From: Tony & Susan Hickie Subject: Re: Victory Games: Cold War? At 22:32 on 17/10/96 Ron Walenciak asked: >Was [VG's Cold War] ever done? Anyone played it that would care to comment? 'Yes' to both questions, Ron. I played it several times when it first came out, though I only got my own copy recently. What you get is a world map divided into 4 Home Zones (North America, which incorporates Canada), Western Europe (excluding Scandinavia), the Soviet Union and China. The map reminded me of nothing so much as George Orwell's '1984', though the game is firmly rooted in a simplified 1970s' world-view of bloc conflict. The rest of the world is divided into 27 unaligned/neutral Regions (including Australia, Brian!) and 6 Sea Zones into which the 4 players place chits according to a hand of cards they hold and the amount of Strategic Points (resources) they control (and oppose the play of chits ditto). Various boxes and tracks around the map are used for a number of game purposes (game turn, SP totals, holding boxes, etc). There're a short rule-book 8 pages long and 4 summary sheets which provide the players with a handy reference so that they don't have to keep asking each other for the rules. Each player has 31 backprinted playing pieces (chits/counters) representing agents, diplomats, military control, factions, etc. There are a few general-use counters as well. Each land area has a numeric value ranging from 1 (Afghanistan + 5 other areas) to 5 (Middle East only), which represents its SP value. As a result of these chits being placed, each player's influence/control over the unaligned areas shifts, and so, obviously, does the total value of the SPs they can use. Event cards (different from the cards used to initiate actions as described above) generate Action cards according to the location of Agents/Diplomats, instant income, make a Region a 'Vital' one (increasing its SP value to 6), or cause a Power vacuum to occur somewhere. The Event cards are also the mechanism whereby the game ends, so you can never be sure exactly how long a game will last. Victory is determined by the total SPs controlled by each player, plus additional SPs for each Economic Control (8 SPs each), Military Control (10 SPs) and Political Control (12 SPs) marker s/he has on the map. The game plays quickly enough, but never really caught fire with our group. Certainly I'd pay $10 for it, which is what I got my copy for, but probably not very much more. It's big drawback is that 'officially' it can be played by 4 (and only 4!) players, although I suppose you can play it with 2 or 3 if you want to. None of the 4 powers is any weaker (or stronger) than any of the others, so you can't grumble about that as the reason for losing - although you *can* still complain about the run of the cards! There are no dice, combat tables or what-not and the success or failure of an action in the game is determined solely by the play of cards. I hope this has been of some help. Tony Hickie t_s_hickie@online.rednet.co.uk