Team Twilight Struggle via Vassal!

[El Guapo]

In Soviet Russia, thread bumps you!

[Remus West]

American headline was submitted before the Russian's. We just didn't feel the need to brag about it.

[El Guapo]

Well, I'll go ahead and reveal our headline then:

[NickAragua]

So you're playing Destalinization then?

[El Guapo]

Or pro-stalinization. Something to do with Stalin, anyhow; my Russian isn't so great.

[NickAragua]

Well, since the headline is about how Stalin died, Destalinization is a pretty safe bet.

[El Guapo]

Maybe it's Stalinimmortalization. Or Stalinresurrection.

[NickAragua]

"Negates all cards having to do with subsequent Soviet leaders."

[SpaceLord]

* Soviet plays Headline card. (unkown card)
* American plays Headline card. (unkown card)
* American reveals CIA Created* in Headline Phase.
* Soviet reveals Korean War* in Headline Phase.
*** Soviet plays Korean War* Event ***
* Soviet changes Soviet Military Ops to 2.
* Die-roll modifier: 0
* Soviet Die = [6] *** <Soviet>
* North wins Korean War.
* Soviets gain 2 VPs.
* Soviet changes VPs to 2 Soviet Victory Points.
* Removing 1 U.S. Influence from S. Korea.
* Adding 1 Soviet Influence in S. Korea.
* All playable events not yet played.
*** American plays CIA Created* Event ***
* Soviet Hand is revealed.
*** American plays card for 1 Ops.

Soviet Hand:


Saved Game file


American players, it's your turn to play 1 Ops point. Then we proceed to Turn 2, Round 1, Soviet action

[El Guapo]

Sweet! Seoul is liberated!

Also, just to be clear one minor tweak is that, for CIA* purposes, the Korean War* card is of course no longer in the Soviet hand.

[NickAragua]

Americans will launch a coup in Indonesia with the 1 op.

[El Guapo]

How dare you interfere with the aspirations of the Indonesian people and their freely chosen post-colonial government?

[SpaceLord]

*** American initiates coup in Indonesia with 1 Ops.
* U.S. Die = [3] *** <American>
* American changes American Military Ops to 1.
* Removing 1 Soviet Influence from Indonesia.
* Adding 1 American Influence in Indonesia.
U.S. Influence in S. Korea was decreased from 1 to 0.
Soviet Influence in S. Korea was increased from 0 to 1.
Soviet Influence in Indonesia was decreased from 1 to 0.
U.S. Influence in Indonesia was increased from 0 to 1.
* American player updated turn to Turn 2, Round 1: Soviet

Ruskies, your move.

[El Guapo]

The Soviets will play NORAD* for 3 ops (event before ops, I guess, not that it matters here). We will then use those 3 ops to add 2 additional influence to South Korea (for control), and 1 additional influence to Italy.

Oh, and in case you don't have the text for NORAD* handy, it's a U.S. event that has the following ongoing effect: if the U.S. controls Canada, then any time that Defcon hits 2, the U.S. gets to add 1 influence to any country that already has at least 1 U.S. influence. The event is cancelled if the Quagmire* event is played.

[NickAragua]

The U.S. will play Red Scare / Purge as an event, reducing the value of all Soviet ops cards played this turn by 1 (to a minimum of 1). BAM!

[El Guapo]

Well, that's a pain. Anyhow, the Soviets are going to play The Cambridge Five for 1 ops (factoring in Red Scare). We'll use that whooping 1 op to launch a coup in Iran.

Good luck, boys. You have the utmost faith of the politburo.

[El Guapo]

Bumpski.

[SpaceLord]

Are you playing The Cambridge Five for 1 OPs, or the event?

[El Guapo]

Anyhow, the Soviets are going to play The Cambridge Five for 1 ops (factoring in Red Scare). We'll use that whooping 1 op to launch a coup in Iran.

[Remus West]

Well, that's a pain. Anyhow, the Soviets are going to play The Cambridge Five for 1 ops (factoring in Red Scare). We'll use that whooping 1 op to launch a coup in Iran.

Good luck, boys. You have the utmost faith of the politburo.

