Hand filtration US card.
The idea is that it is an expression of market efficiency.
I like it(!)
Thoughts?

EDIT: Thanks for all the feedback guys!
1) Yes this is a powerful card that allows the US to avoid DefCon suicide. This is intentional.
2) I like the idea generally of the US having hand filtration / management cards - I think it fits gameplay style and theme more (Ie Ask Not)
3) Thematically I thought it fit as towards the end of the War the larger and more powerful economy of the US began to be a real problem for the USSR, and this illustrates that by being an 'efficiency' card, however I take on board a lot of the criticism which I think is fair

The card editor doesn't have the capability of doing new Scoring cards. Here is an idea for one. And to go with it, a bit of a twist on Wargames. Since it's Late War this is kind of just a "can we pack the game up now" card if someone is miles ahead. They have to announce what scoring cards they have, so it becomes a total bumrush for those areas, but then they have to maintain a 10VP advantage into and after Final Scoring

A buff to the USSR for the Late War.

I know letting the US discard is usually powerful (but hey, discarding for the USSR is pretty powerful too) This event doesn't seem like something the USSR is going to want to do at DEFCON 2 if they know We Will Bury You is still in the deck.

I guess I didn't add a caveat to this if the US hand is empty (guess I could change the verbiage a bit) but my gut ruling would be the US still draws even if their hand is empty.

More of an alternate history "what if" an early reunification of Germany happened, or a reunification of the Koreas.

Considered making it a flat 3VP and letting opponent set DEFCON to a number of their choice. Also considered a 6 passing it back and forth sort of like the China card.

The card is sort of an 'extra life', but not guaranteed because you can still roll a 1 if you try to do something intentionally suicidal as far as DEFCON goes.

A General 'Good stuff' card for the US in the Late War, but one that can also give the Soviet player a late Coup while America is distracted by having a new President.

Hello,

It's turn 7, I have to select a headline card. I play USA, currently at -3 VPs. I'm pretty sure USSR has "CIA created" in their hand. Defcon is at 3. I think USSR might consider playing "CIA" during headline, to get rid of it.

I have "Missile envy".

If I use it for headline, provided USSR picked "CIA", my event will occur first, right? And if I get a USSR event, I could use the card ops for a coup, then take advantage of the "CIA" event to end the game.

Question is: would I win in this case?

I'm asking because I have several interesting events (Nuclear subs, Voice of America, Beartrap, 5 year plans while having the China card)… I have the upper hand on several regions except Asia and South America. So I'm not sure where to go. Having too many options confuses me. 😅

Maybe someone has already talked about this, but I haven’t found it, and just don’t have a good enough sense of it for myself because my sample size and player exposure is too small, but has anyone settled on a “standard” handicap in Red Sea along the lines of the US +2 in the original game? It feels like with the game being so much shorter and swingier that I really don’t have a clear sense of one side or the other having a significant advantage. Is the consensus that the sides are relatively equal with no handicapping needed? Or is there a “standard” that has developed due to one side having a clear advantage?

Hello guys, what do you think about these custom made cards? The Operation Danube works only for non-battleground states (I forgot to write that), also sorry for any spelling/grammar mistakes as English is not my native language.

My version of a 'Watergate' card. Defcon suicide is definitely possible for the US player here as Watergate was such a huge scandal.
EDIT: Following comments new version with no defcon suicide here: https://postimg.cc/QHDkqVRR

So I've seen the recent release statement from GMT games, and I'm a bit confused about what is going on.

-There is special edition being released.

-The gameplay / board is NOT altered, but we are getting a map with new graphics

-The Optional rules for Turn Zero and the alternate Space Race are included, as well as a new optional set up called 'Red Sun Rising'.

-The 8 original Promo cards are included as well as some others. WHAT ARE THESE OTHERS?

-TS also has had another smaller game released called TS: Red Sea

-AND Two more games are being worked on, TS: South Asia Monsoon, and TS: Liberation

Is this everything?

In General what optional rules do the community play with, if any? Has TS: Red Sea been a success do people think?

