{"id":39070,"date":"2016-05-16T04:39:54","date_gmt":"2016-05-16T11:39:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/?p=39070"},"modified":"2016-05-31T00:58:27","modified_gmt":"2016-05-31T07:58:27","slug":"tom-vs-bruce-twilight-struggle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/2016\/05\/16\/tom-vs-bruce-twilight-struggle\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom vs Bruce: Twilight Struggle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"twilight<\/a><\/p>\n

After a hiatus, Tom and Bruce are back with this round of Twilight Struggle, Playdek’s PC adaptation of the classic boardgame. The article will go live for everyone in a week, but in the meantime, we hope you, our backers, enjoy. We’ve got more games and videos in the works, and if you’ve got any requests, feel free to leave them in the comments below, or to hit us up on Twitter. Tom is @qt3 and Bruce is @spacerumsfeld.<\/p>\n

On with the show!<\/p>\n

After the jump, some actual history before the Twilight Struggle.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Tom: <\/strong>Here’s a true story. Bruce and I were doing a Tom vs Bruce article about some RTS in which he was hopelessly outclassed because he was too busy with other things to invest the necessary time it takes to get good at RTSs. I, on the other hand, have trained long and hard in a genre that no longer exists because MOBAs came along for people like Bruce who couldn’t meet the requirements a real RTS puts on one’s skill, dexterity, and quick thinking. At any rate, whatever we were playing was something where he had to be the Russians for once. Probably some silly Command & Conquer game. The only thing more fun that whupping Bruce Geryk in an RTS is making Bruce Geryk play the Russians in an RTS and then whupping him.<\/p>\n

In the process of writing our articles, we suggest occasional edits to each other. Sometimes one of us will see an opportunity for some comment or joke or offhand cultural reference. So we’ll write it in for the other guy. A friendly “hey, this would be good right here” edit. At one point, Bruce had actually managed to accomplish something with his Russians. He wrote about it in his part of the text. As we were finishing up a final draft, I felt his rare moment of triumph need a bit more oomph. A bit more pizazz. Some chutzpah. I figured I’d punch it up for him.<\/p>\n

I moved my cursor to the end of his text and considered for a moment. What would be funny here? I typed in for him the following words:<\/p>\n

God bless Mother Russia.<\/p>\n

For some reason, Bruce didn’t care for that. He deleted it and wrote in something that I’m sure what a lot less hilarious. It was one of the rare times one of us vetoed a suggestion so completely. I can’t figure why. I can’t figure why Bruce wouldn’t want his name attributed to a divine benediction for a nation associated with the most brutal regime in history, more brutal than the Nazis because they had more time and resources to spread a godless and brutal ideology far, wide, and deep, destroying the lives of millions through repression, deprivation, and outright slaughter.<\/p>\n

But it probably has something to do with why he’s making me play the Soviet Union in our game of Twilight Struggle.<\/p>\n

Bruce: <\/strong>I really couldn’t have said it better myself, so the only comment I’ll add is that I didn’t mean to hurt Tom’s feelings so much with my edit that he still remembers it ten years later. Ten years? Holy heck. We’ve been at this, off and on, for fifteen years? We started this series before Twilight Struggle was released. Before it became the #1 game on Boardgamegeek. Before it was overtaken by Pandemic Legacy. On that list, anyway. Because there is no way Twilight Struggle is a worse game than Pandemic Legacy. That’s like saying Ticket to Ride (#98) is a better game than Dien Bien Phu: The Final Gamble (#4361). Ain’t no way.<\/p>\n

Tom: <\/strong>That reminds me. Here’s another true story. Bruce once explained to me that the only way to play Ticket to Ride is to know all the route cards so you can anticipate what a player is doing based on where he’s placing his trains and what colors of cards he’s collecting. Then you can block him to prevent him from scoring points. In the world according to Bruce, Ticket to Ride is a game for cuthroat calcuation to determine who can most frustrate whom.<\/p>\n

(As far as I’m concerned, the only way to play Ticket to Ride is to leave it in the box and play something else. What a terrible game.)<\/p>\n

