EPTFor those who share or want to improve on one of those interests I have only two words: Twilight Struggle. If you are unfamiliar with boardgames, there is a major ranking and review website called boardgamegeek. Amongst containing information and forums for all boardgames imaginable it has a ranking system, and for the last few years (I actually don't know when it started) the game I'm going to review, Twilight Struggle, has occupied the number 1 position nearly uncontested. But why?
Players: 2
Type: Strategy, Boardcontrol, Deckcontrol
Replayability: Massive
Required Time: 2-4 hours, depending on your skill and chill; if you are playing it online with rule enforcement, 1-2 hours.
Online Play (free): http://chantry-games.com/
Recommendations: Read the Rulebook thoroughly; if you can, play it with a friend in real life on a the real board and buy it if you find it. It's worth it! Or find someone to play online with that is patient and can give you tips and reminds you of rules. After a few games you should be ready to jump into all-out online play if you have noone else to play with.
Short description:
Twilight Struggle puts you in the position of the Soviet Union or the United States of America shortly after the Second World War. With all the regional and emperial powers being wiped out or collapsing, those two countries are the only remaining Superpowers, ready to split the world in two halfs that should last until... well, until YOU have won or lost the Cold War for your side!
As with many boardgames the options at first seem overwhelming and the rules complicated. But they actually aren't. If you are playing the game on a board it will sometimes be a bit complicated to keep all the markers updated, but in principle the game is rather easy:
You play on a map of the World containing most of the influential and contested countries of the Cold War Era. These countries are split into regions: Europe, Asia, Middle East, Africa, South America and Central America which you will try to control by holding certain key countries, called battleground states.
Besides the map, the other defining element of the game is the card deck. It contains historic events such as the founding of NATO, the Cuba Crisis or the appearance of Gorbachev. These cards are drawn and can alternatingly be played either for their unique effect or more frequently for their operation value, which lets you place influence around the globe to take control states and regions. And then certain cards grant you victory points, mostly connected to the control of the regions of the map. If you get 20 victory points ahead of your opponent you win. Or if you have more victory points at the end of round 10.
In short, you control the board by using your cards and scoring points to win the game.
![[image loading]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/02/aplusautomation/vendorimages/de77d199-db01-461f-869a-412dde9a26bf._CB328284121_.jpg)
So far so good, let's get into the real stuff:
I told you the game is more complicated. The insane depth of the game comes from the amounts of options and the various, thoroughly thought-out elements in the game, that make the game amazingly close to real history while giving you the alternative-history options to unite Korea under Soviet domination or succesfully invade the Bay of Pigs.
![[image loading]](http://hitsomebody.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/tIiBKRl.jpg)
Let's start with actually playing cards. There are three types of cards: (S)oviet ones, (N)eutral ones and (U)SA ones. If you play a (S) or (N) card as soviet player you choose between the event or performing operations indicated by a certain value on the card. The same applies to the USA with (U) and (N) cards. If you play a card of the other side - which you will often have to - you can only play it for its operations, but the - for the other side benefitial event - will trigger as well! The game therefore often becomes a game of damage control. As a US player you may have to play Fidel Castro at some point that will give the Soviets control of Cuba, but you may conduct the operations optained from the card to try and throw them out of Cuba again immidiately. The game therefore offers an insanely fun dynamic of players trying to play around actual and possible future events, with the uncertainty of their actual appearance or at least their timing. While a US player might build on the eventual appearance of the Japan-USA defense pact to get control of Japan instead of using operations for it, a clever USSR player may hold such a card for multiple rounds without playing it and eventually getting rid of it while taking control of Asia himself with little resistance. Or he may trigger the card after the US has already invested into taking Japan without any repercussions.
This leads me to another topic, the deck. Multiple times during the game the deck is reshuffled with all the cards not played for their event as well as with further mid-war and late-war cards. Therefore, very often in this game you face the choice to either play a cards strong one-time effect and have it removed from the game, or use it for an often medicre amount of operations but keep its potency in the game and try to shift the probability for cards affiliated with your side into your favor, which might eventually cause your opponent to play your strong events anyways.
For example, while taking Egypt with the Nassr-card early as Soviet might be the more efficient option of the card, keeping it in the game might trigger the US-player to leave Egypt uncontested anyways and have Nassr be the sword of Damocles in the region that makes him overly cautious. Your choice!
Influence, Control, Couping and Nuclear War:
So far I haven't really gone into depths about playing cards for operations. The basic option is rather simple. A card has a value of 1 to 4 operations which you use for placing 1 to 4 influence into countries adjecant to countries in which you already have influence. Every country needs a certain amount of influence that you have to be up on your opponent to be considered under you control, which may range from 1 to 4 influence and describes the countries stability. This is by far the most used option to use operations.
The second alternative is very minor and is called realignment rolls. Without going into depths, they basically allow you to throw out your opponents influence based on rolling dice and controlling countries around the country you want to remove influence from. A rare occurance that requires some experience (and luck) to use efficiently.
Much more interesting is the third alternative: Couping. You choose a country your opponent has influence in, you roll a dice and modify the result a bit and then remove influence of your opponent and possibly add your own influence in that country. This is a great way to turn over countries with lower (1-2) stability and get boardpositions in regions that were formerly out of your grasp. Especially, it allows you to turn over the valueable battleground states necessary for scoring victory points. However, everytime you do this you put the world closer to the Edge of Nuclear War. Eventually the game will reach a status of high alert marked by the Defcon Counter falling to 2. Any further Coup attempt in a battleground state will then lead to a Nuclear War, resulting in the player who caused it to lose the game.
