Відео

Thanks for the thoughtful question! Putting 1 fewer in Angola and Nigeria in order to take Iran is fine. If the US uses 3/4 ops to flip Angola, the Soviets can realign or use an event in response. If you don't put a 2nd op in Nigeria though, the US will enter Saharan States on the last AR, and threaten to flip Nigeria after the Soviets use their first AR to lower defcon. The op in Saharan also sets up realigns on Algeria. So by defending Nigeria the US is somewhat discouraged from entering Saharan, which can make a coup of Algeria (and potentially Africa Control) better. The op in Angola was probably not good, but couldn't accomplish anything in the Middle East with just 1 OP. Like you said, CRG/VOA/Grain are also considerations. One excellent reason to take/enter Iran is to be better able to respond to Puppets into Pakistan.

ooh, NTB is a cool idea, I hadn't considered that! eventing it mid turn is pretty bad vs. WWBY, but a headline would work pretty well!

I felt like there was a strong chance my opponent would headline Defectors

​@@aunthemod aha that makes sense

haha, only once the number of scoring cards in hand equals the number of remaining ARs

Yeah, I wasn't expecting to lose the war! The problem with taking the coup is that my opponent could headline Asia next turn and dodge dom, or worse, if defcon is lowered in headline, they'd have their choice of taking Pakistan or Libya on the first AR. However with the war being successful, there was a 5 point differential between the two plays, so you make an excellent point.

Interesting options, hadn't considered those, and of course A4P could be worth more points after the reshuffle, would have saved ops as well. I'll try to pay more attention to the modifier on summit, especially when I have headline peak.

Not a bad idea, but was there a combination of cards my opponent could have had that would have lost me the game? Didn't seem like there was anything to worry about, but I suppose I shouldn't risk miracle realigns, or terrorism giving him the last AR.

Sure! That's a very thoughtful question. The conventional wisdom holds that if your opponent headlines VR Revolts, they are going to be dominating Asia for all of T1. The idea that the US will have the time to turn off Asia domination, and then also play the scoring card is usually considered a bridge too far, as you would want to have Korean War, IP War, and a 4 op to take South Korea & Pakistan on AR 1. You are correct also in your understanding that headlining Eastern Europe Unrest would mean US would have 3 ops fewer over the course of the turn, which would be devastating. Thanks for your excellent question!

I used to play so fast and loose with China, not anymore! 😭😂

Thanks for the comment Peter! regarding VoA, I felt like Venezuela was already lost due to the realignment threats, and figured if I placed influence before the event, I'd be guarunteed to lose an Asian BG The Cambridge op into Italy makes total sense now in hindsight, I suppose I didn't want to allow a coup in Africa, Aran had a lot of headway in the Mediterranean, but he also had 2 scoring cards, so giving the coup makes more sense here. This game has really hammered it into my head that you can get to a point where you can't space 3 ops! Wow, what an oversight, I should have just allowed EEU and Ussuri to event, I'd still be well positioned for final scoring, but even that wouldn't have been enough without the China card, so I guess my play for CA control was also greedy! of course, none of that would have mattered if I had held Wargames, so I'll make more of an effort to do that in the future, especially when I'm up there on the space track and don't have China! I could have just used ABM to coup Columbia if I wanted it all. Though it was useful the subsequent turn for ME scoring, but not as useful as winning!

Thanks, I'll try to get it right next time I play Aran (which is hopefully soon!)

It's possible! I felt like using Truman would send a signal that I had my eyes on France, and since opponent was purged, the threat of losing Korean War was diminished. I felt confident that France and WG would be filled quickly, but perhaps that was unwarranted confidence. So pleased to have your viewership and commentary!

Thanks for the comments! I agree that filling Brazil probably should have been a higher priority, but I can't pinpoint an appropriate time to have done it. I'm not sure about headlining CMC, it's 3 ops to effectively remove 2 from WG, whereas Muslim is 4 ops to remove 4 from ME. As far as doing an ops run on Venezuela, I do like having Muslim as fuel for that, but Nixon in hand is a concern, as he might defend Venezuela with China. Cambridge into Italy is an excellent suggestion, the only drawback is if my opponent gets a massive coup in Zaire and reverses the future of Africa, but this is unlikely, and especially since my opponent has 2 scoring cards to worry about. However because of Marshal, getting Europe dom would be a little tricky, but ultimately I think Italy was correct, thanks for pointing that out! Looking forward to more insightful comments from you in the future!

yeah, I'm not sure either when could have been the right time to fill Brazil. Regarding CMC, I agree that it less ops efficient, but I think it could have force to get china wich is the ultimate goal for me with that play. It could have not worked out anyway ahaha And with Europe I don't mean to get Dom but to deny it to him. In any case, you played very well that game, by doing any different might lead a to a different play of your opponent so we never know. T10 hand was too much😂😅

So funny XD

Such a good point! I'd be pulling my hair out over this if I hadn't been bailed out by Wargames, I needed those Spain and Greece ops in Europe BGs! I'm still happy with myself for spacing Warsaw, that was outside the box for me, just couldn't finish the idea I started there.

