I've been playing Axis & Allies, original edition, since approximately 1993.
This year for Christmas I received a copy of Axis & Allies, revised edition. Until recently I had
only read about the map and rule changes. My brother and I managed to squeeze in
a game Christmas day (and well into the night). To cut to the chase, I'm a fan of
the changes to the game itself and not a big fan how light the cardboard on some
of the new pieces is. I'm not going to endeavor a full on detailed explanation of
the game and detailed review. If you're looking looking for that Tom Vasel has a detailed
write up that gives you lots of detail.
In my estimation my brother and I are pretty experienced and sophisticated players
of A& A both having about 10 years of play behind us and most of the time against
on another. In the original version it was more or less a fore gone conclusion that
the longer the game went on the higher the chance that the Allies would win as long
as Russia made life difficult for Germany and the US keeps a modest amount of pressure
on Japan to keep them blowing IPC's
on a navy. The new version balances that out in several ways. First, the re-jiggering
of Eastern Europe, splitting the Caucus into two spaces (Caucus and Belorussia)
and putting a factory in Caucus.
This makes it possible for the Germans to do some real strategic damage to the Russians
and gives them a possible land passage to North Africa. This doesn't change the
standard Russian strategy of infantry, infantry, infantry but it provides Germany
with an effective flanking maneuver and spreads out the Russian infantry into more
spaces making it a more even fight. Also, the increase in defensive capability of
the tank makes the German Blitzkreig strategy work. The addition of the Sahara Desert
to North Africa makes the German hold on Africa more reasonable and kills the cheap
shot Germany used to have of running it's tank all over Africa.
In the Pacific the US Navy is significantly weaker and the Japanese is significantly
stronger with a second carrier group. The smaller Islands have shed their IPC value
making the US Island hopping strategy be just a strategy for getting within range
of Aisia and Japan. I played the Axis against my brother's Allies. Japan was pretty
devastating by building a factory on Kwangtung and churning out tanks that allowed
it to push the US out of China, take India from the British and capture the Russian
East all the way to Russia. He did make one small mistake with the US fleet that
set his Pacific efforts back two turns making the Japanese in Asia strategy have
an couple extra turns to build momentum.
All in All I'm pleased to have the new version. There are definitely more subtle
changes including the addition of a couple new units that I've glossed over. The
bottom line is, if you've played the game and moved on, it's time to revisit. If
you've never played, you're in for a treat - it's gotten even better. If you're
still playing RISK - get a life and trade up.