Twilight Struggle Replay:

Tom Kassel(USSR) vs. Jay Meyers(USA)

Twilight Struggle is an award-winning game about the Cold War. It is popular with both the traditional wargaming crowd and the "euro" gamers (judging by the awards it has won). A face to face match of TS can be completed in about three hours but with only one or two emails per day, it took us 2.5 months to complete.

The numbers in [brackets] are US and then USSR influence for a given country. A number followed by a "c" indicates that side has control of the country. For example, West Germany[4c.0] means there is 4 US influence, 0 USSR influence and the US has control. When influence is placed, the country and number of influence is listed. For example, USSR3 means 3 USSR influence. Commentary is in shaded text and is from a US perspective.

Set-up

Turn 1

Deal 8 cards to each player. DEFCON to 5.

Military OPS

DEFCON=2, US Milops=2, USSR Milops=5, +0VP[+2]

Board Position(-2):
Europe 0
Asia -2
Middle East 0
Africa 0
Central America0
South America 0
*Scorind card in discard pile

Tom's coup of Iran was a great move. He followed it up with a bold move to take South Korea with the China card but as CIA revealed, this too was part of an overall plan (specifically, by playing Formosan Resolution before I could play the China card, I was forced to choose between playing the China card or keeping Formosa as a BG). Despite being set-up for domination in Europe, my position in Asia is very tenuous as it will be difficult to get back into western Asia without Iran. Europe however, will somewhat offset my set-backs in Asia. Seeing that Tom had Socialist Governments scared me into adding two influence into Italy that I would have liked to spend elsewhere.

Turn 2

DEFCON to 3. Deal 8 cards to the US, 6 to USSR

TS1 2MiddleEast
Turn 2, Headline: Middle East Scoring

TS1 2Asia
Turn 2, Action Round 4: Asia Scoring

TS1 2Europe
Turn 2, Action Round 5: Europe Scoring

Military OPS

DEFCON=2, US Milops=0, USSR Milops=2, -2VP[+5]

Board Position(-10):
Europe* +5
Asia* -6
Middle East* -1
Africa 0
Central America-2
South America -6
*Scorind card in discard pile

Drawing three scoring cards is never a joy as it means possibly three rounds of not placing influence. I generally prefer that my opponent draws the scoring cards so I can play influence. When faced with multiple scoring cards, I try to drop one in the HL if it seems safe that my opponent's possibly HL event will not change Domination status in the scoring region. The early Soviet penetration of West Germany prompted me to take France before Tom did. With all these scoring cards, I needed lots of OPS and so I played the China card. Without either of the Koreas and little hope of getting into Pakistan/India, I determined that Taiwan was not useful as a Battle Ground. My plan is maintain domination in Europe to offset Soviet domination in Asia. Playing the China card also allowed me to hold De Gaulle and Fidel--De Gaulle because I didn't have an Action round to waste playing him and Fidel so I could bury him in the discard pile next turn. Tom's experience with the game shows with his coup of Panama. Getting into and controlling the Americas is a key to victory and he gets a jump on them. All in all though, I'm satisfied with the score after dealing with three scoring cards.

Turn 3

DEFCON to 3. Deal 6 cards to the US, 7 cards to USSR

TS1 3MiddleEast
Turn 3, Action Round 2: Middle East Scoring

Military OPS

DEFCON=2, US MilOps=2, USSR MilOps=0, +2VP[+3]

Board Position(-16):
Europe +5
Asia -7
Middle East* -5
Africa 0
Central America-2
South America -7
*Scorind card in discard pile

This is not a good turn for me due mainly to Red Scare. I spent much of the turn playing catch-up, attempting to get rid of De Gaulle painlessly and watching the Reds advance in South America. I wasn't able to dump Fidel as planned as well. Finally, I invested in Algeria which proved to be a mistake as you will see next turn. My intention was to take control of Algeria and South Africa (the two most stable countries in Africa) and to get Algeria before De Gaulle gave the Soviets the opportunity to expand into Africa.