Team Twilight Struggle via Vassal!

[El Guapo]

ah sweet, sweet Vassal. The way it works is that when one player plays the Olympic Games event a pop up comes up on the other players screen with their options (I this case participate or boycott). It works fine in Vassal when you're playing live - i.e. you have one player online on each side. The problem is that I don't think it works if you're on hotseat mode (i.e. switching back and forth between giving actions for both sides), since it doesn't preserve the pop-up when you switch sides.

In the short term the easiest way to handle this is probably just to do it manually. I.e. play the event, roll a d6 for each of us, add a +2 to my roll (adjusting ties), and then manually adjust the VPs in the game accordingly.

The bigger problem is that I would bet a significant amount of money that this same problem is going to effect any event that requires a response from the other side - i.e. five year plan, blockade, and of course my favorite event Missile Envy (which created a number of bugs in the online games that Nick and I have played, even setting aside hotseat issues).

[NickAragua]

Yeah, whoever coded that module really didn't spend enough time hammering away at those "other player popup" event cards. If you do anything other than immediately answer the popup prompt (and, hell, sometimes, even if you just answer it), you have a pretty good chance of one or more of your cards either disappearing or going face up on the board.

It might help you to upgrade to the latest version of vassal, as that has fixed some of the nastier bugs.

[SpaceLord]

*** Soviet plays Olympic Games Event ***
* Soviet Die = [6] *** <>
* U.S. Die = [4] *** <American>
* American changes VPs to 3 Soviet Victory Points.
* American changes VPs to 4 Soviet Victory Points.
* No changes in Influence last round.
* American player updated turn to Turn 2, Round 3: American

Saved game file here!

American player, your turn.

[NickAragua]

The United States will "SCORE ASIA!" I'm pretty sure we lose VPs here.

[El Guapo]

After Asia is scored, the Soviets will play The Cambridge Five for 1 ops (factoring in the -1 for containment). We'll use that 1 ops to add 1 influence in Thailand, taking control.

[SpaceLord]

*** American plays Asia Scoring Event ***
* U.S.S.R. has Presence in Asia for 3 VPs.
* U.S.S.R. Controls 1 Battleground countries in Asia.
* U.S. has Presence in Asia for 3 VPs.
* Soviets gain 1 VPs.
* American changes VPs to 5 Soviet Victory Points.
* No changes in Influence last round.
* American player updated turn to Turn 2, Round 4: Soviet
* UNDO: Soviet Play The Cambridge Five for Ops.
*** Soviet plays The Cambridge Five for 1 Ops.
Soviet Influence in Thailand was increased from 1 to 2.
* Soviet player updated turn to Turn 2, Round 4: American

Saved Game File

[El Guapo]

I think an update means six more weeks of winter.

[Jow]

Wow, long time since no update...

I just picked this one up at Gencon this past weekend and a friend Brandon and I ran through our first game and man was it a blast. I won't even tell you how long it took (due to us learning the rules and my buddy having a really severe case of AP) but suffice to say we only made it to the end of the fourth turn before Brandon had to split. Based on the cards I had in hand, though, it was pretty likely I was going to earn a total victory in the first couple cards of turn 5.

Here's a picture of the final board:

http://faunaphile.smugmug.com/Other/Ran ... 055-X3.jpg

Brandon actually jumped out into the lead in this one in an early by-a-hair domination of Europe, but I mitigated that somewhat with my own domination of the Middle East. He was up 7 vp when I started chopping away at the lead with The Arab Israeli War, the Olympics, etc. I eventually came back and had a 14-point lead myself, but a lucky draw of the S. America scoring card when I had no presence there netted Brandon 8 VP, putting him down only 6 and making it a game again. That's where the VP marker ended up as turn 5 was about to begin.

Three big things happened that really hurt Brandon this game:

1) the space race. Notice he's only on the second space, while I'm all the way on space 6. Not only did that extra attention give me a 7-1 VP advantage, but I also got two turns of being able to play 2 Space Race cards a turn. On turn 4 that was huge as I drew *5* U.S. events. Being able to ditch the two worst of those helped me make it through the turn without much hurt.