But Bruce’s observation about Ticket to Ride applies tenfold to Twilight Struggle. You have to know all the cards so you can anticipate what a player is doing based on where he’s placing his influence and what cards he’s playing. Bruce knows the Twilight Struggle cards this well. While we’re talking about the cards, he rattles off some conventional wisdom about Romanian Abdication and Independent Reds. I know what all those words mean separately, but strung together in a sentence like the one Bruce has just used makes no sense to me. I’d have to be staring at the cards side-by-side. Apparently you’re supposed to only ever play one card after the other or some such thing. Because Bruce knows all this stuff, I’m going to have to be sneaky.<\/p>\n

For instance, I have the Central America scoring card, but I don’t want Bruce to know I have it. So when I spend three influence, I only put one of them in Central America. It’s just enough to swing the balance ever so slightly in my favor. Just a smidge. And to keep my intention hidden from Bruce, I spend the other two points somewhere else, on the other side of the world. It’s like a magician drawing your attention to his left hand while his right hand palms a coin. And if you’ll direct your attention over here to Southeast Asia…<\/p>\n

“Well, you obviously have the Central America scoring card,” he squeaks, merrily countering my single point of influence.<\/p>\n

I can’t say for sure and I have no intention of ever finding out, but I’m sure Bruce Geryk is just as annoying playing Ticket to Ride.<\/p>\n

Bruce:<\/strong> Watching Tom try to hide his intentions in Twilight Struggle is like watching a three-year-old try to hide candy that he or she isn’t supposed to have. “No, I don’t suspect anything. I’m sure there are tons of reasons that you could be holding both of your hands behind your back and smiling, even though I told you you couldn’t have any more cotton candy.” Tom plays one point of influence in a non-Battleground country that gives him Domination in Central America, and then plays two points of influence in other regions that change nothing and open no new routes of play. Plus, one of those regions has already scored and I can see the card lying in the discard pile. Plus we just got into the Mid-War, when the Central America scoring card is added to the deck. Go ahead, eat your cotton candy.<\/p>\n

But Tom is dead right that you really need to know the cards to play Twilight Struggle effectively. For example, in the Early War, right off the bat, the Soviets have access to a card called Warsaw Pact Formed. It allows them to remove ALL American influence from up to four countries in Eastern Europe. Blammo! Goodbye, capitalist imperialists! So playing a bunch of US influence into Poland or East Germany or Yugoslavia doesn’t make any sense until that event has been played, because there is nothing more useless in Twilight Struggle than having the product of multiple turns of high-Ops cards being wiped out by a single event. Likewise, the US doesn’t need to play influence into Yugoslavia because once a card called Independent Reds comes up, they will be able to match the amount of influence the Soviets have played into that country (or Hungary, Czechoslovakia, or Romania). So how does the Soviet player counter this? By avoiding playing into these countries until Independent Reds has happened. How does the US counter that? By playing Romanian Abdication early so that the Soviets get three influence in Romania, so that Independent Reds can be played for 3 US influence there.<\/p>\n

I could go on and on like this. To avoid losing control of Poland, the Soviets need to have six influence there by the Mid-War so that John Paul II Elected Pope still leaves them with a three-influence advantage, which is equal to Poland’s stability rating and thus confers control even if they lose two influence and the US gains one, which is what that card does. And even that won’t protect against Solidarity. France isn’t safe until De Gaulle Leads France and Socialist Governments have both been played and dealt with. There are a million more examples.<\/p>\n

So yeah, you need to know the deck. And so…what, exactly?<\/p>\n

I don’t really understand the objection to this. In our Eurogame-patterned brains, I think we want to believe that we should be able to suss out a game’s subtleties with logic alone. But that’s a fallacy. Are you going to be able to optimally play A Study in Emerald until you see what all the cards and characters are? How about playing Voyages of Marco Polo without knowing what the contracts are? Ok, I’m stretching it. But the main reason I think people have this enmity towards expertise secondary to experience (apart from the whole “death of expertise” thing you can read about in memes near you) is that people want to jump right into a game and have a reasonable chance of winning, and they don’t want to stick around long enough to become really good at a game, because there are fifteen games coming out Wednesday, never mind what’s in store for next week. Why spend months or years learning a game really well?<\/p>\n

