Twilight Struggle

"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..."
—JFK's inaugural address

Twilight Struggle is a card-driven board game for two players which covers the entire Cold War. One player plays the United States and the other plays the Soviet Union. In each turn, both players are dealt a hand of cards, and then play them one at a time, alternating. The object of the game is to spread your superpower's influence into as many countries of the world as possible. By doing this, you score victory points when regions are scored, the timing of which is determined by cards. Cards are divided into three groups: Early War, Mid War, and Late War. This ensures that events like Fidel Castro's coming to power in Cuba, OPEC's founding, Chernobyl, etc. will happen in their historical era.

All cards (except scoring cards) have both an event and an operations number (ops for short). Some events are playable by both superpowers, others are associated with one or the other. If you play a card that has one of your opponent's events, the event happens anyway. Cards can be used to play the event or for ops. Ops can be used to directly place influence on the board (adjacent to where you already are), or for a coup attempt. This involves a die roll plus the ops value of the card; if you roll well enough, then you can replace an opponent's influence in a country with some of your own, or at least reduce his influence in the country. Some countries are more vulnerable to coups than others. Cards can also be played to advance on the space race, though generally only one card can be used on the space race per turn. The significance of this is that if you play a card with one of your opponent's events on the space race, the event does not happen. There are also scoring cards, such as "Asia Scoring". When this card is played, the player with the superior position in Asia will earn victory points (VPs).

Some countries are battleground countries. These are worth more points than non-battleground countries. Also, any coup attempt (regardless of success) in a battleground country reduces the DEFCON in the game. The DEFCON (which simulates Cold War tensions) can rise and fall during gameplay. For example, events like Nuclear Test Ban move DEFCON up (towards peace), while other events and coups in battleground countries push it down (towards nuclear war). As DEFCON drops, where you can do a coup attempt becomes restricted (for example, at DEFCON 3 coups in Europe and Asia are prohibited).

The points use a tug of war mechanic: Every time the Soviets score points, the VP marker moves in a negative direction. Every time the Americans score points, it goes in a positive direction. If it ever reaches -20 or +20, that is an instant win for the appropriate player. Controlling Europe is also an automatic win. Other than that, if DEFCON ever falls to 1, World War III starts and the game ends instantly. Whoever was the phasing player (the player whose card play was being resolved) when DEFCON hit 1 is blamed for the nuclear war and loses the game.

The game generally shows a tilt to the Russians in the early turns, as events in Asia and the Middle East will generally lead to an expansion of Soviet influence in those regions. The Mid War is wild and chaotic, with powerful events for both sides, and sees the Cold War spread to Africa and the Americas. Late War events, such as Chernobyl, Reagan's "Tear Down This Wall" speech and Solidarity, help the USA to expand its influence in Europe, especially in the key battleground state of Poland. This is counterbalanced by Aldrich Ames for the USSR.

In December 2010, Twilight Struggle became the highest-ranked game on Board Game Geek, displacing Puerto Rico. It has also won several awards. Online play is popular, with tournaments being held annually.

Has nothing to do with the rivalry between Team Edward and Team Jacob, nor with Twilight Sparkle.[1]

