Tom vs Bruce: Twilight Struggle
TURN 5 – Kennedy
Tom: Twilight Struggle has an undo button until you actually confirm what you’re doing. Then you can’t undo. So my real mistake isn’t so much overestimating the stability of Italy by trying to counter Bruce’s influence and realizing that, oops, he’s stacked up too much control. My real mistake is hitting confirm before I realize I’ve done this. I think that’s ultimately why the Soviets lost the Cold War. They weren’t paying close enough attention to what they were doing. I consider this specific move on my part an accurate recreation of the ineffectual Red Brigade leftist terrorists in Italy. In other words, I didn’t make a mistake. I just accurately modeled history.
Bruce: There are five Battleground countries in Europe: Poland, East and West Germany, France, and Italy. When the USSR gets to dominate Europe, it is usually because they have gotten ahold of Italy. It’s a good idea to have extra US influence there, as Italy’s stability is only 2. 2!. It’s like they’re not even in Europe or something.
Tom: Italy, man. Always messing things up for some global conflict or another. Bruce tries for a space race roll and fails. His ship blew up. I think that’s pretty funny. The d6 giveth. The d6 taketh away.
Bruce: I’ve been bitten by a string of bad die rolls in the space race many times. But then, I’ve been bitten by a string of bad coup rolls, or a string of bad hands, or whatnot, more times than I can count. That’s part of the game. Sometimes you can manage it because your opponent is having some bad luck as well, and sometimes it sends you crashing in flames. Overall, it’s what keeps this game interesting. Well, that and the threat of nuclear armageddon.