Which is a real shame, because just like a real-time strategy game, a boardgame like Twilight Struggle is fascinating to watch when it is well played. If that requires some familiarity with the cards and an ability to remember them, so be it. No one complains about having to remember which stack the Titan is in. It’s the point of the game.<\/p>\n

Tom:<\/strong> See what I mean? I mean, he’s right. About Twilight Struggle and the expectation that we should have a reasonable expectation of winning as soon as we jump into a game. But see what I mean?<\/p>\n

Bruce:<\/strong> Each turn in Twilight Struggle starts with a Headline Phase. This is a way of setting the stage for the rest of the turn, with each player choosing an event that will almost certainly take effect (unless the Americans cancel it with a special card, Defectors, that only they have). It focuses attention on the two events (one American, one Soviet) that will set up the rest of the play in that turn.<\/p>\n

The key to Twilight Struggle is its philosophy of falling dominoes. They probably should have included a set of dominoes in the box for emphasis. Influence in one country leads to influence in another connected country. So if the Soviets get their tendrils into Vietnam, it’s only logical that they will use this geopolitical position to extend those tendrils into Thailand. There are some anomalies, like Austria is connected to East Germany, but you have to make some concessions to gameplay and balance.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, each country is associated with a region, and the six regions are not all equally important. Europe is the key. Controlling Europe ends the game. Since that almost never happens, there are different levels of ideological conquest.<\/p>\n

Presence means you have an ideological beachhead in a region, but that’s it. Maybe you have some friends in Burkina Faso. That will get you a few victory points. Domination is the next step, and that requires you to control more Battleground countries (as well as total countries) than your opponent in that region, as well as at least one non-Battleground country. Control means you control all<\/em> the Battleground countries in a region. So you can see why controlling Europe would end the game.<\/p>\n

Tom and I will be fighting over these countries with influence, coups, realignments, and good ol’ Cold-War-themed events.<\/p>\n

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TURN 1 – Stalin – Early War cards only<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Twilight_Struggle_1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Bruce:<\/strong> One of the best part of the Twilight Struggle design is the evolving deck. The whole card-driven game genre, invented by Mark Herman in 1994 with We the People (subsequently revised as Washington’s War; try it, it’s a great game) is built on the idea of historical events being moved out of the general rules and being placed on cards. Washington crosses the Delaware? Maybe. Or maybe the Washington player just uses it for Ops. Players get a hand of cards from a deck, and can use them as events or to perform actions. Certain events are removed from the deck once their events occur (Washington can only cross the Delaware once). Paths of Glory, a fantastic game about The Great War, uses three decks: a Mobilization deck, a Limited War deck, and a Total War deck, to portray the accelerating rush to war. Twilight Struggle starts with an Early War deck, and then adds Mid-War and Late War cards to ensure that the temporal relation of at least some events is preserved. You can’t play Solidarity as an event until John Paul II Elected Pope happens. But Pope John Paul II might never be elected if the card is never played for an event. It’s incredibly thematic, and leads to interesting gameplay considerations.<\/p>\n

Tom:<\/strong> It’s worth noting that among boardgamers, the acronym CDG — card driven gameplay — is as familiar as the acronym RTS, RPG, or MOBA to videogamers. At this point, I should explain that we’re not playing the boardgame proper. We’re playing Playdek’s videogame implementation, ported 99% intact to digital format and tailor-made for online asynchronous games.<\/p>\n

Bruce:<\/strong> Because of the starting position, the US position in the Middle East is tenuous. America controls no countries, and its door to the Indian subcontinent goes through Iran, where it has one influence point. I guess this is a good time to talk about coups.<\/p>\n

The coup is a fundamental mechanic in Twilight Struggle, and this would be a good place to explain it. You get to play a card and add a die roll to its Ops value. You then compare this to twice the target country’s Stability value. If you win, you get to reduce your opponent’s influence by that much. Any extra over and above the existing amount of influence gets replaced by your influence.<\/p>\n

This is great because you don’t have to be connected to a country by influence. So if the Soviets take Zaire, for example, the Americans can instigate a coup there even if they don’t have any influence in adjacent states. So you have to be careful because placing influence somewhere might allow your opponent access to a new region. It’s a great representation of the idea of a region being “in play.”<\/p>\n

