Axis & Allies .org 2025 Support Drive

@Imperious-Leader I think it’s semi-officially Classic. The A&A Wikipedia mentions it and I think it references the Larry Harris Game Design site.

Okay, I think we can nail down the exact release date of the original NOVA Axis and Allies edition to July 3, 1981, as it debuted at the Origins Game Fair in 1981 and the dates for the Origins Game Fair can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_Game_Fair

@rjclayton:

What are the differences between 3rd and 2nd Editions?

If you are familiar with the 1998 CD version, that is the start of 3rd edition (or had 3rd edition options).

Some changes are, submerging retreating subs, air units can retreat from amphib assualts, Wcan no longer boarders the Atlantic.

2 hit BBs were introduced, although I think that was just and extra option.
Always active AA’s, I think just another option.

@cyan:

what happened to 1st edition?

I’m not too familiar with 1st edition, it was before my time.  I started playing in the mid 80’s and it was already 2nd edition.

From my understanding 1st edition had some different multinational rules (possibly attacking) and new IC’s had no production cap.  So a common strat would be UK build and IC on Per and just strat pumping out units.

I would, but I am in England.
Thank you anyway.

Sealion is more of a threat than anything else, but it can be pulled off, otherwise, it will put the allies (uk and usa) on the defence early.

First of all, you save your money the first turn. It’s ok to place your bid (If you save this, they can use the allied bid as anti-sealion which may be good if you don’t go for sealion) normally the allied bid is 24-30 ipc’s so you will want as much of it as possible in russia. If there is not a bid (allies get 12) then it’s ok to save. I recommend 2 artillary save 4 (as if you want a 14 inf buy turn 1) you need a lot of artillary these to do sealion. I would put them in poland/hungary so you don’t look suspicious. This is true especially if you go with the second sealion plan. There are 2 basic type of sealion I will describe. Luckily if you decide not to do the first one, you can always fall back on the second, if that doesn’t work you can still go for the stack. The first one is planning to take the uk on germany turn 3. The second is on turn 4. If you feel you can’t do either, you will have a 7 turn stack (take Moscow on turn 7)

Turn 1:
You save all your money, clear the atlantic, there is another naval strategy which describes this in better detail. You can leave the davis strait fleet and us fleet. Also take 1-3 convoys closest to spain. Move your Italian fleet to the straits of gibraltar! If you do not take gibraltar (an important consideration), you might kill 1-2 uk fighters when they sink your fleet which are essential in the defence of the uk. But you can’t use the african artillary on england. Be sure to move the artillary in libya to algeria. so you can land on uk the next round. You may not cash out at 40 the whole time, which will mean 1 less transport on the uk. So do whatever you can to get those extra dollars, if you stack a tank and a man to get the +2 ipcs in ukraine it might be worth it. Make sure to move your artillary toward germany, from any territories that are more than one space from germany.

Now it is turn 2. you will have ±80 ipc’s to spend there are 2 options. Build a big fleet, or save again. Is it sealion 1 or sealion 2?

sealion 1:
If you build the big fleet, it will depend on the number of planes the allies have that can attack it. a combination of destroyers and transports is what you want.
Turn 2:
It is important to take as many uk convoys as possible! Again, move any artillary you can to Germany to use in the attack on the uk. Make sure your fighters are in range as well, and use the remaining subs to block reinforcements from the americas if possible.
Turn 3:
You can build more transports, don’t assume you can take the uk for sure. If your odds are bad, consider sending in all tanks this round, and next round really hit it, but you already should have calculated from the beginning of turn 2 that you have decent odds here.

