Twilight Struggle - Barthheart vs JasonPratt - no Jason

[Barthheart]

Here begins the Struggle of Newbies. This should be both entertaining and frustrating for people who actually know how to play the game well.... we don't.  O0

I'm taking the reins of power for the US of A and all the is right in the world while Jason plays as the dirty Commies.

Everyone should get in their bomb shelters now to avoid the rush.... 

[Barthheart]

So first thing we do is to place initial influence points, Commies in Eastern Europe, US in Western Europe.

So I rushed out and played 4 to West Germany, 2 to Italy, and 1 to Austria to counter Jason's odd move of 3 there.  ???
What I should have done is read through my damn cards first.  If I had I would have seen the Marshal Plan card which I could have used in the Headline Phase, coming up next, to place a single influence point in 7 Western Europe countries not controlled by the Commies.
My initial placement would have been 3 W. Germany, and then 1 in each of Italy, Turkey, Greece and Spain.
Then with the headline event I would have placed 1 in W. Germany, Italy, Turkey, Greece and Spain giving me control of all of them and then 1 in Finland and 1 in Rumania just to tweak his nose.

But no, it seems even before the game really starts I've made a mistake....  :P

[Barthheart]

So now what do I do for the Headline Phase....

I have a few large OP value Commie cards and the Middle East Scoring cards.

I'll try something daring. The Blockade card is really nasty... against me! So If I play it as the HL then I can get rid of Warsaw Pact Formed card without triggering the event.
This will leave me some high OP cards to build up influence in the Middle East for scoring. Socialist Governments can be played in such a way as to be influence neutral. De Gaulle is not that big a deal and can be used as Ops or for coup attempt.

[Sir Slash]

OK. So far I'm with you. So I'll play my "Keep Watching" card.  ;D

[Barthheart]

Hope you enjoy the ride... it's gonna be bumpy... or glowy... 

Well the Headline phase didn't go too well with the Commies winning the Korean War in 1945... If I'd played the US/Jap Mutual Defence Pact card I'd have Japan controlled and it would have been a -1 to his war die roll. And since he rolled a 4, on a needed 4-6 on 1d6, the -1 would have meant he lost the war. 

The early war period is really tough for the US....

[Barthheart]

Action Round 1 (AR1) of turn 1. There are 6 Action Rounds in the first 3 turns. Russians always play first.

If you're not reading Jason's thread, and why are you not?, you'll see that he used the NATO card as operations points to place 2 influence in South Korea, gaining control, and 2 more in Japan. The US event, NATO, didn't trigger because Marshall Plan, or Warsaw Pact, needs to be played first. More fallout (get it!) from my botched headline phase.... This game really is unforgiving...

Anyway so in my play of AR1 I'll use Marshall Plan as for a strong Coup attempt. The number of Op points the card is worth is added to my die roll. If it's more than 2 times the Stability number of the target country then I get to remove some of the Commie influence. Higher the roll the better the outcome.



Here you can see I'm targeting East Germany. Europe is a very important area in the world for control. If I can get a scoring card played there while he has no Battleground countries I win the game right away! I don't have that scoring card but this move should put a scare into him and take the focus off Asia.... I hope.



And I manage to roll well. Commies lose 2 influence in East Germany. The coup gives me 4 Military Actions, equal to the Ops value of the card used, and the Defcon level drops to 4. This means I have all the Military Actions I need to cover this turn, MA = Defcon Level. If at the end of the turn you have less MA than the Defcon then you lose points equal to the difference.



Next turn I plan to use the 4 Ops points of the US/Jap Mutual Defence Pact to take control of Egypt, Lebanon, and Iran in the Middle East. Will set me up for scoring points the round after that... hopefully...

[Barthheart]

AR2 and the Commie Pinko played red Scare. That means that all my cards have their Ops value reduced by 1 for the rest of the turn. 

Now when I play Us/Jap Mutual Defence it's only worth 3 Ops.



And so now I can only take control of Egypt and Lebanon but can't play anything in Iraq.  >:(



Well, it will have to do... hopefully he doesn't play in the Mid East and I can get a pile of points there.....

[Barthheart]

Turn 1 AR3. Commies play for 3 Ops, put 2 influence in East Germany and 1 in Iran. So he didn't guess that I had the Middle East Scoring cards.... O0

Scooooooooooore!



I'm playing it now because I'm at -1 for Ops so can't add much more the area without the Reds being able to easily counter it and there's only 3 AR's left.

