Everything about Axis Amp Allies totally explained
Axis & Allies is a popular series of
World War II strategy board games, with nearly two million copies printed. The first game was originally designed by
Larry Harris and published by Nova Game Designs, before being republished and popularized by the
Milton Bradley Company. Milton Bradley released Axis & Allies as part of their
Gamemaster series in
1984, and it was the most successful of the five. In
April 2004,
Hasbro released the Revised Edition under the
Avalon Hill name. In all of the editions of the core game, up to five players can take control of one of the Axis (
Germany or
Japan) or Allied (the
U.K., the
U.S.S.R., or the
U.S.A.) nations. The object of the game is to win the war by capturing enough critical territories.
Axis & Allies isn't a strict historical
wargame, due to its streamlining for ease of play and balancing so that both sides have a chance. For instance, the economic model is simplistic, with each territory producing a number of "IPCs" (Industrial Production Certificates) good toward the purchase of any unit. Moreover, the game is supposed to start in the spring of
1942, but Japan is immediately in position to attack
Hawaii again, while Germany is pressed well into the U.S.S.R. with an initially superior force. Another significant difference is that the Soviet Union and Japan are opponents at the start of the game; historically, they didn't go to war with each other until 1945. If the game were truer to history, the Axis empires would be at their apex at this time, about to be pushed back home – but, of course, that wouldn't be a very competitive match.
In 1996,
Axis & Allies was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design
Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame.
Milton-Bradley version
Basics
The Axis powers and the Allies must attack each others territories, with the goal of capturing their enemy's capitals; the Axis can also win an "economic victory" by gaining enough territory, which is more common in practice due to the difficulty of attacking Britain or Eastern United States.
Each turn progresses with the Soviet Union, going first, followed by Germany, the U.K., Japan, and the U.S. On each turn, the player declares IPC spending towards the production of the infantry, armored, naval, and air force units that'll use in combat. A risky research option is also offered, which essentially allows players to invest (or gamble) IPC's towards upgrading certain units, like super-submarines and long-range bombers. The player then declares combat moves (using
area movement), attacking enemy-held territory, which is resolved by comparing the units' strengths against their opponents and rolling dice to determine the winners. A unit scores a hit if the player rolls, with a six-sided die, a number less than or equal to the unit's attack or defense score, and different units attack and defend at different strengths and weaknesses (for example,
infantry makes a better defender than attacker). Each player gets to choose how to distribute casualties amongst his or her own units and removes them from the battlefield. (This provision makes it practical to bring cheap
cannon fodder units along to soak up hits.) The battle continues until either force is destroyed or the attacker withdraws.
After all battles are concluded, the player takes non-combat actions: moving
reinforcements, landing aircraft, etc. Then he deploys units purchased at the beginning of the turn in territories with an industrial complex and finally collects income from all occupied territories to end the turn.
This cycle continues until, after U.S.A.'s turn, the victory conditions are met for one side to declare victory.
Units
Unit name
| Edition |
IPC Cost |
Attack |
Defense |
Movement |
Notes |
| Infantry | Original |
3 |
1 |
2 |
1 |
|
| Revised |
| Armor | Original |
5 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
|
| Revised |
3 |
Renamed "Tank" |
| Artillery | Revised |
4 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
Raises an infantry to 2 Attack.
|
| Fighter | Original |
12 |
3 |
4 |
4 |
|
| Revised |
10 |
| Bomber | Original |
15 |
4 |
1 |
6 |
May do bombing run against opponent's IPCs.
|
| Revised |
| Anti-aircraft gun | Original |
5 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
Gets one shot per attacker.
|
| Revised |
Gets one shot. |
| Destroyer | Revised |
12 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
Turns off submarine abilities.
|
| Battleship | Original |
24 |
4 |
4 |
2 |
|
| Revised |
Requires two hits to destroy. |
| Aircraft Carrier | Original |
18 |
1 |
3 |
2 |
May carry two fighters.
|
| Revised |
16 |
| Transport | Original |
8 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
Can carry up to 2 infantry, or one of any other land unit.
|
| Revised |
Can carry any one land unit, plus one infantry. |
| Submarine | Original |
8 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
Gets to bypass some combat rules, for "free shots"
|
| Revised |
Gets to attack and defend first, can submerge instead of withdraw. |
| Industrial Complex | Original |
15 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
Initial complexes have unlimited production.
|
| Revised |
All complexes' maximum production limited to the territory value. |
Revised edition
To revise the original game,
Mike Selinker led a design team that included
Larry Harris, designer of the first edition. The revision aimed to address some major concerns with the original and make the game more fun. Selinker also wrote a series of
articles
describing the changes. This revised version (aka the 3rd edition) was released in 2004.
