My hand. Not a lot of Ops (15 total), plus Socialist Governments demands a response, as does Nasser. No really noteworthy events for either of us.
I headlined Romanian Abdication because it's only 1 Op. This was dumb and I should have headlined Euro scoring, as I don't expect it to change anyways.
Jared headlines Indo-Pakistani war and fails.
On AR1, Jared coups Iran and ends with 3 IP in Iran (i.e., 1 overcontrol). I decide not to countercoup, which may be a mistake, given that none of my other plays are especially attractive. Instead I use Special Relationship 2 place influence, 1 in Korea and 1 in Jordan. I don't have a good excuse for Jordan, except that Twilight Strategy says shoring up Israel is a good idea on T1. Probably better is putting 1 in Columbia or 1 in Egypt.
Turn 2, Jared plays Vietnam Revolts for Ops. I decide to try to coup him out. A good result will give me a good hold on Thailand. I get the worst possible result, leaving me with 1 influence. On Turn 3, Jared crushes me with a high Ops card and a good roll, turning Vietnam into a USSR fortress. Oops.
Given that my access to Thailand is now problematic, I decide I need to coup Iran to get some play in Asia. Couping with Jared's 1Ops card serves two purposes: first, it has a chance of knocking some influence off, but perhaps more importantly, it gets the Defcon to 3, which will cause my coup to make it Defcon 2, preventing a countercoup on Iran. On my AR, I use my 4 Ops card. I get another poorish result, eliminating all USSR influence but getting none of my own.
On my next AR, I control Egypt. Sure Nasser, but the plan is to get access to Libya, then play Nasser, making Egypt 2/1 (i.e., uncontrolled).
Jared's solidifying his grip on Asia, which I can do absolutely nothing about.
Finally, I play Socialist Governments. 2 IPs go to repairing the damage, and the 3rd goes to Libya. I have 2 defenses here:
1. Somehow, I thought I would get another AR, where I could put my Nasser plan into effect.
2. Sure, putting IP into Libya opens it to a coup, but it's a worse result if he coups me out of Egypt (or Panama!) next turn before I get access to Libya.
BTW bobman noticed a bug. For my last action I played Blockade, which forces the US player to discard a 3+ ops card or lose all influence in West Germany. There was no way for him to block the event, though in this case he didn't want to anyway. Google seems to indicate that PBEM isn't fully supported because of some stuff like this, but it may be possible to connect both computers at the same time. We're going to try that out hopefully sometime tomorrow.
Hopefully it works and you can do a sort of hybrid where it's PBEM but if something like this comes up you can connect like you want to play live to resolve it.
i will definitely be reading along. i'll probably play someone later, though reading jared's thinking makes me realize that i'm outclassed and would do well to get a lot more familiar with the cards.
jared, couldn't you have used the CIA created card for the space race in round 1 to avoid triggering it (especially if you got to defcon2)
Will read along, maybe start a game when you're close to the end
Nice, glad you guys are following along. I'll do a writeup for the second turn, which this time bobman can't read since I held two cards.
Quote:
Originally Posted by reno expat
i will definitely be reading along. i'll probably play someone later, though reading jared's thinking makes me realize that i'm outclassed and would do well to get a lot more familiar with the cards.
Yeah, knowing the cards is huge. I'm still not there either, but I know the Early War cards reasonably well, or at least the ones that affect certain countries and potentially cost one the game. I haven't played all that much, but it's all been the last few weeks so I've gotten somewhat familiar with them.
Quote:
jared, couldn't you have used the CIA created card for the space race in round 1 to avoid triggering it (especially if you got to defcon2)
CIA Created is only 1 ops, so it can't be space raced. The space race requires a 2+ ops card in the first four levels, then a 3+ ops card the next 3.
My T2 hand was Containment, a couple scoring cards, and not many Ops. I decided to hold Containment to T3, so T2 was a brutal, brutal slog, ending in losing WGermany to Blockade. (Because if you discard to Blockade, you can't hold anything).
The above map shows a lot of progress for me, shockingly. I just flipped Thailand the turn before, and was able to realign Jared out of Venezuela and claim it for myself. The ME is basically lost unless I can get some major help from events. Asia looks like I should be able to hold a stalemate and score well in SE Asia. Europe is obviously pretty shabby, but unless it's scored right away, I'm confident I can get undominated there. Africa is not as bad as it looks, maybe. Obviously Brazil is somewhere I need to get control of, which is easier said than done.
EDIT: On AR6, Jared controlled Afghanistan, , and I had to score MidEast again, taking me to -14 VPs...
Last edited by bobman0330; 07-15-2012 at 10:28 PM.
Busy right now, but I'll post a report of turns 2 and 3 later today. I think I've played pretty well but the biggest factor has been the cards. It'll be interesting to compare the deals directly, but just from the cards that have been played, I've gotten close to all the 4 OPs cards and I was dealt De-Stalinization and Decolonization which let me move into Africa and South America. This after getting dealt Vietnam Revolts in the first turn when it's the most useful.
The US always has the worst of it in the early war, but when the USSR is running especially hot it's a serious uphill battle.
EDIT: On AR6, Jared controlled Afghanistan, , and I had to score MidEast again, taking me to -14 VPs...
That MidEast scoring card coming back was a serious beat.
Taking Afghanistan might have been a mistake, certainly didn't work out for the USSR in real life. Maybe I'm paranoid about Indo-Pakistani War because in a game with a friend of mine the board in Asia looked very similar but he was able to flip India with that card and turn it from my domination to his pretty quickly from there. Put him in position to get a lot of SE Asian countries with that scoring card in his hand as well. Since then if I have one India or Pakistan I try my best to get control of the other one, Afghanistan, Iran and Burma. Pakistan is now impossible to take with that card. India is at risk, but you'd have to roll a 6 which would be a huge gamble and probably not worth the 2 OPs you'd give up.
Game is done. Jared scored a crushing T4 coup on Venezuela, and was able to score South America as control a couple turns later, taking him to -20 VPs.
Two Plus Two
, and I had to score MidEast again, taking me to -14 VPs...
Linear Mode
