Tile Placement, a Board Game Blog

It Lives!

2012-04-03T23:40:00.000+08:00

I'll be reviewing another game soon. In addition, I plan to make one board game purchase a month so that should sustain this blog with well.. posts at least once a month (or 12 a year).

In the meantime, check out Tabletop to see Wil Wheaton (Of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Big Bang Theory fame) play games with various 'celebrities'! It's gnarly! (for lack of a better word)

Next up, Memoir '44!

Pandemic: A Review

2011-11-02T18:35:00.001+08:00

After the traumatising review of Twilight Struggle two weeks ago, I have decided to tackle a relatively simpler game, Pandemic. This is a review of the base game released in 2008 and does not include the expansion, On the Brink which was released in 2009. Read on for a detail overview and review of the game, Pandemic.

Pandemic is a cooperative game for 2-4 players and will take about 45 minutes to complete. It was designed by Matt Leacock and published by Z-Man Games.

The Story
The world of Pandemic is faced with four world-ending diseases -known as Blue, Yellow, Red and Black-. You play as a member of a specialist team working towards finding the cures for these diseases before mankind is mercilessly exterminated. Armed with nothing more than a few plane tickets and a car/ferry, the team sets out to find the cures by travelling around the world and collecting coloured sets of cards. The last hope of humanity lies in the hands of four ~~noobs~~ specialists who (most likely) have no professional training in ~~music~~ medicine. One of these is you. Will you save humanity? Or will you fail because you were too busy playing with your Game Boy and watching medical soaps?

The Box and its Contents

A game of Pandemic comes with the following components:

One game board
96 disease cubes in 4 colours
59 player cards (blue back with white borders)
48 infection cards (green back with black borders)
5 role cards
6 research stations
5 player pawns
4 reference cards
6 markers

4 cure markers
1 infection rate marker
1 outbreak marker

1 rulebook

The Map

Map and components

Pandemic is played out over a map of the world, showing cities as points linked by red lines. The circles you see in the image above is used to place player pawns as well as disease cubes. They represent a 'zoomed-in' view of a particular city.

The infection track

The map is divided into several sections. The top right contains the infection track and a space to place the infection cards and discard pile. The bottom right of the board is a space for the player cards and discard pile. The bottom left/middle/ugh of the board contains the outbreak track and cure track.

The Bits

Disease cubes

Pandemic comes with a total of 96 wooden cubes in four colours (24 of each colour). These cubes represent the diseases which threatens to end the world. The game also comes with 5 wooden player pawns to represent each role and 6 markers used to keep track of the outbreaks, infection rate and cures during a game. There are also 6 "research stations" which look like little houses.

Pawns and markers

The Cards

Player cards

Several types of cards were provided with the game. The photo above shows the player cards which represent cities in the game. There is only one copy of each city card and these are used to perform certain functions (which will be explained later, my impatient apprentice). These cards are your friends. Treat them as such. Unless it is an epidemic card, of course.

Epidemics!

The above are the six epidemic cards provided with the base game. The difficulty of Pandemic can be scaled according to how many epidemic cards are shuffled into the draw deck.

Special event cards

Also included in the player cards deck are special event cards. These cards contain special "rule-bending" effects that are very useful, especially when the players are in a tight spot (like a jammed elevator).

Infection cards

The second type of card are infection cards. These are similar to the player cards with the exception that these are black-bordered, have a different back and are solely used to infect cities shown on them. The infection cards are a player's worst enemies. However, do not abuse them (without the consent of the game owner).

Role cards

The third type of card are the role cards. Five roles are included with the game, namely the Medic, the Operations Expert, the Scientist, the Dispatcher and the Researcher. Players may choose roles closest to what they do in real life in order to maximise their effectiveness (not).

Reference cards

Finally, the other type of card supplied with the game are the reference cards. Useful for the first few games or so, these cards are typically used to help (first-time) players remember the various actions that s/he may take.

The Rulebook

The book of law

The rulebook that comes with the game is very well designed. There are a lot of graphical examples and each section is well-ordered and organised which makes reading it a breeze.

Set Up

Setting-up a game of Pandemic will take about 5-10 minutes. There are several things to prepare before players can get on with their ~~ghost~~ disease-busting antics.

