Review: Twilight Struggle

Introduction & Overview

In 1945, the Allies defeated the German war machine with great difficulty, while the most devastating weapons created by humanity forced Japan to surrender under a rain of fire. Where many powerful nations once stood, only two remained standing. The world barely had a second to breathe before a new conflict began. But unlike the great conflicts that preceded it, this one was not going to be fought with soldiers or tanks, but with spies and politicians, scientists and intellectuals, artists and traitors. Twilight Struggle is a two-player game that simulates the 45 years of intrigue, prestige struggles, and occasional military conflicts between the Soviet Union and the United States. The entire world is the stage on which the two colossi fight to keep their ideologies and ways of life safe. The game begins among the ruins of a devastated Europe, as the two “superpowers” compete over the debris of World War II, and ends in 1989, when only the United States remains standing.

This is how Twilight Struggle is presented to us, a design by Ananda Gupta and Jason Matthews (1960: The Making of the President, Founding Fathers, or 1989: Dawn of Freedom). The game was first published in 2005 by GMT Games, receiving numerous reprints and localizations into other languages. The illustrations across the various editions have been handled by the following artists: Rodger B. MacGowan (Commands & Colors: Ancients, Paths of Glory, Here I Stand), Mark Simonitch (Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage, Commands & Colors: Napoleonics), Chechu Nieto (Dominant Species, Cuba Libre), and Viktor Csete (The Manhattan Project, Dark Moon, The Thing).

The game is published in our country by Devir in Spanish, as it has a high language dependence. It is a design for two players, with a suggested minimum age of 13 and an approximate game length of 180 minutes. The recommended retail price is €47. For this review, a copy of Devir’s first edition was used.

Important: if you already know the game and/or are only interested in my opinion about it, you can go directly to the Opinion section. The Content and Mechanics sections are especially intended for those who do not know the game and prefer to get a general idea of how it works.

Go to Personal Opinion

Components

Inside a two-piece cardboard box (lid and bottom), measuring 31.5×23.5×5.5 cm (a shallow rectangular box type similar to Brass, though slightly shorter), we find the following components:

• Board (mounted cardboard)
• Rectangular Counters (cardboard):
  • Influence Markers
  • Event Markers
  • 2 Space Race Markers
  • Victory Points Marker
  • DEFCON Level Marker
• 111 Cards (63.5×88 mm)
• 2 6-sided dice (bakelite)
• 2 Player Aid Sheets
• Rulebook

How to Play

Twilight Struggle places players in the Cold War era, one leading the American side and the other the Soviet side. The gameplay is based on cards that players can use in various ways, with the primary goal of gaining influence in different regions of the planet. Some cards will trigger a scoring phase in a region, comparing the presence of both sides in said region and awarding victory points. The point track is bidirectional, meaning that when one player gains points, the other loses them. The winner will be whoever has the most victory points at the end of the game, or whoever reaches 20 points at any moment for an automatic victory.

Key Concepts

Let’s start with the Board:

• It shows a map of the world where certain countries are highlighted with an overlaid box.
• This box displays the following elements:
  • A top banner featuring the country’s flag.
  • The name of the country over a yellowish or blue background. Battleground countries will have a blue background.
  • The stability number, indicated by a numerical value in a square (red if it is a battleground country or yellow if it is not) ranging between 1 and 5.
  • Just below, we find a box divided into two spaces where the influence markers will be placed. Some countries show a value in one of these two spaces, indicating the starting influence level of the corresponding faction as an aid for setup.
  • These boxes are interconnected by a series of lines (solid black or dashed red).
• These countries are grouped into several regions. Each of these regions shows a small box with a legend indicating the number of points obtained according to the current state of influence (Presence, Domination, or Control). These regions are: Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia, Southeast Asia, Central America, and South America. Europe and Asia are subdivided into two regions. In the case of Europe, this only has implications for certain card events (not for the scoring of the region), while in Asia, there is a special scoring that affects only Southeast Asia.
• There are two special countries, USA and USSR, which are connected to several adjacent countries. These countries will always be under the control of their respective player.
• In the top left area, we find the turn marker for each round. Depending on the phase we are in, the round will have 6, 7, or 8 action rounds.
• In the top right area, we find the turn track, with 10 spaces divided into three groups (3-4-4), representing the Early War, Mid War, and Late War.
• Just below, we find the Space Race track, with 9 spaces, and the effects and requirements of each displayed right beneath.
• In the bottom left area, we find a summary of the sequence of play for a round.
• In the bottom central area, we find two tracks:
  • The DEFCON Level, with five spaces and a series of conditions that apply depending on the level.
  • The Military Operations Level, with 6 spaces (from 0 to 6).
• To the right, we find the victory point track. It is a winding track of 41 spaces. The central space shows the value 0, and it grows in both directions, one representing the American side and the other the Soviet side.
• Finally, in the bottom right corner, we find a legend of the elements found on the map (connections and countries).

