Axis & Allies, a compelling RTS, is inspired by the game of war, strategy and economics found in the best-selling Axis & Allies board game, featuring unique elements that allow players to change the course of history in new ways. Axis & Allies is being developed by TimeGate Studios, which consists of two teams who have experience on a variety of titles with expertise mainly laying in the field of RTS games and previously developed the titles in the award winning Kohan series.

In Axis & Allies players will relive and experience the most epic struggle in the history of mankind, World War II, and will be able to direct the military and economic destiny of any one of the world's most powerful countries - United States, England, Germany, The Soviet Union or Japan. Axis & Allies will not only capture the intensity of war but will also allow players to change the outcome of the major battles and campaigns of World War II. Confronted with the strategic and tactical situations experienced by the top generals and national leaders of the period, players will have to make critical decisions that determine the fate and the destiny of the world. Derek dela Fuente spoke with Brian Wood, Lead Designer from Timegate, to find out more.

In the overall design of the RTS level of gameplay, TimeGate wanted to capture the essence of global war that took place in the Pacific and Europe, as well as campaigns where you can play as both the Axis and the Allies. However, Brian commented that one aspect of the game was similar to the original board game in that you play through a strategic simulation of WWII from a global perspective. You control territories, purchase technologies and armies and play through dynamically generated maps. Your armies and technologies in the global campaign influence the type of units you have access to in the local battles during the RTS game. For instance, armies that only have an infantry division in the global campaign are only capable of deploying infantry in the RTS game.

Pinpointing the many ideas within Axis that Timegate believed makes Axis and Allies interesting, if not unique, with so many RTS games available gave a platform for eloboration.

“For one, TimeGate mainly focuses the development of their RTS games on innovating and strategic aspects of gameplay. For example, many WWII games completely ignore the concept of resources and stress the tactical aspects of battle. Yet we model a basic economic aspect of the war through ammo, oil and money--which do not have a direct impact on the enemy--but they were crucial aspects of warfare that are often overlooked in games. Therefore, you supply your own army with a small amount of resources, but capturing and holding strategic points (like cities) is crucial to funding and maintaining your army.”

“We also have fully functioning airfields with fighters, strategic bombers, reconnaissance, and paratroopers. Many of our single-player campaign maps incorporate aircraft carriers and battleships where we simulate the strategic difficulty of deploying troops to a beachhead that is completely guarded by the enemy. The goal is really to capture the essence and feel of a commander in WWII, but make it accessible and easy to understand.”

The goal and philosphy within Axis & Allies is representive towards the strategic battles and mechanics of WWII, and not so much the tactics. So, you’ll be issuing orders to your tank regiments and armour divisions while performing flanking maneuvers on the enemy’s base or setting up entrenched infantry in a city you are trying to hold.

As a strategic commander from one of the five major nations (Germany, Japan, Russia, United States, or Great Britain) in WWII you will be commanding and organising many of the major campaigns of the war. The game sports two single-player campaigns and a global campaign mode that we described earlier. The first linear campaign covers the major battles of the war in both Europe and the Pacific. The second campaign takes a fictional turn and lets you experience the war from an alternatively historical perspective where the Axis won most major battles and the entire war.

“The differences between the nations will be characterised in a number of ways: through their General, specialized units, and more subtle differences in how each of that nations play. For example, your General will give you access to Special Operations that bolster your troops in battle, provide you with a quick influx of economic aid or lay devastation to your army. One of my favourites is Espionage, which briefly displays the state of the other person’s economy to you, helping you determine where you can strike to hurt them the most.”

“We have the typical commands found in most RTS games, but we tried to model other useful military formations. Assault is a defensive formation where you attack with full efficiency, but move very slow. Aggressive is the standard formation where units move at full speed, but their attacks are not as effective. Column is a speedy formation that moves quickly across the landscape, but it is horrible for attacking entrenched enemies in defensive positions.”

There is a cap on the number of units the player can control since gameplay focuses more on a regimental control system (i.e. you command groups of units rather than individual units), and the cap sits around 150-180 units per player--depending on the type of units you recruit.

The resource system is unique (mainly to TimeGate at least), where you manage the net output of your army’s oil, ammo and money. TimeGate avoided the ‘worker gathers resource’ model because it just doesn’t make sense in a WWII setting.

Getting every detail right through hard grafted research is second nature to the team and the technology behind the game is equally impressive.

“All the units are based on real WWII models of vehicles, planes, ships and tanks that were actually used in the war. We referred to West Point maps for campaign maps, read alternative historical material and have all kinds of WWII reference materials sitting around the office.”

“We have a fully implemented physics engine in the game where tanks’ turrets recoil, rocking when they shoot; trees get knocked over, walls are crushed, and ships float and bob in the water. Planes follow very strict physical rules when they fly in regard to turning radius, dog fighting and diving while attacking ground units, and even crash into the ground damaging nearby units.”

Axis and Allies will feature 24 missions over two campaigns and to say the least, players will be battling over the Arnhem bridge, landing troops on the beaches of Normandy, invading the islands of Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal, and battling across the deserts of North Africa. The campaign takes place over a wide variety of terrains and biomes.

Asked to expand a little more….

“I don’t want to spoil too much of the Axis campaign, but let’s just say that it starts off really bad at Dunkirk for the Allies. We took a couple of approaches to the map design for these missions. One, we created the battles entirely from scratch but we researched historical possibilities that might have happened. For example, what would Rommel have done after he stormed across El Alamein after defeating the British? The other approach we took was to take the possibility of a classic battle and play it from the Axis’ angle as if they had won--like capturing Stalingrad from the Russians.”