In response to a number of requests made here, attached are some principles for sound US play.

1) Hold on to your own High Ops Value events -- Most powerful Soviet events are discarded after use in the Early War. You want to hold your high value events like NATO and potentially even MARSHALL PLAN (depending on the disposition of EUROPEAN SCORING), so that on the reshuffle between rounds 2/3 both players are holding a hand full of blue starred cards.

2) Consider Playing High Value Soviet Events -- Remember, you can chose whether the event happens BEFORE or AFTER you take your operations. Frequently, you can minimize/eliminate the damage done by a Soviet event by using the cards operations to cover it up. You won't have this same luxury if the USSR plays the event, as you will frequently be short of the necessary operations points to counter.

3) Minimize Soviet Infiltration -- Two cards are deadly in the Early War for midwar position. DECOLONIZATION and FIDEL. If you can hold or bury these cards do so. If the Soviets play them, counter coup or realign immediately -- particularly FIDEL. South and Central American can be VERY tough for the Soviets to break into without him. You might be able to keep them a US lake without him, and grab domination in both regions during the MidWar. Its harder to keep the Soviets out of Africa, but without DECOLONIZATION, they will need to make a concerted effort to bust in.

4) Use turn 3 to drop valuable Soviet events on Space Race -- If you wait until turn 3 to drop big events into the space race (like Fidel or DECOLONIZATION) they are going to be out until the Midwar reshuffle -- that's all but dead.

5) Keep Note of Event Impacts on Influece -- You want to secure Israel from the ARAB ISRAELI war event, but keep in mind, that's dangerous until NASSER has been played. Stay out of ROMANIA until ROMANIAN ABDICATION. Stay out of Eastern Europe until the disposition of WARSAW PACT (etc. etc.)

6) Watch the Middle East -- The Middle East is like Central and South America for the Soviets, if you get tossed out it can be very hard to get back in. Furthermore, the Middle East has the OPEC event (also applies to Venezuela) which makes it a very lucrative area for VPs. Ananda recommended Israel as a base. That works post-Camp David accords, if Israel is surrounded by friends or if ARAB ISRAELI war is buried. Otherwise, its risky. In my first play in the region, I try to use a 3 OP, and grab Iran (gotta have a battleground), Lebanon -- some protection against ARAB ISRAELI WAR and a cheap non-battleground country and drop 1 in Iraq. Now, control of Iraq alone will cost the Soviets a 3 Op, and the US player can use that one influence to get into places like Saudi Arabia.

7) Play Scoring Cards Early when you are behind -- ALWAYS secure presence in a region if possible. This will greatly mitigate any disaster, but barring that, if you are behind in a region consider playing the scoring card early and concentrating your efforts elsewhere. Ordinarily, if you are playing catch-up, your opponent will notice, and you will probably fall further behind in the region -- or worse, play a lot of ops for the same result you could have gotten without lifting a finger.

8) Play spare ops to set up for MidWar -- Know that a US Early War autovictory is unlikely, so get ready for the mid war. If you can get breathing room of even 1 ops point, use if in Africa, South or Central America. It will definitely reap rewards later.

9) Eschew VP Events Early -- DUCK AND COVER will make you feel better about the score board, but three influence played during the Early War will likely earn you more VPs over the game than the 2/3 VPs from the event. Furthermore, you want to preserve these events for when you are in a position to go for the kill in the Midwar.

10) BOARD POSITION, BOARD POSITION, BOARD POSITION -- the key to victory for either player is forcing your opponent to waste his operations reacting. This is most common with Scoring Cards. If you have laid the ground work in the Early War for a midwar victory by containing the Soviets and spreading a little influence in places you know will be coming up for scoring rounds 4-7, you will be alright.

11) Never Give Up -- I took a US player to -18, only to have him battle me back to a draw in 2 turns. How? Well, I went for cheap points over board position. When I wasn't able to put him away, things swung wildly in his favor in the Late War. Early War was designed to be tough on the US player, you've got to have your eye prize for your mid to late war win.

Hope this helps.

Jason

Thanks, Jason! A couple of those were just starting to dawn on me . . .

Here's a question about a certain strategy in use of cards like CIA and Blockade. Say, for example, the Soviet player has CIA, but keeps the card in his hand until round 6; could he play it and reveal only the one remaining card (if there is one)? Could he similarly hold on to Blockade until the last couple of rounds when he feels that the US player has likely run out of "3" cards?

Thanks Jason, very helpful indeed :-)

Absolutely, to both questions that's sound hand managment.

This is very sound advice and I'm can't wait to sit down as the US player again and give it another go!! Thank you, Jason.

