I've played this game a lot. I even participated in online tournaments. It really rewards repeat plays. Once you play it enough times you start mentally tracking all the important cards. Did De-Stalinization get into the turn 3 reshuffle, or did the US player manage to keep it out of the deck? When you're good, you always know. I like how it's a wargame without units. Notice how you never move a stack of units to Vietnam to fight the Viet Cong. Units are purely abstract. Implicitly there are tanks moving around when you play a card like Korean War, but you don't need to know how many because you are playing at a much more zoomed-out level.
There is definitely a reason why this is such a classic. The way both opponents draw from the same deck, and the brilliant "give and take" mechanism of wanting to play high numbered cards to manipulate board state while needing to give consideration of what kind of benefit you are offering to your opponent on a silver platter is absolutely impeccable. It really makes it feel like the board state for your opponent is never static even during your own turn. I have yet to see any other boardgame able to replicate that gameplay mechanism to this level.
Still my favorite board game of all time. Played it over 200 times. You can wake me up in the middle of the night for this one, there just isnt anything better. But im a sucker for these non childish themed, wargame-ish GMT games with small (smaller than the videomaker suggests) but not insignificant luck and yes , player interaction. In a world where the most boring soulless euro gaming machines are getting to the market, i choose this one anytime a day over a game like "the white castle (zero interaction, and very luckbased, but its the kind of luck euro gamers dont seem to mind, which totally flabbergasts me)", cascadia (zero interaction), imperial miners (yes again zero interaction), viticulture (no deliberate interaction and very luckbased too, but again euro gamers dont seem to mind this at all?) or whatever, thank you very much. Excitement!! YAWNNN (after a coup 1 throw), HELL YESSS (when brush war succeeds with 66% chance to fail)!! , the uncertainty!!! love it all, this one really delivers! Imperial struggle and other GMT games (COIN fe) really deliver for me too! Different tastes to different people i guess, but ill choose this one anytime a day over modern euros. As a final note i want to repeat that the randomness or luck factor is not as bad as the creaters of this video make it seem out to be :)
You should check out Twilight Struggle Red Sea. It takes TS and focuses it down to one region. It plays in less than an hour, same mechanics, streamlined and without many of the cons you mention here. Also for a different take Labyrinth the war on terror is asymmetric TS, with a dash of COIN.
Interestingly how many people complain about playing crisis management with opponents cards in your hand, while for me it is what makes this game great. Both players feel desperate in making something good out of bad and this is bot thematic and so interesting to play. But I guess those complains are the reason why this mechanism is so rare in games, mostly giving players their own decks not to cry about how unlucky they are with full hand of opponent cards, while most of them are very manageable.
Turkey is in Western Europe not because of its geographical location, but because of it's "allegiance", e.g. membership in Western organizations like NATO.
Great review, If Twilight Imperium had to be released today it will suffer from the boardgaming cancer of our time: Contentification. We will get a forced solo mode and a 4, 5 or 6 player mode. We will get forced expansion. We will get overproduction with a shit load of useless minis. It's nice to have a game fulfilling a clear distinct goal. Nothing more.
It's a game that requires a lot of investment from a new player. I went into my first few games knowing I was going to lose and I had to be willing to put in those hours to learn the deck and basic strategy. I found sticking with it to be well worth it and now it's one of my favorite games, but I absolutely understand not everyone wants to do that (or even likes this kind of game) and that's totally okay. Really enjoyed the review so thanks for sharing.
Try Labyrinth: War on Terror. It's similar but there is more dice roll modifiers, one side rolls only for one type of action and the other rolls usually multiple dice.
I've never heard of Twilight Struggle as having deck builder elements. I'm sorry your initial plays were lacking. Twilight Struggle is a game which is best explored over multiple plays with an equality skilled opponent. You are able to figure out strategy and tactics together without getting crushed by an experienced opponent. I'm sure Alexander can attest to this. I normally don't enjoy abstracts, but the random draws of the cards and the way the dice roll forces you to be tactical on your turns. TS is a game which you could easily play a hundred times and still have it be rewarding. Thanks for the video!