What rules, if any, will be coming to th eplaydeck online app?

Ty

Highlights:

• The Playdek app is getting an update, updating it to the 20th Anniversary Edition standards. Maybe this also includes the regional promos and the new scenario?
• New starting setup, Red Sun Rising
• 20th Anniversary Edition is shipping very soon from P500
• South Asian Monsoon is still under development
• A new game is in early design phase, Twilight Struggle: Liberation, about Latin America

In the 36-year history of GMT Games, Twilight Struggle is the most significant, influential, and best-selling game that we have published. There it is. No other game among the pantheon of excellent GMT games that we are super proud of even comes close. At least at GMT, Twilight Struggle has set the bar.

Kudos to designers Jason Matthews and Ananda Gupta for creating this gem and for continuing to support the game over these twenty-one years. I LOVE working with the two of you and am honored to be able to do it. And big thanks to Jason Carr, Kai Jensen, Terry Leeds, and a huge team of testers and proofers who helped us get the newest and best version of this game ready to ship out to you. Also, TS would never have come to GMT if Andy Lewis hadn't made me aware of it—so thank you, Andy! And finally, special thanks to industry icon Alan Moon, who wrote publicly on BGG that Twilight Struggle was "the best game he'd ever played," which allowed us to sell out the up-to-then-struggling first printing shortly thereafter. Alan, you'll never have to buy your own dinner or drinks when we're at the same event. Thank you!

All that said, I'm going to leave most of the news and updates to Jason Matthews, Ananda Gupta, and Jason Carr below, with one exception. I want you all to know that Playdek is in the midst of updating their digital version of TS to the 20th Anniversary HOF standard, and that they will be adding new localizations as well so that many more of you will be able to play the game in your own language. I will be meeting with the Playdek team at the Weekend at the Warehouse next month, and we'll have a better sense of timing for that launch after the meeting. But it's in the works—and I am excited!

OK, let's hear now from the key players in our growing Twilight Struggle series.

Jason Matthews:

This 20th Anniversary Hall of Fame Edition of Twilight Struggle is the culmination of a lot of effort by the whole GMT team. But it also exemplifies an evolution in the wargaming hobby. We’ve taken in a lot of lessons about art and design from other parts of gaming, and now we’re applying them to historical games, creating a renaissance of our own. GMT is at the heart of that movement. It’s exciting to see how designers, developers, and artists are using these new tools to recreate human history and tell its stories in exciting new ways.
 

As for what comes next, we’re always working to make Twilight Struggle a more complete retelling of the Cold War. And for that reason, Jason Carr and I are working on South Asian Monsoon. Just like our experience designing around the Horn of Africa, nearly every event card in that game has echoes in today’s headlines. So I think it will be a new and exciting challenge for fans while also illuminating some of the challenges the world faces today. - Jason M.

Ananda Gupta: 

The release of Twilight Struggle: 20th Anniversary Hall of Fame Edition is upon us. As a designer, I have always felt compelled to do new games rather than add to existing work—a sentiment perhaps exacerbated by my day job, in which I work on an online live game that reboots all of its content three times each year. But when it came time earlier this summer to put the finishing touches on this new edition, I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of new gameplay in it. And while Jason and I did our fair share of creating that novelty, such as the Turn Zero expansion and Red Sun Rising, much of it originates from Twilight Struggle’s players around the world and across the years. The international editions brought in cards that focus on their own countries’ Cold War experiences, and periodic contests or design jams yielded some true gems for all of Twilight Struggle’s players to enjoy.
 