The overarching change is in the victory condition. To win in the original, either side could seize two enemy capitals, but the Axis could also win an economic victory by capturing enough resources. This rule gave the poorer Axis a leg up, but led to anticlimactic endings. Also, it often took many, many turns to finally capture heavily fortified capital territories. The designers scrapped this rule and implemented
victory cities, where each side starts with 6 of the 12 cities. In addition to the national capitals, these include
Paris,
Rome, and
Leningrad in
Europe,
Calcutta,
Shanghai, and
Manila in
Asia, and
Los Angeles in
North America. With this rule, players can decide what constitutes victory at the start – playing only to 8 victory cities makes for a shorter game, while more skilled players can play until one side controls all of them.
Another important change concerns unit capabilities and statistics. In the original,
infantry were a cheap unit and turned out to be most useful as cannon
fodder, by taking hits that would otherwise destroy more valuable units. This tended to lead to massive buildups by players amassing stacks of infantry in neighboring territories, unable to do anything other than buy more infantry, which can be ineffective attacking units by themselves due to their minimal attack value. While infantry were left unchanged in the revised edition, the
tank unit defense was increased to encourage players to use
combined arms rather than just rely on infantry, and to balance the value and effectiveness of comparable groups of infantry and tanks. Other changes include the addition of
artillery units, which increase the attack of accompanying infantry,
destroyers, which negate the first-shot advantage of
submarines, and a significant increase in the usefulness and effectiveness of transports and amphibious assaults, by allowing transports to carry any one land unit plus one additional infantry unit.
The
map was also reworked, with a new art style and many gameplay changes. One important change is the fragmentation of Germany's
Eastern Front. The area from Berlin to Moscow now includes many small territories, a victory city (Leningrad), and a strategic industrial complex at the
Caucasus. This change was designed to encourage more dynamic play in an area that often bogs down into heavy
fortification. Another notable change is to the
South Pacific region, which now provides much of Japan's starting income and is a much more valuable target for Allied incursion.
A new system of optional rules was implemented. Each power has six possible advantages, representing tactics or technologies used in the war. For instance, if the U.K. has the "
Enigma Decoded" advantage, it may quickly move units during Germany's turn in response to an attack on U.K. territory. A number of these advantages can be chosen or randomly picked for each side at the beginning of each game to alter gameplay.
In the original game, each country's infantry pieces were uniquely shaped. In the revised game, this uniqueness was expanded to include all units. American fighters and tanks are shaped like
P-38s and
Shermans, Russian tanks look like
T-34s, Japanese fighters are shaped like
Zeros, etc.
Many other changes are documented in the manual,
available for download from
Avalon Hill.
The 1991 Edition rules are
available for download from
Avalon Hill.
Spinoffs
Board games
When
Hasbro acquired the
Milton Bradley Company, they kept
Axis & Allies in print as part of their
Avalon Hill lineup, a game company they bought in
1998. Under the same brand, they published two follow-up games, (
1999) and (
2001), that were designed by
Larry Harris, the original designer of
Axis & Allies. The latter especially tinkers with the original game mechanics and tries to make the game feel less scripted while keeping the appeal of the original.
Larry Harris also designed (released
June 2004). Based on the
Allied liberation of France, the game plays at a
tactical level (rather than a
strategic one like its predecessors), getting rid of most resource management and using a smaller-scale world. D-Day won a 2005
Origins Award for Best Historical Board Game. was published in November 2006. Like
D-Day, it's a standalone, 2-player version of the game focusing on a smaller conflict.
Axis & Allies: Battle of the Bulge is notable because it features the biggest departures from the original game, including a hex map, supply rules, and a different combat system.
In
2005, Avalon Hill released a line of
miniatures under the
Axis & Allies brand.
was released in
2007.
Computer games
The original version of the board game was made as a computer game recreating every aspect of the gameplay.
Several computer games are also based on
Axis & Allies. They are mainly turn-based strategy games closely based on the board game, but more recently in 2004, a real-time strategy game was created based on the board game, similarly called
Axis & Allies. The
real-time strategy game includes a turn-based mode that's closely related to the board game, but you can only attack one enemy-occupied territory per turn. The player can either fight battles in RTS mode or have the computer calculate the outcome. There is also a campaign mode in which you can fight historical battles playing as the Allies, or try to change history by playing as the Axis. All of the battles in the campaign mode are fought in the RTS mode.
An open source version of the game called
TripleA also exists in which one can play alone or online against other players.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Axis Amp Allies'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://axis__amp__allies.totallyexplained.com">Axis & Allies Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
