- We're purchasing units and invading Europe.
That's right, it's Axis & Allies Online from Beamdog.
(upbeat instrumental music)
This digital version of the mega monster war game
Axis & Allies 1942 pits one to five players
in the role of world leaders during the Second World War.
Gameplay is organized much like
the second edition of the board game.
Players take the role of either Allies,
US, UK and Soviet Union,
or the Axis, Germany and Japan.
Once players' roles have been assigned,
gameplay occurs in turns, during which each player
progresses through five phases.
Purchase, Combat Move, Combat,
Non Combat Move and Mobilization.
Let's take a look at the UI.
In the center of the screen you have Earth,
including territories colored by their nation.
You also have units, their types,
and quantities labeled within each area.
Some regions also have
an industrial production credit or IPC value.
This is the monetary value of that territory,
which is added to a player's income
at the end of their turn.
Along the bottom we have the turn phase indicator,
the turn order, victory overview, war report,
and next phase button.
Now, for the phases of a turn.
In the purchase phase players will access
the purchase panel on the right.
The revealed menu displays the purchasable units
organized by ground, sea, air and industry.
Additionally, clicking on a unit in the purchase menu
brings up details of the unit's statistics
on the tab on the bottom left.
Just like the board game,
units are purchased with IPCs,
the main currency of the game
located at the top of the panel.
Additionally, the number of units a player may produce
in a turn is limited to the value of IPCs they have
in territories containing an industrial complex.
More on that in the mobilization step.
Once decided, the player can select
the units using the plus symbol.
After they've chosen their purchases for the turn,
they press end phase.
These units won't appear until the mobilization phase
'cause they're still being trained.
Next, in the combat move phase,
the active player can move any of their units
from a territory into an opponent's territory.
By selecting a unit on the map,
the game reveals the territories that unit
can move into based on their move value.
Once a destination is selected,
an arrow and a token appears to mark their marching orders.
Once all of the orders for the turn have been selected
and planned, click the end phase button
to reveal a summary page and confirm your orders.
Now the combat phase begins where the units
in the invaded territories duke it out.
The active player can now choose
which encounter to resolve first
by clicking on the chosen territory
or auto-select by hitting next in the bottom right.
This brings up a combat screen,
displaying units on both sides,
organized by their respective attack and defense values.
Each set of units will roll simulated dice
in order to score hits on the opposing side.
The die rolls must be equal to or less than
the combat value in order to score a hit.
Hit roll die to let combat begin.
The hits rolled will automatically be assigned
to the opposing team's units
based on their IPC cost, lowest to highest.
All defending units, even those with hits
assigned to them get a chance to hit back
with a roll of their own.
This process continues until all units have rolled.
When receiving hits as the attacker,
the active player gets to decide which hits
to assign to which units.
Play continues, and if defenders still remain,
the attacker either retreats or presses the attack
to try and take the territory,
after which, the rolls happen again.
After all combat encounters have been resolved,
a combat summary is displayed.
If territories have switched control to another player,
both nation's IPC income will shift accordingly.
Next, the non combat move phase.
It's time to shore up your defenses.
The active player can now move units
into non-hostile territories.
Aircraft are a slight exception to this rule
as they have to land in friendly territory
after contributing to an attack.
Selecting such an aircraft will
highlight the landable areas.
After the active player has selected
all their units to move into friendly territory,
they click end phase to execute those orders.
The final phase, mobilization, allows the player
to place their purchased units into their territories
that contain an industry complex,
provided they've controlled it
since the start of their turn.
The number of units placed in that territory
may not exceed the IPC value of that territory.
Once all the units have been placed
by selecting them from the mobilization panel
and adding them to territories,
the player clicks end turn.
They gain their IPC income for the turn
and play passes to the next player.
Just like the board game, Axis & Allies Online
follows the traditional turn order
of Soviet Union, Germany, UK, Japan, US.
Gameplay continues until the victory condition is met.
Either standard, where the allies need to hold
10 of the victory cities in the game
and Axis need to hold nine,
or total, where either side must hold
all 13 cities at the end of a turn.
And that's the basics of Axis & Allies Online.
The game includes several detailed tutorials
on specific units and tactics,
like aircraft, transports and sea vessels.
If you're new to Axis & Allies, it's good to brush up
on those details before diving in.
I'm Becca Scott, and if you wanna find me on Steam,
I will crush you in this game.
See you there.
(upbeat instrumental music)