In the digital version, if you win the space race you win the game. I think it's good to have another victory to look out for. Also, since you usually put your opponent's cards to do space race (as they don't do the events when they go there), it's a good way for someone who's very unlukcy in the draws to actually get to win. The big attraction in this game is having your opponent's cards or knowing that your opponent has your cards and deciding when to use the card. Also not knowing which region is going to score. Is your oppónent couping that region because it's important or a feint? Anyway, I think the theme is a very important part of the draw. If you don't like cold war, you won't get interested in a historical game set there. Being interested in this part of history and having a game that replicate the tug of war that was the Cold War is very rare. I'm even more removed from the theme than you (Chinese were at least part of the Cold War, Japanese Brazilians not that much), but I think I'm just more interested in history.
I played Twilight Struggle for the few time about a month ago. I did like it quite a bit, the push and pull of potentially having to play your opponent's cards was interesting (though I don't disagree that it can get frustrating when you get on a bad run of only drawing opposing cards). I liked the Defcon concept, but letting the other player essentially choose to make you lose was definitely a weird concept. In my game, we were down to Defcon 2 and I ended up with one of those cards where the other player could choose to trigger the nuke and make me lose if he wanted. I think the only reason he didn't was because he was already blowing me out, but it does feel fiddly and was definitely the worst-feeling part of the game for me. But, I will say that the rulebook is a war crime. I've had Twilight Struggle for YEARS. I had never played it because I would always sit down to do the rules and I just would not get it and I struggled with it a lot. Recently, I decided I was finally going to play the game, and I watched a rules video. And the game is so simple! It was ludicrously simple for something that I've avoided for almost 10 years due to not understanding the rulebook! That was a very frustrating realization.
Quick rules and general consensus corrections: - Space Race is meant to be your salvation, the main idea is not necessarily to gain VPs or headlining second but to avoid slipping into defcon 1 or losing a major advantage by playing opponent's event - Couping a non-battleground country does not degrade defcon so you can still coup in Africa or any of the Americas even at defcon 2 - Marshall Plan is one of the best Headline Cards as it is the only card that puts 7 influence at once. - The defcon being attached to the phasing player is actually really clever, it creates even more tension to the game and makes Space Race relevant. We call those cards "defcon suicide" and you always either hold or send them to space
@@Daniel-d4q2b a lot of the defcon suicide cards have low ops though. It can especially get rough if you're halfway the track and have to use higher ops cards. Or they play containment/Brezhnev and your cant space because the card is worth less opsp
I think you are missing something here about TS. Yes the game is all about stress control actually, so it is vital to choose to play opponent event wisely. The biggest punishment of opponent event would be instant loss from DEFCON, it makes little sense as it says in video that whoever push the mark to zero should lost because otherwise I will just play the event at DEFCON2 and instant win. Also US has waaaaaay more defcon events and this gives USSR a huge headache starting from Mid war which is one reason why USSR has a huge advantage early game. The best solution to defcon events is Space Race which is the only way to play an opponent card without triggering its event. Dealing with opponents most threating cards is what space race for, not necessarily for points or bonuses. In fact sometimes I wish to fail on space race because the OPs requirements get higher meaning less potential cards use to space race. Holding China Card is another option to use it to leave unplayable cards in hand. The biggest problem for one to truly enjoy TS I guess is to remember all the cards, knowing what the events are and the strong and weak cards are just the basics for TS, and this is indeed super difficult.