Players will gradually increase their influence over the countries. To do this, they will make use of double-sided influence markers (on one side, the background color is the one associated with the faction, i.e., blue or red, while on the other side, it is a neutral background identical for both). Regardless of the side, the center of these markers shows a value over the symbol representing the faction (from 1 to 8 depending on the marker). The colored background side will be used to indicate that the corresponding player controls the country, while the neutral background side will be used to indicate that the player has influence in that country, but not enough to control it. A player controls a country when the difference between their influence level and their opponent’s is equal to or greater than the stability number.

The main element of interaction for players will be the cards. The vast majority of these cards share the same anatomy:

• In the upper left corner, we find a star with a numerical value between 1 and 4, which represents the number of Operations Points of the card. This star can be red, white, or half-and-half, representing which faction benefits from the event indicated on the card.
• Just to the right of this star, we find a banner indicating which phase of the game the card belongs to: Early War, Mid War, or Late War.
• In the upper right corner, an identification number for the card appears.
• Below, an illustration representative of the event is shown.
• Beneath the illustration, we find the event title, followed by an explanatory text for it.
• Finally, at the bottom, there is, in some cases, an indication reminding that the card must be removed from the game if the event is executed. If the card is used in any other way, it will simply be discarded.

Associated with these cards, we find a series of markers that are used to remind players of the application of an event, since some persist over time until another card cancels them.

There is a special card, the China Card, which functions exactly like the previous cards, though it has the peculiarity of not being part of the deck in circulation; instead, it will always be in the possession of one player. When they make use of it, it will be passed face down (inactive) to the rival player. It is a powerful card in terms of points.

There are also 7 special cards, the Scoring Cards. These cards appear in the Early War (three of them) and in the Mid War (4 of them). The main difference from the others is that they do not show a value inside the star, nor do they have an event; instead, they contain a table indicating the points obtained when scoring that region. The most important characteristic of these cards is that they must be played in the round in which a player receives them. Finally, one of these cards, the Southeast Asia one, has the peculiarity of being removed from the game after its scoring, while the others will occur several times during the game.

These cards indicate three possible states:

• Presence: the player controls at least one country in the region.
• Domination: the player controls more countries than the opponent and, in particular, more battleground countries (at least one battleground and one non-battleground country must be controlled).
• Control: the player controls more countries than the opponent and, additionally, all the battleground countries in that region.

An important detail of the game is that cards can be played in various ways. Depending on this use, there are several concepts involved:

• As an Event: simply apply what is indicated on the card and, if applicable, remove it from the game. What must be clear is that if the event on a card belongs entirely to the opponent (it is not a dual-color star nor does it belong to the current player), the event will trigger even if the active player chooses one of the remaining options (except in a specific case). Otherwise, it will be the active player who decides whether to execute the event or not.
• As Influence: this allows the player to place their influence markers in countries. In this regard, the important detail to keep in mind is that a player can only place markers in countries where they already have influence (not necessarily control) or in countries directly connected to them (regardless of the type of line). The fact that the rival controls a country will be important, as it increases the cost of placing influence in that country.
• As Realignment Rounds: this allows reducing a player’s influence in a specific country through opposed die rolls, which will be modified based on the countries that both players control and that are directly connected to the country where they are trying to reduce rival influence, as well as the starting situation in it.
• As a Coup: this represents a series of military operations that seek to change the position of a specific country in which the rival has influence (it is not necessary for the active player to have influence there). In this case, only the active player will roll a die to check if the coup is successful (depending on the country’s stability number as well as the card used).
• As the Space Race: this represents the efforts of each power to be the first to reach the moon. Through this action, the player can progress along a track that offers a series of advantages. Furthermore, this is the only option to avoid the effect of a card whose event belongs to the opponent’s side.

Another important concept is the DEFCON Level. This represents the level of tension between both powers. There are five levels, and if, during a player’s turn, the final level is reached, the game ends immediately, declaring the opponent the winner, as this would represent both powers entering nuclear war (something to be avoided). The DEFCON level also establishes a series of conditions:

• On one hand, the number of Military Operations that each player must have carried out during the round (if not met, the difference will turn into points for the rival).
• On the other hand, the regions in which coups are permitted:
  • Level 5: any region.
  • Level 4: coups cannot be performed in Europe.
  • Level 3: coups cannot be performed in Asia.
  • Level 2: coups cannot be performed in the Middle East.

As we have mentioned, the game will be won by the player who possesses the most victory points at the end of the game. However, there are various ways in which the game will end automatically (to be seen later).

That is enough to get started.

Preparación de la Partida

1. The board is deployed in the center of the table.
2. The players choose sides and receive all the influence markers of their respective power.
3. The cards are separated into their corresponding decks: Early War, Mid War, and Late War. Each is shuffled separately, and 8 cards from the Early War deck are dealt to each player. The other two decks are set aside (for now).
4. The China Card is handed to the player leading the Soviet side.
5. The 2 Space Race markers are placed on the first space of the corresponding track.
6. The victory point marker is placed on the central space (0).
7. The DEFCON marker is placed on the space with a value of five on the corresponding track.
8. The military operations markers are placed on the space with a value of 0 on the corresponding track.
9. The event markers are arranged near the board, to be placed on it at the appropriate time.
10. Finally, each player places the corresponding influence markers in the starting countries as indicated by the board.

We are ready to begin!

Game Flow

A game of Twilight Struggle consists of 10 turns divided into 3 phases: Early War (turns 1, 2, and 3), Mid War (turns 4, 5, 6, and 7), and Late War (8, 9, and 10). Each of these turns consists of a series of phases.

Phase I: Improve DEFCON Status

The DEFCON level marker is moved one position to the left, unless it was already at DEFCON 5.

Phase II: Deal Cards

Cards are dealt to each player until they complete a hand of 8 (not counting the China Card). Starting in turn 4, the hand limit increases to 9.

If at any point the deck runs out, the cards in the discard pile are shuffled. At the beginning of turns 4 and 8, the Mid War and Late War decks enter the game, respectively. These decks are shuffled with whatever remains of the draw deck (not with the discards) before dealing in the respective turns.

Phase III: Headline Phase

Both players must simultaneously choose a card from their hand. Once both players have chosen their card, they are revealed simultaneously, proceeding to execute the events of both cards immediately. The one with the higher operations value will be executed first. In case of a tie, the American player’s card goes first.

Phase IV: Action Rounds

In this phase, players will enjoy a series of alternating action rounds, starting with the Soviet player (6 rounds in Early War, 7 in Mid War, and 8 in Late War).