[SpaceLord]

I'll try to update this tonight, or the morning.

[SpaceLord]

*** American plays Red Scare/Purge Event ***
* All cards played by U.S.S.R. this turn are -1 Ops (min. 1 Op).
* No changes in Influence last round.
* Soviet player updated turn to Turn 2, Round 2: Soviet
*** Soviet plays The Cambridge Five for 1 Ops.
*** Soviet initiates coup in Iran with 1 Ops.
* Soviet changes DefCon to 4.
* No coups or realignments in Europe.
* Soviet Die = [4] *** <Soviet>
* Soviet changes Soviet Military Ops to 3.
* Removing 1 American Influence from Iran.
U.S. Influence in Iran was decreased from 1 to 0.
* Soviet player updated turn to Turn 2, Round 2: American




Saved Game file


U.S, it's your turn.

[NickAragua]

The United States will play the China Card for 5 ops, using it to launch a coup in South Korea.

To be honest, I can't tell who's supposed to be the commies and who's the capitalists here.

[El Guapo]

So China is launching a pro-capitalist coup in South Korea?

[Remus West]

So China is launching a pro-capitalist coup in South Korea?

They need somewhere to sell their trinkets. This was their trade concession to us.

[El Guapo]

We shouldn't leave this on a cliffhanger. Is the coup going to succeed? The viewing public demands to know!

[Remus West]

2 weeks with zero posts from the guy "running" the game? I'm done with this. It is not possible for me to learn how this game is played when nothing happens for so long that I can not even remember what strategy we were pursuing. Good luck to both sides.

[El Guapo]

Yeah I figure the game isn't really going anywhere long term, but I've never gotten control of South Korea as the Soviets so I'm curious as to whether I'd hold on to it or not.

[El Guapo]

2 weeks with zero posts from the guy "running" the game? I'm done with this. It is not possible for me to learn how this game is played when nothing happens for so long that I can not even remember what strategy we were pursuing. Good luck to both sides.

Remus, would you be interested in playing Twilight Struggle via Vassal sometime? Nick and I have played a few games, using Skype to chat during the game. They usually take ~ 3 or so hours, depending on whether there's an early victory or not. I'd be happy to give you basic pointers during the game, and I could answer rules questions. And Vassal's pretty easy to use, and connecting online is pretty easy. I suspect Nick would be up for a match sometime as well.

As for this game, Nick and I were thinking we might just finish it off online sometime this weekend; we can post an AAR for it.

[Remus West]

2 weeks with zero posts from the guy "running" the game? I'm done with this. It is not possible for me to learn how this game is played when nothing happens for so long that I can not even remember what strategy we were pursuing. Good luck to both sides.

Remus, would you be interested in playing Twilight Struggle via Vassal sometime? Nick and I have played a few games, using Skype to chat during the game. They usually take ~ 3 or so hours, depending on whether there's an early victory or not. I'd be happy to give you basic pointers during the game, and I could answer rules questions. And Vassal's pretty easy to use, and connecting online is pretty easy. I suspect Nick would be up for a match sometime as well.

As for this game, Nick and I were thinking we might just finish it off online sometime this weekend; we can post an AAR for it.

I'd like to see an AAR for this game and maybe do a vassal game sometime but life is very hectic right now so planning enough ahead to give 3 hours to it is not going to be easy. Life settles down (typically) after June so possibly then?

[SpaceLord]

Sorry, but three weeks of 16 hour days at work gives me no time to get this updated. I'll be updating this weekend, now that things have calmed down at work.

[El Guapo]

2 weeks with zero posts from the guy "running" the game? I'm done with this. It is not possible for me to learn how this game is played when nothing happens for so long that I can not even remember what strategy we were pursuing. Good luck to both sides.

Remus, would you be interested in playing Twilight Struggle via Vassal sometime? Nick and I have played a few games, using Skype to chat during the game. They usually take ~ 3 or so hours, depending on whether there's an early victory or not. I'd be happy to give you basic pointers during the game, and I could answer rules questions. And Vassal's pretty easy to use, and connecting online is pretty easy. I suspect Nick would be up for a match sometime as well.

As for this game, Nick and I were thinking we might just finish it off online sometime this weekend; we can post an AAR for it.

