Izulde's Quick Hit BoP: 1990 Edition Dynasties

[Izulde]

This dynasty isn't going to be so much about one extended game, because Balance of Power: 1990 Edition isn't designed for that. Rather, it's going to be a quick hit summary of games I've played with the Sweet 16 IIGS emulator on my Mac laptop.

Game #1
Started off with Beginner level to refresh my memory. Took the USSR because I felt like winning, which you can't really do with the US on beginner level without a lot of serious luck (more on that later). Turn 1 accidental nuclear war ignited by fighting with the US about their funding insurgents in Angola.

Game #2
Took the US side and ignited an accidental nuclear war when arguing with the Soviet Union over their sending troops in on the side of rebels in a Honduras guerilla war.

Game #3
Took US again and finally managed to play through. My one goal in this game was to lose by less than 100 points. See, at the beginner level, the USSR will win 99 times out of 100 because of the Iran Exploit. The Iran Exploit is when, as the US, you build up a big lead, only to watch it all go to hell when the USSR engineers an Iranian revolution and gets over 600 geopolitical prestige points.

The only way to combat this and give yourself a shot at a close loss, or on very rare occasions, a narrow victory, is to start funding and sending troops in to support the insurgency from Turn 1 and keep raising the money and soldiers as you're able to. Soviets will still get the 600+ boost, but you can get 200+ yourself, even close to 300, by actively partaking in supporting the insurgency. It still puts you at a 300-400+ point disadvantage, but you can get it to fire earlier and give yourself an opportunity for the right prestigious fights to pick.



Damn fine game in my opinion. Most of the prestige makeup came from starting crises over the Soviets' interfering with Central and South American countries that were in the United States' sphere of influence.

I also, I'm rather proud to say, pressured the Soviet Union into backing down as I bankrolled and soldiered the insurgency in Lebanon until the poor country, which had a Revolution at game start, have a second revolution midway through the game that netted me 4 points. A minor drop in the bucket to be sure, but by the end of the game, Lebanon had gone from a Neither sphere of influence country to Moderately USA.

Just a small thing to love in this game, even at the most basic level of play. I'll hit Intermediate level next time.

Oh, I also found where my old manual for the game was too. In my opinion, it's one of the best-written game manuals of all time, so I'm thrilled to still have it. I may quote some gems from it as I go along, or to explain concepts if people are confused by them.

I think this will mostly be a fun trip down nostalgia lane for me and whoever else happens to read.

[Autumn]

Nice, I used to love this game.

[DaddyTorgo]

Downloaded the other day, been messing around myself.

[Izulde]

Autumn: I still do, obviously.

DaddyTorgo: It was a great feeling when I finally got it and Gold of the Americas to work.

[Izulde]

Game #4
Moved on up to Intermediate. Long and short of it is that while on Beginner level, you can only cause or prevent revolutions, on Intermediate level, you can also cause and prevent coup d'etats. I started off with the USSR this time since I played the US the last two games.

Put myself in a huge Turn 1 hole by starting an incident over the US's sending troops to China. The US went all the way up to DefCon 2, leaving me to decide whether to end the world over some advisory troops. I chose not to, but because China is of Utmost importance to both the US and the USSR, it put me in a huge hole to back down. USA +372, me -373. Ouch.

But fortunately, by playing some awfully risky gambles that managed not to start nuclear war, I was able to narrow the gap drastically after Turn 1, including fights over Kenya, which starts off as a Neither sphere nation, Cordial with the US, Cool with the USSR.

What happens after Turn 1 and those fights?



Boo yah! A 6 point swing is comparatively minor, but it still feels good.

Even better?



Notice the change in relationships. This isn't just Cordial/Cool, which are mild forms of close/distant relationships. This is the extreme on both sides - Enemy/Close. Also notice the change in sphere of influence, similar to what happened with Lebanon last Beginner game.

But my favorite? Turn 1, the first Kenya-related USA issue (I think it was my sending troops in), three of my advisors said "This is a very close judgement call" and one said "This is not worth fighting over", which generally means you're best just backing down. I said fuck it and went for it, obviously. Handed the US the Defcon 1 option and they backed down.

And now Kenya's my bitch.

