As USSR, CIA Created is a card I will lead off Action Round 2 with (when presumably Defcon is still at 3) just to get rid of it, even if it means giving up some initiative and a useful coup.
Congratulations to the winners of round one. The next set of pairings is as follows:
Greatatlantic v.
Brian Reynolds
Courteous_D v.
east83raider
CF_Kane v.
B4cchus
Berbatov v.
dstone112
rho21 v.
moss_icon
Syzygy v.
tgb123
jeromeymartin v.
bmarinari
gumers v.
Mark_L
The same rules apply. +2 influence for the US, random sides, optional cards included, 7 days per player.
Good luck!
Game created.
Game against Courteous D created.
Yes. Sorry
Gumers, I am Mark L in Playdek. Hit me up!
Berbatov, in case you didn’t get a notification, I posted a game a few days ago – dstone112
Courteous D is bulldozed by east83raider, Turn 6, scoring track.
In this alternate universe, FDR was succeeded by Harry S. Trump, who made huge, classy deals during Turn 1 amounting to 9 ops total—of which 5 were from Suez Crisis and Vietnam Revolts.
I do not wish to speak of the dice. Through Turn 4, the Soviets conducted three successful coups (which zeroed out Iran, and then flipped the influence in Panama and South Africa(!)), undertook three successful advances of their space program, and won two wars in Asia, both at -1.
After a grim start, the US were then kicked out of Mexico while attempting a realignment at +1, but did manage to drop Red influence in Panama from 2 to 1 with a 4 ops coup that I suspect was focused entirely on a shipment of contraband cigars. Several astronauts were also killed after the Nazi guy retired. Some people are saying they were too fat to fit in the rockets. Sad.
Good play by @east83raider, especially with the scoring cards.
Congratulations to Syzygy for cleaning my clock and winning our match in the Headline phase of Turn 6. Not only did he control the board, but he controlled the scoring cards as well.
Well played.
Thanks, Norabunga!
You played a unorthodox USSR opening, similar to what I think you played in our match in the last tournament. It was very interesting to play against as I had little or no coup targets in AR1 and 2 and had to be extremely careful playing into Asia. It was almost like facing a judoka or aikidoka when you expect your opponent to come out of their corner swinging. If I had your AR1 hand I’m sure I would have taken a more typical approach of headlining Red Scare/Purge and immediately couping Iran with one of the many 4 Op cards you had that turn.
I think I made a mistake re-couping Afghanistan after you knocked me out, but luckily I was able to work around it and grab India, Pakistan and Thailand. And obviously it was a huge bonus for me that I controlled the Decolonization card, you didn’t have Vietnam Revolts, and Destalinization didn’t make an appearance until later.
Brian Reynolds (Cattlesquat) playing Soviets defeats Greatatlantic playing US in final scoring. Great game and hotly contested to the end. Soviets managed to build a dominating score lead by the end of Turn 4 that US ultimately couldn’t overcome. US fought back hard in turns 6-9 – I actually thought I was toast on turn 7 when my Missile Envy to try to drop Ask Not from his hand came up short - there was only one card left in his hand I didn’t know what it was, and alas it was Socialist Governments so he was able to ditch the 10-point-soviet-scoring Central America card on turn 7, never to return, and broke into a lead on the scoreboard by turn 8. Both our turn 9 hands were terrible, but then on turn 10 he got two bad scoring cards, and because we’d each headlined CIA / Lonegunman simultaneously, he got the starting coup but I knew he had the cards, and I was able to suck all his ops away in an ultimately unsuccessful defense of the middle east. Great contest!
NOTE FOR NEXT ROUND - I will be in Cuba (!) from Oct 12 - Oct 22. So I’m hoping (whoever is paired with me) we can make an arrangement to play my round either very-quickly-before or after I get back.
Brian
Still waiting to hear from Gumers for our game…
Well, its with a heavy heart I announce I told you so! Brian Reynolds (USSR) over greatatlantic (USA) in final scoring (13 points). Single game elimination, pfff…
Which is not to say I’m upset the more experienced player won (Oh, right, congratulations and well played, Brian!). I’m just upset I only got 1 game out of this tournament!
I actually looked up his record before the game started. Brian Reynolds has over 300 games of Twilight Struggle (online) played. I mean, that’s like a game a day since it came out, right? So, I felt like I was going to need some luck to pull out the win. That luck was just not forth coming. Right out of the bat I drew 2 scoring cards, and drew the third in Turn 2. This was somewhat countered by drawing De-stalinization on Turn 2… with Blockade. Without the China card, yet. I had the tough choice of possibly giving up Western Germany, or maybe letting Brian getting hold of the strongest early event in the game.
Except it wasn’t a tough choice at all. He had already combo’ed Decolonization into Afghanistan and took France. A move I either didn’t have the ops to block or still feared DeGaul. NATO had already triggered, Italy was well positioned. So, would I give up a two point VP swing which would cost him 4 Ops to exploit to keep him out of South America and who knows where else? Yes I would. Plus, I had a nice lead on non-battlegrounds which meant Reynolds would be paying extra ops to take Europe.
Of course, that move was spoiled when he drew the SA Scoring card and was able to play it before I could get any presence in the region. Also, right on turn 4 he used SALT to pull the card I sacrificed so much to dump right back into his hand. South America would not score again until final scoring, despite a lot of ops and effort by both of us to secure domination.
After an incredibly tense round 7 where a game of chicken was played using the Central America Scoring card (9 points, I had presence!), Ask Not, OPEC (hey, they were in the news), and Missle Envy. I knew this going to bed the night before, but kind of forget it the morning. Luckily, I was able to feed Missile Envy Socialist Governments instead of giving up Ask Not and 9 VP. Maybe I knew that in the back of my head!
Going into the late game, I had Asia more or less locked up, though got lucky with a 50/50 Brush War roll or two. Meanwhile, he had Europe mostly locked up, except I could in theory more efficiently take non-battlegrounds than him thanks to Marshall plan triggered early. I currently dominated South America and the Middle East (though barely) and he controlled Central America thanks to a combination of Junta and Liberation Theology, plus domination in Africa. So, the late game would be whether I could keep SA, maybe break his control of CA, but really I needed to finalize control over the Middle East, and find a way to flip Africa. I managed none of that. I lost the Middle East, and tied in Africa and South America.
Mr. Reynolds, if you managed to read. I do hope to play you again once your schedule opens up. You might have been the best player I’ve ever clashed with… though Mark_L was no slouch.
At last, rebellious Gauls and arrogant Romans, your time shall have to wait.
Great AARs @Brian_Reynolds and @Greatatlantic!
Still not sure how Falling Sky relates? :) Fishing for opponents?
Oh, that’s what I hoped on buying with the prize, which I believe is a GMT gift card. I don’t know the value, but it’s a game I have my eye on, and a game I’m not sure I could ever get played. Hence, the need for an excuse to buy it.
Hopefully there won’t be a coup, or even a realignment.
I’m thinking some Daniel Ortega action… ;-)
If you wanted to play a game of Falling Sky, we’ve had some success with forum vassal games in the past. I’d play.
Rho21 crushes moss_icon in an educational game.
