It could hardly be worse than this one tbh
So will Truman Doctrine… won’t it? Which could come in handy. To play ‘properly’ you should keep a list of all the cards so you know exactly what 80% of his hand is at the start of turn 3. I can never be bothered, but you can be sure Ben can.
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I’ve had that conversation with Ben this morning. He knows the entire deck. Very kindly he’s said he will tell us which 4 cards he ‘has’ to have because they haven’t come up before the reshuffle.
Truman for us, De Gaulle and the horror that is Decolonization for him. There must be some more of our event cards in there.
Shall I post the play, 2 IP in West Germany? The better discussions come at the start of a turn - or when you have cards that are actually playable!!
I’d like to open the floor for the more inexperienced players first again when we get the new hand.
The die is cast. This turn could have been worse.
Will post the updates when I get them.
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Turn 3 Headline Phase
Ben has kindly told us cards we should know he has, and cards he knows we have
-2 VPs for milops
Cards you know I have:
De Gaulle Leads France
East European Unrest
Five Year Plan
Romanian Abdication
Truman Doctrine
Cards you know I know you have:
Special Relationship
Containment
NORAD
Decolonization
Let’s try what we did last time, everyone has a chance to chip in with some thoughts and then we’ll pick a headline.
Regarding Special Relationship, we are under NATO.
Lead with containment, use all the other US events for points to be used in Europe, play the Europe score and then space one and accept the other(s) of the Russian events?
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This hand seems better!
I like DJCT’s plan. Other option would be Duck and Cover to put the Defcon level to 2, preventing coups in battlegrounds this turn and netting you 3 points.
But I do think it would be better served as an Ops card with an extra point added to it.
What are the rules with how headline cards play out? Highest or lowest op value first?
If he played a DEFCON lowering card that triggered first we’d lose.
NORAD and Special Relationship are going to be better if we control Canada and UK respectively. I’m never sure what to make of NORAD tbh.
Containment does seem like the obvious headline to me.
highest ops first, if tied, US first.
What to do: He hasn’t any cards in his deck that lower defcon. The only one in the early war is duck and cover and you’ve got that (please say if I missed any).
(EDIT: see next comment I made) Containment seems like the only reasonable headline here. I wouldn’t go with duck and cover, purely because it forces him to coup you in South Africa if he doesn’t want to endanger Iran/Egypt/Algeria to a coup. That seems like a good trade off to me. Small downside: it only really affects three cards this round (soc gov, norad, d&c). Decol is a space card all day and I would play spec rel for the event when NATO is in effect (2 VP woohoo!)
On Norad: It can be a great event! but in this situation in Europe, the lack of ops last turn, no control in Canada yet and containment as headline, i would play it for the 4 ops and hope it comes up after Quagmire next time.
And I would consolidate your position in Europe, as mentioned above, but I wouldn’t go all in this turn. I can’t see a way in which you get more than a draw/-1 on the scoring this turn and after that it will be gone for some time. So try to get UK, Canada, France, W-Germany, Spain/Portugal. It isn’t the only battleground on the board and you’ve got the scoring in hand.
Other places I would put some ops this turn, in no real order: Angola if his coup fails, followed up by Zaire, Israel (to prevent control in the ME), India, Japan (maybe), Indonesia, Laos/Cambodja, Mexico.
No all possible with 15 ops in hand, but those are the main things I guess.
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CIA lowers DEFCON, but he won’t headline it and would trigger after our card anyway. Olympic Games also, but that would be his defeat.
Socialist Government has to be post Europe Scoring.
This is going to be a tricky hand to sequence correctly, it’s one I would struggle with on my own.
Soc gov doesn’t have to happen before europe scoring (although it might come in handy), if it’s buffed up by Containment and you can restore the damage done by it and still have an op to spare.
Also, the choice for headline is really between two cards: containment or d&c. I like containment because of the extra ops, but on a closer look I can see why d&c might be an option. Gives you a 5 VP swing (3 points now and possibly no military VP’s for him at the end of the turn). So I think that’s where the discussion should start
Duck and cover also stops him from snuffing out your pitiful existence in ME 
I’m not convinced about D&C…
Reasons to play it
Gets us 3 points
Stops him couping South Africa and/or Jordan.
That’s good for the game state and potentially good for more points for us.
A few of you know the deck better than me, so I trust playing it won’t potentially commit suicide.
Reasons not to play it (headline Containment)
Its a 4 op card. We were starved of Ops last turn, so this could support West Germany and the UK (which makes Special Relationship more powerful, and defuses Europe Scoring)
It’s a great card to still have in the deck - DEFCON suicide for him, great play for us later when the Americas are more in play.
Points are always handy, but our board position is on the weak side. I’m wondering if 4 Ops now gets us in a better position for mid war.
That’s a good reason. Esepcially when he can just coup Jordan next game Turn. And you can spend the extra inf on other areas like Africa, Mexico, or SE Asia - thats 1 pt each, Thailand 2 pts.
On the other hand, you’ll lose your Presence score after the reshuffling at the end of this game Turn, and you have to brute force your way into Iran for ME for a presence, or hope for “Sadat Expels the Soviets”, “Puppet Governments”, or “Camp David Accords” - just to counter his Control.
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If he doesn’t drop DEFCON, then I think a coup in Iran has to be our AR 1 play.
What do we think then Duck&Cover, or Containment to headline?
I’d go Containment, but I’d really like to know what the ‘best’ play is here. I never know whether the 3 points for Duck and Cover is better or worse than the 3 ops (or even 4 ops) it gives. My feeling right now is that you need all the ops you can get, so it’s better not to take the points (a point other people have also made).
One reason for playing Containment that hasn’t been mentioned: it’s one of those cards that is good if you headline it, but really pretty rubbish for you if the USSR holds it, because they just play it late. So putting it back into the deck isn’t that valuable. Many other one-off cards are nicer to put back into the deck.
Also: him holding Truman Doctrine is really helpful for you because all the time it’s in his hand you have leverage in Europe. It’s actually an excuse to leave some of the battlegrounds just not quite controlled, so he can’t dump it.
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He’s got Marshall Plan so could use that to discard it late in the turn
I’m going to go with Containment
While this is possible, I don’t think it’s a given.