Overview
Advanced Flames and Steel is a game of high strategy. There are three areas of general focus, each of which are deeply intertwined with the other two.
Your research and economic development effort. Each nation receives a certain number of economic units (EUs) each turn. EUs cannot be used to purchase military units. Instead they can be spent on building or upgrading rail networks, building or improving minor production centers, upgrading your industrial cities, and researching new technologies. Upgrading your rail networks allows you to get new units to the front more quickly. Minor production centers give you a modest economic boost, and allow you to build new units in some of the more remote territories under your control. Upgrading your industrial cities increases the number of production units (PUs) you receive each turn, thereby allowing you to build more military units. Researching new technologies allows you to upgrade specific unit types, to produce new unit types, and may allow you to reduce per-unit production costs.
Military purchases. Military units are purchased with Production Units (PUs). Each unit type generally has a specialty. Tanks are good at soaking up punishment, while artillery is intended to deliver it. Tanks and dive bombers are ideal for punishing retreating enemy forces. Destroyers and cruisers are well-suited for anti-sub war, and for providing your fleet with some degree of anti-air protection. Battleships are useless against submarines, but excel at destroying surface ships. Torpedo bombers are optimized for naval war, and are better-suited to anti-sub war than are other aircraft. Dive bombers are specialized for destroying land targets such as tanks and infantry, but also do well in naval combat. Fighters are best for shooting down enemy aircraft; though dive bombers and torpedo bombers are respectable in that role as well. Strategic bombers are intended to destroy your enemies' rail networks, minor production centers, and to damage or even destroy his industrial cities. This kind of attack can be devastating, and a strong fighter force is necessary to defend against it.
Unit movement and combat. This is the stage when you must decide how to put your military to use. Do you want to use your planes to attack someone else's air force on the ground? Doing so might help you defend against a strategic bombing effort. But perhaps you require those planes in a naval battle, or maybe you need them to help you gain more land. You always have the option of landing your fighters in or near your core cities and waiting for the enemy strategic bombers to come to you.
Conquering land territory will allow you to increase your own income while reducing that of an opponent. Maintaining control over oceans is important as well. Some territories require you to have a transport next to them in order to collect income. This means you can use a strong surface fleet or sub force to deny an opponent a portion of the income he would otherwise have received.
In making the above kinds of choices, you will have to weigh the unique advantages, disadvantages, and technological opportunities associated with your nations, as well as those associated with your enemies. By paying close attention to the technologies your enemies choose to research, you may be able to infer the long-range strategy they have chosen to pursue. Adjust your own strategy accordingly.