On their action round, the player must choose one of their cards and opt for one of the following options:

• Event: the player decides to execute the card’s event as long as it belongs to their side (a star of their color) or is neutral (a dual-color star). If the event belongs to the rival, this option is not available, though the event will still trigger with any of the following options (except one), with the active player deciding when the event executes, either before or after carrying out the action.
• Influence: the player uses the operations points to increase their influence in some countries. To be able to increase influence in a country, the player must already have influence in it, in a country directly connected to one where they already have influence, or one connected to their superpower home territory (all these conditions must be met before the start of the action round). For each operations point, the player can increase their influence by 1 in one of these countries (it is not necessary to spend all points in a single country), unless the country is controlled by the rival player, in which case each point of influence costs 2 operations points. If the state of a country changes from rival-controlled to uncontrolled, the cost of the next influence point drops back to 1 operations point.
• Realignment: the player spends operations points to perform realignment rolls in a country where the rival has influence. Each player will roll a die and add 1 to the result for each adjacent country they control, 1 if the country is adjacent to their own home territory, and 1 if they control the country itself. If the difference in values favors the active player, a number of rival influence markers equal to that difference will be removed, or all of them if the value is higher than the number of influence points the rival had in the country, but the active player’s influence markers are never added.
• Coup: the active player chooses a country where a coup can be performed according to the DEFCON level, rolls a die, and adds the operations value of the card to the result. If the result is higher than twice the stability number of the chosen country, the coup is successful. The difference between twice the stability number and the player’s final value determines the amount of rival influence points removed. If all influence markers are removed and points are still left over, they are used to add influence points for the active player. The player advances their military operations marker as many spaces as the operations value of the played card. Finally, the DEFCON level must drop by one position.
• Space Race: the player spends their action trying to progress along the Space Race track. To do this, they must use a card whose number of operations points is, at minimum, the amount indicated in the next space they wish to occupy. The player rolls a die, and if the resulting value falls within the interval indicated in the space they should progress to, the action is successful, advancing the active power’s Space Race marker one space to the right. Otherwise, the action fails and the marker does not move. If the marker reaches any of the spaces with an effect before the rival’s, that effect will apply from that moment until the rival marker reaches said space, at which point the effect is canceled. The peculiarity of this action is that the card’s event is always ignored, regardless of its faction. As a restriction, this action can only be executed once per turn.

In the event that a player holds a scoring card, they must play it in the turn in which it was dealt. Keeping it in hand is grounds for automatic defeat. The player must weigh when the right moment is to do so. If the scoring card is the Europe one and a player controls Europe at the moment of playing it, they are automatically declared the winner.

The phase ends once the American player executes their final action round.

Phase V: Military Operations

Based on the current DEFCON level, it will be checked whether each player has executed the required number of military operations. Each missing military operation by a side will grant a victory point to the rival side. If the military operations deficit of both sides is the same, the victory point marker will not change.

Phase VI: Reveal Held Card

At this point, each player can only retain one card in their hand for the next turn (if they have any left). This card must be shown to the rival player to prove it is not a scoring card.

Phase VII: Flip China Card

The player who possesses the China Card will place it face up, available to be used in the next turn. It is possible that the player who held it in the current turn did not make use of it, so it would remain available and would not need to be flipped.

Phase VIII: Advance Turn Marker

Unless the current turn is the tenth, the turn marker is advanced one position. It is at this moment that, if entering turn 4 or 8, the Mid War or Late War decks must be included in the draw deck, shuffling them with the deck that still remained from the current turn.

Game End

If the game does not end prematurely for any of the reasons already mentioned (control of Europe when scoring it via its scoring card, descent into nuclear war on the DEFCON track, or a player reaching 20 victory points), a final scoring is executed in each of the regions, updating the victory point marker accordingly, with the exception that Southeast Asia is not taken into account as a separate region from Asia. At this time, just like during the game, if a player controls Europe, they will be automatically declared the winner. This is the only moment in the game where reaching 20 points does not imply an automatic victory.

Additionally, the player in possession of the China Card will receive one additional victory point.

After this, the player with the most victory points will be declared the winner. If the victory point marker is at the value 0, the game ends in a tie.

Variants

• Handicap: to level the playing field between players of different skill levels, the game can begin with the point marker shifted toward the less experienced player, so that the advanced player must obtain a greater amount of victory points to be declared the winner.
• Chinese Civil War: the Soviet player has to invest influence points in the Chinese Civil War region to enable the use of the China Card, which will come under their control at that moment. Furthermore, certain events cannot be carried out until this happens.