Preliminary set-up, incomplete

Firstly, the various markers are placed at their respective locations. Meaning, the outbreak marker at the Outbreaks track, the infection marker at the Infection Rate track and the cure markers above the Cures Discovered track.

Separated in piles, the Hard way

Each player is then given a variable number of player cards based on the number of players playing (2 players: 4 cards each, 3 players: 3 cards each, 4 players: 2 cards each). The remaining player cards are then separated into piles according to the difficulty level that the players wish to play (4 piles for the Easy game, 5 piles for the Normal game, and 6 piles for the Hard game).

Epidemic card shown face side up as an example only

Once the piles have been separated, an epidemic card is then added to each one.

Card stacking action!

The piles are then individually shuffled and stacked on top of each other. This forms the player draw deck during the game.

Infecting the cities

The infection deck is then shuffled and 9 cards drawn to determine the starting infected cities in the game. The first three infection cards drawn will each receive three disease cubes, the next three two disease cubes, and the final three one disease cube each.

It's a little crowded here

Players then place a research station and their pawns at Atlanta, and the game begins!

Game Play

A turn for dummies

So, how does the game play? Players take turns performing actions as described in the reference cards. During each turn, a player can make up to four actions. These actions are divided into two categories, basic actions (movement) and special actions (non-movement).

Repeated for your convenience (and mine)

There are four basic actions that a player can make. These are driving/ferrying, direct flight, charter flight and shuttle flight.

Driving/ferrying means that a player uses an action to move along the red lines from one point to another.
If a player has a city card in his hand, he may perform a direct flight by discarding that card and moving to that city.
If the player is in a city which he has in his hand, he may perform a charter flight and discard that card to fly anywhere around the world.
If a player is at a research station, he may perform a shuttle flight and move to another research station on the map.

He moves!

Besides the basic actions, there are also four special actions that a player may make, which are building a research station, discovering a cure, treating disease and sharing knowledge.

A player may discard a city card from his hand to build a research station at that city. However, the player must be at the city he wishes to build the research station at.
A player may use an action to discover a cure. To do so, he must discard 5 cards of the same colour at a research station. It is not necessary to cure a disease of a certain colour at a similarly coloured city (therefore, a player may cure any coloured disease at any research station).
If there are disease cubes in a city, a player may use one action to remove one cube. If the disease is already cured, he may remove all cubes of the cured colour for one action.
If there are two players in a city, they may share knowledge. To do so, the players must be in the city which they wish to share and may give or receive that city's card for one action.

He treats!

The actions described above are the general rules that apply to all players. However, each role in the game has an "enhanced" version of an action.

The Dispatcher (pink/purple) is able to move other players as if he is moving his own pawn. He can also move one player's pawn to another for one action. He can only do so during his turn and must expend an action.
The Operations Expert (green) is able to build a research station without needing to discard a card. He must still be at the city he wishes to build the station at and must expend an action to do so.
The Scientist (white) is able to discover a cure by discarding 4 cards from his hand. He must still be at a research station and must expend an action to do so.
The Medic (orange) is able to treat all diseases of one colour in a city for one action. If the cure for the disease has already been found, he may treat the disease for free (without needing to use an action).
The Researcher (brown) is able to give a card to another player without needing to be at the city shown on the card. He may do this either during his turn or another player's. However, this ability only allows him to give. If he wants to receive a card, he must still be at the city shown on the card.

After a player is done taking actions, he draws two cards from the player deck, adding them to his hand of cards. A player may only hold a total of 7 cards in hand, any extras will have to be discarded.

And he draws..! Err, oops?

If a player draws an epidemic card, several things happen:

The infection rate is increased by one.
A card is drawn from the bottom of the infection deck and the city shown is infected with three disease cubes.
The discarded infection cards (including the one just drawn) is shuffled and placed on TOP of the infection deck.

Sometime later.. the infection rate is at 3 and Shanghai is drawn from the bottom as the epidemic city

The player then takes the third step of his turn, as the Infector.

Infecting the cities

As the Infector, the player turns over a number of cards equal to the infection rate (3 in the example above) and infects each city with one cube each. But what if a city with 3 cubes is infected? An outbreak happens! Each outbreak that occurs in the game moves the outbreak marker one step towards doom and damnation.

Assume Chicago is infected with another cube

In the example above, if Chicago was drawn from the infection deck, the following happens:

Note: Toronto does not receive another cube to make it four. Instead, it outbreaks too!

