What is the optimal mix of infantry, artillery, and armor in Axis and Allies Revised?

Question

Axis and Allies 2nd edition had two primary ground units: infantry (1/2/1/3 attack/defense/move/cost) and armor (3/2/2/5). Axis and Allies Revised increased the defense of armor to 3 and added an artillery unit (2/2/1/4) that has the special ability to increase the attack value of any accompanying infantry from 1 to 2.

Don Rae's famous infantry push mechanic was written for 2nd edition rules and argues that a good player will predominately purchase infantry, only buying tanks when they have established solid defensive lines.

How does the addition of the artillery unit and the increase in the defensive power of armor change the optimal balance of ground forces?

Answer 1

I have to go in the opposite direction of the other answers and say that artillery isn't very useful. If you run sims to try and flesh out what is the optimal mix, you will probably find that using artillery is better. However I found that when actually playing the game, tanks have at least 3 significant advantages over artillery.

Retaining their offensive power

When attacking a territory that is well defended, you can count on losing a lot of infantry. Since the third point for offensive power of artillery is dependent on having an accompanying infantry piece, your forces will lose significant offensive power when you start losing those pieces. Since tanks aren't dependent on the infantry, you will retain your offensive power longer.

While this is covered in the simulations, it is important to realize that the simulations favor artillery if you limit the size of the forces by IPCs. If you limit your forces by number of units, tanks fare significantly better than artillery because they retain their power.

Gauging power by IPCs makes sense if you are talking about land battles in Europe, Asia and Africa. However if you are doing amphibious assaults(or your supply of troops comes from the sea) you are going to be limited by the number of transports and therefore the number of ground troops. When you have a navy offshore worth 100 IPCs and another 50 IPCs of aircraft supporting the invasion, I don't think it makes much sense to decrease your ground power just to save 2 or 3 IPCs(especially if you are losing planes to keep the last ground troop alive).

Increased defense

In my experience the main challenge isn't taking a territory but actually holding on to it. While artillery give a boost to offensive power, that extra IPC doesn't do anything for you when defending. Since tanks defend on 3, they also give an added boost for defense.

Moving 2 Spaces/Blitzing

This is the most important advantage. While it is not very important in some theaters, it is critical in the Germany/Russia land war. Artillery will take 1-2 turns longer to get where they need to be than tanks. While the math may show artillery is optimal in these battles, they won't have any value if they're not at the battle.

When I'm playing that theater, I will often purchase a couple turns of infantry, then tanks then fighters and bombers. I try to time it so that when the main battle is fought, all the units from previous turns will be able to participate. If you are running with an optimized infantry/artillery mix, the player on defense is going to have several more turns worth of units in the battle.

While you may purchase a 15 IPC industrial complex in one of the 3 IPC territories to counteract this, it will still take 5 turns of purchasing artillery before you break even and those artillery will still have the above disadvantages.

Summary

I get the impression that you are looking more for a math oriented answer to what the optimal ground forces are. My general point is that there is no optimal mixture because everything is too dependent on the situation.

A math based solution isn't capable of taking into account:

• the possibility(and costs) of the opponent's counterattack
• how long it takes to move your forces into position
• the added value of the territory you are conquering(and the loss of it from your opponent)
• the time component(since territories generate IPCs, they are more valuable if conquered sooner than later)
• and probably a bunch of others I haven't thought of

Answer 2

With this change, armor is severely weakened - the purchase cost is simply too high for something only slightly better than infantry. The only exception is if your factories are too far from your front or you are facing light defenses.

In those cases, such as a large number of undefended territories near one of your factories, tanks additional movement can come in handy. It offsets their purchase cost significantly if your tanks seize two territories the turn after construction.

Tanks are also marginally better if you are launching an amphibious attack, as you can get slightly more punch per transport (assuming 1 infantry + 1 tank per transport, which is what I believe they can carry in the current version) with a similarly more powerful defense for your beachhead.

This problem disappears (somewhat) if you adjust the tank purchase cost to 4 OR up their movement to 3. I'd go with the purchase cost reduction, personally.