I love TS, agree a crappy D6 rolls hurt but you always have a choice, nothing stops you just playing for influence. Coup’ing is intended to be a push your luck as a real coup would be (Coups have a very low real world success rate) and the stability values reflect that reality perfectly. All the times I’ve lost at TS I’ve never blamed the luck element I could always see what I did wrong. Compare that to say Memoir 44 (which I own and also love), that game you can sink multiple turns off unavoidably bad dice rolls (which I also get is thematic) but when a single unit with 1 soldier is surrounded by 3x tanks units and you roll nothing but stars, tanks and flags it breaks the immersion.
It's definitely not a game for everyone, but this is literally the one that brought my enjoyment of the hobby from "huh, this is quite enjoyable" to "WOW!". I definitely disagree on Ashton's point that the game lacks excitement. Having to play your opponent's events might be tough for some, but ir literally makes the game for me. I still remember one game on the app where I smuggly played "Bear Trap" on the AI, just to watch it safely discard A TON of great US events thanks to it. Or when you play 5 year plan and your opponent expects you to discard a valuable card and instead it is the scoring card he so desperately wants goes to the discard pile, untriggered
There's definitely excitement in the game- punctuated by how I said there's hype moments like launching successful coups. It's just that there's not enough there to outweigh the bad. -Ashton
Alexander's personal score rant kind of solidified it for me: I'm not going to go through learning to play this. If a game makes you play it 5-10 times before you maybe start to like it, it's not worth it. Especially when it takes hours to play one game. Plus all the memorizing, poof. Have you played 13 Days or 13 Minutes or other "Twilight Struggle"-lites? How do they compare?
I haven't played TS. But I played Watergate relatively recently, which seems like a way lighter and streamlined version of this TS, but it looks like it could be what you might want from this game
Still a Top 10 game for me. An absolute sweat fest. I actually enjoy playing it every now and then and still getting surprised by certain cards. Would not want to play it so much that metas develop, would just stress me out to much. That said it is due for a remaster, especially visually and eeeeespecially the cards. It’s time folks. Let’s make this accessible
Great review, but Ashtons point of view clearly comes from playing a few games against a veteran player. This game has a huge learning curve and only starts getting really fun when you can play it like a game of chess, knowing the cards, counters etc. . And the dice rolls have a lot of RNG, but are not that impactfull for an experienced player. As a novice player, you will never beat a veteran, even if you roll every 6 you need and he does the opposite. This alone proves that it is manageable. You can also play it safe, just use 3 or 4 opp points to defend against the coups of your opponent. Accidental Defcon1 sucicide and not expecting cards like Berlin blockade can be immensely frustrating in the beginning, but then you learn... I must admit I'm both a history buff and a kid that remembers the mid to late eighties cold war... The game has a Steam version that plays much faster and sleeker, playing on the actual table means a lot of extra admin..
Twilight Struggle, for what it is, is awesome. It fits board wargamers who want cold war politics as warm. However, considering what BGG is, it us absurd thinking it locked down number 1 on the site. But, considering it came out in an era when Eurogames began to fuse with thematic Ameritrash, it makes sense it was in the BGG Hall of Fame initial inductees.
TS is much like Pandemic, a landmark in board game history. And like Pandemic created many games using a more refined version of the system. Grand Dad is showing his age the joints are creaking and moving slower. But he is still a bad ass. The Legendary Tactics channel has a resident TS expert (NATO) and has 115 TS videos, most dealing with how and when to play a single card.
TS itself is using a system that was created in 1993 with We the People. If anything I think the system benefits from more crunch, not less as games like Watergate trend towards.
Funny thing about Latin America is that you kinda have to care about the Cold War a lot if you pay any attention to history classes. The presentation is definitely not inviting, though.
11:08 Neither superpower scores domination, USSR needs one more country (any kind) for that, thus they both score for presence. USSR has 2 BC USA has 1 BC The USSR has a net score of 1VP, not 3
I know the rules sound odd but in order to score domination: 1. You control more BC 2. You control more TOTAL COUNTRIES 3. You control at least one non-BC
Very true. Indeed, the point of that shot was too communicate the idea that if the US doesn't play ME now, they'll likely feed the USSR more points later into the turn - Alexander.