If the US loses its influence in Iran, it will have a very hard time finding a connection to India and Pakistan, which are two crucial battleground states in Asia. American will be forced to push west from Japan and Australia. So an early successful coup in Iran can really hamper the spread of democracy.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, you can’t just coup when you want to coup. The most important regions are limited by Defcon, so that you can’t instigate coups in Europe unless the Defcon is 5 and the superpowers are relaxed. I mean, you really want to drum up trouble with the Stasi in East Germany? Once the Defcon goes to 4, you’re locked out of European troublemaking. At Defcon 3, no coups in Asia. At Defcon 2, no coups in the Middle East. Africa? Central and South America? Coup whenever you want – that’s what those countries are for (in the geopolitical sense).<\/p>\n

Tom: <\/strong>A friend of mine says that Twilight Struggle should really use 2d6 to mitigate its randomness. He feels that the stakes are way too high for a simple d6. After several coups that don’t go my way, I’m inclined to agree. But bad rolls can’t last forever. The Middle East eventually goes my way. Bruce pulls ahead, but I play a Middle East scoring card and knock his lead back to zero, thanks to Iraq and Syria being totally into whatever I’m selling them. Probably arms.<\/p>\n

Bruce:<\/strong> Tom moves on the Middle East, but he places influence instead of trying a coup in Iran. And instead of taking advantage of this by placing influence in Pakistan, I coup Poland. Poland! It’s 1956 all over again!<\/p>\n

Tom: <\/strong>See what I mean? You’d think he was keeping me from getting the pink cards I need to run my trains to Duluth.<\/p>\n

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TURN 2 – Truman<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Twilight_Struggle_2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tom:<\/strong> I play the Comicon card. Oops, I mean Comecon, which I suspect is something very different. The card tells me it means “The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance”. “Comecon” is a terrible way to shorten this. Comeass, perhaps. Comecon, not so much. The card lets me put four points of influence anywhere I want in Eastern Europe so long as the US doesn’t control the country. Which, at this point, is pretty much anywhere in the Eastern Europe. Why does it let me do this? Because Comecon. <\/p>\n

One of the few things I miss from the actual physical boardgame is that the manual includes a paragraph or so of history for each card. Basically, flavor text for history nerds, which is invariably going to be a smidge more than you can fit on a playing card. It would tell me what Comecon is while I wait for Bruce to take his turn. I suppose I could alt-tab over to Wikipedia, but Wikipedia is probably going to tell me way more than I want to know. The Twilight Struggle manual tells me just enough to give the card some context. As it is, I’ll just have to infer that the Soviet Union had a council that gave money to countries in Eastern Europe. In other words, they copied the Marshall Plan.<\/p>\n

Bruce:<\/strong> Comecon seems like a great card, because you get to place four points of influence, which is a lot, using a card that only gives three Ops, which is less than four. Sounds like a deal? Except it isn’t because there really aren’t four Eastern European countries that are worth placing influence in right now. This is the big fallacy of events: just because they offer the chance to place more influence than the card’s operations value doesn’t mean that the event is actually worth more than the operations value. Events are great for setting up other moves, such as removing enough influence in a country to break your opponent’s control so you can swoop in on the next round, or blocking your opponent from placing somewhere you don’t want him or her to place. But just using events because they seem to offer a “discount” is not the best way to use them.<\/p>\n

Tom:<\/strong> That can’t possibly be true. Anytime I see something on sale, I know I should buy it because I’m getting it for less than normal. In effect, I’m being given money to buy something.<\/p>\n

Bruce:<\/strong> The Influence Tom placed on the cheap in Europe would have been far more useful right now in Asia, where I just scored for a +5 victory point margin (my Domination against his Presence). I’ve gotten off to a lead here, which is unusual for the US in the early game.<\/p>\n

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TURN 3 – Eisenhower<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tom:<\/strong> Ha ha, I just kicked the US out of Israel! I consider this a moral victory no matter what else happens. Can you believe there was ever a time Israel was in play? Man, history is so old. <\/p>\n

