Twilight Struggle - Deluxe Edition Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Twilight Struggle. Wow. What a game.
Let me say that again. What a game.
There are many reviews out there. Some of the best are posted on the boardgamegeek website. I encourage you to check them out.
If you are a gamer, you will love this game. It is pure addiction.
A casual coffee-table game it is not. As Booker noted, it will take several plays to get a sense of what's going on in terms of the deeper strategy. A skilled veteran player will destroy new players and non-gamers. So you will need to find someone who is willing to invest the same amount of time that you are.
The reason is that knowledge of every card in the deck is an absolute must to be able to play this game well. Your spirits may crumble after spending several precious rounds building influence in an area only to have a single card wipe it all away. Players who know the cards will have a better sense of where to invest and when.
But fear not--the first few plays are very enjoyable, if also played with a newbie. The experience of learning the game with someone new is really good.
After playing this game, you will be reading strategy articles on the Internet, reading the cards, looking at the board, thinking about strategy, talking with others about the game, etc. It's just that fun and engrossing.
And wow, the theme is great. Every card represents a major event that happened during the Cold War, complete with actual representative photograph from the period. The events and the pictures that represent them will draw you into the game's theme. The game booklet even contains historic descriptions of the events, so you'll learn something to boot!
Make sure that you get the latest version. As of 5/25/10, that would be the Deluxe Edition. You can read online what the differences are, but there are major revisions. It's not like buying the "collector's edition" of a game that is usually unnecessary because the regular version still contains the whole game. That's NOT the case with this game. Not only does the new version come with better components, but there have been several important changes in the game, including balance changes, and there are also new and important cards.
Happy playing!

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Now the trumpet summons us again not as a call to bear arms though arms we need; not as a call to battle though embattled we are - but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle - John F. Kennedy In 1945 unlikely allies toppled Hitlers war machine while humanitys most devastating weapons forced the Japanese Empire to its knees in a storm of fire. Where once there stood many great powers there then stood only two. The world had scant months to sigh its collective relief before a new conflict threatened. Unlike the titanic struggles of the preceding decades this conflict would be waged not primarily by soldiers and tanks but by spies and politicians scientists and intellectuals artists and traitors. Twilight Struggle is a two-player game simulating the forty-five year dance of intrigue prestige and occasional flares of warfare between the Soviet Union and the United States. The entire world is the stage on which these two titans fight. The game begins amidst the ruins of Europe...

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Twilight Struggle Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I have a collection of hundreds of games ranging from super classics such as Acquire, Conquest, Chivalry (yes, these might be more obscure titles to the general public but I find games such as Monopoly, Risk, Sorry and their like to be so far inferior to these other titles that they aren't even in my collection). More modern examples of the 'Euro' game such as Caylus, Die Macher, Cosmic Encounter... Abstracts from the old and new school (if you're an 'abstract game fan' check out the GIPF Project of games. My highest recommendation). I list these as a sort of qualification; as stated, I have and have played hundreds of different kinds of games.
Twilight Struggle is the culmination and distillation of many of the game mechanics that have been developed over the last 100 years of game design: area control, Card Driven action point allocation, dice modifiers... there are quite a few mechanics that integrate so seemlessly in this particular game whereas in other games these same mechanics tend to fall far short. The reason why these mechanics do so well in this particular game is totally because of the subject matter. The Cold War is the perfect setting for a game in which influence (area control) and card driven play (which depict real-world events) are the major mechanics. There is subtle intrigue and that 'making do' with a rotten situation that was so prevalent during the Cold War. The theme absolutely drips from this game, the tension and struggle is manifest in the gameplay. And this is an important point. Themes tend to be an addendum to game mechanics, pasted on or 'almost' fitting to whatever the original design was, which is why many games can easily be re-themed to suit a wider potential customer base. However, in TS, the theme is so well intrigrated that it transcends the general game experience into something that could easily be used as a tool for education on so many levels.
This game is, unforunately, not for everyone. It does require a good 3 games to know what the vast majority of the cards are (events) and needs a further number of the plays to get proficient at both the phases of the game and how each phase interacts with each other. This game requires longer term strategy, shorter term tactical know-how as well as card-hand management amongst its host of other player requirements. It is not really difficult to learn (I'd also heartily recommend 'Hammer of the Scots' by Columbus Games but the component quality falls short of Twilight Struggle, especially since TS was just released as a Deluxe Edition) and is the suggested choice for those that want to delve into the more complex Card Driven Games (CDG's) available (Paths of Glory, Sword of Rome, Here I Stand...).
Highly, highly recommended from a consummate gamer.

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In 1945, unlikely allies toppled Hitler's war machine, while humanity's most devastating weapons forced the Japanese Empire to its knees in a storm of fire. Where once there stood many great powers, there then stood only two. The world had scant months to sigh its collective relief before a new conflict threatened. Unlike the titanic struggles of the preceding decades, this conflict would be waged not primarily by soldiers and tanks, but by spies and politicians, scientists and intellectuals, artists and traitors. Twilight Struggle is a two-player game simulating the forty-fiveyear dance of intrigue, prestige, and occasional flares of warfare between the Soviet Union and the United States. The entire world is the stage on which these two titans fight to make the world safe for their own ideologies and ways of life. The game begins amidst the ruins of Europe as the two new "superpowers" scramble over the wreckage of the Second World War, and ends in 1989, when only the United States remained standing.Twilight Struggle inherits its fundamental systems from the carddriven classics We the People and Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage. It is a quick-playing, low-complexity game in that tradition. The game map is a world map of the period, whereon players move units and exert influence in attempts to gain allies and control for their superpower. As with GMT's other card-driven games, decision-making is a challenge; how to best use one's cards and units given consistently limited resources?Twilight Struggle's Event cards add detail and flavor to the game. They cover a vast array of historical happenings, from the Arab- Israeli conflicts of 1948 and 1967, to Vietnam and the U.S. peace movement, to the Cuban Missile Crisis and other such incidents that brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation. Subsystems capture the prestige-laden Space Race as well as nuclear tensions, with the possibility of game-ending nuclear war.

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