But what if there was another city with three cubes adjacent to it? A chain reaction occurs! A city may only have a maximum of three disease cubes for each colour (it may receive 3 disease cubes each for all four colours!). If it receives an additional one, it outbreaks. Therefore, if Chicago was drawn as the infected city above, Toronto would then outbreak, resulting in New York outbreaking after that. However, a city may only outbreak once per infection card drawn (i.e. Chicago cannot outbreak again for this card. However, it may outbreak again if the next card drawn by the same player is Toronto!).

Death by chain reaction

Chain reactions typically result in the above example, where cubes start spreading every which way and players lose the game. Wait, lose? How?

Winning and Losing
There is only one way to win Pandemic, and that is to discover all four cures. There are, however, three ways to lose:

You lose if the outbreak marker reaches 8 (too much disease)
You lose if there are no more disease cubes of a certain colour to place (overpowering disease)
You lose if you cannot draw any more cards (out of time, stop playing that Game Boy!)

You lose! ..again!

As you can see, there are many ways to lose yet only one way to win. In fact, Pandemic is probably a game which you will lose during your first play. But that, is the beauty of it all.

Conclusion & Opinion

As I've stated in the beginning of this review, Pandemic is a cooperative game. Regardless of how well a player may understand the intricacies of the game's mechanics or how able he is to find the optimum move each turn, the game simply will not work if there is no communication or teamwork. During a game of Pandemic, players must analyse the situation and plan the best course of action together. Silent or uncooperative players in the game will usually result failure. In this game, players have a shared objective and live or die together.

Some people have commented that the game may technically be played entirely by one person. In fact, this seems to be the case when playing with an open hand. Therefore, I strongly discourage players from playing with all information available to all players even though some may think that there is no difference after all. However, I noticed that with a closed hand, each player will have to make an extra effort in communication and joining the discussions at the table instead of having the most experienced player pointing out the best move while the other players nod their heads in agreement.

All in all, Pandemic is a good cooperative game which I feel is ideal for friends, families and colleagues to play in order to build teamwork and communication. It is, however, a game which I feel is best when you are losing. Winning the game does feel a little deflating. Therefore, I highly recommend playing on "Hard" once the players playing the game have sufficient experience (say, won 5 times on Normal?).

Till next time!

(Pandemic may be played/purchased at your nearest board game cafe, such as Meeples!)

Accumulation

2011-10-26T00:30:00.002+08:00

Looking through the 'recorded plays' of owned games in my BGG collection:

7 Wonders: 14 plays (only started recording sometime in September though, so maybe triple this number :-p)
Battle Line: 18 plays
Carcassonne: 22 plays
Dominion: 53(!) plays (not including 2 dozen or so plays before I started recording)
Pandemic: 14 plays (about 10 games unrecorded)
Puerto Rico: 3 plays (around 8 went unrecorded, I think. Just throwing random numbers)
Saboteur: 4 plays (a play of Saboteur equals 3 games, hmm)
Twilight Struggle: 8 plays (already!)

If you divide the price of the game with the number of plays, buying and playing board games probably offer you the best bang for your buck :-) (Compared to other forms of entertainment of course. Except stock market speculation, you probably get more from that.. Or not.)

Twilight Struggle: A Review

2011-10-20T20:35:00.001+08:00

Twilight Struggle: Duo-toned

Ok, let's start with the big one! Twilight Struggle is a 2-player game about the Cold War designed by Ananda Gupta and Jason Matthews and published by GMT Games. It is currently (as of Oct 2011) the TOP ranked game in BGG, and for good reason. Read on for my full review - and a demo play - of Twilight Struggle: Deluxe Edition.

The Story

You are a president of the USA or the USSR. You are fighting a Cold War against the other side. You will use your ingenuity and cunning to spread your influence throughout the world. Using various 'weapons' such as espionage, money-politics, secret handshakes, little children and 'missiles', you will lead your country, and your ideology into the 21st Century. Never mind that other countries will suffer for your Missile Envy, you will use whatever means necessary to win. And that includes the Olympic Games. And Chess. Definitely Chess. (Heavily modified from the official description of the game, which you could find in the rule book posted on their website located somewhere within the internet.)

The Box and its Contents

So, what do you get in a box of Twilight Struggle: Deluxe Edition? This:

Ok, that might have been a tiny bit intimidating. Maybe this looks neater?