Personal Opinion

Well, today it’s time to analyze a sacred cow. A game that seemed immovable from number 1 in the BGG ranking until the Pandemic Legacy phenomenon achieved the unthinkable (many still don’t believe it). Let’s see what is offered by what is considered by many as one of the best board games of all time.

Twilight Struggle is not a simple game, although mechanically it is quite approachable. The first hurdle we usually encounter is the game’s theme. A design about the Cold War between two superpowers? It must be admitted that it is a setting that, for the general public, and the Spanish in particular, doesn’t usually look attractive. To begin with, because our country did not have a relevant weight in the events of the historical period covered, making it difficult to feel any kind of connection. It also doesn’t help that, at least for my generation, it was an era treated briefly in curricula, for various reasons, though I would say that, mainly, too much time was spent on earlier periods where our nation did have an important role in the development of history. When the time came to address the events of the current century (back then), it was done half-heartedly, and we students simply wanted to get through the chore. This, obviously, causes a game with a medieval or classical setting to be more appealing. It’s what has been transmitted to us since we were kids.

Thus, the first barrier to overcome is for the game to seem interesting to us. Fortunately, simply knowing that there was a time when the Americans and Soviets were at each other’s throats, on the verge of making a mess across the globe, but things didn’t escalate further is more than enough. The design itself will take care of making us curious about specific events. Here is the first of the reasons why Twilight Struggle is more than just a game.

This positive factor could apply to most wargames, as they try to reflect what happened in a conflict-ridden historical period from a playful point of view, being more or less faithful to what happened. Much has been written about whether Twilight Struggle is or is not a wargame. From a thematic point of view, it is clear that it is. In fact, it makes use of a typical mechanic in this type of game, which is card-driven development, showing a series of events that will shape the game so that it resembles, to a greater or lesser extent, what happened in reality. We also have a map and a series of regions where we will place counters reflecting control of the different countries. But it is no less true that a wargame represents a military conflict, and the confrontation between both superpowers did not explicitly come to blows, so we find ourselves before a strange case: a game that looks like a wargame, uses mechanisms of a wargame, but deep down has the soul of an area control (area majority for purists) eurogame. For me, this is another positive point, as it brings a relatively less accessible type of game (due to complexity and duration) closer to players who wouldn’t approach such games even if they were handing out cash. We could say it’s something similar to what might happen with titles like Chicago Express or, to a greater extent, Poseidon regarding 18XX games. If these “more basic” games are not liked, it is silly to try to progress along those lines.

By this, I don’t mean that Twilight Struggle is an introductory game. We are dealing with a title that has a considerable learning curve, especially when it comes to understanding what is happening on the board and how we must act to have a fighting chance at victory.

The first thing to be clear about is that there are key moments in the game, and you have to prepare for them. These are, as you will guess, the action rounds in which region scoring cards are put into play. These cards will be in the hand of one of the players, so at the beginning of the turn, that player has a certain advantage, since they have the certainty that a specific region is going to be scored, being able to act accordingly. The rival, for their part, will have to try to read their opponent’s actions to predict, as far as possible, their intentions. If a player spends a good number of action rounds expanding their influence in a specific area, it is more than likely that they hold the scoring card for that region in their hand. Obviously, this psychological game can also be used against the one lacking information, making them believe we are interested in one area when we have a good position in another that actually corresponds to the scoring card in our possession. Thus, throughout the game, players will remain in a state of tension, trying to read rival intentions to act accordingly or go on the attack if we have a good hand that allows it.

This that I have just said is what, in my opinion, defines and exalts Matthews and Gupta’s design: tension. We could summarize Twilight Struggle as a massive game of chess covering the whole world over a series of turns and action rounds where we will be incredibly tense, as a single misstep can mean a catastrophe for our aspirations, just as happened in reality. A single misstep by either side would have meant a radical twist in events. It is surprising that a game of this type is capable of maintaining this atmosphere for the approximately three hours a game lasts. Something within reach of very few titles. And it is hard to find downtime, since the give-and-take will be constant, with barely any breathing room between action rounds.