Def something I'd want to do if I had the ops to take Libya and repair UK, but holding Blockade is dangerous like you said. I think opponent will still end up with ME dom. Special relationship being unplayed is also a reason to hold off on Suez and I wanted to play Romanian right away, assuming my opponent would not T1AR1 coup with Ireds. One reason to do this though is that it lowers the impact of losing an AI war. Getting Suez out of the deck is not beneficial in the same way that getting Degaulle out is, since Suez requires the same degree of France overprotection as Soc Govs.

@@aunthemod Yeah makes sense, your first hand wasn't good enough to fight. Could you explain a bit more what do you mean bu removing Suez not being as beneficial as DeGaulle the lvls of France protection?

@@Aldurinii When Degaulle is still in the deck, the US needs to consider the Soviets headlining Degaulle and using AR1 to take France, to defend against this, the US needs to have 5 more influence than the Soviets (then after Degaulle is headlined, the Soviets can't completely take France with a 4 op card). After Degaulle is removed from the game, France can only have 2 influence removed from in in the headline (from Suez, Soc Govs, and Reformer) so the US only needs to have 4 more influence than the Soviets. For this reason, many players love to event Degaulle so that France doesn't need to be AS overprotected in order to be relatively safe. This is best to do when France is empty, but a major drawback to this is that it gives the Soviets adjacency to Algeria, which matters a lot... and in rarer instances giving them adjacency to Italy (Soc Govs), Spain (Marshal), and UK (NATO + Special) can also be relevant.

@@aunthemod Yep, I like to get ridd of DeGaulle but Algeria adjacency is particularly annoying, plus of course the rest of the problems you mention like adjacency to Spain, UK etc. I like to protect France with +2 when I have ops to spare to defend it as well for suez or SGobs if the reds have adjacency, usually when DeGaulle has been played. Thanks for your answer!

🤣 thanks for watching!

I completely agree, this was a total faceplant on my part. There really is no reasonable excuse.. I may have been thinking that I was at the part of the space track where my 2nd space had to be a 3 op (I wasn't) but even if that was the case I should have spaced D&C first. I'm still ruminating about this haha! NEVER AGAIN. Of course, my opponent was playing very well and needing to give CRG on the last AR would probably put the game in their favor, but it would have been nice to find out! ACK!

​@@aunthemod thx for rapid answer. btw you could won the game. almost made. really nice running

@@jomygodd Thanks! do you play in any of the tournaments on Twilight-Struggle.com?

Thank you!

I agree! South Africa was a better coup target. I traded efficacy for efficiency which was not corrected, better to take the coup that could impact the game rather than the one that is more likely to "succeed"

thanks so much for your inciteful comments in my 2 most recent videos. I'll review the footage in the coming week and see if I have anything to add. for some reason, even though I have the notifications of your comments on the Jarib video, I can't seem to read them or reply to them... some kind of youtube bug.

@@aunthemod I deleted it because someone seemed to get offended by the comment I made, saying that what I was saying was quite unnecessary. No need to offend anyone, so I deleted it. I think he was getting also angry for using “noob”, and asked me why I used it. I genuinely feel that I am not a great player at the moment. I lost 5 games in a row and have fallen rapidly in the ITSR in recent days. I did tell this person that whatever I am saying is not always right. I do watch your videos or someone else’ because I feel like there is a need to play more ‘classic,’ or in a different term, ‘standard.’ So I comment because you seem to be open for one as per video description, but I don’t wish to make anyone offended by doing so.

