Twilight Struggle in about 3 minutes

[@3MBG]

To celebrate hitting 20,000 subscribers, I decided to cover one of, if not my all-time favourite game. This one also has a fantastic app version, but I ran out of time to cover it in the vid. at 3:59.2 it's the longest 3 minutes ever :)

[@ripwolfe]

Yet you managed to keep with the spirit of "about 3 minutes." Well played, well played indeed, Mr. 3MBG.

[@sevencoloredmage8726]

I like to describe this game as "about two hours of really cruel super hard decisions non stop". You always have too few actions for all the stuff you WANT to do your turn. But the opponent has the same problem as you. So every action he does, HAS to be really important to him. Or is he luring me into a trap? Setting something up for the next round? One of my most favorite games. Highly recommended.

[@3MBG]

Absolutely. And knowing that half of what you are going to do each turn is going to set you back as well. It's pure tensions for 2-3 hours. There's a reason I ranked this number 1 in my top 100, and it's because of that and executing its theme perfectly as well.

[@weezypeezy508]

@@bonk4225 nah the rules aren't that complicated you'll get used to them, tho your first two games mostly will be about grasping the rules, learning the cards and how they work

[@nerdycat2446]

Man, I'm always blown away at how good your channel is. Thanks for what you do and do so well.

[@Flukulele]

Just fantastic! I wish this vid had existed a few years ago when I first got TS! I hope that this no-waffle rules intro makes the game more appealing to more people - it is a true great (and i'm not normally into war themed games). In my opinion the rule book makes this game seem a lot harder to play than it actually is and this fact alone has actually put some people I know off of even trying it. Mechanically it's surprisingly simply to grasp because at it's core it's almost completely card-driven and there are only a few options available to you per turn. Each card has an Ops value and and event on it. Play a card for it's action or for it Operations. - play an action and you simply resolve it's effect. You'll normally play a card for its actions if it benefits YOU. or - use ops points to increase friendly/reduce enemy influence in countries by either adding influence tokens to adjacent countries, rolling for political re-alignment or by attempting coups. But beware, if you use a card for its ops but the event printed on the card benefits your opponent then that event happens too - so you are constantly weighing up the pros and cons of playing each card. Remember to keep an eye on the Space Race bonuses and Defcon track restrictions and off you go. My advice to two new players (who like us, don't normally play this sort of game) would be to watch a vid like this, have a skim through the rule book (but don't worry too much) and simply jump in and start doing stuff. Don't try and puzzle things out in too much detail, just see how everything works. "How do I Coup?" "Why don't you try and re-align here?" You'll soon start to spot what works and what doesn't, and once you have some context the rule-book doesn't look half as scary! I promise. The 'weight' and tremendous depth of this game actually comes from the decisions you and your opponent must make, how you both react to each other and from maximising, mitigating and anticipating the cards to come - and for this you need practice and a level of familiarity with the deck/s which comes from multiple plays. Remember, like the Cold War itself, this is a game of small advantages. Influence and counter-influences, opportunistic coups and risky political realignments. As you get better the games will probably be longer, tighter, tenser affairs but at first one player will probably wipe the floor with the other within 3 - 5 rounds and you'll sit around discussing what the hell happened before setting up again. If you can find another newbie to learn with and play with regularly then you should be in for a rich, almost chess-like experience with plenty of theme and massive replayabilty as you both learn and improve. If however your only choice is to learn by playing an experienced player then you are probably in for a baptism by fire and some fairly crushing defeats! There are also lots of resources online that can help you with strategy. Thanks for the vid! Subscribed!

[@ripwolfe]

The best part of this game for me was ongoing history lessons. I spent part of my childhood in West Germany during the "Late War" phase, and playing the game was simultaneously amusing for the mish-mashing of history and the distributing reminder of what happened during that entire era.

[@3MBG]

There's a similar game called 1989: The dawn of freedom, which I have not played yet. But it zooms right into that period in eastern/central Europe. One you might be interested in? www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/26997/1989-dawn-freedom

[@brandoncoates7506]

This is probably my favourite game ever. Great to see it on the channel.

[@thomaskai7814]

I love twilight struggle; however I think the app is more manageable than the board game

[@3MBG]

Agreed, I ran out of time to mention the app. But its great.

[@NicholasSando]

I wouldn't have known about the app if you two hadn't mentioned it. If there is a decent app for a game in the future a short aside would be cool. I'm going check it out ASAP. Edit: I did see your follow up below eventually!

