He doesn’t have Marshall plan, right? He does have 5 year plan, but that only works with neutral cards or Sovjet-cards
5 year, not Marshall
Ah I see. If it gets to the point where 5 year plan and Truman Doctrine are his last two cards, you might be able to generate a little bit of pressure by using that knowledge.
Turn 3
Headline
Headline Romanian Abdication: Romania 0/3
AR1 coup S. Africa with COMECON, Defcon 2, MilOps 3, roll a 6: S. Africa 0/2 (I know, I’m sorry, the dice are being really unfair)
Every card we play has an ops value +1 (maximum 4 for this turn).
Thoughts? No coup target.
We need to get control in UK and West Germany and hopefully France (De Gaulle).
Control of Saudi Arabia would be handy. Mexico. Over control our Asian battlegrounds. Plus move into Africa (although that will be expensive through Algeria). Not a lot then!
Further thought - his headline. Either his hand is rubbish, or he has De Stalinization.
My thinking.
Decolonization is going to space.
Socialist Governments is best played after Europe Scoring.
With NATO in play, Special Relationship is worth playing for the event after control of UK is re established.
Play every other card for Ops - probably all as influence unless we try some realignment to try to get access to Africa.
To keep editing the same post. I’m thinking NORAD for Ops. 1 in UK and 3 in Saudi Arabia (both controlled).
Further edit. NORAD again. 1 in UK, 2 in Mexico, 1 in France. Control first 2 - stops him De Stalinizing into Mexico. Special Relationship next, with 2 IP into West Germany for control. Then we decide if we want to fight for France before Europe scoring.
1 Like
His dice rolls are amazing. Anyway, my plan would be to go mostly on Europe this AR, as we have the scoring for that. So West-Germany 2 to control and prevent any shenanigans there, UK 1 to control to open up Spec-relationship, and the last one would be to India in my opinion, just in case he has the war card and we get locked out of India. Laos/Cambodja also a good option, paves our way to India too, in case of the war, worth 1 VP in the SE-Asia scoring and blocks his way westwards to India.
I wouldn’t go hard on the ME, as it’s a good region for the SU in the early/mid-war and it’s a lot of ops to get something there for the US right now. Also, it’s a lot of ops for him to go from domination to control there, so I don’t think it’s high on his radar too. (Although the extra scoring of OPEC is also a thing of course, but I don’t think controlling Saudi Arabia now for that reason is the most pressing issue right now)
For Special relationship, I would go Greece or Turkey. The two 2-stability countries you can’t get to right now and you need to block his domination.
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Whereas I’d go for Italy.
I have no issue with the rest of the analysis in general. I agree that he’s better at rolling dice at the moment… and I really didn’t expect the coup in South Africa to work out. On the upside, the score isn’t too shocking all things considered, and your cards are good.
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Disregard what I said, I fully assumed you couldn’t play Special Relationship into an USSR-controlled country. Let’s have him fight for every little cittá and every trattoria if he wants il bel Paese to be red at the end of this decade!
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That is an excellent shout. Hadn’t considered it.
So, NORAD 1 IP UK, 2IP West Germany, 1 IP Laos?
But does that mean playing it early to make truman a real problem for him or playing it late just before Europe scoring?
Edit: I rather put the last op into India, as the war is a bigger problem right now than Laos, but yeah, basically that
If we have UK and West Germany controlled we can delay.
@lalunaverde probably has the most experience with playing Ben. Do you think he’d get in an ops war in the UK to downgrade Special Relationship?
Just to prevent you from using Special Relationship? He’d rather spend that elsewhere, even with NATO play. That’s what I believe.
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Ok
Just need to play it before Socialist Government.
I’ll send it over
Turn 3 Action Round 1
We’ll play NORAD for Ops
1 IP in UK
2 IP in West Germany
1 IP in India
2 Likes
And he’s running the game? Hmmm…
J/K 
5 Likes
Turn 3 AR 2
De Gaulle influence into France 1/4
Thoughts? De Gaulle gone but still in the game
If we play Socialist Government after Europe scoring we’ve got 8 ops plus Special Relationship. Shame he’s gone into France now. SR breaks control in Italy or France but he can play back in before scoring. To re control France after SR would cost him 3 ops though.
I’d play Socialist Governments for IPs in Europe, force his hand to use a high card (China?) and then after Special relationship try to score Europe… You always have Nuclear Test Ban and Duck and Cover as back up
Socialist Government reduces US influence in Western Europe. At the right time its not an awful card for us, but we need to time it correctly this turn.
Someone who gets the scoring better than me…
Ben currently Dominates Europe - we’ll pick up presence, plus a point for controlling West Germany. What difference does us breaking his control of France or Italy make before scoring - is it just a point? What about if we were able to swap control to us - is that just a 2 point swing?
I’m wondering if we want to get in an Ops war in Europe (beyond playing Special Relationship) before scoring if we can’t break his control without a lot of expenditure. It looks like a lot of Ops for not many points. Are we best scoring early and using our ops to get a foothold in Mexico and then controlling India and Laos to strengthen our control in Asia? If we have spare Ops at the end of the turn, we could even look at realignment rolls in Algeria (especially if we Special Relationship France and lose him a modifier)?
The way I see it, the advantage of breaking control in Europe is that he still has that Truman Doctrine problem. Right now he can play Truman Doctrine safely, which means he can use 5yp on something else. If you use Special Relationship now in France, he can’t, so he’s forced to add more influence there or keep the card until the end and use 5yp - or just hold it. That limits his options at least, and the longer he has to deal with Truman the better.
Cool
So play SR now, with the 2IP into France? I think that seems a good play
I’m not sure of the scoring issues if he leaves France uncontrolled before our next AR. Would we score significantly more points if we had France under our control, rather than leaving it uncontrolled? - I think he’d still get domination (more countries + Italy, East Germany and Poland)
You’re right. The score for Europe is (the difference between countries controlled) +4 if dominated. So it’s normally 5 points for a 3/2 split (3-2+4). Currently it’s 7 (4-1+4). If you took France it would be 5. If you took France and two more non-battlegrounds (assuming he did nothing) that would break the domination and it would only score 1. You have access to spain/portugal and canada, so it’s something you could threaten, and going from 7 to 1 would be really nice. I sort of doubt any of that will come about though, and I’m not at all sure it’s the best way to play.