This doesn't sound all too difficult to avoid at first, since you just won't coup any battleground states anymore. But, sometimes playing your opponent's cards will grant them operation points in your turn that they can use to coup and start a nuclear war. In your turn, caused by your card, which falls back on you!
In some circumstances your opponent - especially the USA - may be in a position to force you into playing all of your cards in a turn (usually you can hold one over a turn). And if you are then forced to play the CIA card, only granting your opponent 1 measily operation, but just enough to coup one of your banana republics it will cost you the game even if you are ever so close to winning. Little tip: Get rid of those cards as soon as possible, either by playing them early when Defcon isn't at 2 yet, or somehow discarding them (you can shoot one card into space every turn). Did I say Deckcontrol is important?
There is way, way, way more I want to talk about. But I believe not only is it already overly technical and boring for anyone who hasn't played the game, but also I don't want to rip any potential player of the joy of figuring out all the smaller and bigger nouances of the game himself (or herself).
Let's get to one last topic that everybody who has read one of my posts here on TL should know I love:
Balance, Luck and Design
In general the game is considered fairly balanced. Most players would give the Soviet Side a superslight advantage which is usually offset by giving the USA one (or rarely two) extra influence at the start that they might place in any country they already have influence in. Which they will always place in Iran.
However, though the game is balanced the two sides play very unique. The Soviet Union - who will always play first in each turn - is the tempo faction. Their early war cards are great to get you ahead, they place first and can often score regions before the USA can react. And in particular, they can hold the World in a near Nuclear War state by couping Defcon down from 3 to 2 at the start of each turn (Defcon is raised by one at the end of each turn), allowing them to take control of key states but the USA not being able to coup back since that would actually cost them the game (Defcon falls to one). This makes the Soviet Union the faction that is much more likely to win early in the game and to win through getting 20 VPs up on their opponent.
On the flipside, the USA is the more reactive and control-based faction (seen as a tiny bit more difficult in your first games, since you can easily fall into the trap of actually trying to compete with the Soviets too hard in the early-war turns). Many of their strong or effect-equivalent cards only start appearing in the mid- and latewar stages. The US strenght is that they place last in each turn, which allows them to create tricky situations for the Soviet player that he can often only resovlve by forgoing his critical Defcon 3-->2 coup, allowing the US player to actually coup a critical Soviet State. Or they can simply react accordingly to everything and anything the Soviet player does which might get them tiny advantages here and there and everywhere in the longrun.
The main way to win the game as a US player is to get to the game to turn 10 without falling behind too much and winning by the final scoring of each region that is usually opportune for them. Alternatively, the USA has a bigger chance to create a Defcon-trap that will force the Soviets into escalation and losing the game.
However, in either case it is possible to win the game with any wincondition for each side. Except for taking control of all battlegrounds in Europe (which is a side-wincondition), which I have never seen happen. (though having to protect your last battleground state in Europe might be the turning factor...)
I have now long and broad told you why I love this game and how it works. There are a few points of critique I want to mention, mainly based on luck-elements in the game.
First off, the couping and realigning of countries through dice is just a tiny bit too luckbased for my taste. Sometimes as a Soviet player relying on couping countries will grant you with no success at all, making you waste cards and turns for nothing. And sometimes after a few overly successful coups early the game can become a landslide if the opponent doesn't get some luck-elements going for himself.
The second luck-element is card draw. In general the deck-system works out marvellously, even if you don't really see that at first. You may end up with a hand full of Soviet Cards as US player and curse your bad luck - however, that situation makes it very likely that your opponent has the same problem, sitting there with an all US hand to get rid off! Or vis verca, a strong US hand often also means a strong Soviet hand (unless one side has severely skewed the probability for cards through deckcontrol
)But, there are a few very random elements nevertheless. For one, drawing some strong cards, in particular Neutral ones may give you big advantages when the drawing of Soviet and US cards is rather balanced otherwise.
And then there are some particular cards I kind of despise:
Red Scare/Red Purge: This card reduces your opponent's cards operation value by 1, so in sum up to 7 in a turn. Just numberwise, in a game where the cards rank from value 1 to 4 a card that gives you an up to 7 advantage is very strong. But behold, this neutral card returns to the deck. If one player happens to draw and play this card twice the advantage in operations becomes nearly insurmountable, unless the stars align for the other player.
Wargames: The effect of this card is simple. You give your opponent 6 VPs and the game ends immidiately with the guy winning who has more VPs then. I believe this card destroys a bit of the value of the boardcontrol element. With only a 7 VP advantage necessary to win through a lucky draw of this neutral card in the lategame you often feel robbed. For newer players I would recommend to simply remove that card from the Deck, you will have more fun without it! More experienced players will often be able to play around it and keep the VP difference close, but even then it feels kind of cheap.
Bear Trap/Quagmire: These cards force your opponent to discard a card instead of playing it during his turn. And then based on a roll this effect may reoccur the turn after. And again. And again. And... Though the chance is rather low (only 33%), if you roll badly once or twice your take a massive blow. 3 or 4 times and you lose. The chance is low, but then again, if it happens its just crappy. Really, when playing with a friend I would handle the card so that the roll occurs once but then after the second discard the effect has finished.