[@MadeinHell2]

Any opinions on the PC version? I purchased it when it was on sale once and still didn't get around to playing it because it is a tad intimidating.

[@thomaskai7814]

@@MadeinHell2 I have the pc version and it is pretty good. It is actually kinda difficult because the computer is pretty good with strategizing

[@abdulrahmanreijerink]

The PC version is awesome. It's a faithful reproduction of the boardgame but the AI is only useful to learn how to play. After that, you'll want human opponents, of which there are plenty available across skill levels both live and asynchronously. The learning curve is pretty light on when learning with the AI. I've put in well over a thousand hours.

[@Vadimaster]

I like TS, but it has been replaced for me by Labyrinth (the war on terror). Just as tense a two player game, but highly asymmetrical. And you are right, for another theme, you can’t go wrong with 1960. I love the hard choices you get to make in that one to prevent one of your opponents events to go off.

[@TabletopGamesBlog]

A fantastic video to help you understand what the very complex Twilight Struggle is all about. Thank you so much for this video. It really helped me before I did my live stream of this game. :)

[@MrSeemsLegit]

I just discovered your channel by accident. You have a very unique format, which I very much like. Please keep up the great work and the format, and I hope your channel gets some deserved traction. Cheers :)

[@kimyohbee1245]

Even if the game is not for me I super appreciate your similar game recommendations.

[@3MBG]

True story. That all started because that's how i talk about games with people in my group. "lets play X, its like Y but more complex"

[@RuiCunhaC]

FINALLY 3MBG. Now I can buy the damn game!! 😆

[@datalink7]

One of the best games ever made in my opinion. And it has held up really well. I get just as excited to play it as I did a decade ago I think. Also appreciate the Paths of Glory reference. Also one of my favorite games.

[@3MBG]

I'm a big fan of GMT card driven games. I really should play more of them.

[@misomiso8228]

Yes love this game. So good. The online version is great as well.

[@KamahlFoK]

I was recently exposed to this game, and while I /want/ to like it, I can confidently say it's only a fun game if you're going in on it with someone else at the ground level. It's a bear to learn, every card has a lot of text to read through, and because it's ultimately a game about counting cards and estimating what your opponent has (before being 100% sure of half their hand in round 3), you're going to have to play several times before you actually have a good grasp on the game. It's that last tidbit that wears me out; I'm not exactly big on historically-accurate games, or such desert-dry themes as the Cold War (if you like it, sweet, I'm glad there's a good game to capture it for you). The decision space is far too massive for this to be even remotely enjoyable when a new player is being taught by a seasoned one, because the new one has to pour through every card and analyze a world of decisions, and worst off they're not aware of all the other cards in the decks (yes, multiple, because you get more cards at the mid war and late war) that only affect specific locations. Lastly I'm really not big on how dice are just thrown in - sometimes this card can be devastating, and other times it might just whiff entirely, it's ultimately a coin flip and there's just a bit too much impact sometimes from the dice. I think it's also the ton of tiny effects to keep track of that wear me out; Coup still makes my head hurt (I know the defense has the region's value doubled, plus their own influence, and it's the card played plus the dice roll that determines if it's flipped or not, but you get REAL damn sick of doing the math every time when weighing your options on the board), the fact you can't coup certain regions as the nuclear war meter goes up kept throwing my decision space off, how you can only burn certain value cards in the space race (and they're not really burned and can get shuffled back into the deck if it's not an asterisk event, so you're not only having to keep track of cards in the deck but cards played since some are removed, woo!), Scoring Cards absolutely have to be played the turn their drawn (usually forcing that player to either drop it early or focus it for the whole round), and just.. bluh. It's too much for far too unrewarding a game, if I'm going to be memorizing a shared deck and a list of bland effects that range from a single simple sentence to two paragraphs, it needs to be a hell of a lot more enjoyable and juicy of an experience. It took us 2 hours for my first game to get out of the early war and I just wanted to play anything else at that point with how my skull felt. This is probably much better as a video game / app, but I also think this kind of dated overly-complicated design could be done much better by someone else in the modern era. A card management game shouldn't have several key moments per game where you're going "Welp I'll just roll a single die annnd oops I didn't do anything useful this turn, hahah!" You're already managing cards, you shouldn't have to sweat dice as well completely giving you the shaft. I can see who this game appeals to though and I'm glad they have something that scratches their itch. The fact I read about several people playing online over the course of a month in an asymmetrical fashion is telling that this certainly appeals to those long, plodding, best-laid-plans sorts, but I learned very hard that this type of game is absolutely not for me. Again, I'll repeat - this game is great if you and another person like the theme and idea of managing the same deck with your opponent, AND go in on this at the same experience level. It's no fun getting curb-stomped in this to learn, and I can't imagine it's fun to teach someone who has to read every card you have memorized, and if you even LOOK at a certain location funny, they're going to know exactly what card you have based on the stage of the game.

