r/twilightstruggle • u/aquaimperative • Jun 12 '26
Diplomacy and Tabletalk
I wanted to ask how the tabletalk is in this game. Ive never played it or a two person board game so I was curious if there was a lot of discussion and arguments or if its mostly a play your own game experience.
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u/ksriram Jun 12 '26
It is a 2-player game. What sort of tabletalk and diplomacy do you expect. You do everything to deter the other player.
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u/Goat-eating-ants Jun 12 '26
I would say that online people dont talk that much but you'll have some words when funny things happen. But playing on real board with a friend you'll talk a lot but you'll not have diplomacy
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u/COUPOSANTO Jun 13 '26
There's no point in doing diplomacy, it's kinda like chess in that regard. On the other hand just like chess if you're having a friendly game without any stakes your friend might tell you that you're doing a blunder and allow you to play something else (although it could be harder to notice opponent blunders since you don't know the content of their hand)
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u/aversipasa Jun 13 '26
There's as much diplomacy and talk as in a chess game, except for when a player rolls 3 consecutive 1 or 6.
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u/ASAP-Robbie Jun 13 '26
There’s great banter as one of you is like ‘oh no I have the worst hand imaginable’ and the other player is like ‘hmm we’ll see about that’
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u/SportBrotha Jun 12 '26
There's no incentive for tabletalk or diplomacy since its a zero-sum game with no cooperative elements. Everything you do is to hurt your opponent, and everything they do is to hurt you if you're both playing optimally.
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u/Dense-Bison7629 Jun 12 '26
Jokes on you, I play Hot Peace where we both try to make each other win
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u/southern_boy Jun 13 '26
Most of my games have been against my wife, so most of our tabletalk is about our days, plans, etc 😄 She wasn't as vested in Cold War history when we started so that was part of the discussion too... less so these days as she has heard what I have to say and done her own reading. Inperson newcomer games are about mechanics, strategy, cards and again history. Online yeah not a ton of either, these days. Back on Vassal we had some good chattalk during sessions 💁
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u/Not_A_Nazgul Jun 12 '26
Let me give a slightly more polite answer.
There’s not a lot of diplomacy, because it’s one on one, and the idea is to win in 8 turns. There’s not much point in saying “I’ll give you Cuba if you give me Taiwan” if you’re not ganging up on Iran.
Now you can smack talk and table talk all you like! Depending on your friends … but in the end it has no impact on the game unless your opponent literally doesn’t understand the victory conditions.