The Axis is a playable faction in World War II, a scenario in Civilization II. Although it is unquestionably led by Germany and its head-of-state Adolf Hitler, the Axis is a multinational entity, also consisting of Italy, Romania, Finland, and Hungary. They are under the government type Republic.
Biography[]
Color: Deep blue
- Starting cities
- Bergen [3] - Norway
- Helsinki [4] - Finland
- Oslo [5] - Norway
- Kiel [12] - Germany
- Konigsberg [8] with Copernicus' Observatory - Germany
- Berlin [20] (capital) - Germany
- Warsaw [10] - Poland
- Cologne [16] - Germany
- Dresden [15] - Germany
- Kraków [8] - Poland
- Frankfurt [12] - Germany
- Prague [12] - Czechoslovakia
- Munich [14] - Germany
- Vienna [12] with J. S. Bach's Cathedral - Austria
- Budapest [8] - Hungary
- Venice [9] with Marco Polo's Embassy - Italy
- Milan [10] with Leonardo's Workshop - Italy
- Bucharest [12] - Romania
- Rome [12] with Michelangelo's Chapel - Italy
- Taranto [6] - Italy
- Starting cities in colonies/mandates
- Tripoli [7]
- Tobruk [5]
Axis Strategy[]
The Axis is far and away the easiest civilization to play as in Civilization II's World War II scenario. As Chancellor Adolf Hitler, you begin the scenario in June 1940. After spending years preparing your growing Wehrmacht for war, you have conquered your hated foe, Poland, and defeated the meddling British as they tried to stop your forces from overrunning Norway. After spending nearly all of the 1930s standing by and doing nothing as you rose to power in Germany and annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia, the British and French have at last declared war over the invasion of Poland. They have finally decided to act, but their military forces are not ready. Yours are.
The Neutrals and French are poorly-armed, weak-willed, and guaranteed to surrender quickly. The Allies, led by Winston Churchill, are a different matter entirely. Going by special rules for the World War II scenario, they will go on to the end, they shall not flag or fail, they will defend their island, whatever the cost may be. They will never surrender or negotiate, save for the occasional contact where they will open dialogue and inform you they will never surrender or negotiate. The Allies include both Britain and the United States, which has two massive cities (New York and Washington) on the far side of the Atlantic. So the only bad news for the Axis at the start is, somehow, the Americans decided to show up for the war on time. But even there, good news awaits: the Atlantic Ocean is filled with Axis U-boats, and the Allied AI is never going to do better than sending piecemeal handfuls of ships out in an attempt to get to Britain. So many boats are waiting for them that without the tough-as-nails convoy system the Allies devised, no aid whatsoever is ever getting across the Atlantic to aid embattled Britain.
You start the scenario with your side absolutely winning the war, with most of mainland Europe already under your control. All you have to do is not lose.
Battle of France[]
After seizing Amsterdam from the Neutrals, gather your forces and smash through the French lines. Make sure to watch the coast, and destroy the Allied forces that are present between Amsterdam and Paris (this is the British Expeditionary Force IRL) before they can get organized. Seize Cherbourg and St. Nazaire on the coast, as these will give your naval units easy access to safe ports for repairs, as well as allow you to build new ones. The French will keep trying to give up, so just kick them around until you have those coastal cities and Paris in hand. At that point, let the French quit. They will not likely join you in a formal alliance, due to the awful reputation the Axis start the scenario with, but they won't try to come back and attack you, either.
Move all the Engineers in that you can and start getting fortifications, railroad lines, and airbases built. You will need the forts to place units behind on the coast so that any Allied landings by sea can make no significant headway against those well-protected forces. The railroad lines will speed your forces' arrival as you gather land units for the invasion of Britain. The airbases will help you house Fighters and Bombers for the...
Battle of Britain[]
The Allies may have had no chance of stopping you from taking Holland and France, but they can sure as heck do something about you taking Britain. Shielded from land invasion by the English Channel, the British have a set of large, well-developed cities that cannot be incited to revolt (due to the Allies using Democracy). The best route to subdue Britain is to look up Operation Sea Lion and then actually do it. Gather Fighter and Bomber units, organize the former to protect all cities that Allied aircraft can reach, and to be ready for occasional quick raids across the Channel. You will need as many Bombers as you can get. Britain's cities must be bombed heavily to destroy the numerous units there, including multiple Fighter units. You will also have to bomb the Infantry dug in behind forts, as those will complicate the amphibious invasion you must launch if they are manned. Keep the Bombers going back and forth, and hit every city regularly so that the Allies cannot have any significant garrison ready to oppose you when your forces land.
As soon as possible, gather Transport ships at the cities you have along the Channel (mainly Cherbourg and Amsterdam) and load them up with Tanks, Infantry or Marines, and Artillery or Howitzers. Use your warships to protect the Transports, but your air force is what you really need. Only after you have won control of Britain's skies should you send your Transports toward the English coast. When you do, get your forces ashore fast. Move in and take London first (it is an Objective x4), then go after the rest of the cities. If you have kept the British cities suppressed by heavy bombing beforehand, your army should be able to conquer Britain relatively unopposed. When you capture London, the Allied government will escape no matter how many units surround it, and will eventually flee Britain entirely. Once you have captured all of Britain's cities, you will have successfully done what the real-life Axis never did and conquered Britain. At this point, the Allies will be largely broken, financially and militarily. The two American cities will remain defiant, as will the Allied cities in the Middle East and North Africa, but nothing else will be left. After taking Britain, the Axis have effectively won World War II.