I sat down last night and played the USSR and just trounced the USA. Taking "Control" of South America in Turn 7 is what won the game for me, but I was dominant or in control in SE Asia, Asia, C. America and Africa for most of the game...still think it is much easier playing the USSR side.... I didn't let my opponent read Jason's strategy comments until after our game as that it how I had to play when he trounced me as the USSR player...it only seemed fair. Unfortunately, he commented just as I had that "this is not even fun" on turn 8 and 9 when he drew nearly all USSR events, just as I had.......too bad....I'm willing to try what Jason advises here to see if it at least balances it out a little, but I just don't ever see the USA running away with an early victory as the USSR can do....some balance problems here no doubt...I'm sure the playtesters just got into a particular style of play that the general public is not sharing and that is what is resulting in this imbalance.....

So far I have played 3 games. One we had to pick up because the store was closing, but the other two were US victories. The first was against my wife who is not the strongest gamer, bt she was making some strong plays. The second victory was againsta a seasoned wargamer, but there was a little bit of rules confusion. I am pretty confident that I can put a strong showing up against the USSR. I am hoping to play again Thursday so I will get back to you then.

Note that this doesn't mean hold your own high ops value events, which has a specific game meaning of holding your cards at the end of the turn. Instead, the advice is actually to play your own high ops value events as ops, and not as events, so they will be reshuffled from the discard pile instead of being removed from the game.

Thanks for the clarification, Chris. I didn't understand that bit until you commented. I'm struggling a bit with this game, right now, and not too sure I like it. I feel that, in order to have a balanced game, both players have to understand the rules very, very well. Players have to know the cards, and how to finese their flow through the hand and the discard piles. Normally I like a game that's a bit more intuitive, where memorization of the card deck, while useful, is not all-important. However, I might just might not be 'getting it', maybe there is a more or less intuitive play style that can be reached when you really are fluent with the rules.

BTW: Thanks for this great strategy guide. I'll definitely let U.S. players read it before playing.

Jason,

The posted PDF file is fine until you get down to the text and then its all scrogged up. I use Acrobat 5.0...

Thought I'd let you know.

Jim

OK!! I did it!! Won as the US Player. Thanks for the tips!! They worked, but only barely...The USSR went as far as -15 but then I fought back to +5 for the victory on final scoring....liking this game better now that I've seen the US Player Win and I was that player so even sweeter.

Thx Jason and Anada for a great game and for being so supportive on this site.

Thank you, Jason!

While our household has been split about 50/50 in US/Soviet wins, its always nice to see some relevant hints.

I'm up to 6 or 7 games of TStruggle and I've yet to see the US win. I'm familiar with the strategies above and haven't been able to pull out a US victory yet. I've had 1 game that went back and forth and the US was actually up for a while but lost in final scoring. I've had 2 games where the Soviets hit auto victory by turn 4. It seems like there's a slim margin for things to go 'wrong' for the US. If the Soviets get the Europe Scoring card early, it's tough... It seems like there's just little margin for error on the US side, and if things go right for the Soviets, there's not much you can do. I don't mind an uphill challenge, but it seems like the US needs a little luck or it's really tough. Good Soviet players know the US tactics too...

Interesting. I've played about the same number of games, against both experienced and new players. The results have been about 50/50. Definitely the USSR seemed to win a lot when I was new and my opponents were new. As we've gained experience it has evened out; possibly even favoring the US slightly.

While playing as the US, I've found it very hard to keep the Soviets out of Central and South America. Besides Decolonization and Fidel, I see several other means that allow the Soviets easy access in the Early and Mid War, such as...

- De-stalinization

- Brush War

- Allende

- Junta

- Liberation Theology

- Couping with a 3 or 4 OPS card against a stability 2 country

There are so many ways for the Soviets to get into the so-called "US Lake", it seems their chances of getting established are better than the US's.

There are a number of ways of getting the Soviets out of South America (Central America is a lost cause in terms of having no Soviets, though you can still contest it)

Voice of America (especially if you can get it again through SALT)
Brush War (usually better for you than him in this regard as you should control more countries adjacent to targets)
Junta
Couping with a 3 Op or 4 Op card.
Realignment. This can work well against Allende- if you have set yourself up with control of Peru and Argentina you may be able to get rid of Allende when you play the event.

Philip,

I understand that Junta, Brush War and a few other means work for either superpower, but I find as the US that I'm hard pressed to fit it into my list of things to do. It seems that I'm always responding to the threats initiated by the Soviets... whether in the Americas or in some other theater.

As a side note, I realize that there are ways for the US to respond to Soviet infiltration. I was trying to convey that the list of means for that to happen is more than twice as long as what Jason wrote in his original post.

BTW: I'm just curious. What is that image in your avatar?

Obviously it varies from game to game, but the question of who is responding to whom is one which goes to the heart of winning the game. If you're dancing the bear's tune its not suprising he eats well...

My avatar is a map of part of a fantasy world that I made up to set D&D campaigns in. The world is called Undar, and the region depicted is The Terrantepala. Blue is water, light green farmland, dark green forest, yellow desert, etc. The little red dots are cities.

edit: not that you can see any little red dots at this magnification!