OVERVIEW
Twilight Struggle is a 2 player historical board game that follows decades of warfare between the United States and the Soviet Union. Based on a timeline of 45 years, each turn advances the players approximately 3-5 years into the future. Players will move units across the map while gaining allies and control while playing this card-driven board game.
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The site aims to be a one-stop shop for everything Twilight Struggle. You will find online leagues, tournaments, strategy guides, live streamers, and much more. 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. Using the card-driven game mechanics pioneered in such award winning games as We the People and Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage, Twilight Struggle recreates the conflict. Twilight Struggle is a two-player game where players play as either the US or USSR during the Cold War. Using actual events from history, players must plan out their strategies in order to obtain world dominance. Play Twilight Struggle and change the course of history. Twilight Struggle: The Cold War, 1945–1989 is a card-driven strategy game for two players, with its theme taken from the Cold War. One player plays the United States (US), and the other plays the Soviet Union (USSR). The game takes its title from John F. Kennedy's inaugural address. 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. Twilight Struggle recreates the conflict between the most powerful nation states the world has ever known.
GAMEPLAY
Setup
Begin by placing the board in the middle of both playerswith room for a discard pile next to it. The initial influence chips will thenbe placed on the board as well as the VP tokens at the start of the VictoryPoint track which will be moved in either direction while scoring. Each playerwill then be dealt 8 cards each from the Early War deck. After receiving theirhands, each player will add the specified amount of additional influence piecesto the board indicated on their cards if necessary. The USSR player will takethis step first, followed by the US player.
Goal
The object of the game is to gain control over as manycountries as possible to gain more Victory Points than the enemy player by theend of the game.
Player Actions
During gameplay, the influence marker will be flipped tothe colored side when a country is controlled. In order to gain control of acountry, the influence must be greater than or equal to the country’s indicatedstability number as well as the opponent’s influence. For example, if a countryhas a stability number of 3 has 1 USSR marker on it, the US player must place 4of their markers on the same country to take control of it. All battlegroundcountries are marked with a purple banner.
Each player’s turn will follow the order that is displayedin the lower left hand corner of the game board:
First, increase the defcon by 1 if possible. Then, eachplayer will be dealt more cards so their hand always equals 8. This rule standsfor turns 1,2,3 and 9 as needed. Rounds 1-3 will be played with the Early Warcards only, Mid War cards will be added for rounds 4-7, and the Late War cardsare added to the deck to be used for the remainder of the game.
The next step is called the Headline Phase. Players will draw1 card and place it face down on the table in front of them, and each will flipit over facing up at same time. The card with the highest number in the upperleft corner is played first. If these numbers are the same, the US player willgo first. The Action Round phase follows and players will each play cards fromtheir hands 1 at a time going back and forth. Turns 1-3 will have 6 actionrounds per player, and then there will be 7 action rounds for the rest of thegame.
Players will play the event on their card if the star inthe upper left corner matches their country’s color, which is red for USSR,white for US, or half red and half white for both. For example, the US playercan play the action of a card if the star is white or both red and white. Ifthe card has asterisk at the end of the text, it is only used once and will notremain in the game. All other cards go to the discard pile after resolving andcould be reshuffled into the deck if needed.
Both opponents will play cards to earn operations points,which is the value in the star on the upper left of each card. They can chooseto use these points in 1 of 3 ways per turn. First, if the color of the stardoes not match the active player’s country, they have the option to resolve thecard before or after their operations points are used in the game. If the colorof the star matches the player’s color or shows both, only the operationspoints are used and no action is played. Influence markers in the amount of theoperation points listed on the card should be placed on any country the playerhas influence or that is adjacent to one they have influence in. It takes 2points per influence marker to add them to a country that is controlled by theopponent. These markers can also be spread out to multiple countries duringthis turn.
The next option is to perform a realignment roll on anycountry that the opponent has influence in. Each player will roll 1 dice andadd 1 to the result for each controlled adjacent country of the opposingsuperpower, if your country is adjacent to your superpower, and if your countryhas more influence than the opponent. The player with the highest roll willremove the difference between the 2 in their enemy’s influence points. Theamount of rolls should be equal to the operations points, and multiplecountries can be selected during this turn of there are enough operationspoints indicated on the card.
Lastly, players can choose to use their operations points to perform a coup. To do this, you will multiply the country’s stability points that your opponent has influence in by 2, roll 1 dice and add the operations points on the card to the results of the roll. If this number is greater than twice the country’s stability points, your opponent will
Once per turn, you can play a card in order to move forwardon the space race track. The operations value on the card should be greaterthan or equal to the number printed on the next space you would like to advanceto. After rolling the dice, if the value is equal to the required value on theboard, you can move forward 1 space. Some spaces give victory point bonuses tothe first and second player to get to that position as indicated on the board.Scoring cards are played like normal event cards throughout the game.
Points are based on the level of influence players have ineach region as follows:
Presence is having control of 1 country in a region.Control is when you have control of more countries than the opponent and allbattleground countries in that region. Domination is having control of morebattleground and non-battleground countries in a region than the opponent. Youmust have 1 battleground and 1 non-battleground country to dominate a region.The map on the board shows the victory points for each level of presence ineach region. 1 bonus point is awarded for each battleground country that iscontrolled and another for each controlled country that is adjacent to theopposing superpower.
After all action rounds are finished, check the MilitaryOperations marker on the bottom of the board. If that number is lower than thecurrent defcon level, the opponent will gain the difference in the two numbersin victory points.