T1 AR3 Decol, I think that it's fairly normal for the US to put 2 into Egypt before Nasser, this way Nasser leaves 1 US influence in, meaning if Sadat comes before Camp David, there's no problem. So if my opponent goes 2 Egypt 1 Malaysia, as you can see, I don't have enough ops to respond properly, and also because of my poor ops, I need the influence in Burma to put pressure on West Asia, and Laos to discourage a Thailand crack. Since it's turn one and nothing has been scored yet, I think it makes sense to prioritize Asia over Africa, and the odds that decol will come back to me on turn 3 aren't terrible... and there simply aren't enough ops to in hand to have it be effective in Algeria & Libya, and as you said, free mil ops are a major concern. T2 AR 2 This makes so much sense, a much better strategy than the one I employed T4 HL Yes I agree how I learned is a better HL, if my opponent had Missile Envied me I could have given WWBY and have ABM in the back pocket for later, and the flexibility that HIL provides is fantastic, what with South Africa being important etc. T4 AR3 I subscribe to the philosophy that unless you're realigning with a 1 op, you should always go for the realigns that have better odds of succeeding first, and then should they succeed, then move on to your targets that have worse odds. Obviously Chile is a more important target but only ~75% chance that I'll be able to get anything out of Chile, 25% chance the realignments do nothing. I'd rather wipe out South Africa and then have some small chance of getting a hero roll or two in SA. You've given me something to think about though, since SA would have had a far greater impact had they succeeded. With the rolls as they were, I would have gotten the 1 out of Chile, and then had I pivoted to South Africa I could have gotten 1 out of there as well, or a failure in Venezuela. Perhaps there is some merit to your line though, I'd love to hear from a top 20 player on this matter. T5 AR1 Just about any use of my 2 ops other than attacking France would have been better here. This was a blunder where I temporarily forgot Truman was still in the deck. Zaire seems as fine as place as any T8 AR6 This does seem like a better sequence, my opponent will fix with USJ and then for me couping Haiti/Nicaragua instead of Uruguay would probably be better since I don't have adjacency to Cuba, but I do to Argentina T10 Oooh, this does seem like an interesting line, however, after I salt for OPEC, my opponent could event Olympic Games, so it would take some luck to work out, but still quite interesting, and a good way to negate Glasnost.

@@aunthemod T1AR3 i think the US priority (may fluctuate depending on their hand) will be 1 Lebanon 2 France 1 Malaysia and then 2 Egypt. If you put yourself in the US perspective here, you wouldn't want the Soviets to dump Europe for free so 2 France is there, Lebanon is always nice to have due to being Muslim revolution-proof and then it will be Malayasia for me. This is in case the US has a 4op, and if it is 3op the way the US will play will definitely fluctuate here, but the priority order is probably the same. So considering that I will assume if I were the USSR here, I certainly had enough time to grab Libya. If not, I can always use China card too. CIA is in my hand, I know, but the odds of US having Fidel is extremely low. if he had Fidel, Antoine should have used it to coup Iran with that. So I will exclude that possibility here. In this case, CIA is almost not a problem here considering the way Antoine played his turn here. T4 AR3 this is a different story. This is basically your only chance to remove isolated blue influence from the region. Remember, some US players will also attempt to realign isolated destal influence in SA... for that exact logic. Once either side spreads you'll most likely lose the region. This is more towards long-term gains. do i count as a top 20 player? 🙃 I am currently 20th in the ITSR lol

@@Alex-YSL Your analysis of the US perspective doesn't seem to take into account that the soviets have just placed into Tunisia. 2 Egypt makes plenty of sense in this scenario, even if it wouldn't be a top priority otherwise. Also, I headlined Cambridge, so there is no need for the US to fear a Europe drop, since it's pretty reckless to headline Cambridge while holding Europe or Asia. I'm curious though, which decol influence would your replace with Tunisia? Maybe I'm overestimating the value of getting 1 into India in order to threaten the Pakistan flip (especially if I'm going to use China to gain adjacency to Pakistan, that was poor play on my part!). Top 20 is pretty impressive for a self-described n00b, perhaps you don't need to project such modesty XD. With this being the case I'll have to re-examine my realignment philosophy, you make a good point that there is no urgency with South Africa, it's just more likely to make a productive use of the ops, but knocking them out of Chile would have a much greater impact on the game.

you mean like headline Terrorism and then evented Debt Crisis?

​@@aunthemod Yeah. I was looking at that as a way to either force discards, or take Chile and Peru if he couldn't/wouldn't discard for the Debt Crisis.

@@welcometogeektown that's an interesting play, I hadn't considered how Terrorism could increase the likelihood of the US not wanting to discard to debt crisis!

ah, that's a good idea, that way there's no rush to get into Indonesia. I was just excited to protect Mexico, but the Honduras op was pretty weak, so Vietnam might've been better than Mexico. With SEA scored I didn't think I'd need Vietnam to defend Asia on country count, but it would have given me some flexibility at the beginning of the turn to not need to rush Indonesia. Thanks for your comment!

@@aunthemod thanks for replying 😀

Thanks for you comment Alex, you raise a good point, even though I'm holding Suez, I have to be wary of AI War and move out of Israel quickly. I think one of the reasons I didn't was that my opponent headlined Europe, which to me might be a slightly worse headline than AI War, but it all depends on how quickly they think I'd fill France, but in the case of a successful AI War, a common path back in the middle east is through France -> Algeria -> Tunisia -> Libya, so this could be a real reason someone would prioritize Europe scoring over AI War, not to mention the risk of defectors. My concern was that Iran was most likely going to be my best source of mil ops for the turn, and I wanted to coup it before my opponent put a 2nd op into it. I think in general though most people will shy away from the immediate coup back, and with good reason, as demonstrated by how devastating decol was. I think this is a very insightful comment and something I'll keep in mind for the future, nothing n00bish about it at all.