I really like this game, although I must admit I was playing it repeatedly against someone else who learned it at the same time. So we both didnt know the contents of the deck. Sure, I might lose a ton of influence in egypt in the early war with nasser, but my opponent doesnt know saddat exists and will destroy his influence come midgame. Sadly this makes it hard to introduce new people to the game, as knowing the cards is incredibly powerful. Half the logical moves you can make are actually bad if you know the events. And in the same vein some events are practically useless because your opponent will avoid playing into them make them useful. Speaking of events, they can make the game feel scripted. Going for romania as the US is never worth it (even though it being adjacent to the USSR means it would give you another point on EU scoring). And egypt is just a wasteland that is controlled by nasser and saddat. I honestly also dislike how events arent removed if they arent played. It is silly that in the lategame suddenly the warsaw pact or truman doctrine can come out and actually be far more powerful than they ever could be in the early war. This also bloats the deck making late war cards come out even less often.
Intersting. In the digital version of the game if you don't use a card in the era that it belongs to it's discarded in the next era, so there's a time limit to use them.
@rafaelyamano2661 i am pretty sure the digital version follows the rules. If you play a card for the ops (and it is your sides card) it will be discarded and comes back on the reshuffle.
Thanks for the honest review. I think i partly amd disintersted by the subject, but mainly by the presentation and gameplay. It seems like work. I dont want a game where i "wash dishes" or file taxes.
It's too annoyingly ahistorical. That adjacency rule makes no sense. The US can't approach neighbors of Iran without going through Iran? Because suddenly there are no ships, planes or telephones? Or how about if the USSR player happens to draw the NATO card? They can hold on to it forever and as a result NATO never forms? In real life, no way. In this game there are a million things like that.
The cult of the new strikes again. We are spoiled with our elaborate minis, unrealistic themes with no educational value and dopamine hits during microturns. A different standard should be set for classic games like these which paved the way for modern design. Giving such a low score to such an important game is disgraceful and just makes the reviewer come off as spoiled and frivolous.
100% agree with your 4/10 review and reasons. Cheap unaesthetic components, too long for low payoff, uninteresting gameplay, uninteresting theme, not good as a “deck building,” game deck plays itself, very luck dependent but not in a fun or satisfying way, very few fun or exciting look-forward-to moments, but good enough in some ways to justify a 4/10 probably. Cold War can be very cool as a theme, but this is poorly done here. Nice review!
Yeah, the game is not a very accessible one but once you learn the cards and some key elements like the importance of Iran and defcon suicide cards it just clicks, plays way faster and seeing how you and your opponent unravel Cold War is not boring by any means
I know this is too random, but hearing Alexander talking about what he loves about TS, is really soothing, in a strange way.
Love how you've added Alexander's input, especially on your War Game reviews on CDW and COIN games. Please continue.
I've played this game a lot. I even participated in online tournaments. It really rewards repeat plays. Once you play it enough times you start mentally tracking all the important cards. Did De-Stalinization get into the turn 3 reshuffle, or did the US player manage to keep it out of the deck? When you're good, you always know.
I like how it's a wargame without units. Notice how you never move a stack of units to Vietnam to fight the Viet Cong. Units are purely abstract. Implicitly there are tanks moving around when you play a card like Korean War, but you don't need to know how many because you are playing at a much more zoomed-out level.
There is definitely a reason why this is such a classic. The way both opponents draw from the same deck, and the brilliant "give and take" mechanism of wanting to play high numbered cards to manipulate board state while needing to give consideration of what kind of benefit you are offering to your opponent on a silver platter is absolutely impeccable. It really makes it feel like the board state for your opponent is never static even during your own turn. I have yet to see any other boardgame able to replicate that gameplay mechanism to this level.
