5th Aug 2009 Session Report: Twilight Struggle Under 2 1/2 Hours

I persuaded Ben to come over again today to give Twilight Struggle a go before I traded it off. My rules explanation the day before intrigued him adequately for him to take up the offer but he was clearly concerned about the possible length of the game. We proceeded with him taking USSR and I, the US. I chose not to play US with the recommended added influence as I thought that the added advantage would come in helpful since it was his first go.

Ben concentrated largely on Europe and Asia while I took a foothold in the Middle East and Africa, while combating him on the European and Asian front. He had a number of difficult turns, drawing a flurry of US cards, while I got rid of the USSR cards in my hand thanks to my success in the space race, enabling me to toss 2 of such cards per turn.

While Ben took control of multiple countries, I paid closer attention to the battlegrounds and successfully took control of a number via well-timed coups. I took some cheap points by playing scoring cards during the headline phase. I scored heavily on an American scoring card with only control of Panama, with the continent devoid of any other influence. Eventually, my VPs neared the brink and a couple of fortunate VP cards put me over the top at the end of the 6th turn. In particular, Salt Negotiations allowed me to resurrect a non-scoring card from the discard pile which put the deterministic VP related card in play.

Surprisingly, the game just took under 2 1/2 hours. Even Van was impressed but I could foresee how the game would easily break the 4 hour mark if it went the distance. I also realized that the right distribution of cards at the right time could significantly impact the result of the game. Perhaps, the luck of the draw is somewhat too much for me for a game of such (potential) length. Well it was nice to have another go at TS just before I trade it.

We moved on to another go at Nexus Ops with Van joining us. This time round the game was far more competitive as Van and Ben clearly caught on with regards to being aggressive. In fact, Van put the most Secret Mission cards in play while Ben and I accumulated points from mostly Battle cards. Ben neared victory on the last turn, only needing a successful dice roll to play a Secret Mission card for the win. Unfortunately, he failed and going next, I grabbed the 5 points needed for the win, with the play of Death from Above and another Secret Mission card which required a Fungoid kill which Ben sat pretty on his 3 mine space. I was confident of the win as I took a number of turns to prepare for the Death from Above play. As it turned out, Ben almost beat me to it. Nonetheless, Ben and Van were a whisker away with 10 and 9 points respectively.

1st July 2009 Session Report: My First & Perhaps Last Attempt At Twilight Struggle

The title makes it sound as if I disliked the game. On the contrary, I did like the game but perhaps not as much as the love shown for it on BGG as reflected by its no. 4 ranking. However, Van didn't. She was still somewhat neutral towards it during the first half of the game, but as the game crept into its third and fourth hour, her disdain grew. I had high hopes of getting into heavier games such as Through The Ages and Twilight Struggle. TTA was a flop but I put it down to the lack of interaction due to its multi-player solitaire quality, but after this attempt with the highly confrontational Twilight Struggle, I am no longer under the illusion for it was apparent to me that there are limits to game lengths that she would tolerate. Her limit at the moment seems to be 3 plus hours with games such as Le Havre and Indonesia. But any longer and the experience takes a nose-dive, becoming incredibly tedious to her. Mental note to factor game length in future purchases. Oh well, at least, I achieved my subconscious aim of wanting to play each of the top 10 BGG games at least once.

Twilight Struggle appealed to me because of the variation of the cards. TTA while also card-driven was less interesting for the cards came across rather abstract, providing different combination of boosts to the different variables. One can argue that TS is no different with many cards merely allowing the addition of subtraction of influence, the geographical distribution of that influence seems to add a whole extra layer to the game. I like the various routes to victory, whether is it through VPs or through obtaining control of Europe.

Case in point, midway through the game, I began to concentrate all my attention on acquiring all the battleground nations in Europe. I was close to taking the win in round seven or eight when I had the Europe scoring card in hand but was forced to play it with Poland still under USSR's control. The next few rounds saw me attempting to consolidate my control of Europe till the final scoring while Van surged forward on the VP track. The closest she got was 19 VP and if not for a few timely VP and scoring cards, I surely would have lost the game. But as it turn out, I did manage to ride out the tsunami and took the win with Europe control at the final scoring.

The game isn't difficult to learn but can be a brain-burner especially when one isn't familiar with the cards. I like games with diverse card abilities (e.g. Glory to Rome!) but such games tend to have a steeper learning curve due to the large variety of cards. I like how the game captures both tactical and strategic elements. Tactics come in play for each hand of cards, determining the best order in which to play them so as to maximize your advantage while minimizing the advantage to your opponent when you have to play cards with their events. On the other hand, the game is also strategic because you have to decide your plan towards victory whether through capturing Europe or focusing your resources in other continents to gain the upper hand in VPs.

There is probably more luck in this game as compared to Eurogames of similar game length. Luck not only comes in the distribution of cards each round but also the concepts of coups and re-alignment rolls which depend heavily on dice rolls. But it never seems like a game-breaker to me because success is also largely dependent on the targets chosen as well as the operation value of cards played. Therefore, the crux in my opinion is choosing the appropriate target rather than simply going for gold by wishing a 6 each time you roll the die.

I would probably love the game if its game length was at least a half or a third shorter. While a win in the earlier rounds is attainable, it is probably the exception rather than the norm between experienced players. Either that or things must be really going one player's way via the card draws and dice rolls. As it is, the extent of the 'struggle' seems to result in diminishing utility as the game veers into its latter hours. Nonetheless, it is still very satisfying at the end to see that you have ultimately triumphed in the epic struggle.

I have put it up for trade for the moment because keeping a 2 player game that my wife won't play in the collection is clearly unwise. But unlike TTA, I'm happy to keep it in my collection till the right trade or price comes along.