Bruce:<\/strong> The thing about history is that besides being old, it repeats itself. There is a card called Arab-Israeli Wars that can replace American influence in Israel with Soviet influence, based on a die roll (To Hit Armor Class Ben Gurion). But unlike the Korean War event, which happens once and is removed, the Arab-Israeli War card keeps getting recycled until it is stopped by the Camp David Accords card. So the American position in Israel won’t be secure until the Mid-War, and it’s dangerous for the American player to devote much time to Israel until then, as all his or her influence can be wiped out by the roll of a d6.<\/p>\n

Tom:<\/strong> Playing Twilight Struggle with Bruce is like playing blackjack with someone who’s counting cards. <\/p>\n

Bruce:<\/strong> He who forgets history is destined to get whammied by cardplay? Isn’t that a saying from somewhere? One thing I kind of wish Twilight Struggle had was counterfactual events: Soviets invade Poland, or US stays out of Vietnam. But I guess that’s what conceding Southeast Asia would be as the US player, and that’s a terrible idea. Twilight Struggle is locked into a particular view of history, which is the view of history that was operative at the time. Which seems like a splendid way to make a historical game. Now, if they only had a card for the South winning the Civil War…<\/p>\n

Tom:<\/strong> Oh, hey, great news! I just sent an animal into space. Not such great news for the animal. Bruce, on the other hand, keeps sending the Vietnam Revolt card into space. This sucks for me, because the Soviet player benefits much more from an Earthbound Vietnam Revolt.<\/p>\n

Bruce:<\/strong> I sure wish I had some better cards to send into space, but Vietnam Revolts will do for now. Without it, Tom will struggle to make inroads in Southeast Asia because he has no way of getting there apart from coups, which I can prevent if I keep the Defcon at 3 or lower.<\/p>\n

Tom:<\/strong> You kids these days probably don’t remember defcons. The idea is that as tensions escalate between the superpowers, they don’t dare cross each other for fear of someone getting antsy and lobbing an ICBM. Twilight Struggle expresses this by making entire continents off limits for dirty tricks. As the tension escalates, the coup opportunity door slams shut in Europe, then Asia, then the Middle East. Dirty tricks are always okay in Africa and Latin America. No one’s going to start a nuclear war over the Third World.<\/p>\n

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TURN 4 – Khrushchev – Mid War cards are added<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Twilight_Struggle_4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tom:<\/strong> Bruce decides to hold the Olympics. Normally our legions of trained gymnasts would turn this into a decisive victory for the Soviet Union. But in Twilight Struggle, the guy who plays the Olympics card only has to a roll a four or lower on a d6. What a terrible sporting event. Bruce takes the gold medal in d6 rolling and racks up a couple more victory points.<\/p>\n

Bruce:<\/strong> The Olympics is one of those cards known as “Defcon Suicide” cards. It’s even an example in the rulebook. Because just like in Chris Crawford’s Balance of Power, you lose if you trigger nuclear war. The catch is that the person who is considered to have triggered it is the person whose turn it is<\/em>. If someone plays Olympics, the other player can boycott. This degrades the Defcon by one. If the Defcon is already 2, boycotting take it to Defcon 1, and the person who played Olympics is the person who loses. Ouch!<\/p>\n

Tom:<\/strong> Sometimes rules are tricky because they make no sense. Nuclear armageddon because someone decides to opt out of sports?<\/p>\n

Bruce:<\/strong> Defcon suicide is a tricky concept. There are cards that allow you to take an action as part of an event. If this is your opponent’s event, and you manage to trigger it at Defcon 2, your opponent can merrily use that action to stage a coup in a Battleground country. Whoops! You blew up the world. Emphasis on you<\/em>, the person who triggered the event and allowed your opponent to conduct the coup. The guy who actually played the coup action gets off scot-free. If one of these cards is hanging out in your hand, you need to make sure you either play it at Defcon 3 or above, or hold it, or play it into space.<\/p>\n

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TURN 5 – Kennedy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tom: <\/strong>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.<\/p>\n

Bruce:<\/strong> 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!<\/em>. It’s like they’re not even in Europe or something.<\/p>\n