Still my favorite board game of all time. Played it over 200 times. You can wake me up in the middle of the night for this one, there just isnt anything better. But im a sucker for these non childish themed, wargame-ish GMT games with small (smaller than the videomaker suggests) but not insignificant luck and yes , player interaction. In a world where the most boring soulless euro gaming machines are getting to the market, i choose this one anytime a day over a game like "the white castle (zero interaction, and very luckbased, but its the kind of luck euro gamers dont seem to mind, which totally flabbergasts me)", cascadia (zero interaction), imperial miners (yes again zero interaction), viticulture (no deliberate interaction and very luckbased too, but again euro gamers dont seem to mind this at all?) or whatever, thank you very much. Excitement!! YAWNNN (after a coup 1 throw), HELL YESSS (when brush war succeeds with 66% chance to fail)!! , the uncertainty!!! love it all, this one really delivers! Imperial struggle and other GMT games (COIN fe) really deliver for me too! Different tastes to different people i guess, but ill choose this one anytime a day over modern euros. As a final note i want to repeat that the randomness or luck factor is not as bad as the creaters of this video make it seem out to be :)
You should check out Twilight Struggle Red Sea. It takes TS and focuses it down to one region. It plays in less than an hour, same mechanics, streamlined and without many of the cons you mention here. Also for a different take Labyrinth the war on terror is asymmetric TS, with a dash of COIN.
Interestingly how many people complain about playing crisis management with opponents cards in your hand, while for me it is what makes this game great. Both players feel desperate in making something good out of bad and this is bot thematic and so interesting to play.
But I guess those complains are the reason why this mechanism is so rare in games, mostly giving players their own decks not to cry about how unlucky they are with full hand of opponent cards, while most of them are very manageable.
A note about the space race, the point of it is to not use your opponents event text, succeeding those roles is more of a bonus
Have you played Imperial Struggle ? I like both , but Imperial has lots more levers to pull , Twilight is cleaner .
Assuming you have the time to play it, definitely one of my favorite two-player games of all time.
Turkey is in Western Europe not because of its geographical location, but because of it's "allegiance", e.g. membership in Western organizations like NATO.
The card mechanic is so good and the theme is good. It's really cool that the game is thematic even when the cards come out in different order.
i love those red alert sounds :3
Great review,
If Twilight Imperium had to be released today it will suffer from the boardgaming cancer of our time:
Contentification.
We will get a forced solo mode and a 4, 5 or 6 player mode.
We will get forced expansion.
We will get overproduction with a shit load of useless minis.
It's nice to have a game fulfilling a clear distinct goal. Nothing more.
It's a game that requires a lot of investment from a new player. I went into my first few games knowing I was going to lose and I had to be willing to put in those hours to learn the deck and basic strategy. I found sticking with it to be well worth it and now it's one of my favorite games, but I absolutely understand not everyone wants to do that (or even likes this kind of game) and that's totally okay. Really enjoyed the review so thanks for sharing.
This games going to the top of my want to play list
How many RA2 soundclips did you use for this review? I LOVE IT!
There's a "20th Anniversary Hall Of Fame" edition coming out this year too.
There it iiiiiiis, thank you guys, I enjoyed this one
Try Labyrinth: War on Terror. It's similar but there is more dice roll modifiers, one side rolls only for one type of action and the other rolls usually multiple dice.
I've never heard of Twilight Struggle as having deck builder elements. I'm sorry your initial plays were lacking. Twilight Struggle is a game which is best explored over multiple plays with an equality skilled opponent. You are able to figure out strategy and tactics together without getting crushed by an experienced opponent. I'm sure Alexander can attest to this.
I normally don't enjoy abstracts, but the random draws of the cards and the way the dice roll forces you to be tactical on your turns. TS is a game which you could easily play a hundred times and still have it be rewarding.
Thanks for the video!
Thanks for the review.
Cheers! -Ashton
Will you be reviewing Arydia, in the long format?