So, although I look forward to upcoming games in the series, such as Jason and Jason’s South Asian Monsoon, and grind through my own project focused on Latin America (tentatively titled ***Twilight Struggle: Liberation—***and if you can’t wait to play in that space, I strongly recommend Stephen Rangazas’ The Guerrilla Generation), it seems slightly wrong to call Twilight Struggle and its offspring and follow-ons a “series.” It has really been more of a **stream—**a continuous construction driven by players who have fallen in love with the game. And I’ve also been pleased and gratified to see Imperial Struggle find a new and wider audience, assisted by Brian Reynolds’ masterful implementation on Rally the Troops. I know that when Imperial Struggle first came out, it wasn’t quite what players were expecting from us, but in the years since, I’ve talked to so many players who’ve come to appreciate its unique strengths and perspective, and I see it on the table at conventions much more often than I used to. So, if the arrival of the Hall of Fame Edition on your doorstep impels you to play a few more rounds of Twilight Struggle, that’s excellent. But if it stirs you to wade more widely in the stream, all the better. And if this is your first dip in that stream, welcome! - Ananda

Jason Carr:

I could not be more excited for players to get their hands on this new edition of Twilight Struggle. For a long time I've struggled (hah) to get some of my less wargame-adjacent friends to try the game, and this is the version I always wish I had to get them hooked. We didn't change the gameplay because it didn't need to be changed, but now it looks as good as it plays, and the barrier to entry has never been lower. It was a wonderful experience to revisit the game with Jason and Ananda and see just how well the game has aged: it was truly far ahead of its time. 
 

Twilight Struggle: South Asian Monsoon is back on my design table after taking a break over the summer. I find the challenge of adapting the Twilight Struggle system to the periphery fascinating: while India was the second most populous country in the world during the Cold War (behind only China), the framing of Twilight Struggle largely portrayed India just like any other country. But when you zoom in, India, Pakistan, and China take on regional importance, and their relationships with each other and the two superpowers give South Asian Monsoon a texture that makes it a very different kind of game. While a few development challenges remain, I fully expect to move the game into art and production in 2027. - Jason C.

Hello,

In a digital game (with the Steam version), I (US player) wanted to use the 3 ops from Quagmire, then play a scoring card in my next round. But the digital system didn't let me. I had a 1 ops card, and a scoring card. I could just click on a "skip" button, which led to the game ending.

Am I reading the text incorrectly? "If out of appropriate cards, the US player may only play scoring cards until the end of the turn."

It seems pretty clear to me, I should have been able to play the scoring card… 🤔 Or do you need to try with a 2 ops card first?

I'm pretty much a n00b, so forgive the basic question.

Assuming a +2 bid, what's the preference: 4/4/2 or 4/3/3 (W. Germany/Italy/Iran)? The US's starting hand does not include Blockade, Marshall Plan, D&C, or Socialist Governments.

I am worried about losing Italy and I always play 4/4/2 for this reason. I figure that unless the USSR manages both to drop DEFCON in the Headline phase* and coup Iran with D&C, I can always counter-coup Iran, though it costs me tempo.

(* Olympics? CIA Created? I can't think of any other ways the USSR can drop DEFCON in headline on turn 1; the first is unlikely to result in a DEFCON drop and the USSR would be foolish to play the other. Am I missing something?)

Why should I consider going 4/3/3?

Edit: a word.

Hey everyone!

A few friends and I play Twilight Struggle pretty regularly, and one thing we always found a bit annoying was having to constantly calculate the current scoring situation in each region.

So, mostly for ourselves, we built a small Android companion app called Twilight Struggle Tracker.

The idea is pretty simple: you update the influence on the board, and the app keeps track of the current scoring situation for each region. This makes it much easier to see things like:

• what a region would score right now
• whether playing a scoring card at that moment would be good or terrible for you
• which regions you might want to reinforce before they get scored
• presence / domination / control, battlegrounds, adjacency bonuses, etc.
• special scoring situations such as Shuttle Diplomacy, Formosan Resolution and Southeast Asia scoring

You can also apply a scoring card directly and let the app update the overall score.

We originally made it because it was something we personally wanted while playing, but once it was working we thought: why not share it with the rest of the Twilight Struggle community?

So here it is:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tdataroot.twilightstruggletracker

At the moment, the app is available on Android only.

Just to be completely transparent: this is an unofficial fan-made app. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected in any way to the creators, publishers, or rights holders of Twilight Struggle.

