Rochester Gamers Community

Twilight Struggle is a 2-player, card-driven game where one player plays the role of the US, the other the USSR during the cold war (1945-89).

The game is played to either a 20 victory point differential or until DefCon is degraded to 1 on a player’s turn, thereby triggering globalthermonuclear war. The player who allowed defcon to be degraded on his/her turn loses the game. If this doesn’t happen, the player who achieves the 20 point differential wins.

The heart of the game comes by establishing influential control of different countries on the map through the use of your cards. Each side starts with some influence in countries throughout the world, and some discretionary influence to use in Eastern/Western Europe respectively. Each side is able to look at their first hand of cards before playing their influence, which can be critical of course.

Each card has a point value that the players can use to conduct operations (actions) and an event on it. If you play a card that has your symbol on it, you have to decide whether to have the event take place or to use the points. If you choose to use the points, the card goes into the discard pile. If you use the event, it may get removed from the game. This is important because the decks will get reshuffled and if your cards are all out of the game, you’ll draw more of your opponents. If you play a card that is coded to both sides the same rules apply. If you play a card coded to your opponent, the event WILL happen, and you’ll be able to get the points. You decide which order those 2 things happen in, but your opponent will get some benefit from your playing the card. Of course, both your cards and your opponents will end up in your hand, and management of these issues is critical. Naturally the best events are also worth the most points for each of you. There are also scoring cards which award points to each player based on their influence in the region. Having these requires that they be played during the turn, but allows you to better prepare for them as well.

There is one way to prevent your opponent’s events from happening, at least temporarily. You can play one card per turn into the Space Race. You discard a card with a minimum point value (which goes up progressively) to roll one die to determine if you make a certain advance. If you’re the first side to get there, you gain an advantage (VP or and ability) until the other side catches up.

Each round is played with two cards more than there are action rounds. One card is used to play as a ‘headline’ where the event takes place only, but the points are not used. Scoring cards can be played during this phase before any player has a chance to make adjustments to the board. The headlines take place in order of point value on the card, and if appropriate are removed from the game. Then the USSR player takes their first action and players alternate until they have played 6 (or 7 later in the game) action rounds. Each player might be able to hold over one card for the next round, but scoring cards can’t be held over. Mid war cards are shuffled in after turn 3, late war cards after turn 7. The game ends with a final scoring if no one has won by turn 10.

So, you’ve got your side chosen, your cards in hand, your headline played. Now what? The cards can be played for their event of course (and there are far too many to go into detail here), or one can be discarded to the space race as you action for that action round. Alternatively, you can play the card for the points and then do something with those points. What can you do with the points you ask? Well, I’m glad you asked.

You have 3 options on what to do with the operations points. First you can directly place influence into a country. You can only do this if you had influence on a country that bordered that country at the start of the action round (or in the country itself), or if the country is adjacent to your country. You can place one influence for each point if you have control of the country or if no one has control of it. If your opponent has control of it, each point of influence costs you 2 operations points until s/he no longer has control. Control of a country is established by having at least the stability number of the country in influence more than your opponent. For example, Italy has a stability number of 2. If you have 3 influence there and your opponent has one, you have control. If your opponent wanted to play points to increase their influence, they would have to pay 2 for the first influence (since you have control), then one for each other (since your lead in the country is now only 1, not equal to the stability number and therefore not enough to establish control).

Your second option is to attempt a realignment of a country. To do this, your opponent has to have influence in the country. You both roll a six sided die and add various modifiers, and if you have a higher total than your opponent, you get to remove that much influence of theirs from the country. You cannot increase your influence in the country through this method. You may make one realignment roll for each operations point you have (all points must be spent on the same type of action), and you can make them in different countries. The modifiers include control of neighboring countries, adjacency to your home country and other factors. The defcon status plays a role here, as if it has been degraded then there are certain regions that are immune to realignment or coup attempts, which I’ll discuss next.

Your third method of spending points is on a coup attempt. To make this attempt, you play a card and select a country in which your opponent has influence. You take the stability number of the country, double it, and roll a six sided die. Add the result of the roll to the number of operations points on the card. If the result is higher, you subtract that much influence of your opponent from that country. If there is overage, you add your own influence in the amount of the overage. If the doubled stability is higher, you don’t adjust the influence at all. In addition, you add a number of military operations points to your total equal to the operations value of the card you played. Finally, if the coup attempt was in a battleground country, you degrade DefCon by one level, which will disallow coup and realignment attempts in certain regions.