2) Brandon got stuck playing the Fidel event on turn 3, losing his 3 influence in Cuba and giving me 3 back. That event is one of the most brutal I've seen for the U.S. as it gives the Soviets a foothold in North America AND locks down a U.S.-adjacent country pretty hard.

3) After working hard to beef up Japan and S. Korea, Brandon played the Korean War as an ops card. That card instructs the Soviet player to roll a die, subtracting one for each U.S.-controlled country adjacent to S. Korea. With Japan and Taiwan under control, this seemed like a no-brainer as I needed a natural 6 to win the event. I rolled the 6. The spoils of victory were 2 vp and removal and replacement of all U.S. influence with Soviet influence. What was an evenly-contested S. Korea (4 Soviet influence, 3 U.S.) suddenly turned into a country firmly under Soviet control with 7 influence. He never again threatened to kick me out of Asia.

Other stuff to notice:

Defcon status: we flirted with nuclear annihilation quite a bit. I was perfectly happy to keep it as low as possible to rule out coups in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East so that I could try to maintain my advantages in those regions.

Middle East and SE Asia: We drew our cards for turn 5 just to see what they would be (since we were quitting anyway). I drew both the Middle East and SE Asia cards. I actually had Control over both regions, so unless Brandon's headliner had done something to address his problems in those regions, I could have won the game during the first Action round.

Can't wait to play again!

[El Guapo]

Awesome. Yeah, Twilight Struggle is all kinds of awesome. If you search for it in the "Gaming in general" forum you can find a few AARs that I've posted, if you're interested. Also as you probably know already from this thread (which is a blast from the past) there is a Vassal module that allows you to play online, which (with some quirks) works pretty well.

It's interesting to see newbie game results, as things definitely turns out differently. I've never seen Soviet influence in Japan or Australia, for example. Though you may not have seen the errata that Australia is supposed to start with 4 U.S. influence (i.e. with U.S. control), not 1 as I believe the manual states. What baffles me is how there is no influence in West Germany or Italy. Was there a successful embargo in West Germany? Why did no one retake it or Italy?

The Cuba thing sucked for the U.S., but after the first game you learn not to place U.S. influence in Cuba or Romania, and usually not in Egypt until post-Nasser. Cuba's not all that devastating for the U.S., though - for the most part Central America isn't super important points-wise, and you can just focus on keeping control of Mexico (usually doable) and Panama.

[Jow]

It's interesting to see newbie game results, as things definitely turns out differently. I've never seen Soviet influence in Japan or Australia, for example. Though you may not have seen the errata that Australia is supposed to start with 4 U.S. influence (i.e. with U.S. control), not 1 as I believe the manual states. What baffles me is how there is no influence in West Germany or Italy. Was there a successful embargo in West Germany? Why did no one retake it or Italy?

The Cuba thing sucked for the U.S., but after the first game you learn not to place U.S. influence in Cuba or Romania, and usually not in Egypt until post-Nasser. Cuba's not all that devastating for the U.S., though - for the most part Central America isn't super important points-wise, and you can just focus on keeping control of Mexico (usually doable) and Panama.

I own the Deluxe edition so the errata for Australia is correctly reflected on the board and in the manual. Japan: I originally thought it might be interesting to contest Japan in the spirit of controlling a country adjacent to the U.S, but after he got the U.S./Japan agreement I gave up on it. The influence in Australia was solely to contest a country he was already heavily invested in in the event of an Asia scoring. The Italy thing just happened within an action round or two of when the photo was taken, and West Germany happened not too long before that (resulting from a Soviet event Brandon played as ops, possibly Socialist Governments). Even so, it didn't seem incredibly important to swoop in as Europe had already been scored twice.

Cuba: i completely forgot that didn't start out with any influence. Brandon just thought it prudent to lock that down given its battleground status and adjacency to his superpower.

Lessons learned, for sure.