In the box, you get:

one rulebook
one massive, mounted, game board with a map of the world during the Cold War era
2 player aid cards + 2 player aid sheets
260 cardboard markers

112 USA influence markers
115 USSR influence markers
20 "Events in Effect" markers
13 various markers for assisting gameplay

110 cards
2 dice

The box itself is a thing of beauty. The cover art is gorgeous while the back of the box shows just the necessary information to entice you to bring it back home (after paying a certain amount of cash to the shopkeeper, of course). The game also comes with an insert which you could use to organise the components. However, if you plan to sleeve your cards (as I did) or use little boxes for storing the markers (as did I, too), then you will most likely get rid of said insert (or at least, store it away somewhere for 'someday'). An nice detail is the timeline of key Cold War events printed along the sides of the bottom half of the box.

The Map

The world, in case you didn't notice.

The focus of Twilight Struggle is quite obviously, the map. Laying it out on a table and populating it with markers and cards make for an impressive sight indeed. The map primarily shows the two superpowers (USA and USSR for the historically-challenged) and countries which were involved in the Cold War at that time. While not entirely geographically correct, the map is functional and beautiful, with colour-coded regions and accompanying text and numbers to help players keep track of the game. Countries and regions are linked by lines, making this a point-to-point map of the world, unlike Risk which uses regions linked by borders to show connections.

Europe (Canada not shown)

At the bottom left of the map is the Sequence of Play which is used to help new players (and remind old ones) what happens during a turn. The bottom right contains a box detailing the types of countries as well as the types of connections between them. There are several other sections of the map which are used to aid gameplay; namely the Turn Record Track, Action Round Track, Space Race Track, Victory Point Track, DEFCON Status and Required Military Operations track.

Turn Record & Space Race Track

The Cards

Twilight Struggle is a Card-Driven Strategy (CDS) game. Cards are used to perform actions in the game and each one of the 110 cards are different. From this, 103 are Event Cards while the other 7 are Scoring Cards.

USA Mid-War Cards

The artwork on the cards are mostly iconic photographs or art depicting events of the Cold War. The cards are divided into three "eras", Early War, Mid-War and Late War. The Early War cards are used in turns 1-3 of the game. The Mid-War cards are only shuffled into the draw deck at the end of Turn 3, while the Late War cards are shuffled in at the end of Turn 7.

The Scoring Cards

Each card in Twilight Struggle contains the following information:

Upper left: Operation Points of the card and affiliation (USA/USSR/Both)
Top: Card # (there are 110) and "era" (Early War/Mid-War/Late War)
Centre: Graphic/Photo and Event Text

In the example above, The China Card is a 4-operation point card that can be used by whichever side holds it during the turn. It is card #6 and is used in the Early War onwards.

The Rule Book

The rules for Twilight Struggle is written in a full-colour 32-page book. The rules are well-written, with detailed explanations and examples for each section. The sections are numbered and an example play is provided for players to better understand turn order as well as the rationale behind each move.

Objective of the Game

The objective of Twilight Struggle, as in most 2-player games, is to defeat your opponent (duh!). But how do you win? There are four ways:

Control Europe
Achieve 20 Victory Points (VP) on the VP Track
Make your opponent start a Nuclear War by degrading DEFCON to 1
End up with more VPs after Final Scoring

Set Up

The game is relatively easy to set up. Place the map on a table, preferably one large enough that the entire board could be placed flat on the surface. Players pick their sides and place their starting influence markers at the noted positions on the map/rule book. The various game play assist markers are placed at their respective "tracks". The Early War cards are then shuffled and dealt to both players, starting with the USSR.

Game Play & Example Turn

A turn in Twilight Struggle consists of the following:

Here I will break down each sequence in a turn and why you do it.

Improve DEFCON Status

At the start of a turn, players move the DEFCON Status marker one step toward "5" (Peace). The DEFCON Status shows how close the world is to Nuclear War ("1"). The status changes during the game through the use of coups in battleground countries or specific event cards. The DEFCON Status also restricts the regions in which coups or realignment attempts can be made. Either player could use the DEFCON Status to their advantage, especially if they have massive influence in a certain region. If, at any time, during a phasing player's turn, the DEFCON marker drops to 1, the game ends and the phasing player loses. (The phasing player is the player whose action round it is. Therefore, if a cunning player manages to drop the DEFCON marker to 1 during his/her opponent's turn, said cunning player wins the game.)

