I forgot what Turn we are in our game of TS with @Captbnut , but I spent my UN Intervention on another card while I have CIA (which is a defcon trap card) in my hand. No way to discard it, no way to hold it, or to space race it. @Captbnut won that one.
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In what seems to be a recurring theme for @lalunaverde, he once again caused nuclear war. This time though, the only way to avoid it would have been very tricky.
The USSR was very comfortably ahead going into Turn 6, with a big VP lead, and dominance or at least a battleground advantage in Europe, Middle East, and Asia, no significant problems elsewhere, and had the China Card.
With UN Intervention, Nixon, and at least one other US card whose event the USSR didn’t want happening dealt in Turn 6, what the USSR had to do was notice that both Grain Sales and CIA could still be in the deck if they weren’t in the US hand, and neither could be used in the Space Race (3 OPs required). Grain Sales wasn’t the T6 US headline, so that was almost certainly still in the deck and guaranteed to be dealt next Turn. So there’s a good chance the next Turn will be a Defcon trap.
The only way to mitigate that threat would be to hold onto the China Card, by using UN Intervention on Nixon, or to use UN for 1 OP and hold Nixon, and just play any other unpleasant US events.
That’s not what the USSR did, and going into Turn 7, the US had the China Card and was dealt and headlined Grain Sales so Defcon went to 2 in the headline and the USSR lost a card. The USSR was dealt CIA, and being a card down without the China Card meant eventually being stuck with playing CIA for an unavoidable loss.
The key point here being that the only way to avoid that outcome would have been to identify the threat a whole Turn previously, which is far from simple.
Some people don’t like this aspect of the game, but for me, the potential to snatch a “win” from a near certain loss keeps the tension up, and, more importantly, can force a winning player to play a weak Turn, or several weak Turns, trying to make sure a Defcon loss doesn’t happen, while a losing player can afford to gamble.
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