Twilight Struggle, game recap and thoughts

[GJK]

Twilight Struggle, the #1 ranked boardgame on the Geek for a good while now.  What is all of the hype about and how does it play?  I'll explore that a little bit here based on intelligence gathered from my first playing yesterday.

Background: Twilight Struggle (TS) is a low-medium complexity game that covers the cold war era in history (post WW2 - late 80's).  This is a two player game (only, unless solitaire) with one player playing as the Soviet Union and the other as the United States. It is a Card Driven Game (CDG) meaning that most of the players actions in the game are driven by the hand of cards that they are dealt.  This game has a line of "sister" games covering various other topics from the 1960 US Presidential election to modern day "War on Terror™" to the fall of Communism and so on.  Because the cards are all tied to actual historic events, the history theme is rich in this game yet a for lest of opening up old wounds, one can argue its value as a true "wargame". 

Game Objective: To either acquire more victory points by games end or acquire 20+ vp's during the game by "conquest" of territory (countries).  Conquest is defined as having your political ideology (either Capitalist or Communist) spread throughout the world by the presence of "Influence Points" (IP's) that are gained or lost by play of cards as either events or for the Operational Points value (OP's).  Each country has a stability number that is a rating of how easy or difficult it is to gain control over that country by placement of your IP's.  That can be countered by having your opponent place IP's of his own in the same country.  The game breaks down the Cold War period in to three unique partitions; "early", "mid" and "late" war.  A ten turn game reaches those stages of the war as the turn advances, with Mid-war beginning at turn 4 for example.  The game can also end immediately if the DEFCON level is reduced to "1".  The game starts at DEFCON 5 and will go back and forth from 2-5 throughout the game.  DEFCON is reduced by either card play (events will dictate a change +/- to the DEFCON) or by conducting military "Coup's" in "Battleground" countries.  A Coup in game turns is the attempt to convert your opponents IP's from a positive value to a non-value while possibly adding to your number of IP's in the country.  A "Battleground" country are spread throughout the global map and is indicative of countries that have substantial influence in a reqion for whatever particular reason.  Coups may be attempted in non-battleground countries with no risk of reducing the DEFCON level. Another way to adjust the IP's in a country is by use of the "Alignment Roll".  This is a "safe" way to attempt to adjust the IP's in a country to your favor without reducing the DEFCON but since the results are based on die rolls (plus some modifiers), it can either go very well or very bad for you so it's a risky manuever.  Should the DEFCON be reduced to 1 while you are the phasing player (during your AR), YOU lose the game.  So you must be careful when the DEFCON is at 2. 

Game Play:  The rules for play are (for me) quite simple to learn and will be so for any "wargamer".  Non-gamer's (beyond Uno or Risk) may have some difficulties comprehending some of the games' mechanics but realistically, this game is well within reach of just about anybody.  Again, the heart of the game is the cards.  A hand is dealt (8 cards at start that increases as the "war" goes on) as a new turn begins.  Each turn is sub-divided in to a number of "Action Rounds" (AR's) which also increase as the game goes on.  The turn begins by having each player choosing a card that will become their leading "Headline" for the turn.  The event on the card will be played (in order of which card is worth more OP's) and thus each player will want to choose a headline that is favorable to them.  The cards themselves indicate which faction it favors based on either a red or white star or in the case of same, is favorable to both as indicated by a half-white, half-red star:


The map with some "Mid-war" IP's in place:



As mentioned, during the AR, a card in your hand is played either for its Operational Point value (1-4) or for the event contained on it.  A neat twist on this CDG is that if you play the card for the OPs but the event favors your opponent, the event will trigger after you've played your OPs.  So a huge part of this game is hand management.  Playing the cards in good order and optimizing on favorable events while trying to suck it up when a bad event is forced upon you.  One way to dodge the event on the card (temporarily) is to dump the card on the "Space Race" track.  If the card has the necessary number of OPs to meet the requirements of the next box on the Space Race track, you can try (with a die roll) to advance your technology that historically follows mans advancements towards a lunar landing.  Gaining ground on the Space Race track affords you some small benefits in the game as well.  However, a card dumped on the Space Race track will be placed in to the "discard" pile and so once reshuffled, it is very likely that the event will come in to play again at some point, and it could be at a time when you really don't want it to.  Again, all about risk management.  Certain events on the cards are indicated with an asterisk (*) and thus once that event is played, the card is removed from the game so history won't necessarily always repeat itself in this game.

More "in game" shots:





(JD will note the nicely clipped and rounded counter corners   ;D )

That is a very brief overview of how the game plays.  It plays quickly and once the players are comfortable with the games mechanics (quickly), a full game can last from about 2 to 4 hours (if played through turn 10).

Conclusions: I think that this game is a good ambassador for boardgaming as a whole.  It is easy enough to learn and light enough with the game mechanics that everyone in the family can get in on the action.  It has a wargame "theme" to it, so historical gamers won't mind playing this as opposed to say some silly game about growing corn and raising sheep.  If you lived during the Cold War period (who didn't?), then the history rich cards will spring a number of "oh yeah, I remember when that happened" type of moments.  For the younger (young) player, some history can be taught and learned while in a fun "game" atmosphere.  This would be a game to get your wife or girlfriend (guy friend?) to join you with. 

