Axis & Allies

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For other uses, see Axis & Allies (disambiguation).
Axis & Allies
Players2-5
Setup time15-30 minutes
Playing time2-20 hours
ChanceMedium
Age range12+
SkillsTactics, Strategy, Economics, and Teamwork

Axis & Allies is a popular series of World War II strategy board games, with nearly two million copies printed.[1] The first game was originally designed by Larry Harris and published by Nova Game Designs,[2][3][4] 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 is not 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 did not 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.

In 1996, Axis & Allies was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame.[5]

File:Axis & Allies Map & Pieces.jpg
The Milton Bradley edition of Axis & Allies, showing the game map and all 299 playing pieces.


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.[6]

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.[7] 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.[8]

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 almost all of the units. American fighters and tanks are P-38s and Shermans, Russian tanks are T-34s, Japanese fighters are Zeros, etc. Russia and England share sculpts with the US for artillery, transports, destroyers and carriers. England uses US sherman tank sculpts, and Russia uses the English battleship sculpt.

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, Axis & Allies: Europe (1999) and Axis & Allies: Pacific (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 Axis & Allies: D-Day (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. Axis & Allies: Battle of the Bulge was published in November 2006. Like D-Day, it is 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.

Axis & Allies: Guadalcanal was released in 2007.

Computer games

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 is 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 online version of the 2004 revised edition was recently released on GameTable Online. Originally created for Wizards of the Coast's website, the game found its new home when Wizards of the Coast changed their online strategy. The game includes live play against both human and AI opponents (or a mix of the two).

An open source version of the game called TripleA also exists in which one can play alone or online against other players. It is based on the 2004 revised rules.

See also

References

  1. ^ Post from Larry Harris on his forum.
  2. ^ Information about Nova Games
  3. ^ Whitehall, Bruce (2008). "25 Years of Axis & Allies". Knucklebones. 3 (2). Jones Publishing: 22–24. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  4. ^ Reid, Thomas M. (2007), "Axis & Allies", in Lowder, James (ed.), Hobby Games: The 100 Best, Green Ronin Publishing, pp. 17–20, ISBN 978-1-932442-96-0
  5. ^ "Origins Award Winners (1995)". Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design. Retrieved 2007-11-01.
  6. ^ A&A Preview #4: The Price of Victory from Wizards of the Coast
  7. ^ A&A Preview #14 A New Tank Blitzes Into View from Wizards of the Coast
  8. ^ A&A Preview #13 Brave New World from Wizards of the Coast

External links

Official sites

Communities and strategy sites

with Free Membership, an Automatic Dice Server, Team Games, Tournaments, Individual Games, Competition, and Rankings

Utilities

Variants

  • Global Crisis - Completely new rulebook for greater historical accuracy and realism
  • Honor and Infamy: Commanders - Axis & Allies add-on game
  • Plotted A&A - Variant in which players plot each turn's activities in advance
  • Enhanced Realism Rules - Variant rules which strive to bring greater realism to gameplay
  • W.W.II - Free browser-based, play-by-email, Axis & Allies game at GamesByEmail.com. 100% AJAX, no flash or installs required.
  • The WarZone - Free service with no adware or spyware that allows players with the CD-rom to play Axis & Allies, 3rd edition online
  • Xeno Games World At War - unauthorized expansion kit introducing Paratroops, Armored Infantry, Strategic Rail Movement and more.
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