[El Guapo]

Yeah, Japan's never worth contesting as the Soviets due to the U.S. / Japan Pact. If you get anywhere, at some point that event will drop and your influence is wasted. Australia's really never worth contesting either - one non-battleground is just as good as another, so it's almost always more worthwhile to lock down India/Pakistan first, and then the non-battlegrounds in SE Asia. Anywho, I've never seen it done.

Europe's almost always worth the IP - if the game went longer, it's almost certainly going to be scored again at least once, and it's worth a lot of points. And don't forget that if you get control of Europe and it's scored...you just win outright. So in that situation it's absolutely, 100% worth it to grab West Germany and Italy IMMEDIATELY, as then you just need to get control of France to win the game. Though I guess they both just vacated.

[Jow]

we were also having trouble keeping the connection between defcon status and coups. At one point Brandon played a coup in E. Germany and rolled a 5, basically removing all 3 influence I had there. I thought I was in trouble, until I realized defcon status was at 4 and coups were not allowed in Europe. Saved!

With that in mind, I see why grabbing W. Germany and Italy while they were empty would have been so important, since coups are only allowed in Europe when defcon is at 5.

[Jow]

Two things I wanna clarify (one of which we did wrong in our first game, I think):

1) Regarding discard shuffles: there are enough cards in the Early War deck to get both players through 2 turns and change. In order to have enough cards for both players in turn 3, you reshuffle the discard pile containing the previously used Early War cards to form a new draw pile. At the beginning of turn 4, the Mid War cards are shuffled into what's left of that draw pile, ignoring the discard pile. Once the draw pile runs out and a reshuffle needs to occur, all cards in the discard are then reshuffled to form a new draw pile. Is this correct? That said, this means that the Asia and/or Europe scoring cards will appear twice and very likely a third time?

2) Regarding holding scoring cards... The rulebook states in a couple of places that holding a scoring card, intentionally or otherwise, means you instantly lose the game. It also implies there are situations you can accidentally find yourself in where you get stuck holding a scoring card, but that even if they're mishaps you still lose the game. Is that correct? Has anyone ever run into something like that themselves?

[El Guapo]

On #1, you have this correct. When you add mid-war and late-war cards into the deck, they go into the existing deck. Then when that deck eventually runs out, the whole discard pile gets shuffled back in. So basically every card from the applicable time periods gets shuffled together when the discard pile runs out (except for the cards that are removed from the game when played as events, of course).

On #2, the rule is that you cannot hold a scoring card between turns under any circumstances. If you have scoring cards in your hand, you must start playing them as soon as you need to in order to play them (so if you have 3 scoring cards, you must start playing them by the 3rd-to-last phase of the turn). I'm not aware of the "you lose" rule from that, but I assume it's to deal with cheating (since it might be difficult to unwind the game to the point where the scoring card was held).

Basically if a card would force you to hold a scoring card, you play the scoring card instead of following that card. So for example if you are in a Bear Trap / Quagmire, it's the last phase, and you have a scoring card, you must play the scoring card and you disregard Bear Trap for that phase (then return to discard cards and rolling to cancel once the scoring card issue is done with).

But there's no "gaming" to force the other player to hold a scoring card and thereby lose.

[Jow]

This text, from the FAQ, is what caused me to ask the question about holding scoring cards:

Q. If Ask Not is used to draw more Scoring Cards than the US player has Action Rounds remaining can he claim to be exempted from
Holding the excess as per 10.1.5?
A. No, the player was not “forced” to draw more cards than he had Action Rounds remaining. There is absolutely no provision for playing more
than one Scoring Card per Round. Therefore, he would automatically lose the game because he held a scoring card.

The rulebook states the hardcore "you lose!" rule is officially only for tournament play, but how do you handle it in friendly games if it happens?

[El Guapo]

That's a good question (though bearing in mind that the Ask Not situation is exceedingly unlikely unless you do it on the last phase of a round or something, which wouldn't make sense anyhow). That's probably the only situation that can't be resolved with the "ignore other card effects if you need to in order to play scoring cards).

