They are intended to be used alongside the “optional” cards from the base set. Honestly I don’t see any reason to ever leave the “optional” cards unless you originally learned the game without them back in the old days and just want to stay with what you know.
Meanwhile, you guys may enjoy the “expert play through” series I’m starting on YouTube. :)
Brian
Borges (US) beats Chappers (USSR) by forfeit.
Did he drop out? We have five rounds, so three to go.
Anyway, ping @Greatatlantic. Sending invite now.
No, I just suck so much it’s embarrassing.
I thought you played quite well in our Round 2 game. Or maybe I suck just as much.
A question about the rules for those more experienced (please no peeking, SandleyBradley, as it applies to our current game). A simple “yes” or “no” will do.
If Bear Trap or Quagmire gets played on the final AR of a turn, does it carry over to the next turn?
Yes it does.
@Brooski (USSR) 21 VP over @DoggieMon (US) on Turn 4
This one got out of control early as the Doggie drew three Soviet 1-ops cards and Asia scoring, which he ended up having to play for 7 Sov VPs, and then things just spiraled from there, as they can when the US gets a bad draw. We’re playing a second game for fun and Doggie is in much better shape. The draws can be cruel (as I found out in my previous game).
Thank you.
@Brian_Reynolds With all optional cards in play, have you experienced a missing turn 7 reshuffle? That’s my primary concern about playing with both. I generally like the (original) optional cards - most are well designed - but no turn 7 reshuffle skews the game in directions that seem unappealing.
My game against @Syzygy had no turn 7 reshuffle, and that was without the Turn Zero. But that was due to an extremely odd quirk that saw all the discard/ draw cards get removed in odd manners. It also meant that south Asia scoring showed up in round 8 (which I should have headlined, as it would have prevented a Wargames win, but I didn’t know about that)
That’s interesting, because I was wondering what was causing that sometimes.
Maybe the promo card of non-aligned movement make this much more likely to happen in Turn Zero, hence @Berbatov’s comment.
Well I don’t have turn zero, so this was purely the optional cards. So having ‘Ask Not What Your Country’ get punted, an unusual number of event cards not triggered, and a few other quirks, yeah, turn 8 reshuffle.
Actually this isn’t logical at all: if we discard more cards, the shuffle should come up quicker, shouldn’t it? Or do I need to go drink my morning coffee?
@CraigM I’ve seen it happen without the promo cards, but it’s fairly rare; it requires some combo of use of SALT, no use of ask not, no OMIT usage, and (perhaps most importantly) repeated use of the China Card.
@Left_Empty the issue is more that the additional cards in the deck with both promo packs mean that the draw pile can have cards remaining. Non-Aligned works to mitigate this slightly, but it still requires that someone play it for the event, and even then, it doesn’t make up for the full number of additional cards
Forgot to note: Kremlin Flu (skipped ARs) works in the opposite direction/towards no T7 reshuffle.
Well, no. The discard causes the resuffle to come up sooner. However the discard cards did not get played, in fact specifically were eliminated without effect. So that meant that the draw went long, hence the late reshuffle.
So you have the right of it, just the inverse of my situation![quote=“Berbatov, post:517, topic:125448”]
it requires some combo of use of SALT, no use of ask not, no OMIT usage, and (perhaps most importantly) repeated use of the China Card.
[/quote]
Bingo. I Salted to draw Voice of America. China Card got played 4 times, with no usage of Ussigi River Skirmish/ Nixon/ Whatever the Mao one for USSR is. Ask Not got drawn by USSR and Bear Trapped I think (or was that John Paul?). Our Man in Tehran got drawn in round 8 by me (along with Southeast Asia).
The Turn 0 rules are here:
They seem to clearly say that you should play with no handicap and also no optional cards from the original deluxe version.
Yes - although I experience that from time to time WITHOUT the extra cards. There are somewhere around 6 or 7 extra cards, though one of them (Nonaligned Movement) does generate a 4 card churn if played for the event (sort of like the Shah, just without the selection component), and the rest of its event is kind of useful so it often gets played making the whole thing pretty nearly a wash. Might affect one’s decisions about playing the China card and using the Shah as an event, etc, but ultimately it feels like just a slight nudge less likely to reshuffle, not a huge move.
Brian