Mastering this great game of chess is not trivial, especially due to the specific weight carried by the more than 100 event cards that will pass through players’ hands. These events will recreate historical occurrences that proved beneficial to one of the sides (although some cards are neutral and will depend on who plays them). The steep learning curve of Twilight Struggle is found at this point. To aspire to victory in a game of Twilight Struggle, knowing the cards to a high percentage is a sine qua non condition. Knowing what events have occurred, which are yet to occur, and how they affect the current layout on the board is the key to significant control of the situation. And they are not simple cards to assimilate. Surely some history buffs and fans of the historical period will grab the deck and go through them one by one, reading and understanding the consequences of their activation, but the rest of us mortals will learn the hard way—meaning we will only learn that Nasser grants control of Egypt to the Soviets when it enters play and, if we control the American side and had control of the country of the Nile, we are left high and dry. And so it goes with everything. Obviously, there will be events with varying degrees of relevance, but we can safely say that almost all of them carry significant weight if activated at the right moment, although that moment may never come.

Therefore, it will be this hand management that determines who takes the cake. We must not forget that it is a card game, and by definition, luck will play a relevant role in the development of the game. A bad afternoon can cause the best Twilight Struggle player to bite the dust. We could have cases so extreme that the same player receives all the scoring cards and the opponent none in the entire game, having to be in fortune-teller mode every action round to try to read their rival’s thoughts. To the luck that the cards already incorporate, we must add the luck of the die rolls. It is true that on most occasions when a player rolls a die, modifiers exist that can mitigate luck. But the possibility of a critical failure will always be present. And you already know how lucky eurogamers are when it comes to throwing bakelite hexahedrons (or whatever material is at hand) onto the table. So, if you cannot stand luck having a say in the outcome of the game, Twilight Struggle might not be your game, because more than once we will suffer the twists of fate. There will be turns where we have a clearly favorable hand, with a majority of events from our side, and others where just the opposite will happen. Knowing when and how to use each card will be fundamental.

Returning to the development of the game, another important aspect that must be kept clear when facing this design is that we are looking at a title where the important thing is controlling countries. This is the first step to gaining a strong position that leads to the trickle of victory points. By this, I mean that scattering influence without achieving control of countries is an absolute waste of time and effort. The only reason why it might be interesting to place influence in a country without spending enough points to achieve control is because you are more interested in a country connected to it. But everything revolves around country control. This is why a good coup or realignment rolls that completely eliminate rival influence in a specific country can mean a few action rounds of tranquility, as we will have cut the connection that allowed our opponent to keep winning supporters in that country. This doesn’t mean they can’t keep pulling strings from the shadows to force a coup that radically changes the situation in that area of the board. With this, I want to emphasize the importance of knowing how to spend each operations point on a productive action. The board is huge, but every single influence point has its importance on the global balance.

Another notable aspect, which we have already hinted at in previous paragraphs, is the thematic immersion. Despite having a relatively abstract mechanic, the use of events that occurred in reality puts us in historical context, and it is more than likely they will pique our curiosity. The normal thing after a game of Twilight Struggle is to go running to Wikipedia to see what happened in detail, taking as reference some of the events that marked the outcome of the match. That tension we were talking about also helps, in line with the critical days experienced at the time.

Although Twilight Struggle is a wonderful design, it has elements that do not make it suitable for all audiences. Theme aside, board maintenance is tremendously tedious: the changing of counters every time the influence of one of the factions is altered and, especially, the use of counters that serve as reminders for the duration of certain effects that were activated when executing certain cards. This system is cumbersome and unhelpful. Simply having a tiny counter placed somewhere on the table is not going to make it easy for players to remember that those effects are active. Since the cards that activated them are removed from the game, I would recommend using them alongside the counters themselves for a better perception of the situation. Even so, it is complicated to keep these elements in mind when acting, as we are usually only paying attention to what we have in hand and what our rival is doing. It will be the responsibility of both sides to ensure that none of the active effects are violated.