Thanks for your comment Colonel! I take it the reason you would do this is so that you could save Five Year Plan for a future turn and potentially a more dangerous scoring card? Some reasons to FYP Europe instead of scoring it for zero is that it gives me 3 ops this turn to make South America Control Voice-proof, also, by emptying my hand it gives me 1 extra card to draw from that juicy mid-war deck, increasing my odds of getting Junta/Brush/ABM, or finding some juicy US events to space like Bear Trap/CRG/Grain/Voice... of course, that could backfire if I draw too many of them, but I do hold the china card. Again, thanks for your comment and if there's some nuance to this decision that I haven't addressed please bring it to my attention.

@@aunthemod I think with all of those factors, you made the better choice than I would have made.

Thanks for watching!

Tbf all you need is one momentary brain glitch to not realise you're playing all your cards, or that OSS for ops doesn't equate to opponent not spacing. Happens to the best of us, and the USA was probably winning on the board anyway?

I completely agree, this was a total faceplant on my part. There really is no reasonable excuse.. I may have been thinking that I was at the part of the space track where my 2nd space had to be a 3 op (I wasn't) but even if that was the case I should have spaced D&C first. I'm still ruminating about this haha! NEVER AGAIN. Of course, my opponent was playing very well and needing to give CRG on the last AR would probably put the game in their favor, but it would have been nice to find out! ACK!

@@aunthemod If it makes you feel better I've done more stupid things lol.

It does. I've been hoping to talk to people about this match just so I could read something like this, so thankyou! One time I couped a BG at defcon 2 with ABM instead of eventing it first, that stung a lot!@@joshdavis3743

Thanks for subscribing. I'll be uploading all my RTSL and OTSL games, as well as some US Cup Games along with Team PA

Thanks so much for your comment! South Korea is certainly a more valuable BG than Pakistan because of KAL. Furthermore Pakistan can be lost to Brush War and ABM where SK most likely not. My thought was that since SK has a higher stability, it would require an extra op to take it before they had to move on to other commitments/priorities, so my meager ops would have a better chance to delay/prevent the flip. I also wanted to prevent the Pakistan flip from my opponent's China card next turn. I didn't consider however that I could event IP war as a means of defense, so this is something I'll certainly have to keep in mind for the future! Great thought.

and ABM

I'm glad you find the videos edifying. The reason I could not discard anything to Blockade is that you must play a card every action round. Discarding would mean that I would be forced to play Lone Gunman at defcon 2, which would lose me the game. This is because Lone Gunman allows your opponent to play an op on YOUR action phase, so if they coup a battleground, lowering defcon to 1, I would lose instead of them, since it occurred during my turn. If I don't have to discard, or if I had the China card to play instead, I could hold Lone Gunman in between turns. I was very lucky that my opponent evented SALT, raising defcon to 4, and making Gunman safe, otherwise I would have had to play Blockade instead, and lose all my influence in West Germany. Please let me know if you have any other questions, and thanks so much for watching my videos!

Thanks for watching, glad you enjoyed it!

I recently rewatched this video and had all the same reactions you did, excellent points! I was also running the risk of getting Asia dommed by Vietnam Revolts HL from my opponent. This was a poorly played game on my part and I definitely deserved the loss

that's an interesting line and possibly one I should have done. Potential reasons as to why I didn't might include not wanting to give the China card, Algeria being open, and Europe having been already scored, and having my next headline locked in when a could have drawn Grain Sales ect, but it's possible the Truman line was correct.

@@aunthemod fair points. I myself wouldn’t have been so worried about the China card as with Nixon and Ussuri you are likely to get it back in the mid war.

If I recall correctly you former favorite was my description of particular game/hand state as being "nuclear subsy"

I got good tempo against VR by flipping Indo, I agree about the coup though

56:06 Consideration: Junta maybe to Chile just to prevent Brush?

Great Idea!

2:06:25 should junta into panama

Nicely done. Turn 8 wargame threat was scary. Shouldn’t be that close. now I can sleep lol

while it's nice to have potential to get corsairs leaving Gibraltar, once your opponent has moved them, your frigates no longer serve any potential purpose there for the rest of the game, so I prefer to have them in Tripoli. I like to think about it in terms of action economy. If the frigates have to go to Gibraltar and later somewhere else, that costs more actions, while ships moved to Tripoli have a small chance of staying there the whole game.

excellent observation

gladly

thanks!