I made it 5 rounds! So this will be the last round of the tournament! I’ll go and look what the fixtures will be (it’s @Benkyo vs myself, I believe, as @Captbnut has already lost to Ben) and post them soon.
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Well, I completely forgot to do this after I said it. So my apologies for the delay. Here are the match-ups for the final round of Tekeli’s first glorious Twilight Struggle championship deluxe!
@jraven90 vs @lalunaverde
@chrislear vs @Captbnut
@Chewy77 vs @RossM
@DJCT vs @Whistle_Pig
@Benkyo vs myself
@COMaestro gets the bye!
Good luck everyone (except Ben)!
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And to give you an update of the situation at the top. Benkyo is the leader with a perfect score of 4 wins. Captbnut and me have one win less than Ben, but we can both still tie. Or to be specific, I have to win against Benkyo to trigger the tiebreak. Welp.
To be fair, all I did was play out the cards I was dealt, and watch the points roll in. If you get Decolonisation and Destalinization in turn 2 as USSR, plus things like an opportunity to play CIA harmlessly and Red Scare in T3… well, it feels like quite an easy ride.
I did manage to get from 18 to 20 by playing Summit, which was the first time I’ve ever played it as an event, and the second time I’ve ever seen it played. So that was a novelty. Sorry @Captbnut for getting all the jam. And thanks for the game.
My record in this tournament is now 100% USSR win, 100% USA loss, so maybe it was just a matter of winning the toss.
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I just realized this also describes the game @qwertysoldier and I just played perfectly, except the USSR was on the ropes the whole game!
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No suprise here. I lost at the end of Turn 5. It was a culmination of one forced sub-par play after another in Turn 4&5. Congrats to a good win, @Benkyo !
Recap:
Turn 1 was a horrorshow, Benkyo headlined ME scoring for 4 VP and it all went downhill from there. My first coup only emptied Italy, which let Ben play into Afghanistan, my second coup with D&C in Pakistan only got me an extra 3 VP down in the scoring. The scoring ended up at 7 VP for the US after the first turn.
Turn 2 wasn’t much better scoring-wise (noticing a pattern here?). Headline Europe scoring vs Korean War got the scoring to US 10. I had to play CIA to not cause a nuclear war. Holding it wasn’t an option, because I had FYP and Asia scoring in hand, and I faced a US-dominated Asia. But even when the suprise was gone, being able to play Decol, Destal and Nasser for the event helped me to stabilize in the ME and get an early upper hand in SA and Africa.
Turn 3 resulted in a full scale battle for Europe. Luckily, I had a great hand for that as Soviets. I had Europe scoring with an US-dominated Europe, Marshall Plan, and Independent Reds. Oh, did I say great hand? Well, I meant a pretty annoying hand.
After headlining Red Scare I went for it. First, I took Greece, to force Ben to take Turkey. He did with a 4-Op card. That gave me an idea, albeit a risky one. If he didn’t have another 4-op card, Italy would be mine. At the very least, this would’ve tied up Europe for me, and potentially even gotten me a sneaky domination myself. A potential 10 VP-swing! (With the scoring at US 10 at this point)
So I played the China card into Italy to make it 2/3… just to see that Ben had another 4-op card, got Italy to 5/3, and completely fumbled my plans. At this point, I took another risk in Europe. I played Marshall plan to try to tie the country count in Europe. Long story short, it would’ve only succeeded if Ben didn’t have another 3 Op card. I should’ve just taken the loss, but I miscalculated and it cost me. So at the end of Turn 3, I was 15 VP down and had wasted the China card and almost all of my ops in Europe, instead of solidifying my good position in the Americas and Africa. Or even, tie up Asia, which was still an option at this point.
The mid war wasn’t that exciting. I headlined Lone gunman T4 to see Ben holding Asia scoring (the game always has a nice way of punishing your earlier mistakes), and from there it was just a game of somehow not letting him get to 20 VP. This culminated in me having to space to get a VP (unsuccesful) AR 5, then playing Arab-Israeli war for the event at 1/3 odds (unsuccesful), and then having only Bear trap and Camp David Accords left. So what do you do then? In 99 out of a 100 situations, bear trapping yourself is insane, but I managed to get myself into that 1% situation… With the scoring at US 17, and the next successful space race earning 2 VP, the one measly VP from Camp David Accords suddenly seemed pretty dangerous. And so, I bear-trapped myself.
And of course, because TS likes to kick someone when they’re down, Ben got VoA and headlined it. That crippled my position in SA and Africa, with Africa scoring in my hand. The unsuccessful dice roll for the bear trap was the final nail in the coffin.
So, @Benkyo won. Not only this game, but also this tournament with a perfect score of 5 wins. No one really got close, so it’s safe to say, he is the well deserved winner of Tekeli’s first glorious TS world championship deluxe!
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Interesting writeup, thanks. I wish I knew how to play like that as US. I now bid 3 to be USSR versus my long-standing opponent, and still have better USSR results than US.
yep, me being on the ropes forced me to play in such a way that I couldn’t fully benefit from that combo.
In hindsight, I could’ve ditched Europe in T2 and just gone for Asia, ME, and the mid-war regions, which would’ve made my life a lot more easier later on. But I really wasn’t looking forward to start the mid-war at US 13, if I could also get it to US 8 or even US 3.
Small addition to my earlier recap: Ben pulling Puppet Governments in T4 and myself getting Panama Canal that same turn was crucial for South America, even if it didn’t matter in the end. It made it possible that it went from me just 5 Ops away of control w/o US presence to a US controlled SA in the end.
I end up losing Italy and France when I play as the US at the moment.
I’m too scared of putting anything in France because of De Gaulle and Suez
That 4 op card that lured you into the Europe fight, I seriously considered putting the 3rd OP into over-controlling Italy, until I realized I wanted a Europe fight. After DeStal, S America USSR control was something I did not want to see.
Still, there wasn’t a single USSR positive region scoring in the whole game, so I can’t really take much credit. Sometimes it’s like that.
Something I’ve never had a chance to do before was an AR1 We will bury you for OPs, followed by UN Intervention and Quagmire. Felt good!
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Don’t be. I like to set up with 3 influence in France these days. It protects Italy about as well as over-controlling Italy does, but without any “wasted” influence. With a little luck, it makes Europe dominance cheap and easy.
The De Gaulle and Suez canal events are nasty, but they are not much worse than the USSR spending 3 OPs, and the events are one-shots.
I just noticed you did this in our game too! I should’ve taken note, I just started a game with a 2 into France set up, but could’ve made it 3.
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I just want to make clear, it only felt good for one of us.
This was partly because of my focus on Europe and afterwards on VP’s. Otherwise I think I would’ve gotten a positive African scoring.
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+3 influence sounds like giving the US Europe Dominance in many games, which would make things really hard. 3/3/3 influence in Europe battlegrounds is a scary prospect.
Maybe my opponent plays it wrong then. He generally sets up with overcontrolled Italy and overcontrolled Iran, but not France. I generally try for coups in Iran to get to Asia rather than Italy. A bad opening Iran coup can be tricky to manage. But I reckon I still win more than 50% as USSR with a bid of 3, and plenty more with a bid of 2. My USA record is well under 50%, but I’m never USA when I bid 3. I guess neither of us are great at being USA. It might be interesting to see the USA/USSR stats for this tournament overall.
Oh my, what a surprise! Benkyo won the tournament. Consider me shocked. 
Congrats! This was fun, and I didn’t even lose every single one of my games like I expected to.
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