5 best strategy tips to win Axis and Allies

It’s a click bait title, but the info is valuable.

1. Learn to LOVE boring units

Am mainly talking about infantry and transport ships. Infantry is cheap. Is ok on defense. In attacks it’s the thing to sacrifice and prevent more expensive losses. If you run short on infantry things will go south fast. The only exception to this is a situation where you are already dominating and you need to speed up the demise of your enemy. If you have a lot more income than your enemy you can go big on more expensive units, units that pack a bigger punch on the offensive. But only if you can outspend your enemy. Like when you have double the income he has. When you compare income you need to compare the totals for the Axis and the Allies. Don’t compare the individual incomes. There aren’t 5 players in this game. There are only 2.

Transports… I have come to absolutely love them to bits. Transports make you mobile. They baffle the enemy because few players are able to keep track of all the different directions you can strike in when you have enough transports and infantry to fill them. Transports give you options.

I love to have them and keep them afloat and I plot like a maniac to destroy the transports of my enemy. If my enemy runs out of transports I am fighting a severely crippled enemy. Buy them early on and keep them afloat so you don’t need to invest in them anymore.

The most common mistake I see is that people don’t use transports effectively.

2. Don’t conquer just to conquer. Don’t organize half assed defenses to hold all territories.

If you are losing other units than infantry in your conquests you are almost always bleeding yourself red. If you conquer a territory and now control it only with tanks a good opponent will come and destroy those tanks. He doesn’t even need to retake the territory. If he takes out some of your tanks and loses only infantry he has still won that battle.

It’s often a good idea to leave only one infantry unit in certain areas if it allows you to concentrate your army and attack the enemy’s jugular certain of victory. Also: it makes your opponent spread his forces thin because they can never resist those juicy looking targets.

3. Do not spread your forces thin! ‘Get there first with the most men’, said General Nathan Bedford Forrest. And he nailed it. This is probably THE key to winning and most people just don’t get this. Amass an overwhelming force there where it matters. I would need to devote a long article to this to fully explain this. The tricky part is to determine those points that matter.

4. Submarines and destroyers are rarely a good investment. These are the units I almost never buy. I rarely buy bombers, but a bit more often than submarines or destroyers. How do I know they are not as valuable as other units? I am inwardly celebrating, yeah, celebrating, whenever my enemy buys submarines or destroyers or bombers. All other units are great to buy if you maintain the right ratio. You need a bit of everything.

5. Don’t do strategic bombing and don’t invest in technological advances.

I never do strategic bombing. I never ever risk losing a bomber and I always use them to make my conquests certain. If I own a bomber or buy one it is my intention to keep that bomber alive for the entire length of the game and I only ever risk losing it when I am attacking a capital. Or – rarely happens – to take out some unprotected transports. Transports have to die!!! But of course not at any cost. Am just saying that I will accept a minimum amount of risk to send bombers against unprotected transports

When am already winning I sometimes develop long range aircraft, the only truly great technological advance, but only to speed up my victory and usually to finish off my enemy’s navy. You don’t really need it. And even if you successfully develop those advances… most of them are nice to have, but definitely not need to have. There are always better purchases to be made. Research is adding unnecessary risk. When you play a solid game with ‘boring purchases’ victory is always, always, certain against less experienced players. Bad luck with the dice can only slow your victory down. If you lose it’s your own fault. You bought too few ground troops and failed to keep mobile at sea. This is especially an issue with Japan, the UK and the US in the early game. If Germany has any navy left after the first few turns the allies are definitely fucking up. Well, unless Germany has that navy because it bought a lot of ships early on. A very suspect move that will be to the benefit of Russia.

If Moscow falls the game is almost always over. The same if either Berlin or Tokio fall.

Both the Axis players and the Allied players have to play as though they are really controlling all the forces of their side as one single army, but with parts moving at different times. What Japan does must benefit Germany and vice versa. The same for the allies.