I guess what I'd say is do one of two things: (1) say that players cannot discard/draw so many cards with Ask Not that they might have to hold scoring cards (basically, the number of cards drawn with Ask Not would be limited to no more than the number of phases left in the turn; or (2) allow holding scoring cards if absolutely required, BUT those scoring cards must be played immediately in the next turn (i.e. your next headline would have to be a scoring card, and so on until you're played all of the scoring cards held over.

I'd favor rule #1 for administrative simplicty. But odds are it'll never come up anyhow.

[Jow]

I was actually more concerned with the generalities of the whole thing rather than the 'Ask Not' situation specifically since that does seem like it would hardly ever come up. Good to know, though. Otherwise, I'll take your advice - complex situations with held cards can be dealt with, but scoring cards held intentionally or by mistake are rewarded with nuclear annihilation.

[Jow]

We're running our second game tonight. I've been reading some strategy stuff here and there to get some pointers without completely revealing all the strategies as we're excited to pick up some of that as we go. From what I read, our game was pretty typical of new games in that the U.S. player doesn't realize the impact of events like Fidel and Nasser and ends up losing a ton of tempo by playing influence into Cuba/Egypt before those USSR events come out of the deck. It was also pretty typical in that the U.S. player is normally on damage control for most of the early war and USSR steamroller victories can occur if the U.S. player isn't careful. I expect it'll be different this time, and i can't wait! I'll take more pics as we go.

[Jow]

well, it was certainly different, though not in a fun sort of way. Here's the picture of the final board after 7 turns before we called it quits:

http://faunaphile.smugmug.com/Other/Ran ... 056-X3.jpg

To summarize briefly, lots of just odd shit happened in this game, repeatedly. It started off really well for me - by the end of turn 1 I had eliminated the U.S. out of the Middle East completely and spent the rest of my attention on Europe. I eventually got up as high as 11 vp on the track due to Control of the Middle East and Domination of Europe (which took a lot of work). However, greed and a miscount of what I'd need for full control of Europe let Brandon make up a ton of points by having full control of Africa with four battlegrounds. The big mistake there: trying to coup W. Germany. Ironically I rolled a 6, which allowed me to remove 2 influence there and get the country contested as you see in the picture, but had I known the odds I would have done something differently.

Odd stuff: TWICE I was dealt and played UN Intervention (with accompanying event) on the same turn Brandon hit me with The Five Year Plan, leaving me a card short and unable to hold any cards both times. i was able to actually play every action round only by virtue of having the China card in my hand. Later in the game, Brandon accidentally had a couple of cards from a previous turn where I couldn't see them, so after I dealt him a full new hand he had 2 or 3 too many cards. With Defcon at 2 and him unable to do much militarily, I planned the entire turn around playing "How to stop worrying" as my last action, hosing Brandon for 5 VP, only to discover when it came time to play the card that he still had 4 cards remaining, giving him considerably more options for attempting a coup somewhere to make up the points. Blargh. We decided the fair way to handle it was to allow me to redeploy two influence I'd dropped in Italy on the previous turn into two small African countries, still allowing Brandon the full control but giving me points for Presence.

Where the game felt like it really went to shit was on turns 5 and 6 in the midwar. First off, my dice suddenly went to total hell. After succeeding on the Iran coup on the first try of the game and then rolling a '6' vs. West Germany in turn 3 or so, I never again made a single coup roll, rolling 4 or 5 straight '1's. Two of these were against Egypt once Sadat hit the table, allowing for the fairly well contested Middle East you see in the photo. The Space Race was just as bad - after having a lead of a space or two, I failed 2 or 3 times straight at the 1-4 roll necessary to go up to the space that forces your opponent to reveal his headline card first. Worst of all though, on turn 5 my hand consisted of 7 US only events, 2 mixed, and NO USSR events. The combination of cards was so bad that I opened my first action round with Bear Trap hoping that I'd repeatedly fail the dice rolls so I could just ditch some of the cards... but of course I successfully cancelled the event on the first dice roll. *eyeroll* I managed to fight through that mess, holding on for dear life, only to have turn 6 deal me 5 more US events, 3 mixed, and ONE USSR event (lone gunman). Nothing occurred in the game (like a glut of Soviet events) prior to that point which would have led us to expect such craziness in the cards.

