Well I beat @buzznaut but we didn’t even play the first headline card, he timed out after starting the game last week. @buzznaut if you want to have another shot at actually playing each-other then let me know.
Alex.
The imperialist USA @Grunden defeats the peace loving USSR of @Infested_terran via Wargames in round 8.
@ForzaA (USSR) defeats @dstone112 (USA) by Wargames in turn 8. Game honestly felt a lot tenser than the final scoreline suggests; /i definitely had some good luck there esp. with the appearance of the score cards.
I’ve had worse first turns before, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a worse early war before.
Off the top of my head things my poor USSR suffered through:
-A ‘1’ for the opening Iran coup
-Only one 4 card for the entire first four turns. And it was Japan Defense Pact.
-U.S. getting to headline Purge_two turns in a row_ (2 & 3), further compounding my lack of coup ability with no 4 cards.
-Failing the Korean War
-Losing the Pakistan war and having 4 influence flipped there
-Failing 2 Bear Trap rolls (somewhat mitigated by the US failing one). This really hurt as I could have taken Italy AND France right after headlining The Reformer.
-Three rolls of ‘1’ for Mexico coups
-US wiping out Fidel’s 3 Cuba influence with a single realignment roll at +1
-My own realignment roll at +3 advantage, and rolling a 1:6 to lose 2 influence…
-Sitting on a +8-10 VP total control score for South America and the scoring card never coming up.
Then there were just blunder plays on my part, the biggest being my playing CIA Created while I still had a scoring card in my hand.
The only two bright spots: FINALLY taking Iran on turn 8 with the Iranian Hostage Crises, and headlining southeast asia scoring suspecting that the US might headline Defectors, which they did and prevented me from losing 6 VP.
Oh right, TCGamer beat Borges!
That’s a new standard I’ll behold when I am having what I think is a catastrophic early war ¨<
I think the double purge combo is some of the most hurting stuff in the game.
I’m not sure playing Destalinization, Nasser, and Suez Crisis all for ops was your best course.
Yeah, getting it again on the reshuffle, I was morally obligated to turn the screws there.[quote=“Infested_terran, post:605, topic:125448”]
-US wiping out Fidel’s 3 Cuba influence with a single realignment roll at +1
[/quote]
True, but I had 2 more attempts after that so Fidel was pretty much toast anyway. IIRC, the other attempts were ineffectual faffing about in Algeria.
You’d played it for 3vp on Turn 5 AR 1, so it wasn’t coming back until the turn 8 reshuffle.
That was perfect. I even knew you were holding the card so I should’ve forseen that you might headline it.
It makes sense on paper for it to be crazy playing Destalinization for ops, but that’s how absolutely desperate I was for ops that game! I had no spare influence to move around.
I’ll post a screenshot later that showed what a typical early war hand looked like for me. Only one 4 card for the first four turns + Purge two turns in a row really put the hurt on me. I ended up spacing the 4 card because it was Japan Defense Pact; it would have been worth only 3 to me and given you 3 influence + Asia domination so spacing it was actually more beneficial.
@jeromeymartin beats @CraigM in turn 10 by Wargames.
Close tough game, at mid war start he was in strong position with points lead, dominance in the Mid East and Asia, and controlling 3 of 5 European Battlegrounds (Damn You DeGaulle!). Through some very careful, and with a little luck from India Pakistan war to cap India back, I had managed to roll back so I controlled Asia and Europe, had pulled to -3 on points.
But then he hit me with the Purge/ Quagmire combo with a handful of 2 ops cards, making me discard both ‘Ask not what your country can do’ and ‘ABM Treaty’. Had I not escaped the second roll it would have been game over right there.
But in the end getting purged both turn 6 and 8 (balanced by Containment turn 8 for my headline), being generally ops starved for a few critical turns, all my late war coups in Africa and South America failing (multiple 1s in a row sucks), and having 4 regions score round 10 made victory escape me. A desperate play of Terrorism, hoping to pull Wargames, did not work. With the Iron Lady and Tear Down This Wall I had a chance, were it not for that.
But Jeromey did well, and executed a few absolutely brutal Headline AR1 combos.
To put how desperate I was for Ops in the end trying to turn the tide? I played Awacs to Saudis for Ops, because I already held Saudi Arabia. The very next action he played Muslim Revolution.
I’m not that familiar with late war strategies. Is Iron Lady really that great? I’ve never seen a single instance of soviet influence ever going into the UK.
So there’s the +1 VP and barring Socialist Governments. I’d most likely just want the 3 influence, maybe the event but it doesn’t seem that great to me. It’s certainly no “Tear Down This Wall” or “Solidarity”.