In the digital version, if you win the space race you win the game. I think it's good to have another victory to look out for. Also, since you usually put your opponent's cards to do space race (as they don't do the events when they go there), it's a good way for someone who's very unlukcy in the draws to actually get to win.
The big attraction in this game is having your opponent's cards or knowing that your opponent has your cards and deciding when to use the card. Also not knowing which region is going to score. Is your oppónent couping that region because it's important or a feint?
Anyway, I think the theme is a very important part of the draw. If you don't like cold war, you won't get interested in a historical game set there. Being interested in this part of history and having a game that replicate the tug of war that was the Cold War is very rare. I'm even more removed from the theme than you (Chinese were at least part of the Cold War, Japanese Brazilians not that much), but I think I'm just more interested in history.
I played Twilight Struggle for the few time about a month ago. I did like it quite a bit, the push and pull of potentially having to play your opponent's cards was interesting (though I don't disagree that it can get frustrating when you get on a bad run of only drawing opposing cards). I liked the Defcon concept, but letting the other player essentially choose to make you lose was definitely a weird concept. In my game, we were down to Defcon 2 and I ended up with one of those cards where the other player could choose to trigger the nuke and make me lose if he wanted. I think the only reason he didn't was because he was already blowing me out, but it does feel fiddly and was definitely the worst-feeling part of the game for me.
But, I will say that the rulebook is a war crime. I've had Twilight Struggle for YEARS. I had never played it because I would always sit down to do the rules and I just would not get it and I struggled with it a lot. Recently, I decided I was finally going to play the game, and I watched a rules video. And the game is so simple! It was ludicrously simple for something that I've avoided for almost 10 years due to not understanding the rulebook! That was a very frustrating realization.
Quick rules and general consensus corrections:
- Space Race is meant to be your salvation, the main idea is not necessarily to gain VPs or headlining second but to avoid slipping into defcon 1 or losing a major advantage by playing opponent's event
- Couping a non-battleground country does not degrade defcon so you can still coup in Africa or any of the Americas even at defcon 2
- Marshall Plan is one of the best Headline Cards as it is the only card that puts 7 influence at once.
- The defcon being attached to the phasing player is actually really clever, it creates even more tension to the game and makes Space Race relevant. We call those cards "defcon suicide" and you always either hold or send them to space
Also, couping a non-battleground still gives you military ops
@@Daniel-d4q2b a lot of the defcon suicide cards have low ops though. It can especially get rough if you're halfway the track and have to use higher ops cards. Or they play containment/Brezhnev and your cant space because the card is worth less opsp
The RA2 sounds really hit some nostalgia in the back of my brain.
I think you are missing something here about TS. Yes the game is all about stress control actually, so it is vital to choose to play opponent event wisely. The biggest punishment of opponent event would be instant loss from DEFCON, it makes little sense as it says in video that whoever push the mark to zero should lost because otherwise I will just play the event at DEFCON2 and instant win. Also US has waaaaaay more defcon events and this gives USSR a huge headache starting from Mid war which is one reason why USSR has a huge advantage early game. The best solution to defcon events is Space Race which is the only way to play an opponent card without triggering its event. Dealing with opponents most threating cards is what space race for, not necessarily for points or bonuses. In fact sometimes I wish to fail on space race because the OPs requirements get higher meaning less potential cards use to space race. Holding China Card is another option to use it to leave unplayable cards in hand.
The biggest problem for one to truly enjoy TS I guess is to remember all the cards, knowing what the events are and the strong and weak cards are just the basics for TS, and this is indeed super difficult.
I love TS, agree a crappy D6 rolls hurt but you always have a choice, nothing stops you just playing for influence. Coup’ing is intended to be a push your luck as a real coup would be (Coups have a very low real world success rate) and the stability values reflect that reality perfectly. All the times I’ve lost at TS I’ve never blamed the luck element I could always see what I did wrong. Compare that to say Memoir 44 (which I own and also love), that game you can sink multiple turns off unavoidably bad dice rolls (which I also get is thematic) but when a single unit with 1 soldier is surrounded by 3x tanks units and you roll nothing but stars, tanks and flags it breaks the immersion.