[@3MBG]

I hear you. No game is for everyone, that's for sure. Some games I really don't like have won a bunch of awards. But i'm really pleased to see your reasons why you don't like it are so well articulated.

[@tychay]

Those are interesting observations. When I see some board games, I immediately think "Either the designer really loved game X, but hated Y about it or they really hated game X but loved Y about it." Diplomacy. Either the designers of Game of Thrones: The Board Game and Rising Sun loved Diplomacy but hated how slow, cut-throat, and confusing the simultaneous turn order is, or they hated Diplomacy but loved the multi-pole, backstabbing component. For Twilight Struggle, there is a new game Watergate that makes me think the designers had the same relationship with Twilight Struggle. It keeps the Cold War era modern history lesson and the assymetric push/pull mechanic of the former, but it does away with the multi-turn, brain-burning, minmaxing wargame aspect (it also plays in about 30 minutes).

[@atomicpasta7073]

Have you tried Watergate yet? I’ve heard it described as a lite version of TS

[@3MBG]

No, its on my short list of must try games though

[@ormhaxan]

I know of the game because it's always looming in the BGG top 10, but the artwork never appealed to me enough to warrant a deeper look into the game. After watching your video, I might seek for an opportunity to try it out. I wonder if you've ever thought about covering Axis&Allies in some form. The series is my favourite history based war game and a classic in my core gaming group.

[@3MBG]

Potentially. Although the version of Axis and Allies I have is out of print. But I did a lot of coverage on that on my old blog. vom-krieg.blogspot.com/search/label/Axis%20and%20Allies

[@ormhaxan]

Did you know they did reprint a 2nd edition of the Anniversary Edition in 2017? That's funnily enough the version I'm planning on getting myself. My friend has A&A 1942 and that's what we've played the most.

[@3MBG]

Yeah, I kinda wish the anniversary edition stayed in print as its the best as far as i'm concerned.

[@tychay]

I think it’s be pretty awesome and nostalgic for people to see a late 80’s or early 90’s Axis and Allies. The game is pretty much the very definition of Ameritrash. Super influential on a generation of boardgamers.

[@ormhaxan]

@@tychay I agree. It may not be as fancy as modern games, but it's like an old family dog. It's starting to show its age but damn you care for it anyway.

[@wombatlim4024]

Should I buy the board or the app?

[@3MBG]

Depends, if you think you will have someone to play with a lot, board. Otherwise app

[@wombatlim4024]

@@3MBG thanks. want to make it a class competition

[@Shot007]

Seems that upcoming game Watergate might be a good recommendation as well.

[@3MBG]

Potentially, yes. I try not to recommend games I haven't played though. I am keen to check that one out.

[@pbabuik]

If this game is a little overwhelming then a good suggestion for an alternative would be small world

[@3MBG]

Interesting comparison.

[@tychay]

Congratulations on 20k subscribers! Great game to pick. It's hard to believe that this game came out almost 15 years ago. It seems to belong to a different era (the era of complex rules, take-that play, cardboard/paper chits, and hyper-realistic themes) because it is just on the other side of the explosion of eurograming ("modern" game mechanics, victory point salads, wooden meeples, and tacked-on themes). Now I know what it would have been like to have seen Chinatown or the Godfather before movies like Star Wars bring about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (In this analogy, I guess, Star Wars is Settlers of Catan.) Twilight Struggle is probably the only game in its genre to make the top 10 on BGG. Ahh, wargaming, how I have missed you! Only wargamers could give Battle of the Bulge or Cry Havoc a lower complexity score (BGG weight) than Pandemic and Dominion. After all, someone's gotta leave room for Advanced Squad Leader and A Distant Plain. What's the milestone for 50k subs? 18xx? Love to see you cover that entire series in 3 minutes. :-D

[@3MBG]

ASL or Star Fleet Battles, not sure which one i'd put higher on the complexity chart. Both are games I've got strong memories from 30 years or so back of reading the rulebooks and getting headaches at them :) 33,333 subs is the next big milestone for me :) I'll have a good think about what to do

[@tychay]

3 Minute Board Games Do Starfleet battles! When I was a kid i played a lot of a game that stole heavily from its core mechanic, Car Wars. Didn’t play SFB because it seemed the serious players were heavy into expensive minis (of course the idea of “expensive minis game” was soon to take a turn for the worse with the introduction of Warhammer 40k).