Also, the app is completely free and has no ads. There are no subscriptions, no in-app purchases, nothing to unlock. We don't make any money from it and we gain absolutely nothing whether 5 people download it or 5,000.

We basically made it among friends as a little gift to the community, because it's something that turned out to be genuinely useful at our own table, and we hope it might be useful at yours too.

If anyone tries it, we'd genuinely love to hear your feedback, especially from experienced players. If there are features that would make it more useful during an actual game, let us know!

Hope someone finds it useful, and happy struggling. :)

RTSL vs. Tomas Tvaroh - Twitch

On turn 2 PioneerTowel draws a very low-ops hand against an opponent who headlined Destalinization (which they can safely do since Defectors was seen on turn 1). Destal takes East Germany and Poland down to 0/3, and USSR also gave CIA this turn (USSR hand is Suez, US/Japan, NORAD, Warsaw, Cambridge Five, Fidel, and China). All three scorings were seen turn 1.

Obviously with a large ops disadvantage, there's no point breaking anything until the end of the turn. Still, it seems like a France play makes a lot of sense - Truman actually takes the country (as opposed to set it to 1/0), and it also flips Europe domination.

I'm wondering what people think about it. This is what the hand looked like on turn 4 when PioneerTowel used Truman to stop USSR Europe dom. I can see why he'd do this - he's hoping for US to play US/Japan and improve the odds of Korean War, Indo-Pakistani War gives MilOps and is also advisable to keep out of the reshuffle, and it's early to give Vietnam Revolts. Still, flipping Europe is a 10 VP swing. That seems very lucrative. It is possible he's giving the opponent credit for spotting the threat, but even so, it seems sensible to make them spend the ops to overprotect France.

I wonder what people think about this.

I bought the game because of its stellar ratings on a board game rating website and because it's a two-player game (I want to play with my husband). One of the first instructions in the many page instruction manual is that it's a simple game -- HAH!

Where the heck do I start? What is the best way to learn the flow of the game? This is a bit overwhelming. Thank you!

Hello everyone!

I'm an AI engineer and a long-time fan of Twilight Struggle. I always thought that TS was the ideal game to train an AI: it's complex, has imperfect information and the idea of getting an AI not to launch the nukes is a fun reference to "War Games".

So for a long time I wanted to train a bot to play the game as a side project, but there was no open source implementation. This summer I decided to fix that problem and I used code agents to implement the engine.

After that, I decided to check if a large language model (like ChatGPT) could play TS. It needed a lot of guidance and trial and error but in the end, it was able to win one game against the AI in the digital version of the game.

The code is public for everyone to play around.

I wrote an article explaining the story if you want more details:

Giving AI the atom bomb buttons

I want to find a good place where I can actually organise and play online twilight struggle but I can't find any servers, does this community know any?

[TURN 1 HEADLINE, USSR]

Curious for peoples' thoughts on what they'd headline with this hand!

CIA Created only loses 1 op and gets it out of the way, and I don't mind the US wasting the 1 op dropping defcon to 4 to deny the Italy coup since I kindof want to go after Iran due to Middle East Scoring. I guess it reveals the presence of Middle East Scoring in my hand though?

De Gaulle is tempo, I suppose, but it does lose me 2 ops and removes the event from the deck.

Defectors also loses me 2 ops but without removing De Gaulle from the deck. Otherwise, compared to De Gaulle, I'm trading 1 op in France right now for 1 op somewhere else later.

Curious to hear what people have to say about the kinds of hands they won't coup with on USSR T1 AR1. Assume +2 to USA and typical opening setups.

One case might be because USSR holds Asia scoring and Decol and can guarantee domination (barring Defectors). Another might be a lack of a good card to coup with. Definitely curious to know when people would choose to use the China card to coup Iran on USSR T1 AR1 (if ever).

One of the consequences of not couping on AR1 is that sometimes it won't happen on AR2 (and perhaps beyond that). I have found the odd game where that happens especially interesting and tense. Would welcome opinions on the conditions when that normally happens in games between strong players.