (mis)behavior to script entire mission structures around it!

Does it make the AI's savant-like strengths and weaknesses under the circumstances any less inherently frustrating? Not really... IF all you wanted was a "proper" battle, I mean. But I think that a mission like this ALMOST makes it all worthwhile. (Almost?)

To recap:
-the computer player doesn't actually need its units' "vision" stat to see things in the fog... it will attack anything in range regardless of whether or not it has any unit capable of revealing distant tiles beforehand.
-it will outright ignore any units on hidden tiles, woods and reefs, unless it has a unit next to them to "spot" them legally.
-as a result, it will never actually run into your units in the fog, no matter where they are, even hidden units!

In essence, using the woods becomes broken in your favor, but everywhere else is broken in the AI's favor. THIS mission happens to be entirely about that phenomenon.

Bear in mind that if the enemy makes a move in the course of its turn that stops next to one of your hidden units, any moves they make thereafter will consider that unit fair game to attack as normal, since the enemy player CAN "see" them now according to the rules of Fog of War.

This can get a little weird depending on which units are queued up to act first according to the AI sorting algorithm of move priority, either sparing you a crippling assault because the unit that could've done the damage already went... or anecdotal "cheating" wherein the computer apparently abused its knowledge of your hidden troops to get a cheap shot in rather than being totally blind at other times.

Personally, in most of these cases, I can at least see the fact that the enemy moved in such a way as to "accidentally" reveal your unit in a most inopportune moment wasn't actually all that random if you have all the facts in consideration. Specifically, the AI will use its full movement range all the time towards whatever destination it has in mind, meaning if their movement runs out right next to the woods, oh well, that's where they're stopping. This combines with the fact that they can always "see" your non-hidden units, and will thus often beeline for their direction, informing where they'll have to stop along the way and whether or not this will involve any unfortunate discoveries.

You can see some of these principles applying in the previous skirmish between Grit and Adder in my "Mission 10: Tanks!!!" video, wherein I tried to outsmart this behavior, but didn't account for his movement increases during his CO Power turns and instead fell straight into his line of sight instead.

Incidentally, the Black Cannons will only fire at the very start of the enemy turn, so unlike any other case of stopping on a space next to one of your units for any reason whatsoever, they won't be part of the subsequent actions taken that turn to capitalize on this "new" information.

I'm at least a little disappointed that Lash has no remark for destroying one of her precious Cannons.

Naturally, there'd be no real "game" by the end of the map if the finish line wasn't left amusingly wide open to drive a recon into, apparently removing any threat of those big units parked all around the HQ.