[@3MBG]

I try only to do games that are in print and available. Pretty sure SFB has been OOP for a long long time now. It's also why i havent done A&A50th anniversary.

[@tychay]

@@3MBG Yes, I forgot about the in print/available restriction. Twilight Struggle (being a GMT game) and A&A (being originally an Avalon Hill game), got me thinking how they are really stealth games that (re-)introduced wargaming to the board game community. In light of that here's an idea for some milestone 3MBG reviews: choose something adjacent to board games to review as if it were a 3MBG review. Examples: 1) Do "Dungeons and Dragons" in about 3 minutes (or similar role playing game). "If you want D&D but prefer to choose your own different, non-fantasy setting, try FATE Core. If you like the universe, but hate role-playing or anything resembling it, try Lords of Waterdeep. 'So I need 4 black cubes and 2 orange cubes for this card which gives me 8 victory points.`" 2) Do a card game (7 card stud, bridge, old-maid). There are a lot of board-gaming card games to suggest that draw their lineage from these. 3) Do a CCG or LCG (Magic the Gathering, Pokemon,…). I missed out on MtG because of my college years (People who played Tetris, poker, or MtG intensely purchased a one-way ticket to flaming out (failing out) of my school, and I wanted to graduate. Fact: My dorm switched from poker to craps as the official game because the former was destroying people's lives, at least two people dropped out and became professional poker players), so it'd be personally interesting to see the rules in it's full glory, especially since a high school buddy of mine ended up working on a MtG team at WotC. 4) Do a classic party game like Charades, Werewolf, or 20 questions.They're always available ;-) and it'll be a challenge to come up with graphics for these, but it'd be pretty easy to come up with board game suggestions at the end like Pictionary, One Night Ultimate Werewolf, and Concept. 5) Do a classic game. (We've discussed this before. Chess, Backgammon, Go, Othello, Diplomacy…). Diplomacy would be especially easy for suggestions because so many copy it. Go can be quite beautiful to photograph and the rules are quick. 6) Do a children's game. Since you've already done Snakes and Ladders, you might try a modern children's game like whatever wins the Kinderspiel. 7) Do a video game. I do think this one might be better as on April 1 though. "Kia ora and welcome to three minute video games!" …

[@3MBG]

Good call Terry, I have been thinking about that sort of content. One I want to do is Chess in 3 minutes. It's on my to do list. Doing MTG could be huge and monopoly as well. Most board game channels look down on that sort of content. I don't. The party games are hard in my format, same with dexterity games, just hard to get the vibe across well. PS. For some reason your comments always end up in my spam folder, and if I don't notice them for a while they don't post. It's not me who puts them there, so apologies. I have no explanation as to why.

[@strokesdao]

what software do you use to video editing?

[@3MBG]

Adobe Premiere Pro.

[@3MBG]

Oh, I did a vid a while back which is just me assembling a video in Premiere, timelapsed. You can check that out if you are curious.

[@mattiamolicacolella4319]

Bought it yesterday, got this. Coincidence? I think not.

[@3MBG]

You got me. I'm reading your credit card bill now :)

[@DnDarrenJ]

This looks amazing!

[@KarimTheilgaard]

Have you checked out Europe Divided? It’s kind of like a spiritual successor to Twilight Struggle. But plays in a much shorter time.

[@3MBG]

This one? Looks interesting but never heard of it until now. boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/260147/europe-divided

[@KarimTheilgaard]

3 Minute Board Games Yes, that one. It comes out later this year.

[@ПешкоМихаил]

Just favourite game.

[@The80sWolf_]

I have noticed I many times lose by counting something wrong

[@wfp9378]

This review is timely. I bought it a week ago and waiting for its delivery. I do have the app (which is cheaper) but I want company while playing and sometimes the app either hangs or just doesn't make it clear what you should do next. I hope the rule book does.