Would love to see you do On Mars!
The missing adjacency links might also be because of thematic historic reasons.
It's definitely not a game for everyone, but this is literally the one that brought my enjoyment of the hobby from "huh, this is quite enjoyable" to "WOW!". I definitely disagree on Ashton's point that the game lacks excitement.
Having to play your opponent's events might be tough for some, but ir literally makes the game for me. I still remember one game on the app where I smuggly played "Bear Trap" on the AI, just to watch it safely discard A TON of great US events thanks to it. Or when you play 5 year plan and your opponent expects you to discard a valuable card and instead it is the scoring card he so desperately wants goes to the discard pile, untriggered
There's definitely excitement in the game- punctuated by how I said there's hype moments like launching successful coups. It's just that there's not enough there to outweigh the bad. -Ashton
Too real these days.
I think the reason it's called "deluxe" was cuz the original release had a paper map.
Alexander's personal score rant kind of solidified it for me: I'm not going to go through learning to play this.
If a game makes you play it 5-10 times before you maybe start to like it, it's not worth it. Especially when it takes hours to play one game. Plus all the memorizing, poof.
Have you played 13 Days or 13 Minutes or other "Twilight Struggle"-lites? How do they compare?
I haven't played TS. But I played Watergate relatively recently, which seems like a way lighter and streamlined version of this TS, but it looks like it could be what you might want from this game
Still a Top 10 game for me. An absolute sweat fest. I actually enjoy playing it every now and then and still getting surprised by certain cards. Would not want to play it so much that metas develop, would just stress me out to much. That said it is due for a remaster, especially visually and eeeeespecially the cards. It’s time folks. Let’s make this accessible
Great review, but Ashtons point of view clearly comes from playing a few games against a veteran player. This game has a huge learning curve and only starts getting really fun when you can play it like a game of chess, knowing the cards, counters etc. . And the dice rolls have a lot of RNG, but are not that impactfull for an experienced player. As a novice player, you will never beat a veteran, even if you roll every 6 you need and he does the opposite. This alone proves that it is manageable. You can also play it safe, just use 3 or 4 opp points to defend against the coups of your opponent. Accidental Defcon1 sucicide and not expecting cards like Berlin blockade can be immensely frustrating in the beginning, but then you learn... I must admit I'm both a history buff and a kid that remembers the mid to late eighties cold war... The game has a Steam version that plays much faster and sleeker, playing on the actual table means a lot of extra admin..
The game is better in digital (although the app is older and not perfect), no fiddling with markers and rules inforcement helps.
Twilight Struggle, for what it is, is awesome. It fits board wargamers who want cold war politics as warm. However, considering what BGG is, it us absurd thinking it locked down number 1 on the site. But, considering it came out in an era when Eurogames began to fuse with thematic Ameritrash, it makes sense it was in the BGG Hall of Fame initial inductees.
TS is much like Pandemic, a landmark in board game history. And like Pandemic created many games using a more refined version of the system. Grand Dad is showing his age the joints are creaking and moving slower. But he is still a bad ass. The Legendary Tactics channel has a resident TS expert (NATO) and has 115 TS videos, most dealing with how and when to play a single card.
TS itself is using a system that was created in 1993 with We the People. If anything I think the system benefits from more crunch, not less as games like Watergate trend towards.
Not a fan of bending the board board backwards?
Funny thing about Latin America is that you kinda have to care about the Cold War a lot if you pay any attention to history classes. The presentation is definitely not inviting, though.
11:08
Neither superpower scores domination, USSR needs one more country (any kind) for that, thus they both score for presence.
