Players of the original Axis and Allies game will find a more challenging version with the Axis and Allies Revised Edition. Learning the ins and outs of the strategy of the game can help you achieve victory in a battle with your fellow players.
Playing Axis and Allies
Axis and Allies Revised Edition is a war game that focuses on the major combatants of World War II: Germany, Russia, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom. Each player starts with resources, battleships, and combat troops arranged in the different territories controlled by their country. The gameplay involves players attacking each other's territory, spending resources to buy armies and planes, and trying to win the game by capturing resources or taking over enemy capitals.
Axis and Allies Revised Strategies Idea By Country
Each country has a different opening strategy that helps you start the game off right. While there are many ways to open, there are some Axis and Allies Revised Edition strategies that can help you win the game with your chosen country. You might be tempted to follow historical information to inform your strategy but you're better off working against each player in the game "as they are" and calculating your strategies off the strength and weakness of each player.
Germany Strategy
Playing as Germany works best when you attack the navy of the United Kingdom right away.
- The next step will be using infantry and transports to take over Africa although you may not be able to keep a hold on it. Don't worry if this is the case.
- In the mean time, work on moving all of your resources to attack Eastern Europe while leaving a small force in Western Europe.
- Move as much infantry as you can into Eastern Europe and attack Karalia or Ukraine.
- Eventually Moscow will weaken attempting to fight off your attacks on the others and at the same time Japan should be attacking Russia as well.
Japan Strategy
You have more money in this game, so go for buying infantry and transports.
- Instead of going after Pearl Harbor, keep all of your ships clustered around Japan.
- Use your ground troops and transports to take over India and move your navy to the western coast of the U.S. to keep them focused on protecting their borders.
- At this point you should put your financial resources toward heavy bombers and tanks.
- Pair up with your ally German and use your bombers, tanks and ground units to attack Russia until they are taken over.
Russia Strategy
Playing as Russia, you will need to build immediately your infantry and defenses in order to deal with Germany both for defense and offense.
- Focus on buying infantry right away and keep them in Karelia to deter a German incursion.
- Russia should continue working to develop their defenses until they can get Allied support for attacks on Germany and Japan.
- Expect that it will take some time to get support from your allies so focus heavily on defense at the beginning of the game.
United Kingdom Strategy
There are a few different strategies you can consider when playing as the United Kingdom.
- One strategy has players ignore Germany's incursion into Africa in favor of focusing on India.
- Players will build factories and station troops in India and move infantry and tanks into Persia on their first turn.
- On the second turn, they will move their resources from Persia into India.
- Troops from the United Kingdom are moved to India through Karelia.
- With each turn, you should focus on getting more resources in India.
- The goal of this strategy is to keep Japan from moving into Asia and spend their resources in one place.
- A second strategy involves ignoring Japan's move into India and focusing on Africa.
- Move all of your troops and resources from India to Egypt early on and build factories in South Africa.
- Getting a Mediterranean submarine early on to take out the German navy in the Mediterranean, as well as taking out German fighters attacking the United Kingdom is key to this strategy working out.
- The goal of this strategy is to keep Germany focused on Europe and make it impossible for them to hold on to Africa.
- If the German player is in a strong position, this may be a difficult strategy to win with.
- A third strategy focuses on resource building strategy. Hold back on building factories and moving troops in favor of gathering your forces for an attack on France or Africa with your ally, the United States.
- This means allowing Germany to take over Africa and Japan to take over India at the start of the game.
- This strategy can work well because you take your time building up your resources so that you can work successfully with the U.S. to take Africa back from the Germans.
- You will need to work with the Russian player to make sure they can keep Japan from an incursion toward Moscow which will block their strategy while you handle Germany.
United States Strategy
At the beginning, the United States is not as active in combat as other countries so your best strategy is to do what you can to support your ally, the United Kingdom.
- Focus on gathering resources to help support the UK in Africa or London through buying aircraft, troops, ships and transports.
- You can expect to work with the UK to take out the German fleet in the Mediterranean.
- Eventually you can move your focus to assisting your allies in Europe.
- Do not worry about building factories in other countries.
- Keep an eye on Japan who may try to attack you from the coasts.
Other Axis and Allies Strategic Concepts
In addition to thinking about how you would play as each country, there are some concepts that can help inform any strategy and lead to success.
Have Clear Goals
The Axis and Allies forum website urges players to have overall goals to win the gain and to focus on the main goal rather than worrying about smaller battles over unimportant resources. Remember always you should have a definite strategy ahead of time to win the game, which means capturing your opponent's countries. This also means do not place units and resources in harm's way if they are not directly related to your goal.
Use Math to Win
Much of the strategy of Axis and Allies can be boiled down to probability and numbers. Spending time with each round calculating the odds of winning against your allies and enemies changing strength is critical to a successful strategy. One particularly important step is calculating your die points and that of your enemies at each turn. If your enemy is clearly likely to win with a higher number of die points, you should consider using your turn to bolster resources rather than attacking. Likewise if you can predict that victory is assured, attacking may be wise, though you should always keep the long term in mind when executing a strategy.
Purchase Resources Strategically
Think about your overall goal when making purchases. It's smart to have a plan in mind when making your early purchases as this can significantly impact the strength of your position as the game progresses. Focus overall on defense as this will keep other players from making incursions into your territory and weaken their forces. You want to always make sure you have your opponents on the weaker position compared to yours.
Buy Infantry First
While you'll need to purchase a variety of units such as bombers, fighters and tanks, buying infantry first will help you defend your territory and allows you the chance to build up your attack capability for later on in the game. Infantry also cost less than other options and you can get more out of spending less at the beginning. Avoid buying tanks early on as you won't be able to defend them without a sufficient infantry force.
Winning Strategies for Axis and Allies Revised Edition
Axis and Allies Revised Edition is a game that requires both strategy and flexibility in order to be a success. Board game lovers who enjoy history and challenging, thoughtful gameplay will enjoy the game provided their strategy for winning is successful!
