Duel

"classic war (island wars 1)"

- Island Wars 2 description

Duel is the unnamed main gamemode of Island Wars, and one of the gamemodes in Island Wars 2 and Island Wars 2 Xmas.

Island Wars
Four rules can be set in total, these are the following:


 * Left player, Right player - Determines whether the two players are real people or CPUs.
 * War Days - Determines the length of the game. Can be set from 1 to an unknown amount (beyond 2^10).
 * Palm trees - Determines the number of trees that players have to attack and defend each round. Can be set from 1 to 10.

Island Wars 2
Only two rules can be set, these are the following:


 * Play against... - Determines if the right player is another person playing on the same device, or a CPU.
 * Difficulty - Determines the skill level of the CPU. Can be set to Very Easy, Easy, Normal, Hard or Very Hard.

Unlike Island Wars, there are always 5 war days and 3 palm trees, except in "How to Play" mode, where the amount of war days is reduced to just two.

Rounds
The gameplay of each day is split into three rounds:


 * Morning of Day X(IW1)/Sunrise(IW2/Xmas), where the left player controls a plane and the right player controls a cannon. The goal of the left player is to destroy all of the right player's palm trees. This round ends when either all of the right player's trees are shot down or when the left player's plane is destroyed.
 * Noon (with the added "of Day X" in IW1), where essentially everything is the same, but the roles are switched: this time, the left player controls a cannon and the right player controls a plane.
 * Afternoon of Day X(IW1)/Sunset(IW2/Xmas), where both players control planes, and their goal is to shoot down each other. This round ends whenever either of the planes is destroyed.



Gameplay values
In normal circumstances (without bonuses acquired and mutators applied) Both the plane and the cannon have a set blaster energy, which recharges over time. With full blaster energy, a cannon can fire 15 bullets in Island Wars and 10 bullets in Island Wars 2 and Xmas, and a plane can drop 5 bullets or fire 7 blaster shots in Island Wars, 8 in Island Wars 2. In Sunrise and Noon, the plane's bomb and the cannon's bullet cancel each other out when they collide. The cannon's hitpoints, since the cannon itself is invincible apart from the bullets, basically correspond to the number of palm trees they have undestroyed, which can vary from 1 to 10. The plane's hitpoints correspond to the number of bullet hits it can withstand, which is initially 5, but flying into the water destroys it no matter the HP left. Both HPs recharge between the corresponding rounds or days, although both the alive and dead palm trees remain on the island for the remainder of the day in the case of both players, even visible during Afternoon/Sunset, for the sake of decoration.

Ending (Island Wars)
After the game is aborted by pressing Escape or the last day's Afternoon ends, a basic endscreen appears, where the players' points are displayed on two sides, the text "Winner!" appearing above the winning side. Pressing any button brings the player back to the rules screen.

Ending (Island Wars 2)
After the last day's Sunset ends, the "cease fire" screen appears, after which the camera pans to the winning player's island (which is determined by the amount of points they gathered). The winner is then given a rating, dependant on the settings they played against and the mutators used, with which they can enter the leaderboards.

Mutators
All of Island Wars 2's mutators can be used in this gamemode.

Trivia

 * The original Island Wars is the only installment in the series which lets you pit 2 CPUs against each other (in Island Wars 2 and Xmas, the left player can never be a computer). Surprisingly, most such games don't result in a draw.
 * Island Wars 2 and Island Wars 2 Xmas feature a tutorial called "How to play", which can be accessed from the rule screen of this gamemode. It features a special, 2-day duel against a computer, where the first day consists of gameplay tips given to the player, and the second day is normal gameplay.