(Nuclear) War and Peace

Deal Cards

Cards are then dealt to each player, starting with the USSR. In Turns 1-3, each player must have a hand of 8 cards. This hand is increased to 9 cards at the beginning of Turn 4 when the Mid-War cards are shuffled in. (When dealing cards, deal until each player has a hand with the required number of cards, for example, if the USSR player holds 2 cards from the previous turn, only 6 cards are given in the Early War. However, the cards are still dealt to the USSR player first.)

The USA's starting hand of 8 cards

In this example, the USA has got quite a good hand, holding a number of USA and neutral cards. He also has the Asia Scoring card, which he must play this turn.

The USSR player's starting hand

The USSR player, on the other hand, is not so lucky. He starts with a hand full of USA cards. There is much damage control to be done here. However, he assures himself that on the next turn, it will be the USA player's turn to draw many red cards. He feels satisfied and proceeds to place his starting influence markers.

The USSR's hand, as well as starting influence markers places in Poland, Austria (USSR), Italy and West Germany (USA)

As this is the first turn, both players have to place their starting influence markers. The USA player will be able to place an additional 7 influence markers in Western Europe (Deep Purple *cue music*) while the USSR player may place 6 influence markers anywhere in Eastern Europe (~~pink~~ "no, it's not. it's light purple!").

Headline Phase

During the Headline Phase, both players choose a card from their hand and play it at the same time. The events on these cards will take place, starting with the event with a higher operations value. If there is a tie, the USA player's event takes place first. (The headline phase ensures that at least one event happens during a turn. Else the war turns out eventless and boring.)

Containment! What, Blockade? Aww.. there goes my card..

The USA player chooses "Containment" as his headline card while the USSR player picks "Blockade". Note the *asterisk* at the end of the card names. This means that both cards will be removed from play after the event takes place. The USA player will now receive an additional 1 operation point for each card he plays during the action rounds. However, he is forced to discard a 3-operation value card (or higher) to keep West Germany beneath his Iron Fist.

USA player discards NORAD. Note that it is not removed from the game as the event did not take place.

Action Rounds

The meat of the game, here both players take turns playing cards either as events or operations. The USSR player always takes the first action and both players must play to a total of 6 Action Rounds in the Early War (turns 1-3) and up to 7 Action Rounds in the Mid and Late War (turns 4-10). A player cannot discard a card or pass an Action Round. In case you were wondering, players may end up holding one card at the end of the Action Rounds. However, this card cannot be a scoring card, or the player is assumed to have 'accidentally' pushed the Red Button and brought the world to its most untimely and unnecessary end (summary: that player loses the game).

USSR: Fine, fine. Here, have a Special Relationship. No, not THAT kind of special relationship. A *Special* Relationship

The USSR player plays Special Relationship for the operations points. As it is a USA card, the event will take place. However, as NATO is not in effect yet, the USA player gets one influence point and adds it to France. (Thanks a lot! Now the French benefit from our Special Relationship)

The Happy French. Wait, wasn't there some card that could remove USA influence from France?

The USSR player uses the 2 operations points from the card and coups Iran.

USSR: A five! Hah, Iran is mine!

A Coup is one of the four actions a player can perform using his operations points. The other three are to place influence markers, perform realignment rolls and space race. A Coup's primary purpose is to reduce the influence of the opponent while adding your own influence in the country. A player must use all operations points to coup and adds his dice roll to it. This number is then subtracted from the country's stability number (in red, on the board. '2' for Iran) times 2 (meaning 4). The result of this roll is 5+2-4=3. The USSR player removes 3 USA influence from Iran. However, as there is only one USA influence point, he adds 2 of his own to the country, like so:

USSR: Iran is mine! Ne ne bu bu :p

The DEFCON marker degrades one step (because Iran is a battleground country - name in purple -) and the USSR player moves his Military Operations marker 2 steps (because he used a 2 ops card).

USSR: My tank is better than your tank! Slowpoke! (Note: these are the only 2 tanks in the game)

The USA player responds with:

USA: Korean War! I attack you! No, wait-a-minute..