The different evaluation procedures that involve die rolls can also be difficult to assimilate. Two apparently similar actions, like coups and realignment rolls, have a slightly different resolution procedure. Until we have played a few games, we won’t have engraved in our minds what each contributes to those procedures. Until then, we will have to check the player aid sheet over and over again.

Due to the events reflected in the cards, the game features a certain asymmetry, if not at a mechanical level, then at the level of developmental pacing. At the beginning of the game, events favorable to the Soviet player predominate, while as the game progresses, the scales tip toward the American player in this regard. I know the theme is important, but it remains a significant aspect that must be taken into account. The player controlling the Soviet side is going to start with more strength. In fact, it would be advisable to leave the communist side to the less experienced player to try to level the playing field, at least for the first turns, as the game could last less than expected if the more experienced player takes the red side.

As a final “negative” element, be warned that in Twilight Struggle, experience level carries enormous weight when it comes to deciding the match. That is, an experienced player, no matter how bad their luck is, will beat a novice 9 out of 10 times (let’s leave open the possibility of stars aligning). Knowing how to read the current situation is only given by accumulating games and taking hits. If you are going to acquire the game for both players to start from the same point, great, because you will progress hand in hand. But if you get it to play with someone quite experienced, keep in mind that the first games, and it could be many, are going to be defeat after defeat. This is a typical characteristic of long-running games with complex development, and nothing can be done to alter it.

All in all, these minor flaws are unable to overshadow in the slightest the set of virtues that the design offers: thematic immersion, constant tension and confrontation, as well as relevant decisions in each and every action round. It is an absolute wonder.

Another notable aspect is the replayability. Not just because of the learning curve that will require a few games before the player has a certain sense of control, but every single time the game hits the table, it will be a unique experience, determined by the execution order of the events and the players’ decisions when using operations points. Few games offer replayability similar to that of this Twilight Struggle. Considering we are dealing with a game for 2, it is a significant value to keep in mind.

Let’s move on to the edition. Twilight Struggle is a game relatively sparse in components: a deck of cards, a board, some counters, and a pair of dice. The board is a massive piece of cardboard folded into 8 parts. The thickness of the material and its durability are more than acceptable. The cards are standard size, of good weight, and interesting snap. Since it is a game where cards are in constant motion, sleeving is highly recommended, especially to avoid marks that could condition the development of the game. Without a doubt, the worst element is the counters. Not because they are of poor quality, but they do turn out to be small and awkward to manage. Finally, the rulebook is somewhat confusing, despite being relatively well-structured and having enough examples to leave few doubts. But when one reads the booklet, it is true that you get the feeling of being before a much more complex design than it actually is. Note that Devir’s first edition contained some errata that were resolved in the second.

The graphic aspect is another factor that can repel potential players. Twilight Struggle is not exactly a pretty game. Neither can we say it’s ugly, but no one is going to feel attracted by the title deployed on the table. We’ll leave it at being tremendously functional. As a minor gripe, I find the use of different types of connections between countries irrelevant if this does not imply any modification at a thematic level. They create confusion because players tend to think some kind of difference exists. The cover also doesn’t grab attention, though it has already become a classic and it is hard to disown it.

A practical and comfortable way to approach this great design is through its various digital implementations, both on iOS and PC. Magnificent versions that facilitate learning and reduce game time significantly, being able to play a match against an artificial intelligence in just over an hour. Highly recommended for gaining skill and assimilating concepts.

And let’s wrap this up. Twilight Struggle is, by right, one of the best board games ever designed to date. A game that recreates the events of the Cold War, with each player taking control of one of the two superpowers. A card-driven development game where the area control (majority) mechanic predominates. Tense, thematic, and with a brutal level of interaction at different levels (the psychological one being especially interesting). Many players might not find it an interesting design precisely because of the theme, the length of the games, the significant influence of luck, the learning curve, or the tedious maintenance via counters. But if this is not a problem, it is a game that must be in your collection. For all this, I give it a…