USSR has 2 BC
USA has 1 BC
The USSR has a net score of 1VP, not 3
I know the rules sound odd but in order to score domination:
1. You control more BC
2. You control more TOTAL COUNTRIES
3. You control at least one non-BC
Very true. Indeed, the point of that shot was too communicate the idea that if the US doesn't play ME now, they'll likely feed the USSR more points later into the turn - Alexander.
It's not deck building. It's just one-time events removing themselves from getting shuffled back in.
I really like this game, although I must admit I was playing it repeatedly against someone else who learned it at the same time. So we both didnt know the contents of the deck. Sure, I might lose a ton of influence in egypt in the early war with nasser, but my opponent doesnt know saddat exists and will destroy his influence come midgame. Sadly this makes it hard to introduce new people to the game, as knowing the cards is incredibly powerful. Half the logical moves you can make are actually bad if you know the events. And in the same vein some events are practically useless because your opponent will avoid playing into them make them useful.
Speaking of events, they can make the game feel scripted. Going for romania as the US is never worth it (even though it being adjacent to the USSR means it would give you another point on EU scoring). And egypt is just a wasteland that is controlled by nasser and saddat.
I honestly also dislike how events arent removed if they arent played. It is silly that in the lategame suddenly the warsaw pact or truman doctrine can come out and actually be far more powerful than they ever could be in the early war. This also bloats the deck making late war cards come out even less often.
Intersting. In the digital version of the game if you don't use a card in the era that it belongs to it's discarded in the next era, so there's a time limit to use them.
@rafaelyamano2661 i am pretty sure the digital version follows the rules. If you play a card for the ops (and it is your sides card) it will be discarded and comes back on the reshuffle.
Thanks for the honest review. I think i partly amd disintersted by the subject, but mainly by the presentation and gameplay. It seems like work. I dont want a game where i "wash dishes" or file taxes.
Enjoy the content but still waiting for the promised John Company review :/. Come on Shelfside
Name sounds like your playing ti4 for the first Time
It's the game you play when you're Struggling to find 4-6 players for Twilight.
hahahaha that's a good one cheers -Ashton
It is taken from Kennedy's inaugration speech.
I tried to learn this game as my first games. Too hard. The decision is too agonizing.
It's too annoyingly ahistorical. That adjacency rule makes no sense. The US can't approach neighbors of Iran without going through Iran? Because suddenly there are no ships, planes or telephones?
Or how about if the USSR player happens to draw the NATO card? They can hold on to it forever and as a result NATO never forms? In real life, no way.
In this game there are a million things like that.
The cult of the new strikes again. We are spoiled with our elaborate minis, unrealistic themes with no educational value and dopamine hits during microturns. A different standard should be set for classic games like these which paved the way for modern design. Giving such a low score to such an important game is disgraceful and just makes the reviewer come off as spoiled and frivolous.
It's like actors then and now 😂
USSR all the way, always
This is one of the ugliest games lol
This game is like, so not for me. lol.
no le sabe
It's hilarious to be a Russian and hear Russian swearing in the background of the beginning
What are they actually saying?
21:08 ussr flag so loooooooong
Testing!!!!
100% agree with your 4/10 review and reasons. Cheap unaesthetic components, too long for low payoff, uninteresting gameplay, uninteresting theme, not good as a “deck building,” game deck plays itself, very luck dependent but not in a fun or satisfying way, very few fun or exciting look-forward-to moments, but good enough in some ways to justify a 4/10 probably. Cold War can be very cool as a theme, but this is poorly done here. Nice review!
Yeah, the game is not a very accessible one but once you learn the cards and some key elements like the importance of Iran and defcon suicide cards it just clicks, plays way faster and seeing how you and your opponent unravel Cold War is not boring by any means
4 on 10, go back to play with your barbies action figures girl
Enjoy the content but still waiting for the promised John Company review :/. Come on Shelfside
Can I pay you to make this review because I will
I suppose that's a privilege of those mad lads of cardboard
JC2E might be my favorite game ever, and I do not care for this historical period in the slightest. Such a fun, almost-RPG experience.