Regardless, by the end of turn 7, fighting mistakes, my cards, and the dice, I was drained and ready to just concede the game to have it over with. Thankfully Brandon was ready to call it quits too, so we ended the game as you see it. With SE Asia scoring getting dumped on the Space Race by me during turn 7, I think I was in a pretty good position despite everything that happened. My biggest concern was trying to find inroads to Central and S. America, considering the Central America still hadn't appeared as of the end of turn 7. One quick Control scoring of Central America and this game would have been essentially dead even.

Anyway, let's just hope the way this game transpired was an aberration and that dice/card luck improve next time.

Edit: i just noticed this is in 'Forum Games'. Perhaps I should start another thread?

[El Guapo]

With SE Asia scoring getting dumped on the Space Race by me during turn 7, I think I was in a pretty good position despite everything that happened.

Whaa whaaaaaaa.... You can't play scoring cards on the space race. I think it's specifically prohibited but in any event scoring cards have an ops value of 0, and each space race area has a minimum ops value for the card that you discard to do the space race.

Basically, the one core rule to the game is that you MUST play a scoring card the same turn that you draw it - your only choice is the phase in which you play it.

Also one thing that is easily missed is that the SE Asia scoring card is removed from play after the first time it's played - it's the only scoring card that does that.

Otherwise, you're in pretty good shape on that map, especially having control of South Korea and Asia generally. It's odd that you weren't able to get any influence in the Americas by turn 7 though - if events don't do it (and usually you'll get one of Fidel, Liberation Theology, or Pinochet) then you need to launch a coup, and fortunately most of the Americas has stability of 1 or 2. You couldn't on that map due to Defcon 2 and him not having battlegrounds, but you just need to wait until Defcon 3 or until he controls a non-battleground.

Lastly, note that Brandon does NOT have domination or control of Central America on that map, just presence. That's because you must control at least one non-battleground country in order to have domination or control (and you have to control more countries overall in that region).

Looks like a fun game, though!

[Jow]

Shit, that's huge. I caught myself trying to use <2 ops on the Space Race once or twice but missed the scoring cards entirely. With Asia and SE Asia both potentially scoring heavily for the U.S. (with Formosan Resolution in play earlier, he had Asia convincingly dominated at the time I would have been forced to play the scoring card), this would have been an entirely different game.

Other things:

--I failed to realize the utility of attempting coups across the world in Central and South America. A good example was my reticence to play OAS Founded (Add two US influence in Central or South America) on one of the turns I had a mittful of US events, due to C. America scoring still having not appeared and not wanting to give the U.S. a free entry-point into those regions. It didn't occur to me that with the low stability of most of the countries down there, it also gave me opportunity to establish myself down there too. Double durrrr. Otherwise, none of those events you mentioned transpired. Brandon held onto Fidel for at least one turn and then ditched him for the Space Race, never to be seen again.

[Jow]

also, another question: if one player controls both India and Pakistan, can the opponent player use the India Pakistan War card to eliminate influence in either region?

[El Guapo]

also, another question: if one player controls both India and Pakistan, can the opponent player use the India Pakistan War card to eliminate influence in either region?

The opponent can use India-Pakistan War to *gain* influence in either country - it works the same regardless of who controls which country. The opponent picks a target country (either India or Pakistan), rolls a d6, subtracts 1 for each neighboring country controlled by the other superpower, and if the result is 4+ replaces influence in the target country with their own.

The only way that controlling both countries changes things is that you'd get a -1 modifier to the roll from control of India/Pakistan as a neighoring country. But if the Soviets control both, then the U.S. could use it to gain control of India or Pakistan. Note also that if the Soviets control both then the Soviet player can still use it, though all they could gain would be the 2 VP for a successful war.

