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| fan-made card |
I love playing Twilight Struggle. Well, not as much as playing COIN games, but almost on a par. And whilst I can indulge in playing COIN games even when I can’t find a partner thanks to the bots or the Jacquard cards, the same isn’t true for Twilight Struggle for want of a dedicated solo system.
I’ve obviously scoured the internetz to find one, and while some are interesting (Stuka Joe’s and its variants), some others are simply delirious, verging on pseudocode.
The one I’m currently working on has been inspired by Fort Sumter’s solo rules and by Jason Carr’s blog entry about designing a solo bot for Twilight Struggle: Red Sea— but not by the solo bot itself. The most notable influence from that blog post is the Solo Opponent’s ability to play Opponent-Aligned cards for Ops without triggering the event.
Anyway, without further ado, here are my (WiP) Solo Opponent rules for Twilight Struggle.
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Preliminary note: Realignment Rolls (6.2) are not used in the Solo Opponent rules; not by the human player, not by the Solo Opponent.
Players
The human player plays the USSR ☭, the bot plays the USA ★.
Cards
Remove card No.6, The China Card. This card won’t be used in the solo game and you can disregard all the rules pertaining to it, i.e., section 9.0.
Game Setup
Human player sets up first as usual per 3.2.
Solo Opponent sets up per 3.3, with the extra 7 Influence placed according to a die roll:
Die Setup
1-3 4 West Germany, 3 Italy.
4-5 3 West Germany, 2 Italy, 1 Greece, 1 Turkey.
6 4 Italy, 1 Austria, 1 Greece, 1 Turkey.
Game Sequence
Follow the game sequence as usual, with the instructions for the Solo Opponent as given below.
⚠ Important: you must always keep a tally of which scoring cards are in the Discard Pile and which ones are in the Draw Deck. Whenever all scoring cards are in the Discard Pile, reshuffle all discards (even if the Draw Dreck isn’t empty).
4.5C Headline Phase
Human player selects their card as usual.
For the Solo Opponent, draw a card from the Draw Pile until you draw a US event card (discard neutral and USSR event cards). This card will be the Solo Opponent’s Headline Event.
Play the Headline Events per the standard rules.
4.5D Action Rounds
Human player plays their action round as usual.
For the Solo Opponent, draw a card from the Draw Pile and apply the following choices based on yes/no decisions at each diamond:
Lets start from the bottom.
Space Card
This is self-explanatory and follows all the rules in section 6.4.
Play card for Influence in #REGION
Let us first define the concept of #REGION: it is the most-desired region, at the time of playing the card, for scoring purposes.
#REGION is:
Europe — unless it’s in the Discard pile
then
Southeast Asia (until it’s been played)
then
Asia — unless it’s in the Discard pile
then
Middle-East — unless it’s in the Discard pile
then
South America — unless it’s in the Discard pile
then
Africa — unless it’s in the Discard pile
then
Central America
Influence is placed first in already-occupied battleground countries until they are controlled, then in neighbouring countries in the direction of the closest and ‘cheapest’ battleground country, and then in order to control a non-battleground country.
Very important rule: whenever the Solo Opponent plays a USSR event card for its Ops, it doesn’t trigger the event.
Play card to coup battleground in #REGION
Follow the same logic as above, but this time in order to coup a battleground country in #REGION. The Solo Opponent is subject to the geographic restrictions of the current DEFCON level.
Play card for event
This is also somewhat self-explanatory. Obviously, if any choices have to be made, e.g., placing Influence, they shall follow the same logic as above.
Note: the Solo Opponent must play all US event cards — even should the event yield no tangible results.
Special Rules
Whenever one of the human player’s event reduces the number of cards in the Solo Opponent’s hand, simply keep a tally of them and reduce the number of ARs accordingly.
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