Mediterranean Front[]
Mussolini's attempt at a renewed Italian empire, plus the beginnings of the Afrika Korps, have brought a sizeable portion of North Africa under Axis control by the start of the game. Alexandria, Suez, and Jerusalem must be taken from the Allies, along with Greece. Gather enough Tank units and supporting Howitzers and the first three cities should be relatively easy to take. Athens is accessible only through a narrow strip of land with lots of hills on the southern end of the Balkans, but with a Transport or two landing forces, it can be taken as well.
The Allies hold a few cities in the Middle East besides Jerusalem, one of which is Baghdad. These are not Objective cities, but seizing them will mean not only additional plundered Gold, but access to the numerous squares of Oil available in the region. The real-life Axis powers very much wanted to capture the Middle East and have access to all that oil, but they never won the war in Africa and never took control of the Mediterranean Sea, which had to happen first.
Watch out for Allied warships in the Mediterranean, one of which is a Battleship. Spare no effort to isolate them from any possible home port, deny them any chance to get out into the Atlantic, and destroy them. Once the Mediterranean front is secured, the Allies are broken again, essentially for the final time. With just two cities left - Washington and New York - the Allies are finished and basically removed from the game.
Operation Barbarossa[]
If you want to be historically accurate, the invasion of the Soviet Union must commence in June 1941, one year (a total of 7 turns) into the scenario, including the June 1940 start date. This is a massive undertaking. In real-life Barbarossa, the German plan was wildly successful... at first. For all their meticulous planning, the Germans (A) Badly underestimated just how HUGE the USSR was, and (B) Failed to account for the fact that it gets mighty cold in Russia around the wintertime. Also, the sheer size of the Soviet military baffled the Germans, because they destroyed what intelligence reported was the entire Soviet Air Force within the first month of the invasion - much of it on the first day. Yet Soviet planes kept turning up, and entire Red Army divisions would appear that the Germans didn't know existed.
Given that the Western front, on mainland Europe anyway, will fall swiftly, you can potentially begin gathering land and air forces for opening the second major front of the war, right at the start of the game in June 1940. The Soviet AI is not going to break the pact between them and the Axis powers, so the time and place of the first blow is entirely up to you. Assemble as many land units as you can, especially Tanks and Howitzers. Paratroopers can be used to hasten your advance, but they are lightly armed and armored and are best restricted to capturing cities with no defending garrison left. You will need a sizeable air force dedicated to the Eastern Front, both to destroy enemy aircraft and to bomb every last city and source of resistance. The good news is that, unlike in real life, Stalin will offer Hitler many a cease-fire after the fighting starts, so if your forces get bogged down or do not have the numbers/strength to advance, you can take a cease-fire and resume when you are ready.
The USSR's greatest threat is the mind-boggling size of its territory and the number of units it has. Partisans can quickly fill an area as the Blitzkrieg speeds the Axis war machine East, so you will have to devote considerable effort to destroying them. Bring in Engineers, because roads, or even better, railroads will allow new units to move East toward the front much, much faster. The Russian winter plays no role in this scenario, so your forces may attack and maneuver freely at any time. Your priority should be to seize Moscow first, then Leningrad and Stalingrad. Target any Objective city and plan for how you will take each one. The Soviet Union is the only possible threat to Axis power besides the Allies; it sure won't be the Neutrals, Spanish, Turks or French coming to take you down. Getting rid of them is the best choice, not to mention the one most in line with historical Axis aims.
Destroy the USSR step by step. Cut them off from their most valuable cities and resources, obliterate all major sources of resistance, and keep telling Stalin no as he repeatedly tries to sue for peace (for some reason). Completely destroying the Soviet civilization will demand that you run down every little Russian village out there, so it may not even be worth the trouble once you have broken the back of the USSR and conquered all the major cities and territories. Regardless, if you can at least conquer mainland Europe and bring down the USSR, you will unquestionably rule over the majority of Europe into 1947. Invade and conquer Britain AND the USSR, on the other hand, and you will have done what the real-life Axis never could: won a war on two fronts.
America[]
There was very little chance that the Axis powers could have ever conquered any part of North America, especially not in this scenario's span of June 1940-June 1947. New York and Washington are massive, well-developed, well-defended cities. An invasion of the United States would be difficult, but not impossible if Britain has already been conquered. Gather naval, air, and land forces as you did for the invasion of Britain. Ensure you have full control of the Atlantic. Northeast of New York are some isolated and unsettled islands, three of which have airbases that start the game showing Allied orange. Send Fighters and Bombers there, especially to the one closest to New York. From that closest airbase, it is only 6-7 squares' distance to New York, and bombing the city regularly is possible provided you deny any attempt by the Allies to counterattack by sea or air.
Suppress the two Allied cities as much as possible with Bombers, destroy any ships they send out, and if you can, land Spies to try sabotage of New York and Washington. Destroy vital strategic targets first, such as a Coastal Fortress or City Walls, but anything will do. Every single improvement New York and Washington lose will weaken them. Once you have gathered a sizeable force of air, sea, and land units, send them in. You will most likely succeed by that point and conquer even the last remaining Allied cities, destroying the Allies as a civilization and as a source of continued resistance to the Axis powers.