What would be your play? 4 ops into SE Asia? Control 3 countries?
Would you score Europe first?
I think Europe swings towards us as the game goes on. Tbh if we didn’t have Europe Scoring I wouldn’t be considering a play there at all.
A 4 ops realignment roll could be game changing, although not with the way we’re rolling!!
If he plays Truman and the event can’t happen, is the card still removed from play or just discarded?
Yes. The card is removed. But little sense crying over it.
Best to play Europe so not to tempt Ben on attacking West Germany
Time for a poll
First…
0 voters
Second…
Ops card (when played)
0 voters
I’ve voted, but I have no confidence in any of this. I really like the realignment idea now it’s been mentioned. I wouldn’t have considered it.
Let’s play Europe Scoring and see what he does.
Realignment early in the turn gives us a chance to act on the result.
He has +1. It’s +1 for who,ever has the most in the country that’s being realigned (regardless of control) and +1 for every adjacent country that is controlled.
Also: my 5 cents on Europe scoring. I’m convinced by your arguments that an ops war in Europe isn’t worth it. But scoring it now would give him a free turn to do something. I would rather wait with the scoring until he spaces (as we’re probably not going to space, with containment active). But I think the majority has decided on this already
Turn 3 Action Round 4(?)
That’s -7 VP.
Defectors to space: roll 4, no advance
He didn’t use the turn. He has China, 5 Year Plan and Truman (I think)
We’ve got 2, 4 op cards (3 with Socialist Government).
Thoughts - Laos, Phillipines, Burma?
India and Mexico?
Realignment rolls in Algeria and South Africa (hopefully more!)
I’d love an extra IP in West Germany if there was spare
Space DeCol? We don’t want to get stuck with it.
I’m tempted to start with Asia tbh. If we’re in control of 3 more countries then the China Card won’t go so far.
Although, that could make him use it to strengthen in Africa which makes our play much harder.
I’d be crying on a corner by now. 
But Mid War is gentler to the US in general…
Maybe build from South East Asia? Defcon is high, so it might be worth couping also in an easy target like Iran and then build into ME from there…??
Alas DEFCON is at 2, so there is no coup available. He’s steadily bleeding us of points by not giving us a chance to coup.
Having slept on it, I’m now more keen on realignment on this turn. The odds are never great, but we’d have 4 rolls at it. Even if we just flipped South Africa to 1 of our influence.
Asia is the solid play (although I believe we still need to control India or Japan to reassert control now he has South Korea). But if we did that first he can play into Southern Africa, which makes life very difficult for us there.
You can’t get influence into a country by realigning. It just helps clearing it of his influence. Also realignment on Algeria has a -2 modifier, Panama is double overcontrolled, so that basically leaves South Africa. I don’t think that’s worth spending a 4-op card on.
My idea would be to go hard on Asia this AR. So Laos/Cambodja 1, and then either take Taiwan with 3 ops or go Burma 2, India 1.
Also think I wouldn’t space this turn. It would be a AR wasted with containment active and I don’t see a good hold card instead of decol. Maybe Duck and Cover, but at the moment he has zero coup targets next turn, so half of the strength of that card’s event isn’t an issue right now.
Turn 3 Action Round 4
Nuclear Test Ban for ops
2 IP Burma
1 IP Laos
1 IP Phillipines
Turn 3 AR 5
Truman for influence: Saudi Arabia 0/1
Finland 0/0
Map and cards to follow, problems with the image files
My temptation for now is to put 2 in India to get control and Asia Domination locked up.
I like 2 in Mexico and 1 in Guatemala. I know Mexico will give him a coup target in turn 4, but it stops a quick Central America scoring card against us. Guatemala gives us access to the region even if Mexico is turned over.
The other spot I’m interested in is Algeria. Either attempting realignment rolls against the 2 African countries, or a less risky but more expensive IP play to give us access. It would give him a second coup option, but he’d have to pick between them and we’d have access into the other region if he was successful.
Also, dropping some influence in West Germany and UK post Socialist Government helps restore balance there.
Tricky because we really could do with gaining some military ops.
What are people’s thoughts - both on locations for IP if we go that route, or whether it’s worth a gamble on a realignment roll. We’ve still got 8 Ops to play with. A coup next round would be great (this downgrading my ideas for Mexico and Algeria!).
India sounds good, but aren’t you too weak in Middle East?? Wouldn’t it be worth a coup in Iran?? I know your dice rolls haven’t been great, but we cannot have bad luck always, can we?
Either that or use socialist governments and weaken his European position a bit, he’s quite solid there
I’ve had a thought.
Space Race DeCol
Next turn Socialist Government 2 IP in Mexico (control), 2 IP Algeria (1,2 break control)
Next turn Headline Duck & Cover and he can’t coup either country - gives us access to both regions.
Obviously this is a terrible idea if there is a 4op mid war card he could headline that would also lower DEFCON. Anyone know the deck well enough?
You mean in Turn 4 right? Because defcon is at 2 right now.
I would first decide if you want to give him a coup option next turn or not. The argument that he can score central america easily is a good one against that.
For soc gov: Assume you only have one op to spare from that (he can remove 3 ops with it, so it costs 3 ops to restore if he chooses correctly). Basically 5 ops left this turn.
India, Spain/Portugal, Indonesia the safe route. Maybe Canada, but it’s a low priority with Europe scored and his dominance there.
Mexico, then Guatemala next, Algeria, Israel, Iraq, Saudi Arabia are more risky targets (i.e. open for coups next turn).
And to repeat: not really in favor of realigning on -1 in SA and if succesful, overcontrolled Panama on -1 or Algeria on -2.
I believe there isn’t, the one that comes to mind is a late war card, but I’m not sure. It’s more a terrible idea because he’ll take off 2 ops from West-Germany and one from, I guess, the UK. Which means next turn you have to fight for West-Germany again, to not risk losing by Europe control if the scoring comes again.
Ok. So to recap
Currently he has no coup target for Turn 4 AR 1 that will lower DEFCON. I’m not sure this is what we planned for, but it’s where we are. It could be useful because we are giving him points.
If we want to stay that way then we load influence into Europe - West Germany and UK to make up for losses to Socialist Governments. Spain because it gives access to Africa. We don’t have enough to play for Italy or France.
Asia - we’re strong here but don’t have control because we have 2 battleground states each. India and Pakistan are at risk because of the war card but we’re as well defended as we could be. Pakistan is slightly vulnerable to influence play from Iran. Another option is to play into South Korea. The war card is gone. We wouldn’t get control there, but we would break his.
Alternatively we spread across Europe to try to prevent control by sheer weight of numbers.
If we don’t mind giving a coup target then ops into Mexico and Guatamala prevent him getting a quick control of Central America.
I really don’t know how important is having a coup is. I’d love some experienced input into what good play looks like from here.
Socialist Governments seems like a good play first, let him resolve first and then repair the damage he does with 1 influence spare.
Socialist Government - UK, West Germany then Spain and Pakistan
Anyone?
Bueller?
How many times can you score each area in the game?
