A (not so) long 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, year in and year out, 'rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation', a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself.
- John F. Kennedy 

My buddy Dave came over for a game of Twilight Struggle last night. It is currently the #1 rated game on BoardGameGeek, taking over that coveted spot from two of my favorite games: (most recently #1) Agricola and (#1 previous to Agricola) Puerto Rico.

Twilight Struggle is a game covering the Cold War pitting one player as the USA against another as the USSR. I was the United States and let me tell you, it was not pretty. I can't even really explain what happened and what went so wrong. But Dave jumped out on me early and I couldn't do anything to claw my way back into the game. This was only my second time playing so I made plenty of mistakes that hopefully I wouldn't (won't?) make the next time.

It is a very interesting game with an endless string of tough choices. The play centers around playing cards from your hand either to enact a historical event that has some effect on the game or use those cards to do other actions. Much of the time you're looking at a hand of cards where you must play one but you don't want to play any! The key to being able to play the game well is understanding how the cards interact and also being able to anticipate some of the more brutal events in the deck. I was unable to do either of those things.

The game goes until someone triggers nuclear war (thus losing) or nine game turns are played or one side ends up with 20 more victory points than the other. Dave won by getting 20 VPs in the 4th turn of the game. Ouch!

Here's the start of our game of game. Sorry for the glare. We tried putting the map under the glass to help it lay flat (it is just paper and not mounted to any cardboard or anything.) It worked really well for the game. The only thing that bugged us was the glare. I need to try and figure out something with my lighting.