How did my first game go?: It was very enjoyable.  Maybe two quick glances at the rules just to make sure that we had the mechanics down properly at the beginning, otherwise the player aid card was sufficient.  In our game, I played as the Soviet Union while my 14yr old son played as the Capitalist Pigs, er, the United States.  Caveat to the game: the US has a rough go of it during the "Early War" stages and this came out during our play.  By turn 3, I had accumulated the 20 VP's needed for an immediate victory but we opted to cut a couple of VP's from my total for the sake of letting it play out.  We were well in to the Mid-War period and I had built up substantial influence in all areas of the world including Central and South America.  My point total was hovering around 20 again.  Through play however, the DEFCON had lowered to 2 and either fatigue or complete idiocy overtook me as I played a card that basically gave me IP's in key areas should I have influence in neighboring countries but failure would result not only in the loss of opportunity to gain IP's but a the opponents choice to either RAISE or LOWER the DEFCON level.  I flubbed the roll and my son opted to degrade us to total thermonuclear war and since I was the phasing player, I would of lost the game at that point.  Lesson learned; carefully read what the events are and what their possible outcomes may be.

Did my son enjoy the game?:  His background - he enjoys wargames; he's boldly ventured in to some ASL, Up Front, Civil War Brigade Series and other "hardcore" wargames.  His preference is either ancients up to black powder era games or ultra-modern tactical games.  Tactical games is his fortee; RPG's that have hit tables showing where a bullet penetrated an armor vest and did damage to vital organs just gets his blood rushing.  Twilight Struggle?  Not so much.  He didn't care so much for the political aspect of the game.  He loved the "Space Race" track (he envisioned Kerbal on the game board I think) and became more interested in getting his chimp in to space than gaining influence in Easter Europe I think.  He also became obsessed with bringing us to the brink of war by lowering the DEFCON level at every opportunity; either because he liked the idea of imagining nukes flying around or he's a sadist or (most likely) he was ready for the game to end.  I take that back - for most of the game, I would ask if he was "ok" playing it and he would give the affirmative and say "we can keep going".  That is rare for him at times as we've ended games prematurely a number of times because he's hit his boredom limit.  So, there was some interest there for him. Will he ever play again?  He said he would and I think that it will be one that we get back on the table on a number of occassions.

Should you get a copy of the game?: Hell yeah, especially if the topic interests you in the least and you have been looking for that gateway "drug" to get your wife or girlfriend to join you at the game table for something other than Carcassone, this could be the game to do that with.  I'd be willing to play this either online (via VASSAL) or face to face any time.

[Nefaro]

Thanks for the type-up.  I still want to get this sometime.

I recently grabbed Labyrinth, the somewhat similar one based on the GWoT but haven't delved into it yet.  That one caught my eye because it also has specific solitaire rules in addition to the 2-player side.  I'd still prefer a Cold War setting over most others, however.

I also noticed that another company has a large point-to-point map covering the late Republic period that is scheduled for a reprint soon.  I believe it covers the reign of Sulla with Sertorius and Mithridates being the other two major factions.  I don't recall the name of it at the moment, but it seemed to have a fair bit of political card-driven play, along with armies.  Sounded interesting, and it must not have been too bad if it's getting reprinted.  Know anything further?

[GJK]

I have Laby as well and that might be my next venture.  FWIU, the learning curve between the two is quite wide; TS being on the easy side while Laby can be a bit complex.  It goes back and forth about who prefers which game; I think generally TS is the "go to" game but the Laby fans are quite vocal about how the game just unwinds from its mysterious settings in to a setting of complete chaos that is hard to get a handle on.  Sounds interesting to me and I've also heard it's one of those games that can get your BP up.

I know of 1989 that uses this specific style of CDG play as well as 1960: Making of the President (which I also enjoy) that Jason Matthews worked on.  Volko Runke did Laby and he also has the COIN series of games that GMT has produced that are getting really good reviews:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/18749/gmt-coin-series

He also created Wilderness War (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1822/wilderness-war) which takes heavily from For the People, We the People, Paths of Glory, et al.  I do have For the People and have begun to read those rules.  I'd like to get that one on the table soon.

[Ubercat]

Free Territory of Trieste?? Where did you get that card? I have the deluxe edition of TS and never saw that one before. It isn't in the Vassal mod for the game either.

[GJK]

Good eye. I think that its a "house ruled expansion card". I just needed an example of the card layout and that was the first one that came up on the geek.  Didn't figure that somebody would actually verify that it isn't in  the official game release!

[Arctic Blast]

Such a good game! A couple of friends and I play this whenever we can (which isn't often, sadly). We also put Hannibal : Rome vs. Carthage on the table a couple of weeks back. Went well, but there seem to be a lot more fiddly little rules with that game.

More fun Twilight Struggle fun facts : the other designer with J. Matthews was Ananda Gupta. He now works at Firaxis, and was the lead for the XCom : Enemy Within expansion.

[Rekim]

TS is a fun game. I'd love to play it more often but the only two people in my gaming circle who play are both extremely good at it. I wish the computer version would come out already.

[GJK]

As posted by Rodger MacGowan on this the 50th anniversary:

[undercovergeek]

whatever happened to the PC game?

[Barthheart]

whatever happened to the PC game?

Still in the works.....

[GJK]

I don't have the source but I read somewhere (BGG perhaps?) that the developer/coder is out of the loop on the project now (left the country?  Don't recall exactly).  It made it seem that the project was on a permanent hold.  I'll have to find that post.

"TS for the PC was supposed to be released during 2012, but the developer went to Europe to finish his masters degree instead of finishing the project. There is no word that it will be completed in 2013. My guess is 2014 at the earliest. Good luck seeing the game developed for the IPad/IPhone."

Source: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1055647/is-there-any-news-on-ts-for-ipadiphone

I can't vouch for the accuracy of that however.

[undercovergeek]

I don't have the source but I read somewhere (BGG perhaps?) that the developer/coder is out of the loop on the project now (left the country?  Don't recall exactly).  It made it seem that the project was on a permanent hold.  I'll have to find that post.

whaaaaa??? booooooooooooooooo