Twilight Struggle Draft Essay

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Simulation and Narrative Shaped Memory: Deconstructing Twilight Struggle

Jeremy S. Antley

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“When the real is no longer what it used to be, nostalgia assumes its full meaning. There is a proliferation of myths of origin and signs of reality; of a second-hand truth, objectivity and authenticity. There is an escalation of the true, of the lived experience; a resurrection of the figurative where the object and substance have disappeared.”

-J. Baudrillard “Simulacra and Simulations1”

“Now the trumpet summons us again, not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are- but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle.” -John F. Kennedy

Simulation and Narrative Shaped Memory: Deconstructing Twilight Struggle

The year is 1972- despite the military quagmire currently occupying the bulk of

US resources, President Nixon successfully oversees the signing of the Camp David

Peace Accords bringing peace to a frequent war-torn Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev, still stinging from the loss of Poland to US influence

the previous year, announces the ‘Brezhnev Doctrine’ and proceeds to secure the support

of several key African nations through economic and military aid, a process made all the

easier by elimination of the US backed South African government through a Soviet led

coup de grace. The installation of a pro-Soviet presence in South Africa certainly brought

the two superpowers closer to the brink of war, enough so that the US abandoned plans to

engage in ‘realignment’ operations in the Middle East. The shift of the energy rich region

to Soviet influence began years ago with the loss of US influence in both Iran and Egypt,

precipitated in large part by massive Soviet investment in both nations, and now Nixon

must consider where to spend American resources. The region of Asia is still in play,

DRAFT COPY- DO NOT CITE WITHOUT ASKING [email protected]

2

1 J. Baudrillard, “Simulacra and Simulations” in Selected Writings, ed. M. Posner. (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1988) 166-184



with Thailand and Pakistan not firmly in the hands of either power. Central America is

also largely open, and certainly smaller than Asia, yet the regions worth to Nixon in the

cold-war calculus of superpower hegemony weighs significantly less than its eastern

counterpart. Many options are available to the president, and while victory might not be

secured in the next year, the struggle, nonetheless, continues.

The scenario described above did not come from the mind of a fiction-writing

counter-factual historian, but instead from a round of play in the Cold War boardgame,

Twilight Struggle2. Situated in the ‘historical simulator’ category of boardgames,

Twilight Struggle pits two players, representing either the United States or the Soviet

Union, in a global-historical contest for world influence and domination. Over the course

of ten turns, spanning the years between 1945 and 1989, both players manage the play of

dealt cards, representing actual historical events of the Cold War, using the either the

cards event text or ‘operations value’ to engage in coups, realignment attempts, or

seeding of influence among the nations on the game board. The game designers sought

to “simulate the 45 year dance of intrigue, prestige, and occasional flares of warfare

between the USSR and the USA”, and their game mechanics aim to recreate the ‘tension’

assumed inherent in the Cold War period. Yet Twilight Struggle is more than just a

mildly-complex historically themed simulation- it is a dense cultural artifact, a rich text

that integrates both media presentation techniques, exemplified in aesthetic board

presentation and card layout, as well as ingrained cultural narratives, like the ‘Game

Theory’ narrative developed in the 50’s, exemplified in the boardgames rules structure


3

2 For this essay the deluxe version of Twilight Struggle, published in 2009 by GMT games, will be used for analysis.



and play-mechanic design3. Thus, by unpacking the associations and assumptions

inherent within Twilight Struggle, one can decode the cultural impact of the Cold War and

the prevalent narratives that survive in the public consciousness.

Some may question the validity of such analysis, the ability to draw out complex

narratives and cultural understandings of a historical period from a boardgame created in

2006. However, as I will examine in detail below, Twilight Struggle represents a rich-text

artifact capable of encoding several layers of the milieu from which it sprang. It contains

examples of period art and media images, evidenced in box and material design. Rules

comprise a sort of formalized literature, explaining the metaphysics and boundaries of the

simulated world the game creates. Often, these rules and game mechanics become

entwined with the cultural narratives running through a designer’s sense of identity

manifested in game play functions overt and covert. Thus while Twilight Struggle openly

embraces the concept of ‘domino theory’ in its board design and rules governing the

spreading of influence4, it more carefully disguises the mad logic behind using game

theory concepts to ‘guess’ at an opponents intentions and mitigate the chances for

thermonuclear war. Twilight Struggle may be of recent origin yet its design as a limited

historical simulator seeking to emulate the tension of the cold war allows for the

discerning scholar to pull out a shared public-sphere period analysis using material

culture methodology. Essentially, I want to use Twilight Struggle as a means to evaluate


4

3 By this term, I mean the elements of design within the rules and game board that combine to create certain effects. For example, Tic-Tac-Toe uses a 3x3 grid in which the players slowly reduce the available area for marking until one player connects three in a row. This process, as a whole, is the play-mechanic design.

4 Rules of Twilight Struggle, 23



present day public discourse concerning the interpretation and understanding of the cold

war.