sealion 2:
This variation of sealion involves saving turn 1 and turn 2, and getting the itallian fleet to the danish sea (if possible) the turn that you build 15 transports (hopefully) that way you have 0-1 bb 1-4 des 10-16 transports in the danish sea otherwise you will have to get destroyers+transports. But their airforce will be weaker from killing your fleet. You will have 10-14 artillary (2 from bid, 1 from africa +10 europe and 1 more if you can build it), fighters, bomber, and 6-22 infantry ready to attack england.
Note: it might be wise to save 4ipc’s of the bid to aid in the build. sometimes you can earn the money on russia, but unlikely.
Turn 2:
Move your artillary so its at least 1 space from germany. You should also load the algerian artillary (moved there turn 1) onto the transport and unload it in france. Italian fleet is in the bay of biscay. All german artillary can be in Germany at the end of turn 3. Keep taking as many convoys of the uk as you can. Don’t worry about the russian one.
Turn 3:
Here is the choice again, if sealion 1 isn’t looking good, you went to sealion 2. If sealion 2 is looking bad (opponent has the uk well fortified) then sealion just isn’t going to work. Build a stack instead (I would go with 36 men 3 artillary, i like heavy infantry) If it looks good, then build the fleet (probably all transports) and get the artillary in Germany. and block shipments to uk with remaining subs, get air in range etc. You can put the fleet in danish sea or baltic. Remember if it’s in the baltic then the fighters may not be able to attack it and get back to defend. If you still have your italian fleet then it’s going to danish sea.
Turn 4:
You have your fleet, you can probably build more transports/destroyers in the danish sea. That way if say the uk holds with 2 fighters or something, you can send in whatever you have left next round. on your 20 transports or whatever you have.

Turn 4 on england makes more sence because you can get all the artillary germany owns ready to ship in at the end of turn 3. Of course this only works if england isn’t well fortified, it’s mainly the threat of sealion that helps more than actually doing it. Regardless, england needs 18 infantry or so, forcing them to build/ship in 14, and fly in usa/russian air. This isn’t 100% tested, but the idea is with all this paranoia with england building men, not ships, germany will get an advantage. remember, usa liberating uk convoys doesn’t help uk until the next turn (assuming germany doesn’t take it back!!) uk without ships, is poor, so we have a poor uk with a bunch of men, and nothing to attack germany with. Assuming Germany cannot attack uk and win more than 70% of the time, then you build a huge stack, and crush moscow with little threat of invasion….yeah that’s the idea, uk is set back a turn. Plus if you do build the stack, it’s a 7 turn stack which in my oppinion is very powerful. With the uk set back not pressuring Germany, you might even be able to get some more tanks in you stack.

arguments against this strategy:
" Personally I know tend to think that saving money at all as Germany is a bad move against a decent Allied player. If the Allies just save their money with England to possibly buy infantry to defend against the German threat of invasion (I don’t even think England needs the intitial $12. Besides, they don’t seem to be able to do anything with their E1 money anyway), the Sea Lion option seems hopeless anyway, so all that comes out of it seems to be the Germans slowing themselves down eastwards."

my answer:
"well, i’m no expert, but if you take all of uk’s convoys by G2, it isn’t effective to save money as uk anymore unless usa can take them back fast. In my experience, uk needs ships turn 1 to fight in the battle of the atlantic, and without them, you will quickly see uk cashing out at 9-16 which buys time no matter which way Germany finally goes.

also, I don’t see how saving for 1-2 turns slows down on attacking russia. Russia isn’t going to be able to take germany with all the units germany has. Germany has a lot of units, but not quite enough to take out moscow (without some builds). So the game starts in a stalemate between russia and germany. Germany overcomes this with superior production. In any case, those extra 13 infantry wouldn’t do much good a turn earlier because you need a minimum of 2 turns of infantry/artillary to take moscow, so it doesn’t make a difference since they will just be sitting in poland (or east poland).

Well that’s it, enjoy. I didn’t explain everything in great detail, just the general idea, so you will have to use your own tactics to make it work. If you pull it off go the the europe forum, and post what you did, or if you know just how to beat it, post that too. Also if you go to
http://dice.aaeuropemc.com/aaeurope/rolllog.html and enter 1588 in the box, you can see a sealion game I played.