Answer 3

I would say the addition of artillery makes tanks completely moot -- you're always better off buying infantry and a single artillery to go along with any attack. The tanks just do 50% more damage than infantry on both attack and defense, for a 67% higher cost, and no increase in their ability to absorb damage.

edit

To answer Adam's comment, an artillery plus two infantry costs the same as two tanks, and will inflict the exact same 0.1 losses per IPC both defending and attacking. An artillery plus 7 infantry costs the same as 5 tanks, and inflicts .1067 losses per IPC. That may not seem like much compared to the tanks, but combined with the fact you need large amounts of infantry to absorb losses anyways, its much more efficient and becomes more efficient as your army becomes larger.

The only real advantage of tanks is the two-space move, which is IMO rarely significant

Answer 4

If you only consider a single fight on land, the perfect combination is int + art, 0 tanks.

If you consider amphibious fights, tanks and infantry is best since you have to get more transports if you're going with inf+art.

But A&A is not about single fights, it's about winning the game and to do that you need success on both a tactical and strategical level. The main advantage of tanks and fighters is the ability to threaten a larger area, which can force your opponent into leaving troops where they don't do any good except defend.

I typically buy about 3 inf to 1 art and 1 tank and perhaps half a plane.

Answer 5

You should still be purchasing mostly infantry to absorb the hits of your opponents. The difference is now, your additional purchases depend on your strategic posture. If you're satisfied "slugging it out" on this line with no intention of offense, you should purchase mostly infantry, and maybe a few tanks that will never be threatened by enemy fire. If, however, you'd like to maintain an offensive capability, you would purchase mostly infantry, and then many artillery in order to enable your infantry to be a credible threat on offense. A few tanks would still be called for, but again, only after enough infantry was available to reliably ensure that the tanks are safe. Essentially, think of tanks in Revised as "Light Fighters"; they provide some useful hard-hitting power, but you don't really want to risk losing them. Artillery is only really useful when you're transitioning (or want to be able to transition) to an offensive role with your infantry; on defense, pure infantry spam is still better.

Answer 6

I've played in games where infantry were neglected and tanks and planes were the most purchased units. For example, if Germany buys all tanks for one round and all fighter for the next, they will be at a GREAT advantage in attacking and taking territories.

In the case of Russia, this is different. Russia is at a monetary disadvantage and a mobility disadvantage. When Germany comes knocking on your door, the best thing to do is purchase infantry like it's going out of style. I had the Russians having 32 infantry and they held off the German invasion of about 12 tanks and 10 or so fighters and a few bombers. Each infantry has a 33% chance of hitting in defense, and for 3 IPC's, you can't beat it.

Infantry provide the best defense for the IPC's spent, but this is not a defensive game. It is a game of tact, wit, offense, and luck of the die.

One cannot neglect infantry, but you also should not focus on them.

Answer 7

There are some semi-independent factors to weight in when determining what is best to buy for a given country.

• Tactical value

If your only consideration is one large one-on-one battle, a mix of about 70% inf and 30% art will be optimal, tan, fig and bom are all much worse in this regard. The reason why inf is so much more important than art, eventhough 50-50 will give you the highest attack for the lowest cost is that losing inf is cheaper than losing art, both in terms of ipcs and remaining attack value.

• Strategic value

A&A is not just about winning battles, the goal is to win the game, to win the game you have to win economically (counting both income and units), and to win economically you will have to kill enemy units, save your own units and hold territory.

The main point of tan, fig and bom are that they threaten a larger set of areas, this limits the options for your opponent, having tanks mean all areas two steps away from you are threatened, having planes means your opponent can't split their navies without losing minors ships here and there.

• Time

Time is on the allies side in the beginning of the game, as an axis player, you must trade economics for progress, you have to buy aggressive units eventhough they are more expensive, or the allies will beat you in the long run.

In the specific case of playing Germany I usually buy about 4 inf to 1 art and 1 tan, this means I will have volume, and if I manage to avoid losing tanks, I will have a quite a few of them for the final kill.

If I play Soviet, I'll usually avoid art, it's still important to threaten areas, but I'm not in any rush and the main purpose is to hold the line until help from the other allies arrive. There are few "medium" battles on the eastern front, battles are almost always one-round or game-ending ones, and in the latter case, it will be Germany attacking.