Since I’ve just mentioned them, there is another track to pay attention to. Each turn each player must conduct military operations equal to the level of DefCon at the end of the turn, or their opponent scores one victory point for each that they fail to attain. Any excess is not counted for either player, nor can it be carried over. If both players fail to achieve the goal the player who was closest will still receive a net victory point gain. Some of the event cards also instruct you to count them as military operations, so there are other ways than just through coup attempts to collect these points.

The victory points are counted on a single track. If you score points, the track is moved in your direction. If your opponent later scores points, the track is moved back toward zero, then positive in your opponent’s direction. The game ends when the track is at 20 for either player.

Some of the events, like hosting the Olympics, will give victory points, but the majority of points will come from the scoring cards. Each region is scored in different parts of the war, but the premise is the same for all of them except one. When a card is played the countries a player has control of are identified. If a player has control of at least one country in a region, that player is stated to have a presence. If a player has control of at least one non-battleground country and more battleground countries than his opponent, that player has domination over the region. If a player has control of all battleground countries and more countries overall in a region, that player has control of the region. The different stages score different points based on which region it is. In addition, each card allows for +1 for each controlled battleground country and +1 for each controlled country adjacent to the opponent’s superpower in the scoring region. If a player has control over Europe during the scoring, that player wins the game immediately. Southeast Asia scores a bit differently, with each player scoring one point for each controlled country except for Thailand (the only battleground in Southeast Asia) which is worth 2 points. Being able to establish and hold domination or control in a region when the scoring card comes up is critical toward a victory point goal, but you can’t neglect the other regions, because they have scoring cards too.

Some of my favorite aspects of this game haven’t been mentioned yet. First, there is the China card. Representing the huge influence and sway that China held, and how much each side wanted the Chinese on their side, there is one card that is initially given to the USSR player and is held, face up, on the table. This card doesn’t count towards the hand limit and can be played to give its player 4 points to conduct operations, or 5 if all of them are spent in Asia. The trick is, once you play it, you give it to your opponent face down. The next turn they turn it face up, and can play it right back against you.

Next, I really love the way the game makes for tough decisions. Do you play some of your more powerful cards as events or for points? If you play too many of them as events and they get removed from the game you have to worry that the deck will be stacked with cards which favor your opponent. Since their events always trigger if you play them, you don’t want to be playing those cards too often. Of course, the flip side is that if you don’t play your events you don’t get the advantage they offer you, whether it be changing the board conditions or allowing play of another event. It’s a huge give and take.

I also like the ability to bluff your opponent. If you’ve got a slight lead in one area and know that you’re holding the scoring card, you can plan most of your operations there trying to increase your lead. Of course, an observant opponent will notice this and will start trying to block you, lest you score too many on them with your scoring card. This in turn means that you might just leave that small lead alone and work on another area, assuming that its scoring card might also be coming along. If your opponent tries to work where you have the scoring card then you play it, or you work back. Meanwhile, you’re working on another area as well.

The card interaction is particularly fun. I manage to learn a bit of history every time I play this game (partly because I knew so little to start with) because I didn’t know the specifics behind the cards. The rulebook helps here, as in the back there is an explanation of the historical significance of each card. This was a fun read just after getting the game too. Of course, I didn’t remember everything and so I still have to look things up.

The game isn’t perfect. The board itself is thin cardstock folded into 8 sheets. I’d highly recommend putting it under plexiglas or something similar to play on. I actually went out and bought a cheap poster frame to slip the board into before play. This works perfectly and eliminates the problems of the memory of the board causing pieces to slide. The components are all punched out squares with different numbers on them to represent the different influence you have in the country. They are workable and I don’t think any other way would have added to the game in any meaningful way. The cards are of a decent quality and have survived many shuffles already. I suppose card sleeves would help, but I hardly think they’re a necessity.

For those of you who don’t like the randomness of the six-sided die, you might find yourselves a little frustrated with this game. The coups and realignments and space race rolls and war cards all depend on the luck of the die. That’s a lot of luck for some people, just the right amount for others. I like that things don’t always happen the same every time, and that sometimes the best laid plans can be brought low by a roll of the die. That being said, if you’re not in the mood for that at the moment, this might not be the game to pull off the shelf. Of course, the card draws are also random and probably have the biggest impact of all on the game (save for the strategy of how to spend the actions) so that could also get to those who don’t like randomness in their games.