The USA decides to allow the event to happen first, before he conducts his operations. USSR won the war with a roll of 4 and removes the sole USA marker, replacing it with one of his own. He also moves his Military Ops marker 2 steps and gains 2 VP. (Not shown here because.. I forgot.)

USSR: South Korea is mine too!

The USA then, in what could be called a blindingly obvious move, uses his operations points to place three influence markers in South Korea (2 + 1 from Containment played in the Headline Phase).

USA: I think I'll quietly place my influence here, in the country you just took over. Lalala~

The USSR player, being the sharp-minded and quick-witted player that he is, suspects the USA of holding an Asia Scoring card. He therefore proceeds to expand his Influence in Asia, playing:

USSR: Viva la revolucion! (Oops, wrong country)

Vietnam is now his. (Controlling Vietnam will allow the USSR player to spread his influence to Thailand in a later turn. He is prioritising battleground countries to prepare for the Asia Scoring card that he suspects the USA player is holding.

USSR: I now control the country with the best flag in the world!

The USA player, realising that his previous move was too obvious, decides to mend things by playing:

USA: We will purge you from our intestines! No wait, I'll use the 4 points instead.

The USA has played a card which could be used by both sides (note the slash). He chooses to play the card for its operations point, forgoing the event which could weaken further Soviet operations. He uses the 4 operations points for:

USA: I'll quietly take South Korea, Philippines and Malaysia. Lalala~

The USSR player, confirming his worse fears (not really), plays:

He uses his operations points (5, if used in Asia. 6, If used solely in Southeast Asia) to place his influence markers in another 2 battleground countries. Namely:

USSR: Thailand and Pakistan. Go Reds, go!

He also passes the China Card, face down, to the USA. This card can no longer be used this turn. The USA responds with Independent Reds, playing it for Operations.

As the war is focused on Asia at the moment, the USA decides not to play the card for its event. Also, the event will have no effect if played as the USSR does not have any influence points in the countries listed on the card. Instead, the USA uses his 3 influence points (+1 from Containment, remember?) and places it in Japan, taking control.

USSR: Hey, UN! Do something about this East European Unrest. I have veto power, you must do as I say!

The UN Intervention card cancels the effect of an opponent's event, allowing the player to use the operations points without triggering the event. The USSR player gleefully takes his 3 operations points and takes India.

USSR: Alright, Bollywood, here I come! *Dancing with the bears*

Action round.. I lost track. Well, the USA player decides to host the Olympics... NOT!

Instead, he uses the operations points (3) to coup Pakistan.. and wins!

Pakistan belongs to the blues now.

The USA player adds two points to his military ops and degrades the DEFCON Status a further level to 3. Now Europe and Asia cannot be coup-ed or realigned.

The urm, USSR military ops marker should be at four, you know.. (Shh! Don't tell them!)

The USSR now plays Duck and Cover, forgoing the VPs for operations points.

USSR: It's a cartoon! How can a cartoon show degrade the DEFCON? HOW???

The DEFCON drops to 2, and the USA goes to 1 on the VP track.

Er, pretend it's on one and not three, alright?

Note that the VP track is not the total number of points that each player has, but shows the difference in point between the two sides. Therefore, in the photo above, the USA is leading by ~~three~~ one points.

USSR: I will fight for Kim Chi!

The USSR places his three operations points in South Korea. Note that to place an influence marker in a country controlled by your opponent (equal or above the country's stability number), you must spend two operations points to put one marker. Once your opponent loses control (4-2, USA loses control), you may place the next marker for one point.

The USA player, left with little choice, plays the Asia Scoring card. The current situation in Asia:

USA controls two battleground countries: Pakistan and Japan. USSR controls three: North Korea, Thailand and India. However, the USSR does not have domination as it controls less non-battleground countries than the USA. The USSR gains one VP due to him controlling one more battleground than the USA.

Scoring in Twilight Struggle happens when a player plays a scoring card. Then, both players count the number of battleground countries and none battleground countries they control in the scoring region. If a player has at least one country under his control in the region, he gains Presence. Having at least one more battleground country and one more non-battleground country than your opponent gives you Domination. A player is said to Control a region if he controls all the battleground countries in the region. A player Controlling Europe when the Europe Scoring card is played wins the game automatically.

USSR: And now... Taiwan is a battleground! Too bad, too late. Blek! :-p

The USSR player, relieved that the Asia Scoring card is out and would be out for at least another 2 turns, plays Formosan Resolution for its operations points. He places influence points in Austria and East Germany, strengthening his European fortress.

