Twilight Struggle with Kieron

I had an opportunity to play Twilight Struggle (twice!) with Kieron on Saturday. He came over after the boys finished TKD testing. We started about 2:30 and finished the 2nd game around 8. Not bad for 2 games of TS!

We were able to finish 2 games in less than 6 hours because I caused nuclear war at the end of turn 3. I was the Soviets and was holding ‘Duck and Cover’ with the Defcon status at 2. I was planning to hold it as the card I wouldn’t play that turn but Kieron played the event that caused me to discard a random card from my hand. I had already played a card to the Space Race and had to play all my remaining cards as events or for the ops points. Although I played ‘Duck and Cover’ for its ops value, the event still occured (degrade the Defcon status) since it was a US event. I lost and learned how important it is to know the cards in this game.

The second game lasted until the middle of the 10th and final turn. This game was a see-saw tug of war the entire game. I played the US in this game and was able to push my point total to 7 with a little help from Kieron. Once at this level, I played ‘War Games’ to end the game immediately without a final scoring phase. I needed 7 or more points because one of the conditions of the card is you must give your opponent 6 points. This allowed me to squeak out a 1 point victory! If it had gone to the end of the turn with final scoring, we believe it would still have been a US victory but it would have been close. Kieron, as the Soviets, was clearly leading in Asia, the Middle East and Central America. As the US, I was leading in Europe, Africa and South America.

Both were great plays. Tense all the way.