I dispatched an invitation toward @quantum_mechani.
Thanks! The 4 scoring card turn was fine, it was playing the -1 to ops card on me in Turn 6 that sealed my fate - before that I was ahead in points and position was even - but that combined with a hand full of 1s and 2s - just crippled me as you got free reign in Africa and the Americas… Was hoping to sneak out an even score in Europe by misdirecting you to the ME in Turn 7 - but… no dice. Oh well! Great game!
Good game less_empty, lots of ups and downs and I made some pretty big mistakes but fortunately luck was on my side…
@quantum_mechani plucked my now very bald Eagle in what… 5 turns?
It was a very fun game, but a total mess. Probably one of the messiest games I have ever played!
My only achievement is that I was glad to read through my opponents European envy in the turn 1 opening, but it didn’t serve much purpose in the end.
I had a wonderful 3rd turn hand, which served little purpose because I couldn’t mitigate my opponent’s most powerful Destal and Decol events.
My opponent was dealt a very ambivalent hand on the 4th turn: both amazing, context wise, providing him the opportunity of a South American control, but also marred by horrible events benefitting me. A big battle of coups ensues, which I almost lost because of my oversight of his holding the Che. He played both Guevara and me very skillfully, and I barely managed to ensure he only scored 3 points in the end.
All went downheal after that, with a devastating Italian Brush War. My low ops through the whole game prevented me from being competitive in the space race, which ensured the final 2 turns were apocalyptic for me.
The moderate Kommintern lead by @quantum_mechani didn’t want to deal me the killing blow so I promptly destroyed the world, as any true leader of the free world would have done!
GG @quantum_mechani. Hate you!
I do like a good europe push, and a hand with both defectors and socialist governments really calls out for it. It was some amazing drama that you broke back into west germany the same turn I finally got italy.
EDIT: Oh and I actually sorta regretted the space race going so well, some annoying 2 ops cards I couldn’t deal with…
Which could be traced to lucky coups on my part on the previous turns’ last couple of actions, which lead to you bear trapping yourself, which gave me that single opportunity. This game’s mechanics are like a lesson about history!
Wow, you guys went fast. Uh, @CraigM, can you send me an invite? Greatatlantic here and on the server.
Sorry, had a lot to deal with Work wise this week, a cross country relocation. So I’ll try and send tonight.
@Greatatlantic over me by timer.
But also points. Even had it not gone to time, the situation was dire for the Americans. Sorry about that, I know a timer win isn’t as satisfying. But a confluence of timing meant that our game happened to start a day before I had to make prep for a last minute work trip, which I spent Wednesday traveling for. Lost the first two days because I wasn’t getting notifications, the last two because Work travel. C’est la vie.
It was turn 5, it was Soviets -13, and he had just scored South America at 10, was dominating Africa, and had succeeded on both Korean War and India Pakistan wars for control of both. And Southeast Asia was a right mess for me.
I also held both Lone Gunman and Quagmire. I’m pretty confident that the L was coming anyhow ;)
So it’s @quantum_mechani vs @Greatatlantic in the title match! You guys can make the timer as long as you want to ensure that you can finish.
@CraigM, I do wish we could have finished, but do agree you had fallen behind. Not insurmountably behind, what with your lead in Central America and generally a US favorable mid war deck.
You still had South Korea, I don’t think the War ever triggered. I believe the real turning point was not the Pakistani flip, which was a bit of bad confluence events. The turning point was responding by playing De-Staliniazation for me. I got into South America AND Africa with that event.
@quantum_mechani, just in case you did not notice it, it is your turn. If you are on vacation or dealing with something else, that’s fine I don’t mind waiting. Just in case you were waiting for the email that a server hiccup swallowed.
Final Match is over.
I took a screenshot in the last turn, Action Round 3, showing the precipice situation on which the game was perched. It looks kind of good for Ol’ US of A. Except, if you look at Europe, you see Italy in the middle of a huge operations war, and every other battle ground has gone red. If Soviets can secure Italy, the score will probably be moot.
Well, fortunately it was my turn, I was able to spend my last 3 op card to secure Italy, and qm was mostly out of ammunition. That was probably the game… except for maybe Terrorism or Brush War. I had to play European Scoring, which made the final score a bit closer, but it was about what you would expect from the board situation (US by 17 in Final Scoring, I think).
I am kind of surprised I won this one. I had bad hand draws for the first few turns, best summarized by only drawing two 4-op cards from Turns 1 to 5, and one of them was Muslim Revolution. My acquisition of 3 op cards wasn’t much better. However, I was just more aggressive about banking VP opportunities, and qm kept going back to Europe allowing me to improve my situation in other battlegrounds, even as I ran risk of losing everything in Europe.
He also had an opening I was simply not experienced with how to play against, a full 4 in Austria, 3 in East Germany, and 1 in Poland. This came while I was holding De Gaul and Suez Crisis, with not Marshall Plan, Truman, nor Independent Reds to counter. I survived playing only into Italy and the 2 op non-battlegrounds. It took me a while to realize qm had a specific goal (which qm can certainly confirm or deny), which was to setup realignment opportunities.
I get the math, even a +1 realignment gets a player ahead in ops (I think). However, it did have the downside of needing to putting your ops into non-battleground countries to set up the realignments. Which I don’t like doing. Battlegrounds are worth victory points. Non-battlegrounds are situational victory points, though your opponent can outpace you in them and deny you a few. qm spent 2 AR’s couping Spain. “Why coup a non-battleground?,” is what my mind asks. I also made a mistake and forget that NATO being played doesn’t trigger the event unless Warsaw pact or Marshall Plan had also been played. I lost what had been a highly advantageous coup of a dangling Poland. So, yeah, mistakes were made.
The turning point, though, was probably first qm never getting into South America, which was one way the cards did favor me by drawing De-Stal with UN… twice. Second, qm had a perfect late game combo of Ames, Iranian Hostage Crisis, and Terrorism. Put it together, and you have me losing 3 cards in 1 turn. I held the China Card, so I only missed 1 action round. However, as much as it hurt, it took my opponent 2 kind of empty actions to set it up. 1 one was playing Iran, which he already controlled. 2 was playing terrorism. In the interim, I claimed Thailand and secured Asia domination.
This meant qm had a much harder route to win by score, and why he went for the mathematically challenged Italy Ops war.
Anyways, I’ve said enough for now and need to grab a bit to eat. I think I will write more thoughts on what was a very interesting match, which I won despite a combination of low op hands and some ridiculous number of coups with a 1 pip die roll. @quantum_mechani, good game!!
I think I come from playing a very different meta on europe, which yes is a bit about setting up realignment, but also defending against it. For example if you seize France as the USSR and let Algeria and Spain go, it can get rough. In the case of italy the surrounding countries are also important for brush war. Plus you’re never going to get the domination points if you let the other person grab all the little 2 ops counties in Europe.
Oh, also I don’t think independent reds would have done much of anything, it doesn’t work on Austria, or any of the other places I was gunning for.
Yeah, never drawing destalinization hurt, warsaw pact also never came up, which I was waiting for most the game to consolidate eastern europe.
Anyway, good game!
Congrats - well done!
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