1st Annual Languish Twilight Struggle Tournament

[Solmyr]

Lost to Habs, because being Red Scared by him in turn 1 is just going to be downhill from there.

Surprisingly, I held out against Nels longer than I thought, but it's not gonna help.

[Berkut]

The irony is, I was surprisingly holding my ground good against Habs. 

My biggest weakness is, that I find myself out-dominated and locked out on the majority of the board by Mid-game. When Asia or Middle East is dominated, there is not much left to do than to hope for the upset Event card. And the number of times I have lost to Habs by DEFCON-suicide, I am not sure I am learning that much.

Well, I think the defcon suicide, t least for me, happens because I lose track of my hand, the number of cards, and the number of cards that have to be played. This is exacerbated badly by the ability to have a bunch of games all going at once.

So one thing I started doing is that every single game I open up, the FIRST THING I DO is click on the turn track, and see how many more cards I have to play this turn, then compare that to my hand and decide which cards will be played this turn, which cards will be spaced (if any) and which cards will be held.

Every
Single
Time

I open up an ongoing game.

It isn't a perfect solution, but it has reduced the problem greatly. I just defcon suicided my otherwise competitive game withs Habs anyway, because I violated my own rule. I knew I had the dangerous card in hand, I had a plan to hold it, then I opened up our game as the third in a list of four games I was playing, thought "Oh, I need to get this influence here, I have this three Ops enemy card and UN Intervention, so I will just play that...." and forgot that I just forced myself into a play of a defcon card, even though I had planned out the turn already. Because I didn't go through my mantra of comparing number of plays to my number of cards that particular time.

[Habbaku]

You guys play around with DEFCON suicide cards in a far different manner than I do.

I identify potential DEFCON suicide cards (Lone Gunman, Grain Sales to Soviets, Duck and Cover, CIA, etc.) in my hand.  I then come up with a plan to get rid of it ASAP or make sure I have a safety valve (China Card, SALT Negotiations, Aldrich Ames, possibly Quagmire/Bear Trap if desperate) if I get hit with a discard or something.

Often times, it's better to just let the opponent have the battleground coup at the start of the turn rather than risk holding the cancer card forever.

[Berkut]

WEll, yeah, that goes into what I said - you have to have a plan.

A lot of times that plan is "Hold it, because I know I can safely...".

But what trips me up is that I then FORGET said plan, or rather, I forget that THIS game is the game where said plan was in place, do something else, an suddenly my plan is screwed. Hence the dogma of always looking at my card count and rounds to be played as the first thing I do when opening up a game. Because I am old, and becoming forgetful. More forgetful, I should say.

[Habbaku]

I guess forgetful does describe it.  I'm having a hard time thinking of a situation in which I would play UN Intervention as event and not use it to get rid of CIA. 

[Tamas]

Listen to Berkut.

I find it's actually a bit hard to play 3 games especially with such time zone gaps as I have now. The Berkut Method is absolutely critical for me in keeping any semblance of coherent play.

[Berkut]

I guess forgetful does describe it.  I'm having a hard time thinking of a situation in which I would play UN Intervention as event and not use it to get rid of CIA. 

Of course.

If I am looking at my hand, and I have CIA and UN Intervention and N cards to be played in N-1 rounds, it is pretty damn clear what has to be done. Either UN Intervention is played as Ops and CIA is held, or UN is played for CIA.

That is blindingly obvious.

But it is only obvious if you actually look at your hand!

When I have several games going, I don't always do that, or I think I already know what is in this hand, but I am actually thinking of another hand in another game.

I suspect that you, in particular, are much, much better at the mental gymnastics necessary to keep these multiple games straight in your head. I mean that sincerely - I've been playing a lot of games with you for a very, very long time, and I've been incredibly impressed at your ability to simply remember things I cannot - what cards have been played already, when, etc, etc., etc.

I don't think most people can do that even close to as well as you can. I *know* I cannot.

So I have to have this process that I follow every single time which forces me to re-evaluate the hand I just opened without making assumptions about what I think I remember about it.

I've gotten a LOT better about it, which is why I only accidentally def con myself in 10% of the games I play instead of 30%.

[Habbaku]

Fair enough. 

[Tamas]

Yeah, with 3 games going, I MUST methodically go through my cards, check the number of rounds left, which regions scored, that kind of thing, then re-formulate my plans. Of course, it is much quicker than do plan it out the very first time a turn starts, but still. I may not confuse things up even if I didn't, but with multiple games going, it did happen in the past.

[Nels]

Nels (USSR) def Solmyr (US) in game 148315, turn 9 VP win.

Solmyr/US had horrible luck. Red Scare on turn 1. Median coup roll was probably a 2, and mine a 4 or 5 in the early game. I don't think I missed an important roll until mid-game, and after that opening, well, they weren't so important. I was able to think that defcon disaster or Chernobyl/Europe was my only way to lose by turn 6. Those of you who know me will be mildly surprised that I went for an earlier VP win. Berkut and Habbaku wouldn't be surprised if I would put 30 into Poland and just wait out a win. It wasn't quite that bad this time, and for all I can tell, Solmyr outplayed me from an untenable position. Europe scored only once in the game, and Asia/ME scored 3 and 2, or the other way around. Central and South America were red, South America had no US presence, and I don't know that Central America had any, either. No gambit worked, not coups, not realignments, not forking me with card play. Brutal game.

[Solmyr]

Yeah, by turn 6 I was delaying the inevitable. The only reason I didn't lose at that point was because I dropped SA Scoring with Ask Not. Then I got dealt both Asia and ME Scoring next turn, of course.

[Habbaku]

Continuing in that terrible position is still worthwhile, mind.  Sometimes, you will draw 2 1-value cards, a 2-value card, and 4 scoring cards on the turn 4 deal and still have your opponent DEFCON suicide on turn 9. 

[Berkut]

Continuing in that terrible position is still worthwhile, mind.  Sometimes, you will draw 2 1-value cards, a 2-value card, and 4 scoring cards on the turn 4 deal and still have your opponent DEFCON suicide on turn 9. 

[sbr]

mkiefte (US) beat me (USSR) by VP on T6.

[Solmyr]

So to summarize, I lost to Habbaku and Nels and won against Drakken. Game against Berkut is going to be sometime in the far future because he cannot handle multiple games.