Alas, it's also a rapidly weakening government. Our new Close friends eagerly accept the maximum number of troops (500,000), as stationing a ton of troops in a country can help stabilize things, cut North Korea's aid to $400 million so I can give the Kenyans $2 billion in military aid, and offer $4 billion in economic aid to Kenya, half our economic aid budget (Economic aid is the antidote to unstable gov'ts).

So why all this effort? I'll paraphrase the manual here since I don't have it in front of me. (paraphrase) Some countries are so stable that a coup d'etat has little effect. Sure, Great Britain may kick out Margaret Thatcher and move to the left, but superpower relationships will have little change. A coup in Zambia, on the other hand, is a drastic change. The previous leader could very well lose his head in such a coup. (/paraphrase).

There's another quote from the manual, which I'll also paraphrase here, where he points out that some countries are so powerful (such as China) that pouring resources to cause change there is a waste of effort, but the poorer and less stable nations are where you get the biggest bang for your buck. As manual says, $4 billion in economic aid to Britain is a drop in the bucket. $4 billion in economic aid to Mali would make the citizens ecstatic.

So, by Turn 4, things are looking great. I'm in the positive at 56, have the US down to 150, most points gained over disputes concerning Zimbabwe, who I'm supporting... when an accidental nuclear war gets ignited over my supporting a coup in Mauritania. And I was just about to play the Iran card and take the lead for good, too. Ugh.

But the way I play this game, you don't fuck around with the shit I do in my sphere of influence.

Oh well, I knew I was playing it awfully risky this game. Turns out it came to bite me in the hindquarters here.

[Izulde]

Game #5
Intermediate as USA. The Iran swing happens in Turn 3, putting me at 381, the USSR at 540. We'd been kicking their tails up to that point, picking and choosing our battles carefully. In other words, mostly letting the Soviets have a free hand in Africa while defending Central and South America.

Oh and making Lebanon my bitch, just because I want to.

...Then I don't listen to my advisors who tell me not to fight over Argentina getting military advisors, even though the Soviets pulled the same stunt on Turn 1 and I was able to smack them down.

End result? Accidental nuclear war. I would've pushed the button anyway if they hadn't backed down, because the prestige loss would have been hell to overcome.

[Izulde]

Game 6
Intermediate as USSR. I *will* get a win and be able to move up, damn it.

First couple turns are about forcing the US out of our sphere of influence, but there's no really cool storylines developing. Iran Exploit nets us 487 points to US's 73 in Turn 3.

Actually there is a cool story. Congo starts off as a country that is Neutral relationship to both, Left government, and maybe only slightly in USSR sphere, or perhaps completely neutral.

Anyway, I hate having a country that should be aligned with me so blah, so I help engineer a revolution, which installs a Right Gov't that is Cordial to the US. Boo. But the cool part? Congo by this time is Very Strongly in our sphere of influence, so I work on executing another revolution.

We also snare Kenya, but then the US forces us to DefCon 1 over their troops fighting for the rebels again. Damn it. It's only a 60 point swing, thankfully, so we're able to absorb the loss and still be monstrously ahead.

Congo flips back to us: -1 to US and 2 to USSR, and they're absolutely in our thrall now.

There's a coup in Burma, which completely flips the script there. The US is furious and pours in 100,000 troops to force the Kashin tribe out while we drop off $2 billion in aid to Burma.

Only Washington takes issue with our Burmese cash injection, so we have to back down. Oh, another thing. For some reason, Bush keeps wanting to give Nigeria troops and I have to keep smacking him down.

We can't stop Kenya or Burma from reverting back to the US but that's fine. At this point, we're up almost 700 points and it's 1994. We can pretty much do nothing and still win.

Just for the fun of it, we engineer a revolution in Central Africa, giving us two neighboring countries in Africa (Congo, CA) that are our best friends.

What do you know? The US is going to Defcon 1 over Nigeria. Sheesh! 37 point hit.

Coups in Peru and Chile and revolutions in Lebanon and Zaire create a weird everybody loves everyone scenario in those four countries. There's also coups in Indonesia and Tanzania that have the country of many islands cordial with us and the latter cordial with the US.

At this point, I'm just playing it safe and closing it out.

We win 1050-200, thanks mostly to Nigeria despite the one pitfall at the end. In fact, we won so soundly, we didn't even need the Iran Exploit to win, although it helped.