But there's no situation in which the war would eliminate influence altogether without replacing it.

[El Guapo]

Shit, that's huge. I caught myself trying to use <2 ops on the Space Race once or twice but missed the scoring cards entirely. With Asia and SE Asia both potentially scoring heavily for the U.S. (with Formosan Resolution in play earlier, he had Asia convincingly dominated at the time I would have been forced to play the scoring card), this would have been an entirely different game.

Other things:

--I failed to realize the utility of attempting coups across the world in Central and South America. A good example was my reticence to play OAS Founded (Add two US influence in Central or South America) on one of the turns I had a mittful of US events, due to C. America scoring still having not appeared and not wanting to give the U.S. a free entry-point into those regions. It didn't occur to me that with the low stability of most of the countries down there, it also gave me opportunity to establish myself down there too. Double durrrr. Otherwise, none of those events you mentioned transpired. Brandon held onto Fidel for at least one turn and then ditched him for the Space Race, never to be seen again.

No worries. The first time or two I play any game I have resigned myself (and the group) to screwing up at least a few rules, and probably at least one major rule. Even relatively "simple" games have a ton of rules to keep in mind at the same time, and there's just no way you're going to get it all right on the first or second go-round.

And yes, coups play a big role in spreading influence around the world, allowing a superpower to break into a region. And on stability, I very rarely attempt a coup on a country with a stability higher than 2, and I don't think I've ever tried to coup a country with a stability of 4. Note however that realignment rolls can be *very* useful in targeting countries with high stability.

[Jow]

so in other words, if brandon had played that event on me, a successfull dice roll (with no penalty, since I didn't have control of Pakistan) would have resulted in me losing all my influence in India and Brandon gaining 3?

[El Guapo]

so in other words, if brandon had played that event on me, a successfull dice roll (with no penalty, since I didn't have control of Pakistan) would have resulted in me losing all my influence in India and Brandon gaining 3?

Yup. The war cards all work the same in that the result is replacing all opponent influence in the target country with your own (and gaining 2 VPs). None of them depend on the playing superpower having influence in or around the target country. For that matter (and unlike coups) the opponent doesn't even need to have influence in the target country, it's just that if they have zero influence then you're replacing zero with zero (but still gain VPs).

[Jow]

that's brutal. HE had that card in-hand but i wasn't sure if he could use it. I had a feeling my situation was more untenable than it appears.

[El Guapo]

that's brutal. HE had that card in-hand but i wasn't sure if he could use it. I had a feeling my situation was more untenable than it appears.

That's why you always need to have the war cards in mind. You probably don't want to invest IPs into taking India or Pakistan unless you already have control of one neighboring country because a 50% chance of a 6 point influence swing is brutal.

Similarly, I think that the U.S. has a dilemma in the first year - do they put South Korea up to 3 influence immediately and risk that the USSR has Korean War in their hand? Or do they take Taiwan/Japan first, and risk the USSR taking South Korea with influence before the U.S. does?

[Jow]

I think once we get a little more experience, the knowledge of what cards are likely to come back (first reshuffle) and those that are much less likely to be seen again (played during the third turn) will help a lot. I was honestly so involved in damage control due to my hand in turns 6 and 7 that i completely forgot about that war card. I actually avoided jumping into India as long as I could, but with Brandon butting up against me after taking Burma I had to make the jump or risk having to fight for it.

The korean thing has been interesting. Both games I ended up stealing it away from Brandon, the first by a lucky 6 roll on the Korean War, the second by some other means. Maybe it's lack of experience talking, but it seems like grabbing Taiwan first might be the better choice as the USSR player is usually more concerned about shoring up the Middle East (eliminating US influence in Iraq) at the beginning of the game than about making a grab for S. Korea. A U.S. controlled Taiwan makes succeeding at the Korean War not too bloody likely.

If I didn't say so before, this game is fascinating.