I'd like to see an AAR for this game and maybe do a vassal game sometime but life is very hectic right now so planning enough ahead to give 3 hours to it is not going to be easy. Life settles down (typically) after June so possibly then?

Oh certainly no rush - just whenever you're interested I'd be up for a game - just shoot me a PM whenever.

[El Guapo]

Sorry, but three weeks of 16 hour days at work gives me no time to get this updated. I'll be updating this weekend, now that things have calmed down at work.

Oh, no worries - certainly work (and life) comes first. It's just that after a good amount of radio silence I think we all just figured that the game probably wasn't coming back.

[El Guapo]

hmmm...from what Nick and I can tell, looks like the posted save files can only be loaded from the Soviet side on Vassal. So in any event unless we were doing something wrong we can't play out the current game on Vassal anyways.

But we did play a new game from start to finish on Vassal last night - I'll post a quick AAR / summary when I have a moment, probably tonight.

[El Guapo]

Here's a quick AAR / summary of the game between Nick and I on Friday. I've organized it by region:

Asia

The Domino Theory was validated by this game, as Vietnam's fall to the Soviets precipitated the fall of Southeast Asia more generally. The USSR played the Vietnam Revolts card as his first headline event, then spread from the influence in Vietnam to take over Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Southeast Asia remained under solid Soviet control for pretty much the entire game, which hurt when he played the Southeast Asia scoring card in the mid-game (+1 VP for each SE Asia country that you control, and +2 for Thailand).

East Asia was a reliable bastion of freedom, by contrast. Once the Japan-U.S. Mutual Defense Pact was played, giving me control of Japan, it added its protection to help South Korea against any war (each neighbor of South Korea that is controlled gives a -1 penalty to the Soviet roll in the event that the Korean war is played). With that protection, I added enough influence to take control of South Korea, and later took control of Taiwan as well to give additional protection to South Korea. Perhaps as a result, no Korean War ever develops.

In South Asia, the Soviets initially take control of Pakistan. I am able to break into South Asia through a successful coup in Burma, then spread from there to take control of India to balance Soviet-influenced Pakistan. Ultimately I am able to take control of Pakistan as well through a coup, giving me an edge in Asia.

Middle East

In this region early Soviet incursions were able to be reversed in the mid-game through events and coups. The Soviets take early control of Iraq (through influence) and Egypt (through the Nasser event), and an initially pro-U.S. government in Lebanon is eliminated by a pro-Soviet coup. I take control of Jordan and later Syria to protect Israel from two plays of the Arab-Israeli War card. Later Soviet control of Egypt is thwarted by the "Sadat Expels Soviets" cards, which gives me an opening to take control. Interestingly while we kept maneuvering around Israel, neither of us ever took control of it - cost too many influence points while we were busy elsewhere.

I'm able to get a few VPs scoring the Middle East, but the action is largely elsewhere.

Africa

U.S.-led for most of the game, though the Soviets had a resurgence in the mid to late war. The U.S. takes control of South Africa early in the mid-war and is able to keep control there largely uninterrupted. Coups lead to dramatic alignment shifts in Zaire, Ethiopia, Tunisia, Algeria, and elsewhere. I am able to take advantage of a quick moment of dominance to score Africa in the mid-game, netting me about 5 points here.

Americas

There really wasn't a ton of action here. In South America the northern part remained pretty reliably pro-America - I'm able to take control of Columbia, Venezuela, and Brazil. Soviet incursions into Brazil are quickly undone via coup. Meanwhile the Soviets break into Chile via the Allende event, and take control of it and Argentina. That status quo lasts through the end of the game, with neither side able to get many points out of South America beyond my use of the Alliance for Progress Event (+1 VP per battleground country in South/Central America that is controlled).

Central America sees a little more action. The Soviets base of support is in northern Central America; they take control of Mexico via the Liberation Theology event; that's quickly undone by a pro-U.S. coup, which is then undone by a pro-Soviet coup. I am able to maintain control of Panama for most of the game (helped by returning the canal), with some support in Costa Rica and Nicaragua. I am able to get a few points here by scoring it during a period of brief dominance.

