Haelp me improve my Axis & Allies strategies.

March 28, 2008 2:41 PM

My friends and I have scheduled a game of Axis & Allies to play in a few weeks time and I'm looking for any advanced tips and strategies to assure sweeping victory for my forces. I've only played it a few times in my life and I've lost more times than I've won so any tips that expert gamers could give me would be great. I'll be playing the original, global map version, not the Pacific or European spin-off versions. I'll also probably be playing as Germany, too. Thanks in advance for any help you can give me!
posted by Effigy2000 to sports, hobbies, & recreation (10 comments total)

There's a lot here.

If you want guidelines that are easy to stick to, I'd say:

Germany: Focus all over your effort on taking Moscow in the first two turns. You're screwed if it doesn't work, but you'll cruise if it does. The alternative is to hold the line in the east and conquer the European sea spaces and run over Africa.

Russia: Make a wall of infantry to keep Germany out and send some armor out to the East to drive Japan out of the continent. Maintaining the wall is first priority, though.

Japan: Shore up the stuff you've got in Asia a bit, but mostly focus on building carriers and ships and fighters and moving streams of them eastward. I prefer to go through Alaska, but I can see going straight through the Pacific working.

US: Keep building and focus on dominating the sea space around Japan.

UK: I suck at the UK, but getting rid of Germany's sea forces and building up transport bridges for an eventual land attack seems like a good idea.


I haven't played in about eight years, though, so take it with a grain of salt.
posted by ignignokt at 2:56 PM on March 28, 2008

I'm not an expert player, but I've found with Germany - you have to be sure to take territory early in the game. Germany starts out with a lot, but receives very little income. Without taking territory, simple attrition will defeat you.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 3:17 PM on March 28, 2008

Agreed. Take territory. With Germany, I usually sweep through Africa and take all if it early in the game, while concentrating on knocking out either Moscow or London as soon as possible. Moscow is probably easier, especially if your ally Japan will attack Russia on the east and keep them in a two-front war.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 3:32 PM on March 28, 2008

strategic thinking in boardgames (one starting place for some other threads on AskMe)
BoardgameGeek on Axis and Allies (tons of info, scroll down to the bottom)
posted by LobsterMitten at 4:21 PM on March 28, 2008

From mr. selfmedicating:

Time is not on the side of the Axis - the US starts out pretty wimpy but several(?) turns in its production jumps dramatically. So you need to be really aggressive if you are playing the Axis (see: crush russia).

Should you be playing the Allies, it's basically the opposite: hold the line. If you can just contain the Axis for a while, your production (esp. America's) will increase and you'll be in good shape.

Also note that although there is significant strategy, there's a fair bit of luck, too. Good dice rolls early in the game, for either side, can really influence the course of the war.

From what I remember more experienced players saying, they thought the game was slightly weighted in favor of the Allies.

I've only played a few times, and it was a long time (20 years?) ago, so advice from more recent players might be better.
posted by selfmedicating at 5:43 PM on March 28, 2008

As Germany: Africa, Africa, Africa. Hold Africa, and get Japan to roll over Eastern Russia, and an economic victory will shortly ensue. You have to coordinate as a team with Japan much, much more than was done in the real war to have a chance.

Keep the sea zone around England clear. If the US & UK get a lot of troops and transports there, they can invade anywhere from Africa to Finland, and Germany can't defend that.

Of course, you have to take Russia if you can, and press them hard at the very least. Try to avoid leaving your tanks to defend the territories which constantly change hands...defend them with cheaper infantry. Always have large infantry stacks in your attacks, so that you can lose them instead of pricey tanks and expensive fighters.

A&A is an economic game--and the Axis starts on the losing end of that. You do have to do well quickly, before the US can turn the cash into materiel and you're done for. And even if you play it well and get decent luck, the Axis is a difficult side in the game as written. (A bid system is used in a lot of play to even it out, where the Axis gets some extra builds at the start of the game to help out.)
posted by stevis23 at 6:34 PM on March 28, 2008

I've been playing A&A with some frequency this winter, and a couple of new things have sort of developed as I've played with the same bunch of guys over and over. Mainly, no matter who you're playing (except maybe Russia), you can really accomplish a lot with creative use of planes (fighters mostly, of course, but if you can afford to throw a bomber into the mix, better yet.

Japan can really benefit from putting some resources into air power. Whatever your primary strategy (IE, how are you going to try to snap up some land in Asia), you can improve your position against the Americans IMMENSELY by establishing an air umbrella from some of the south pacific islands you own. A medium-sized naval presence buttressed by land-based air will keep them at bay for a while, buying you time to put a coordinated squeeze on Russia.

Flipping it around, the US needs a combination of air and sea power to distract Japan; at the same time, you want to build up your transport capacity in the Atlantic AND steadily funnel planes over to be based in Britain; with sufficient American forces built up int he UK, you can really put some hurt on Germany with turn-spanning invasions (UK kicks things off on their turn, soften up the beachhead, and then American forces finish it off on their turn).

As things build up, the UK can shed a lot of its punching bag status with a decent air force. Remember, it's not always what you actually do to Germany, it's what you can threaten them with and make them defend against. Every unit they keep in Western Europe to make sure the back door's locked against the UK is one less hammer to swing at Moscow.

(A bid system is used in a lot of play to even it out, where the Axis gets some extra builds at the start of the game to help out.)

That sounds interesting. Do you have any more info about that?
posted by COBRA! at 8:34 AM on March 31, 2008

When I used to play, I was almost exclusively Russia - largely because I was joining an established group, and none of them enjoyed playing Russia. My tactics were simple:

-infantry, infantry, infantry. I would put a wall of troops alongside Germany; if he did attack me, it cost tremendous amounts to make small gains. If he didn't attack, I would attack him - it was a human wave assault. Either way, Germany expended tremendous resources trying to break me or defend against me. That gave the UK time to build up the strategic bombing fleet enough to ruin Germany's economy, at which point I could usually take and hold some territory.

-The weakness to my strategy was Japan; however, it was very rare for the Japanese player to seriously attack me. The person playing Japan usually starts focused on the USA, and gets stuck with that focus. I played out on scenario on my own, where the Japanese player went defensive against the US and attacked Russia alongside Germany; it put Russia into a real squeeze.

I guess my learning is this - for the Allies, Russia plays an important role in the early game by tying down Germany. If both Axis countries come against Russia, it might fold, making the game much more interesting in the long term. That being said, die rolls can have a dramatic impact - we had one game where every roll in the first turn for the Allies was an utter disaster - we all lost units and material far in excess of the Germans and the Japanese, and we got seriously drubbed from there.

We usually gave Japan and Germany their advanced technologies (Jet Fighters for Germany, forget about Japan's) at the start of the game, in an attempt to even things out.
posted by never used baby shoes at 4:11 PM on March 31, 2008

If you want to practice a little, TripleA is a Java version of the game. The AI is feeble but you can get a quick brush up on the board and flesh out some strategies. It's also playable online but I haven't gone there.
posted by D_I at 4:18 PM on March 31, 2008

n-u-b-s, from my understanding, both players (or both sides) bid a number of IPCs, this number is the bonus they wish to receive for playing the Axis side. Lower number gets to play the Axis (Like, "I can name that tune in 3 notes" only "I can win taking less of a helper than you"). Usually sealed bid, although I suppose you could go back-and-forth.

My friends and I usually just alternated sides. Or you gave the new player someone on the Allies to get them into the game.
posted by stevis23 at 12:58 PM on April 1, 2008