If the Soviet player plays it, the event happens and the Soviet player get to take an action, so sometimes playing events associated with the opponent can be a good thing. On the other hand take a look at the Muslim Revolution card. It is a Soviet card, and one that if the USA player has, he is unlikely to want to see in play. This is what the space race is for, play that card on the space race and the event does not happen, at least not for a while.

The original rule book included the tournament rule of revealing held cards at the end of a turn, to prevent cheating by holding a scoring card. In more modern competitions this was replaced by showing the bottom of the card, demonstrating that it is not a scoring card.

Each faction starts with a home system, several units making up their fleet and army, starting technologies and faction unique abilities. Starting setup and technology tends to be themed round the faction’s culture, and if you are interested in the lore, you can read all about it on the reverse of the faction card. Exploration, therefore, brings a new sense of excitement to these otherwise fairly mechanical and predictable initial actions, which can be thrilling. On the other hand, it adds a lot of time. Where the first round of TI4 might have been expected to take between 30 and 40 minutes, it will now take at least 40 – 45, depending on how familiar you are with it and how much attention you give to each exploration and what is drawn. Depending on what cards are in hand, the Soviet player may not want to spread influence markers around. Taking Control of countries in Eastern Europe might be safer and more desirable. Poland should be priority because it is a battleground country, Yugoslavia is useful to put pressure on Italy, but there are risks. The Event Cards Set-up for Twilight Struggle, by GMT Games, is fairly straightforward; place various tokens on the board in set places, space race to zero, Defcon to five, military operations to zero, the victory point token to zero, and so on, all of which is clearly laid out in the rule book. Then there is the fun bit, which can be done before or after the above, it really does not matter.

The Nations Cup is played by national teams who take decisions by consensus. The competition starts with a Qualifying Stage, after which the strongest teams play in the Final Stage. [ citation needed] Edition The opponent triggers nuclear war. Important – if nuclear war is triggered the phasing player loses. The phasing player is the player who played the card which triggered nuclear war. So if the phasing player is Soviet, defcon is two and he plays CIA created, (a USA card). He places an influence token. The USA player then uses the card to carry out a coup in Venezuela, defcon drops to Nuclear War, and the USA wins because the phasing player is Soviet. That was now 23 years ago. Sadly, we all learned that the end of the Cold War was not "the end of history." Mankind would find new ways to divide itself. While the threat of nuclear holocaust disappeared, newer and more sinister forms of conflict would take its place. Where once superpowers bestrode the globe, decentralized networks and even individuals now command the world's attention.

Although it is possible to compare factions’ strengths based purely on what they bring to the table (and oh boy do the TI community love to do it), there’s just too much randomness in POK to make any truly meaningful evaluation of players’ or factions’ chances of winning any individual game. Twilight Struggle" (PDF). Inside GMT. Winter 2005. p.3. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 24, 2005.