Anyone tried the Chinese Civil War variant yet?

Just played a game of Twilight Struggle on Tuesday night with the Chinese Civil War variant as described on Consimworld. This was my > 20th game of Twilight Struggle, just for some reference.

The Russian player (not me) ended up putting only two influence on it during the entire game, which ended in Turn 8 with a Soviet win thanks to Aldrich Ames. We didn't use any handicapping or bidding at all, and I think it really balanced the game. The Soviet player missed his chance to play the Korean War, among others.

This game was particularly unusual in that the Soviet player headlined Suez Crisis in Turn 1, almost completely removing me from East Europe and the Middle East. I found it very difficult to get any influence in there at all. Anyone had that experience?

Chinese Civil War = win

I am basically incapable of navigating consimworld. Is there any chance of a link to the variant?

I have the link at home, I'll paste it here later on.

Definitely interested to hear more about it. I might buy the upgrade kit if they release it, hopefully this will be in it.

talk.consimworld.com/WebX?13@844.7XIXeXEzSNL.9@.1dcfda60/12035

You don't need any materials at all. We just stick the influence on the face-down China card to show that it's not in play yet.

Gary Sax wrote:

Definitely interested to hear more about it. I might buy the upgrade kit if they release it, hopefully this will be in it.

If you really want it "the original", I'll send you a scan. They print the CCW "card" on the cover the last issue of C3i and included a separate printed version in with the inserts. Hell, I could probably just cut the one off the cover and send it along since I'm one of those heretics who hacks up his gaming magazines to slip articles, scenarios, and the like in the boxes of the actual games referenced....

generalpf wrote:

Just played a game of Twilight Struggle on Tuesday night with the Chinese Civil War variant as described on Consimworld. This was my > 20th game of Twilight Struggle, just for some reference.

The Russian player (not me) ended up putting only two influence on it during the entire game, which ended in Turn 8 with a Soviet win thanks to Aldrich Ames. We didn't use any handicapping or bidding at all, and I think it really balanced the game. The Soviet player missed his chance to play the Korean War, among others.

This game was particularly unusual in that the Soviet player headlined Suez Crisis in Turn 1, almost completely removing me from East Europe and the Middle East. I found it very difficult to get any influence in there at all. Anyone had that experience?

Chinese Civil War = win

I've played about 250 games of TS or so. While it doesn't come up much, the Suez Crisis headline can be quite crippling, depending on how the US places their initial influence. It can be a royal pain in the ass to get back into the ME. A decent strategy for the US is to play one into Iraq from Iran or coup the USSR in Syria.

The Chinese Civil War variant is ok in that it does what it claims it is going to do -- balance the game. However, as the USSR, I think it is imperative to get the three influence on it as soon as possible. Mainly because allowing Ussuri to trigger in Mid-War is where a lot of the losses for the USSR is going to play. The other balance that is seen is if the USSR is focusing on putting three influence towards the China Card, the early game steamrolling will be more difficult to inact.

However, a reasonable strategy might be for the the USSR just to put the 3 ops onto the card in the very first turn of the game. The US doesn't have any great coup targets to start with and they likley aren't going to play into Asia too much because DEFCON is still at 5. Additionally, any gains in the ME can be cancelled in the Mid-War by the Soviets. That leaves Europe -- and between two good players, Europe is usually a wash.

Played this again last week. The USSR player bought the China Card on Turn 1 and used it on Turn 2 (or maybe Turn 1). He made a mistake in not reclaiming Poland after the Pope showed up, allowing the USA to score 7 points on Europe scoring. The USA won with a score of +20 in Turn 6.

Not sure how I managed to miss this thread the first time around. I'm forwarding the details of the variant to the guy I play against, see if he's interested.

general, in the time since you started this thread and now, what's your opinion of the CCW?

Space Ghost wrote:I've played about 250 games of TS or so....

I nearly fell off my chair ... some of you guys gaming history puts me in the minor leagues, I don't know if I've even played 250 games (F2F or PBEM) total on everything in the last couple of years !!

I may do the same as Joel, I don't own the game and never really accepted it in it's original form - it's a good game but one I would play if someone had it out rather than asking for it to be played.

drmabuse00 wrote:

general, in the time since you started this thread and now, what's your opinion of the CCW?

I like it a lot more than bidding for extra West European influence. It seems to balance the game pretty well without being gamey. There's no reason not to use it, IMHO. It's not like you have to buy an expansion or anything.

You can play a lot of games of TS if you play on wargameroom.com. I nearly doubled my plays when I played there for like a single week on a number of nights.