Europe

This is really where the action was. The Soviets were able to get a significant advantage early through the use of the Warsaw Pact and a couple other events, rapidly solidifying control of Eastern Europe (except for Bulgaria, which I spread to early and which wound up a member of NATO rather than the Warsaw Pact). France becomes a major battleground; I started with 1 influence there. In Year 2 the Soviets use de-Stalinization to spread 2 influence to France, then add more influence to take control there. Fortunately that turn I had a fairly high value hand, and was able to add enough influence there to break Soviet control. This escalated into an arms race where we each kept adding influence. Ultimately I was able to wind up with control by a 10-7 influence advantage.

NATO was a big help as well, as it allowed me to keep control of Italy by shielding it from coup attempts and from brush wars.

Ultimately I was able to break further into Eastern Europe in the mid to late war. John Paul II becoming Pope reduced Soviet influence and added U.S. influence, which gave me a window of opportunity that I poured influence into, winding up with control of Poland by a 7-4 margin. When a Soviet event raised Defcon to 5, I took advantage of the situation to attempt realignment rolls in East Germany (basically, you get opportunities to reduce enemy influence there based in large part upon how many neighboring countries you control). Control of West Germany and Poland with some good rolling managed to eliminate Soviet influence in East Germany, which I followed up by taking control of East Germany and managing reunification.

Once I had control of East Germany I had "control" of Europe - I controlled more countries than the USSR and controlled all of the battleground countries. This was important because if one side controls Europe when it is scored then they straight up win the game regardless of VPs (or I suppose you could think of control of Europe as being with 40 VPs). While I was down in VPs (-6) to the Soviets this put me in pretty good position heading into the last couple of years.

Until the Soviets played Wargames. Wargames is a late war event that, when you play it, allows you to give 6 VPs to the other side in exchange for immediately ending the game. So basically, if you are more than 6 VPs ahead, then you can win the game by playing this card. The Soviets were precisely 6 VPs ahead as it turned out; in Year 8 Nick scrambled to get the one more VP that he needed to win by playing this card, but was unsuccessful. Facing the prospect of losing should I draw the Europe scoring card, he decided to play Wargames regardless. Giving me 6 VPs and ending the game results in a tie - peace breaks out amongst the nations!

Here's a map at the end:



A tie in most of the world, but with the big exception of the U.S. managing to control Europe.

[AWS260]

Nice AAR, Guapo. A few more years, and the Soviet bear will surely starve itself!

[SpaceLord]

*** American plays The China Card for 4 Ops.
* +1 Op if all points used in Asia.
*** American initiates coup in S. Korea with 5 Ops.
* American changes DefCon to 3.
* No coups or realignments in Asia.
* U.S. Die = [4] *** <American>
* American changes American Military Ops to 5.
* Removing 3 Soviet Influence from S. Korea.
Soviet Influence in S. Korea was decreased from 3 to 0.
* American player updated turn to Turn 2, Round 3: Soviet

Saved game file

USSR, your action.

I was able to open the current saved game file.

[El Guapo]

Do we not see, comrades, how capitalism contains within it the seeds of war? But the peace-loving peoples of the Soviet Union shall not respond to the naked American aggression in Korea in kind. No, we shall put on a display of the great triumphs that are possible when the people are free to work together free of the chains of capitalist imperium.

The USSR plays Olympic Games for the event. The effect of that event is that the USSR sponsors the olympics. The U.S. now has two choices, to participate or to boycott:

Participate: the USSR and U.S. both role roll a d6. As the sponsoring state, the USSR gets a +2 bonus on the roll. Whoever winds up with the higher (modified) roll wins the olympics and gets 2 VPs.

Boycott: Defcon drops by 1. The USSR may then proceed to perform ops as if a 4 ops card had been played. [That would be 3 ops here given the Red Scare event].

So let the Leningrad games begin! That's right Nick - Leningrad, not Moscow.

[NickAragua]

Well, since I'm sure that the games won't be rigged and the judges will be completely impartial, so the U.S. will be participating.

[SpaceLord]

I give up, how does the Olympic Games work in Vassal? I can play it as an event, but can't seem to get the other side to boycott or accept.