USSR: And here I have a formation to beat yours, hah! USA: You have an extra player, fool! USSR: You have 3!

The USA player, still recovering from the blunders that this Turn has turned out to be, plays Decolonization for its operations. (He clearly forgot about the Space Race.)

USSR: You know, you could just Spa-- Nevermind, forget I said anything.. Lalala~

The better move for the USA player to make here would be to Space Race Decolonization. That way, he could discard this card without its event taking place. However, due to forgetfulness or just plain noobness, he plays it for operations instead. A player may make one Space Race attempt each turn. If he succeeds the roll, he moves his marker one step forward, gaining the bonuses or VPs stated there. However, these bonuses are nullified once the opponent reaches that square.

USSR: I shall control here, and here, and maybe plant some agents there and there. *giggles*

The USSR player places his influence markers in Africa, preparing for the Mid-War, while the USA player strengthens his position in South Africa.

The state of the world at the end of Turn 1

And there you have it, the first turn, described in detail. The actual game didn't take that long, however. Actually, there wasn't even an actual game. Huh. (Schizophrenia alert!)

Check Military Operations Status

Both players then check to see if they have met the Military Operations requirements. Each player's military ops must meet the current DEFCON Status or they will be penalised points based on the difference between their military ops and DEFCON Status. For example, if the USA player has 1 military ops and the USSR player has 3, a DEFCON Status of 3 will give 2 points to the USSR (3-1=2, free back to school coupon included in all boxes).

USSR: You know, I think my marker should be at 4.. USA: Shh! It doesn't matter anymore!

Both sides met the required military operations for this turn (2, see DEFCON Status). Therefore, neither one was punished for not waging enough war.

Flip China Card

If the China Card was used by either player during the action rounds, it is given to their opponent face down. Said opponent may now turn it face up, ready to use the Chinese against their former allies in the next turn. (The China Card, therefore, is one which passes hands throughout the game. It starts face up on the USSR player's side and once s/he plays it, s/he passes it to the USA player face down, who may then use it on his/her next turn.)

Flipped!

The China Card is flipped over, allowing the USA player to use it next turn. (USA: Yes, revenge!)

Advance Turn Marker

Move the turn marker one step towards 10. (What else?)

Time for some De-Stalinization!

The Turn Marker is moved to 2.

And there you have it, one turn in Twilight Struggle explained in excruciating detail, with quite a number of errors and blunders in it. But its OK! Cause that's what most new players would experience anyway. Trust me, it happens! No, really. We always forget rules. We're noobs! How can you blame us...?

Final Scoring

Only performed after turn 10, this phase is used to determine the winner of the Cold War if it was not resolved earlier in the game. (If the game ends with a draw, both players must place 5 medium-sized ice cubes in their mouth. The first player to spit it out loses.)

Conclusion

Twilight Struggle is a game that truly deserves its spot as one of the best games in the world. Every turn, every action, every move is filled with drama, suspense and difficult decisions. Players who enjoy moderately-complex, deeply-strategic games would love Twilight Struggle. The Cold War theme is also brilliantly implemented, making the players feel like the leaders of the era, only less stressful. However, the player limitation and length of time needed to play the game (~2-3 hours) might be a turn-off to some. The game is engaging, with both players focused on it at all times. Like chess. Only better.

This game is better than chess.

It is also much better than Risk.

It is definitely better than Monopoly.

Go buy it!

And now, for some funnies:

p/s: The Deluxe Edition reprint just came out.

pp/s: Now I shall go lie down somewhere for a while. See you next week!

An Introduction...

2011-10-19T13:08:00.001+08:00

Hello and welcome to my board game blog where I talk (figuratively, of course) about the games I play as well as the games that I want to play. The main focus of this blog will be on Euro games (or German games, or Designer games, if you want to be picky) and its friendlier 'cousins'. You probably won't find me talking about Monopoly, or Scrabble, or Chess, except in this sentence (well, there might be *some* references to it, so its not legally binding. It's my blog after all :-p). This is also a place for me to share stories (session reports), reviews (personal opinions), photographs (my other hobby, see http://500px.com/jiayaik) and whatever else comes to mind. Enjoy your stay!

To start off, here's a photo:

Twilight Struggle: USA influence markers