Each superpower will have 1 card in their hand beforemoving on to the next round, and should show each other the bottom of theircard to prove that it is not a scoring card, which must be played in the sameround it is drawn. Whoever has the China card at the end of the game gets 1bonus victory point.
How to End the Game
The game can end in any of these 3 ways: If a playerreaches 20 victory points , if the defcon marker moves to 1 causing the activeplayer to lose the game, or if one player controls Europe during Europeanscoring. Otherwise, the game will end after a total of 10 rounds have beenplayed and will be scored accordingly.
How to Score the Game
If 10 rounds of the game are completed with no winner dueto the above conditions, the player with the most victory points added up isthe winner.
Strategies
The first turn in Twilight Struggle is vital to the successof your country through the remainder of the game. It is important to make theright decision on where to place your influence chips on the board during thisphase to make it harder for your opponent to establish domination before you.For the USSR player, it is smart to go for Greece or Turkey in the Middle Eastor Jordan and Lebanon if the US player has influence in Israel. On the otherhand, the US player should use Lebanon and Jordan to protect Israel in theevent that the USSR player has already established influence in Iran.
Variations of the Game
There are many variations of the game Twilight Struggleincluding the Chinese, Hungarian, Polish, Italian, and Portuguese Editions, allwith multiple separate printings throughout the years.
Rule Variations for Playing with Kids
Although Twilight Struggle is intended for 2 players, itwould be a good idea to form groups or teams while playing with young childrento help them understand and play the game effectively. Alternatively, the rulescan be altered completely using only the dice and cards to determine where eachplayer should place their influence markers on the board.
QUICK INFO
Time to play: 120-180 minutes
Alternative titles of the game: Gleichgewicht desSchreckens, Student valka, Zimna wonja
Manufacturer suggested player age: 13+
Community suggested player age: 14+
Twilight Struggle App
List of expansions: Twilight Struggle: Turn Zero and PromoPacks, Twilight Struggle: Regime of the Colonels Promo Card, Twilight Struggle:Promo Deck, Twilight Struggle: Turn Zero
Community rating: 8.3/10
Popularity: Rank 5
Difficulty: Hard
Designer credits: Ananda Gupta, Jason Matthews
Published year: 2005
Link to official game site: http://www.gmtgames.com/
Awards: 2012 Ludoteca Ideale Winner, 2012 Gra Roku Game ofthe Year Nominee, 2011 Lucca Games Best Boardgame for Experts
If you like this game you’ll also like:
Dominant Species, Eclipse, Risk
If you don’t like this game, you should try:
Monopoly, The Game of Life, Uno
Ice in the blood but not on your hands. You look up to mutter, “No one takes Russia in winter”.
Twilight Struggle Rules
The person across from you smiles wryly. Chances are you won’t take Russia. It’s a balmy summer.
There’s enough nuclear options on the table to make an American wish they were in charge of the whole world’s stockpile. But you’re just a nerd who lives on the fringes of an Australian city that’s about as far removed from a Cold War as it’s possible to be while still hanging out on the same planet.
Welcome to Twilight Struggle.
Avid gamers are likely already familiar with the 2005 board game and its iterations, but there’s something to be said about our collective fascination for this period of history. You could build your whole career on studying mid- to late-twentieth century Western history, so it’s worth asking why we are so obsessed.
Part of Twilight Struggle’s success is tied to its subject matter. The Cold War offers a very specific perspective on warfare; one only made possible by the horrors wrought by the deployment of nuclear weapons upon innocent Japanese civilians. The fear and awed reverence now reserved for nuclear weapons continues to play out today with concerns over armament and a vigilante attitude by the US.
The popularity of Twilight Struggle owes to two key things: that continued fascination for the Cold War period, and the effectiveness of the game mechanics.
The game combines luck and strategy, a popular combination which allows for a serendipity that mirrors our lived experience. Elements of choice in selecting cards to play – and choosing the consequences they offer – sits apposite the luck of the dice.
In this way, Twilight Struggle feels like a real conflict because certainty is always just at the edge of a player’s choices.
Part of the grandeur of this game is the way it is bound to the narrative of the Cold War. This is not a matter of dressing up the game with a setting. The historical context defines the conflict and how it unfolds.
The introduction of early, mid, and late war cards into the deck as the games progresses keeps the war moving along in terms of the historical narrative. For players, this encourages an immersive experience, coming to grips with the details of the conflict, some of which are bound to be familiar and others which encourage deeper reflection.
Games like this engage in imaginative history making by offering the past up in pieces that can be moved or deployed differently to alter the outcome. In the world of the game, these changes produce a new history. The capacity for players to engage in counterfactual history is a big drawcard for those who come to the table with a strong understanding of this period.
Twilight Struggle was released in 2005 and reigned supreme on BoardGameGeek from 2010-2016 as its top game offering. At the time of writing, it still sits in the top ten.
Twilight Struggle Cards
While part of the appeal is the gameplay, another part is the setting. We’re drawn to narratives of empire. This conflict and the major players is the twentieth century equivalent of watching the Greeks face the Persians, or the Romans duke it out with the Parthians. History is writ large in the conflicts of power blocs. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics versus the United States shows us two powerful conglomerates seeking dominance in a world newly anxious about the complete and painful annihilation offered by a single bomb.
Perhaps we feel the tension more acutely now given the politics and recent history of the 2010s. Russia is blamed for interfering in US elections and Trump’s presidency is defined by his fascination with Russia and his easy access to nuclear weapons.
It seems that maybe the Cold War didn’t end in Berlin in 1989. Maybe what the democratic West viewed as a triumph was merely a setback. Maybe Russia is still playing to win.