[@sebtrahan]

Just discover the channel. Is great! You have to do 1960 making of a president.

[@3MBG]

I do intend to, eventually. Although the next GMT title is more likely to be either SpaceCorp or Paths of Glory.

[@eddydelrio1303]

Fine rapid review. Why you mentioned Paths of Glory and not this game's cousin, 1989: Dawn of Freedom, is peculiar.

[@3MBG]

Ah, thats because i've played POG a lot, and hadn't played 1989 at the time. I only recommend games ive played. 1989 was never in stores here, but i got a 2nd hand copy last month

[@georgeblack2749]

I would play this game if it was a different theme!

[@3MBG]

It would be a very different game, the theme is a huge part of it. There are other versions of the game, but they have similar thematic styles.

[@ryotanada]

I would imagine US performing a realignment on Indonesia during mid-game. Being Indonesian myself... Yep.

[@3MBG]

Yeah, its funny looking at a big abstraction like this and wondering where you fit. My country isn't even on the board, which is interesting as we are one of the US' longest term allies and a member of their 5 eyes intelligence community. If we were, we would have gone neutral in 1985

[@ryotanada]

@@3MBG at least AU is a close one... Also you don't get it. The 60s was a dark period on our history.

[@3MBG]

Oh, i know. Theres a lot of that period that is not well known and a lot of people who don't talk about what actually happened. A while back i read some interviews from survivors of the period, and even one with someone who was one of the people carrying out killings. It was some grim stuff.

[@3MBG]

It was discussion stuff around two documentaries published here, the act of killing and Look of Silence, both about events in indonesia in the mid 60s. Utterly awful stuff and i'm sorry your people went through that

[@Kilerazn423]

If only someone would play with me...

[@thomashaire8863]

Kilerazn423 The app plays well and way faster then in person.

[@Kilerazn423]

Thomas Haire is there an AI opponent and how does it play?

[@3MBG]

Ai opponent, and it's pretty good. I win most games against it, but I know people who's asses it soundly kicks

[@robhamper6001]

Can you play person to person on the app? My kid is a big Cold War / Soviet buff and the 80s political scene at the time scared me way more than anything going on today. Anyway, would like to play with him, just not sure he has the patience for 2 or 3 hours.

[@3MBG]

Yep, you can absolutely. Although my experience is only with the PC version

[@republikadugave420]

Downoladed the app and played few turns... Not my cup of tea... Just like most of the games on the BGG top 10..

[@3MBG]

That's fair. Not every game is for everyone.

[@tychay]

Odd, none of the other games in the BGG Top 10 resemble Twilight Struggle (as the only wargame I've seen that high up). But all of them tend to be dense with rules and weighty. Maybe that's it? Games that make the BGG top 10 do indeed seem to be of a sort. I can't quite put my finger on it though other than to say "tend to" - as in: tend to be euros, tend to be strategy games, tend to be on the weightier side, tend to have base game prices in the $60-$80 range, tend to be in print, tend to not be abstract, tend to have over 1.5 hour playtimes, tend to be what someone has said is their favorite game ever, tend to be distributed by Asmodee, …

[@Statalyzer]

Nook ya lur?

[@3MBG]

The world is a many and varied place with tons of different accents and pronunciations of words. I can only assume you are from the USA, who says Nuclear differently to most of the English speaking world and gets weirded out when you hear it spoken differently. All i can suggest is to widen your horizons and don't think, that just because someone doesn't sound American, that they are speaking wrong. PS. We in New Zealand should really get to decide how nuclear is said anyway, it was one of us that split the atom and started the nuclear age anyway ;)

[@Statalyzer]

@@3MBG I've never heard it called an American thing to pronounce it naturally similarly to "nucleus". Actually if you ask Canadians and Brits about it you usually get "Yeah we say nuclear when we read nuclear, but it's those silly Americans who think there's a second 'u' in the middle..."

[@shlomgar]

Language dependency meter - should you pick a copy in another language? 0/5p Icon/colour/number dependent, text dependent, reading dependent - 0p Minimal private information / Minimal verbal communication - 0p Available rule book in different languages - 1p Zero cultural/political aggression - 0p Multiple modern mechanisms - (-1)p Probably the worst option to pick for a multilingual gaming group. You are setting yourself up for a very bad experience.