Next few plays for me should go as:
Indo-Pakistani War as event for 50% shot at 2 cheap points.
Dump Socialist Governments to Space Race.
De Gaulle for Ops to counter whatever he's been up to in the final AR's. Since I don't have any influence in France I won't lose anything and he on gets 1 there so not a big deal.

[Barthheart]

Turn 1 AR4. Ruskies back a coup in the Philippines, that works.  >:( I lose my 1 influence there but at least he doesn't gain any.

I waffle about on which card to play this round. With the Philippines influence gone I'm feeling a little naked in Asia... never a good thing... so I could play De Gaulle now for 2 Ops and place 2 influence in Pakistan. But if I do the space race now, before the Commies, I can get another 2 points and keep up the pressure....

I finally decide that everything is better in space!



Because I'm using this card for a Space Race roll, the Russian event won't fire. But it also means that it goes into the discard deck to come back at a latter time.

So I need a 1-3 on a 1d6 to get a satellite into space, and gain 2 VPs.



Woohoo! Yankees in spaaaaaaaace.  O0

[Barthheart]

Turn 1 AR5 - The Commies play the China Card for 4 Ops. 2 influence in Pakistan for control,  >:( , 2 in the Philippines for control, and 1 in Japan. This puts me in a serious hole in Asia. By clicking on this box I can see just how much of a hole...



If he has the Asia Scoring card I'm going to lose 7 points!  :o



Good thing I still have this card...



It gives me a 50-50 chance to switch my influence in Pakistan for his and give me 2 VPs.



But it seems my luck has run out.  :(



We've each got one more AR for this turn.. I only have one card to choose from, can't use the China Card until next turn.

[Barthheart]

Turn 1 AR6 - And of course the Commies play the Asia Scoring card costing me 7 VPs... so much for my lead.... 

For my last play this turn I chose to use the De Gaulle card as a coup attempt in Pakistan. On hind sight this was a mistake but not a big one. There are only 3 scoring cards in the early war - Middle East, played by me, Asia, played by Jason, and Europe. I had a brain fart and thought that the Europe card had already been played. Since a re-shuffle of the discard pile won't happen until the start of Turn 3, my mistake lead me to believe there would be no more scoring until Turn 3. I should have used the Ops from my last card as influence in Europe... specifically East Germany to cost him control. Oh well.



So I played it to coup Pakistan. Pretty good odds of some kind of good result...



Never tell me the odds....  :P



Complete bust. Crap!
So the turn ends. Neither of us lose points for not having enough Military actions.

[Barthheart]

New turn starts. We're still in the Early War period. Great atmosphere here as a small audio clip plays of Truman talking..



Turn 2 Headline Phase. This seems like a no brainer to me. None of may cards seem that great as a headline so I'll just cancel the Ruskie's HL.



Let's see what he tries to do.

[Barthheart]

Turn 2 AR1. Commies play a 3 Ops card on Space Race just to avoid my event... and fail!  :o  ??? This after I blocked his Nazi Scientists in the Headline for the Space race as well.

Oh well. My crack at things... which I rush and fail miserably....

I was looking at the Europe Scoring card and you can select it to see what the result would be if you hit execute.
It said we both had 5 VPs there so that makes no sense to play it yet.... then I hit Execute instead of Cancel  and totally waste the card....

I've done the same in solo games. I just rush and muscle memory takes over and I hit the button on the right side of the screen instead of the proper one on the left side....

I didn't even get a screen shot..... :'(

Let's see what fresh hell AR2 brings......

[Barthheart]

Turn 2 AR2, commies play De-Stalinization for 3 Ops points. 2 influence in France for control and 1 to Austria.

Not sure what to play here.... I've got a bunch of 1 Ops point cards and 2 3 Ops cards with good events for the US. Going to try and hold the China card, I think for this round.

So I guess I'll play this card for the event.... and hope for something really good for me...



Well... it is was for me but not that great for now... still it cost him an extra card, and 2 Ops, so he won't be holding any at the end of this turn.

[Barthheart]

Turn 2 AR 3:

Commies use Fidel cards for a 2 Ops Coup in Iran, and win by a landslide.  >:(

So what to do.... I still need military actions, I have none and the Defcon is at 3...

I'm going to play Arab-Israeli Wars for a 2 Ops Coup. Now Since it's his event it fires, but I'm going to do my coup first and it's going to be in Syria. If I win that will give me 3 countries next to Israel and make it impossible for him to win the war and keep him from getting 2 VPs. It will also give me 2 military actions while not lower the Defcon level. I'm hoping to play Duck and Cover next turn and scoop 3 VPs....



So I need a 5 or a 6 to pull this off.



WooHoo! Now his war is doomed to failure.