New Player Information

What is the International Axis and Allies Players Association?

The International Axis and Allies Players Association (IAAPA) was originally the Axis and Allies Club on America-On-Line but as the accessibility of the internet increased, membership from other online services began to increase and today internet users make up nearly half of the membership. The current membership of the association is over 1000 members whose talent level ranges from people just learning the game to some of the best players in the world!!!!

The Association Government performs many administrative duties including setting up games and assigning gamemasters (GMs), running several annual and invitational tournaments, publishing two distinct Association periodicals, maintaining seasonal and lifetime rankings, and arbitrating on player disputes. Some of the programmers in our Association have created shareware utilities that aid in the play of Axis and Allies via email including a virtual board utility which allows you to keep track of as many games as you have disk space and odds calculators which assist in determining your chance of success in any given battle or series of battles. Finally, our web site has its own dice server to allow members to play gmless games of Axis and Allies, in addition to dynamic online queryable statistics on our database of over 5000 games.

Who can be a part of the Association?

Anyone who has access to internet e-mail and the World Wide Web is welcome to join and become a part of our Association.

Does it cost anything to join?

Just whatever it costs you to send e-mail to your opponent and the GM of your game, other than that membership in the Association is free! However, anyway you can help the Association is always appreciated (be it time, telling your friends about us, or anything).

What sort of house rules does the Association use?

The Association tries to stay close to the original rules, a few changes have been made to try to balance the game, but nothing significant. The official changes to the game are as follows:

• Bidding - Both players submit a bid of of units or IPCs when they issue a game challenge or accept a challenge and the IAAPA server determines who enters the lowest bid, and lets both players know which one gets to play as the Axis, starting with the units / IPC that they have bidded.
• Unlimited groups - The rules state that you may only have as many "groups" of units on the board as you have plastic playing pieces, limiting the number of ICs, AAs, and so forth that you can build. Our Association allows you to build as many as you like, regardless of how many plastic pieces you have.

A complete set of the Association Rules can be found on our FAQ/Rules Page.

How fast do you play?

Players usually submit turns every day or so, though there are players who can play multiple turns in a day and those who prefer a slower pace. As a rule of thumb, two turns per day is the normal speed for PBEM games with a GM, and one turn per day for GMless PBEM games. Play is also done live in the IAAPA WarZone and the Wargamers HQ on AOL. Tournament play is under a strict schedule, though, be sure to check the tournament time rules before signing up for entry.

In GMless games, the play is entirely dependant on the speed of you and your opponent, and typically is faster since a third individual is not involved.

How do you write turns and abbreviate territories and sea zones?

The IAAPA has compiled a list of official abbreviations for every territory and sea zone on the Axis and Allies board. We encourage all players to use them to prevent problems that come with multiple sets of abbreviations. However, if both players agree to use a non-standard set of abbreviations, that is fine however in case of a dispute, if one player uses the standard abbreviations, that player's moves will be validated. In the downloads page of the site, there are sample turns (in text format) which you can download and graphics which show every sea zone and territory on the board map with the most commonly used abbreviations over them.

How do I find new players to play against?

Your first game will be set up for you against another rookie in the Association, after that you can enter a tournament that will give you an opponent until you win or are eliminated, or you can check the player pool for opponents hungry for a game. After your first game you are also welcome to enter your name into the player pool. This pool is avaliable on the website 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so any Association member can search for and challenge opponents whenever the desire strikes them. This ensures that you will always be able to find other people eager to play Axis and Allies.

The online player pool will soon allow you to list that you are interested in playing a game of a specific type (gmless for example) with players of a certain type (officers only for example) at a given speed.

How does the Association stand on certain rules ambiguities?

As you may have noticed, the Milton Bradley rules do not cover all the situations that arise while playing the game (even with the rules clarifications). New players should check out the Association rules on the website and if you are not familiar with them download the rules clarifications from the downloads section.

What sort of tournaments are played in the Association?

Currently there are several tournaments run by or involving the Association. There are the Spring and Fall Classic Single Elimination Tournaments (SETs), the Opens (4 per year) and Online tourneys. In addition there is at least one face-to-face tournament per year organized by the IAAPA. For more information on Tournaments, check out the Tourney's page.

How do I join the Association?

Click here!!!

Questions? Email our Minister of Recruiting: recruiting@axisandallies.net