Tropes used in Twilight Struggle include:
  • Alternate History: The Early-Middle-Late division of cards means events go off roughly around the time they went off in Real Life (i.e., the Early War Castro card will probably go off earlier than the Late War Chernobyl card), though events can be deferred to a later turn. The situation on the board will likely turn out this way to varying extents as the game progresses (i.e., Italy or South Korea falling under Soviet control early on).
  • Arab-Israeli Conflict: Makes the US position in the Middle East tenuous until the Camp David Accords card is played.
  • Banana Republic: The Mid-War Junta card grants two influence in Latin America as well as realignment rolls or a coup attempt - presumably success results in this trope happening in-universe.
  • Boring Yet Practical: Getting influence onto the board using ops points.
    • Not so boring when you use a card with your opponent's event on it, which must occur either before or after you place influence.
  • Cold War:
    • The Fifties: The Early War is mostly the 1950s. Kids doing civil defense drills at school, communist influence spreading far over the horizon, some guy named Fidel down in America's lake...
    • The Sixties: The Flower Power card, which penalizes the US for any "war" cards they may play, because you are supposed to make love and not war. Also there's a Vietnam War card (called Quagmire), and cards for both JFK's inauguration speech and for his assassination. There's also cards representing some more obscure 1960's events like the Ussuri River Skirmish.
    • The Seventies: Oil shortages? Oh yeah.
    • The Eighties: The Late War card with Reagan on it that cancels the effect of the above-mentioned hippies. Star Wars is in there too, as is Chernobyl.
  • Defcon Five: Used correctly; Defcon Five is the starting setting (i.e. "no danger"), while Defcon One instantly triggers World War III.
  • Forever War: If the US player is struck with "Quagmire" (mirroring Vietnam), he must spend his next round wasting a card with 2 or more ops and rolling a die to get out of it - if the die roll fails, he has to do it again the following round (ditto for the Soviets with "Bear Trap" to mirror Afghanistan). A string of bad luck can render a player entirely impotent for a whole turn or more (especially if the player is also struck with Red Scare/Purge).
  • Guide Dang It: What do you mean, Grain Sales etc. can trigger nuclear war?!
    • So can Olympic Games (if you play it and your opponent boycotts, DEFCON falls by one. If it falls to one and nukes fly, it's the hosting country's fault.)
  • Herr Doktor: "Captured Nazi Scientists" is an early war card that automatically moves your token one spot along the Space Race track.
  • In Spite of a Nail: As mentioned above, the separation of the deck into Early War, Mid-War, and Late War serves to keep some resemblance to the Real Life sequence of events.
    • Sometimes can lead to weird situations, such as a Soviet-backed North Korean invasion of a South Korea also controlled by the Soviets via influence placement.
  • Instant Win Condition: Any time your opponent sets off nuclear war, or if you have control of Europe[2] when the Europe Scoring card is played, or if one side has a 20-point lead before the end of the 10th and final turn.
  • International Showdown by Proxy: On a broad level, the whole game is like this for the US and Soviet Union through control of countries or specific card events (i.e., Arms Race, Kitchen Debates, Summit, etc.), as measured by the VP track.
    • For the specific example of showdown-by-sports, you have the Olympic Games card, where the winner as determined by dice roll (host country gets +2 for home field advantage) wins 2 VP. Like what happened in 1980 Moscow Olympics and 1984 Los Angeles games, the other country may choose to boycott them.
  • Iran-Iraq War
  • Iron Lady: The Iron Lady is a Late War card that wipes out any Soviet influence from the UK as well as neutralize the Socialist Governments card (allows the Soviet player to remove US influence from Western Europe). It also gives the Soviets one influence in Argentina thanks to the Falklands War.
  • The Korean War
  • Lethal Joke Card: The Early War US-only CIA Created card is only worth 1 op point, but if the Soviet player has it and doesn't treat it with care it can make him automatically lose.[3] Ditto for the Mid-War "Lone Gunman" card for the American.
  • Mini Game: The space race functions a bit like this.
  • NATO/WarsawPact: Present as cards in-game. Oddly enough, in order for NATO to become playable as an event either Warsaw Pact or Marshall Plan must be played first, when in Real Life it was the formation of NATO that spurred the establishment of the Warsaw Pact.
  • Nuclear Weapons Taboo: Starting a nuclear war loses you the game, no questions asked, even if you did it by accident or were forced to by the cards you drew.
  • Red Scare: Can certainly feel that way for the US player early in the game, as the Early War cards as well as the fact that the Soviets start with the powerful China Card seem to give them an edge. Games with handicaps often give the US a couple of extra influence for balance; the Chinese Civil War variant (where the Soviet player must spend influence on China before it can utilize the China Card) can also serve to dull the edge.
    • Also a card in the game (actually 1/2 of a name pair that smacks a -1 ops penalty on your opponent for a turn - the Soviet equivalent being called Purge)
  • Refuge in Audacity: "Duck and Cover" is an Early War card in the game. It refers to the civil defense slogan that was taught to schoolchildren in The Fifties. Apparently if you duck the commie missiles might miss you. Also be sure to get under cover; a picnic blanket should provide an adequate shield from the blast, but to be extra careful use a wooden table.
    • Given the inaccuracy of ICBMs on both sides and the relatively low yields of warheads during the early part of the Cold War (specifically before hydrogen bombs became widespread), huddling under a desk could have saved your life in such an event. More practically, a more concerted effort to protect your own civilian populace from attack would fly in the face of the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction - it would suggest that you think you can survive a nuclear attack, thus making the thought of starting a nuclear war in order to utterly destroy the other side more tolerable and therefore more likely.
  • The Space Race: Operates as a safety valve in-game in that players can rid a card from their hand that would help their opponent each turn. If successful, it also awards VP as well as special benefits, such as forcing your opponent to show his headline card first, if you're in the lead (at least until he catches up).
  • The Vietnam War: Not explicitly, but there are several cards that serve to focus attention on Southeast Asia such as Vietnam Revolts and Decolonization for the Soviets (as well as the American equivalent of the latter in Colonial Rearguards). In addition, there is a Mid-War Southeast Asia scoring card that awards V Ps for control of those countries, though unlike other scoring cards it is single-use.
  • World War III: With a twist—whoever becomes responsible for triggering it loses automatically.
  • You Lose At Zero Trust: What happens when you lose control of Europe—you lose automatically the next time the score is calculated for that region. Pushing DEFCON all the way up to one (i.e. launching the nukes) will also lose the game for whichever player played the first card to trigger that chain of events.
  1. ↑ Whether she would be intrigued or horrified by the basic premise of the game remains to be seen
  2. ↑ more controlled countries in Europe and all battlegrounds of France, Italy, Poland, and both Germanies
  3. ↑ The card's text explicitly gives the US player 1 op point, so if there is any Soviet influence in a battleground country in Latin America or Africa (i.e., Cuba post-Castro) and DEFCON is at 2, the US can coup there, force DEFCON to level one, and win automatically because it was the Soviet player who played it
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