Tournament Play
These rules are optional, and are not required for 'friendly' play. They are simply offered as guidelines on conducting Twilight Struggle as a competitive tournament game.
During tournament play, all cards held at the end of the round should be revealed to your opponent. This prevents accidental or deliberate holding of scoring cards.
Any player found holding a scoring card during the Reveal Held Card phase is said to have started an accidental nuclear war, and loses immediately.
During tournament play, the Soviet player should receive the first card of every deal. The deal should alternate back and forth between the players until they have received their full hand size.
A player may receive consecutive cards in a deal if they require more cards than their opponent.
The Chinese Civil War Variant
The Chinese Civil War Variant is meant to be played within the context of the existing rules regarding the China Card.
However, where these rules conflict with existing rules or event card text, this section of the rules takes precedence.
The Chinese Civil War Space
The Chinese Civil War space is considered adjacent to the Soviet Union and only the Soviet Union. The space is considered to be in Asia, but not South East Asia.
It does not affect any scoring card. The only action that may be taken on the Chinese Civil War space is the placement of Influence Points by the Soviet player. The US player may not use Operations or events of any kind to effect the Chinese Civil War space.
Once the Soviet player has placed 3 Influence Points on the Chinese Civil War space, it has no further effect. The markers may be returned to the Soviet player's pool, and the Chinese Civil War space is ignored for the remainder of the game.
Control
The Soviet Union must place three Influence on the Chinese Civil War space to Control it. Soviet Influence is placed in the Chinese Civil War space according to the rules for placing influence in countries. If the China card remains unclaimed throughout the game, no player receives the victory point for possession of the China Card during end game scoring.
Impact Of Control
Until the Soviet Player has placed 3 Influence Points on the Chinese Civil War space, the China Card is in no player's possession. Once the Soviet player had placed 3 Influence Points into the space, the player immediately receives the China Card face up and ready for play. Additionally, the ban on play of the Red Scare/Purge and Formosan Resolution events is immediately lifted.
Event Restrictions
Until the Soviet player has placed 3 Influence Points on the Chinese Civil War space, the Soviet player may not play Red Scare/Purge nor Cultural Revolution as events. Additionally, the US player may not play Formosan Resolution as an event. These cards may be played for Operations Points normally.
Special US Condition:
For the purposes of playing Ussuri River Skirmish or Nixon Plays the China Card as events, the US is deemed to be in possession of the China Card if the Soviet Player has not yet placed the 3 Influence Points on the Chinese Civil War space.
Until the Soviet Player has placed 3 Influence Points on the Chinese Civil War space the Russian player subtracts an additional 1 when rolling for the resolution of the Korean War event.
Events made unplayable or restricted due to 12.4 are still playable for Operations points as per rule 7.5.
A Late War Scenario for Twilight Struggle
If you've played with your TS set as much as I have, you may find the Early and Mid-War event cards looking a little worn compared to the less often used Late War events.
For those of you who would like to dive right into the post-Quagmire era and try out the cool possibilities of a Landed Eagle, Star Wars, and Chernobyl, or Aldrich Ames, the Hostage Crisis, and Terrorism, here's a scenario that cuts to the chase.
My sense of the game-turn structure is that the turns roughly represent the following years:
- Turn 1 = 1945-1948
- Turn 2 = 1949-1952
- Turn 3 = 1953-1956
- Turn 4 = 1957-1960
- Turn 5 = 1961-1964
- Turn 6 = 1965-1969
- Turn 7 = 1970-1974
- Turn 8 = 1975-1979
- Turn 9 = 1980-1984
- Turn 10 = 1985-1989
Thus, the Late War period would begin in 1975, say, with the Fall of Saigon. So I have used that date (and a dose of interpretation of history into the TS fabric) to set the influence and events for the opening of the Late War Scenario.
To my surprise, the US appears to begin the post-Vietnam era in a decidedly strong position in game turns. Whether or not the dominoes have fallen, the US still dominates Asia, for example. Play of the scenario showed that a US Automatic Victory is well within reach, so the Soviet player in this scenario wins just for engineering a more graceful decline of the Socialist experiment.
Have fun, and please try to avoid The Day After....
Markers
- Turn at 8
- DEFCON at 4
- Space Race at Soviet Space Walk; US Eagle Landed
- VP at -4
Events In Play Counters
US/Japan Pact, Marshall Plan, NATO, Warsaw Pact, DeGaulle, Flower Power.
Control And Influence
- US Dominates South America and Asia
- Soviets Dominate Middle East.
Mark influence as minimum needed for control by the indicated side except where shown as (US#/Sov#).
Us Control:
UK, Italy, Benelux, W. Germany (5/1),
Denmark, Norway,
Israel, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey,
Zaire, Somalia ,Kenya, Nigeria,
Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines (3/1),
Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia (3/1),
Nicaragua, Panama, Haiti, Honduras,
Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, Colombia (2/1),
Dominican Republic
Soviet Control:
E. Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia,
Bulgaria, Cuba, North Korea,
Iraq, Syria (0/3), India, Afghanistan,
Libya, Algeria, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe,
Angola (1/3), Laos (0/2), Vietnam (0/5)
SE African States (0/2)
Neutral With Influence
Spain (1/0), France (3/1), Romania (1/3)
Jordan (2/2), Egypt (1/0), South Africa (2/1)
Finland (1/2), Burma (0/1), Peru (2/1)
Yugoslavia (1/2),
Saudi Arabia (2/0)
Cards
Remove all Early and MidWar * (Removable) Events except:
Bear Trap, Camp David, John Paul, Panama Canal...
Give China card to Soviet player.
Shuffle remaining Early, MidWar, and Late War cards together and deal to begin Turn 8.
Victory
After Turn 10 final scoring or if US plays WARGAMES event, US must have 20+ VP or Soviet player wins.
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