In this case, yes. Mostly because it puts influence in Argentina, and due to circumstance (and that choking purge turn) he had alternated domination in south america, and repeatedly couped me out, while my own coups consistently rolled 1s there. So I was finally able to turn around Venezuela, but couldn’t hold Brazil. Putting influence directly into Argentina would have helped tremendously by breaking his control there, and putting South America at neutral points instead of +6 Soviets.
It puts Soviet influence there. Isn’t that a drawback? Maybe to open up a coup chance but they could just plug up the influence there next round.
huh, so I misread the card anyhow. Figures.
I totally forgot about the “place enemy influence in Argentina part”.
So that’s +1 influence for the enemy in a nation he might not have access to, +1 VP, and preventing your opponent from playing one card that removes 4 west europe influence on the chance that he gets draws it, versus getting a guaranteed 3 influence for yourself that you could use anywhere (including shoring up west europe).
I guess they made the card stink in order to stay true to real life Thatcher :p
Iron Lady is a GREAT event… for the Soviets!
As Soviet player when US controls Argentina with the minimum 2, I play Iron Lasy with “resolve event first”. This breaks control of Argentina, and then I play 3 ops to fill Argentina so now I control it. Costs the 1VP, but flipping control of Argentina is in and of itself worth 2vp at scoring, and oh so much more if this affects presence/domination/control.
US corollary: overcontrol Argentina by 1 in Late War :)
Brian
Brian (US) over Syzygy (Soviets) on turn 6 by scoring track. (Turn Zero used)
Things weren’t going well for democracy early, so I went “full chinese” and played every single possible greedy VP card (nixon for VP, arms race for VP, alliance even though only +2, etc, etc) and spaced everything I could. Even used JFK to get rid of U2 so as not to have to give up the 1 VP. Was able to SALT for JFK to get rid of South America scoring, which despite a lot of squirming on my part he controlled utterly. Special Relationship scored twice for me including the final headline.
Great game, lots of action!
Brian
Congratulations, Brian!
I was unexpectedly out for about a week soon after the game started due to a head injury, And during that time my game clock ticked down to about 48 hours left. I thought I was going to lose on the clock as I had to go out of town Monday to Friday to take my daughter to tour colleges, but Brian was a gentleman and a scholar and let the clock run down on his time until I returned to action this weekend.
I made a miscalculation in Turn 0 which let Brian/US get +6 on the Turn Zero event that allows the US to go first throughout the Early War. I didn’t read the text closely enough and was trying to move quickly to keep the game going, so I didn’t play my stronger card, but rather a 0, and was unlucky on the roll. So I started out quite disappointed in that. It didn’t end up hurting me as much as I feared, but it was still a critical mistake which shaped the rest of the game.
As expected Brian played an excellent game giving no openings, and being hit with an early Red Scare and Brian making good use of Containment in turn 2, put me behind where I wanted to be in board position. This led to more loose and risky play than I normally go for, as I thought I’d need some luck to catch up. But as Brian said I could see he was pushing to end the game early on points, and when he SALTed for Kennedy when it was clear he held South America, I knew I was toast.
Interesting you saw it that way, I thought it was going well for Democracy since we came out of the early war with the US up 1 or 2 points. :)
Not sure we have discussed the “Chinese style” much on Qt3 but that’s one thing that fascinates me about Twilight Struggle. That there is the new Chinese school of play focusing on scoring VPs competing with the twilightstrategy/theory school of play which emphasizes board position.
Berbatov and I had a game that ran out of time in Turn 8 through no fault of either of us, due to an 8-hour time difference. I technically won on the timer but was miles behind in the actual game (-14, I think it was) and with a poor board position. I don’t really want to win that way, but I also didn’t feel it was better to concede since there was yet time for the game to swing towards the US with late war events.
Anyway, we both have some time free today, so we’re going to try to get a replacement game played at live speed this evening my time / this morning Berbatov’s.
And I’m very glad we did, it turned out to be an excellent and tightly-fought game.
This time I drew the USSR and got off to a good start in the early war (with some very handy 6s for coups helping). I had a fair lead until Turn 5, when Berbatov hit me with a Bear Trap that took four attempts to escape, at a total cost of 12 ops (including 2 USSR cards). Ugh. After that, I felt as though I was always a little bit behind, but it could easily have gone either way.
Africa was particularly frustrating. Decolonization never happened, the Portuguese Empire never crumbled and South African unrest only happened once in the very late war. I just couldn’t gain any traction in the area, which is unusual for the USSR.
Anyway, when the dust settled, Berbatov beat rho21 in final scoring, US +4.