Tom:<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n

Bruce:<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n

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TURN 6 – Brezhnev<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Twilight_Struggle_6\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tom:<\/strong> On turn 6, I draw three scoring cards to my hand. Which gives me an edge in terms of knowing when certain regions will score. But it seriously hampers my ability to actually accomplish anything this turn, which is bad news given that Bruce is running away with the game. I find the worst time to be unable to accomplish anything is when you’re losing. I manage to instigate a Korean War, but I lose it. I also forget the space race. However, I am able to decolonize the holy crap out of Africa. So I’ve got that going for me.<\/p>\n

Bruce:<\/strong> The problem with having too many scoring cards is you have to have set up for them in a previous turn, because almost half of your hand will be cards that don’t let you do anything. Tom scores Central America (which I dominate), South America (which I control), and Africa (which who cares). Tom’s Decolonization takes the sting out of Africa for him. Meryl Streep would be proud.<\/p>\n

Tom:<\/strong> That reminds me. Watching Bruce run away with this game is about as much fun as watching Ricki and the Flash. <\/p>\n

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TURN 7 – Nixon<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Twilight<\/a><\/p>\n

Tom:<\/strong> My Quagmire card will keep Bruce busy rolling a d6 and burning valuable cards. Basically, the Vietnam War. Instead, it lets him discard the Muslim Revolution, which would have helped me. I guess a Quagmire is only as bad as whatever you have to throw into it.<\/p>\n

Bruce:<\/strong> Quagmire is a good card for the Soviets to headline because it ensures that the first action the US will have to take will be a discard. This means that if you can get the Defcon to 4 as the USSR, you can headline Quagmire, then conduct a Battleground coup on round 1 to get the Defcon to 3, and then after the US discards a card, the Soviets can do another<\/em> Battleground coup and take the Defcon to 2, thus shutting the US out of any Battleground coups for the whole turn.<\/p>\n

Defcon management is a skill. When the Defcon gets to 4, the US player wants to get it to 3 before the end of the turn, because it improves by one at the start of the next turn, and at Defcon 5 the Soviets can conducts coups or realignments in Europe. That’s bad. Remember Greece 1947? Of course you do. Often, players ride the Defcon near 2 in order to prevent the other side from taking advantage of the relaxed atmosphere to improve its position. See how thematic it is? By keeping the world on the brink of annihilation, the superpowers limit their opponent’s freedom of action. Jason and Ananda are really geniuses.<\/p>\n

Tom:<\/strong> You know what else is a skill? Playing RTSs. Remember when those were a thing and me and Bruce would play them? Those were the days.<\/p>\n

Bruce:<\/strong> By the way, the US has a similar card, called Bear Trap (meant to represent the invasion of Afghanistan) and it works the same way. But these cards aren’t that powerful, because like Tom said, they can be used to discard an opponent’s events instead of having to play them. And Muslim Revolution is a really bad event, just like in RL. Glad I got rid of it!<\/p>\n

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TURN 8 – Carter – Late War cards are added<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bruce:<\/strong> I’m at 14 VP. This is a good position to be in, because whereas the Early War is all about the spreading threat of Communism, the Late War is about the inexorable march of Democracy. Events like Solidarity and Tear Down This Wall allow the US to project influence cheaply into parts of Europe they might not even be connected to. I guess that simulates television or something. But even better, I got the card that I think is there to shut down runaway games: Wargames. It allows the holding player to end the game without a final scoring round, as long as he first concedes 6 VP. So it means that if you play this card when you’re winning by 7 VP or more, you win. And I’m good enough at math to know that 14 VP is a heck of a lot more than Communism can take.<\/p>\n

\"Twilight_Struggle_victory\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tom:<\/strong> By using the War Games card to win, Bruce’s victory is essentially fake. If there’s anything Bruce and I have learned in our careers as videogamers, it’s that you can’t win a real war with a War Game.<\/p>\n

BACK TO THE TOP<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1715,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[399],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tom-vs-bruce"],"yoast_head":"\nTom vs Bruce: Twilight Struggle - Quarter to Three<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/2016\/05\/16\/tom-vs-bruce-twilight-struggle\/\" \/>\n<link rel=\"next\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quartertothree.com\/fp\/2016\/05\/16\/tom-vs-bruce-twilight-struggle\/2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tom vs Bruce: Twilight Struggle - 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