To begin, I will look at the theoretical basis for my essay, demonstrating how

previous studies in both literary history and material cultural analysis established

connections to questions presented above. Having stated the ground from which my

arguments will follow, I will then engage in material analysis of the games physical

elements; the playing board, pieces, event cards, as well as the rules themselves. Finally,

I will look at the implications of my study noting the persistent cultural narratives

espoused by the game design and end with a look at how the international public adapted

game materials, such as creating new game boards and translating card texts, with an eye

towards potential repossession and re-association of symbols such transformations

represent.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Material culture analysis, firmly established by the works of Prown5 and other

scholars, provided several concepts and terms useful for interpreting a rich-text artifact

such as Twilight Struggle. Yet, while these methods do exist their deployment in the

analysis of boardgames is woefully underdeveloped. To be sure, there is a developing

and fast-becoming extensive attempt to use cultural analysis techniques within the realm

of video games6, however, these inquiries tread lightly in material analysis due, mainly, to


5

5 Jules David Prown, “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method,” Winterthur Portfolio 17:1 (1982) 1-19 and Laurel Thatcher Urich, The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.

6 See, for example, the Journal of Game Studies (gamestudies.org) and Postmodern Culture (pmc.iath.virginia.edu)



the lack of physical material inherent in the video game form. Despite this limitation,

methods used in the digital medium find many satisfying correlations for analogue

counterparts. One article that greatly influenced the thought behind this essay is Andy

Opel and Jason Smith’s work on Zootycoon, a true gem for its ability to look at both

physical components and digital game play 7. Their thesis, that Zootycoon essentially uses

the guise and theme of nature narratives to cover a play-mechanic design that reworks

this narrative into a capitalist framework, has direct connection to a similar

transformative process encountered within Twilight Struggle. Players engage in

historical, hegemonic battle across the globe that, when artificially terminated after ten

turns, leaves one with the impression that both powers successfully operated and

maintained sophisticated influence networks in an effort to both ‘win’ the cold war and

prevent global thermonuclear war.

Another theoretical perspective sampled in this essay comes from literary genre of

Cold War culture studies. Steven Belletto’s work on the ‘game theory’ narrative8

developed in the 1950’s specifically informs one of the central propositions of this

analysis, namely that the ideas and assumptions inherent within the ‘game theory’

narrative come to full force in the play-mechanic design of Twilight Struggle. Using

literary and film works from the 50’s and 60’s, Belletto follows in development, first, the

public introduction to ‘game theory’ and acceptance as a means to manage the horrors of

thermonuclear war, and second, the growing sense of unease about the doctrines


6

7 Andy Opel and Jason Smith, “Zootycoon: Capitalism, Nature and the Pursuit of Happiness,” Ethics and Environment 9:2 (2004) 103-120

8 Steven Belletto, “The Game Theory Narrative and the Myth of the National Security State,” American Quarterly 61:2 (2009) 333-357



implications with regards to ‘irrational rationality’9. According to Belletto, the ‘game

theory’ narrative intertwined the concepts of freedom and control into a paradoxical

calculus by which larger control of chance events supposedly promoted freedom instead

of restricting its movement. The rationality of analysis and the action it promotes masks

the true cost of that action, all in the name of ‘winning’ the cold war10. Viewed in this

light, ‘game theory’ reduced the nations comprising the ‘third world’ into pieces on a

board under the manipulation and machination of the two superpowers. As will be

described below, Twilight Struggle mimics several aspects of Belletto’s narrative analysis

not only in its board design but also play-mechanic design. Clearly, the ‘game theory’

narrative possesses continued influence, even among popular post cold-war

reconstructions of the period.

In order to bring relevance to my analysis of Twilight Struggle, to connect it to the

larger understanding of the United States involvement in the Cold War, I’ve been inspired

by the work of Megan Norcia and her interpretation of 18th and 19th century British

puzzles and dissected maps made for children11. Norcia notes that scholars have

traditionally overlooked puzzles as culture ‘rich texts’ capable of deep analysis. These

‘toys’ place the puzzler or player in a powerful position with regards to the world

presented in the game or puzzle, requiring the participant to assemble the pieces into a


7

9 This is the process by which more absurd scenarios become viable in the face of competition for power in a nuclear world. For example, under ‘game theory’, a first strike scenario could become plausible so long as the attacker possessed sufficient means to endure the counter-strike; a plot line similar to that found in Dr. Strangelove. See Belletto, 347

10 Belletto, 351-353

11 Megan A. Norcia, “Puzzling Empire: Early Puzzles and Dissected Maps as Imperial Heuristics,” Children’s Literature 37 (2009) 1-32



comprehensible whole. Through the active process of playing, British children became

familiar with not only distant geography but also their perceived future role in

administration and expansion of the imperial domains. In this way, puzzles and dissected

maps acted as transmitters of social and political mores, shaping the creation of identity

through imagination of empire12. As will be discussed below, Twilight Struggle does

much the same, but on a deeper level, for American interpretation of its role in the Cold

War. The difference is that Twilight Struggle is a historical simulator, a design choice

with impact discussed in the final portion of this essay.

The three works described above provide the most direct connection, in terms of

subject matter and themes discussed, with my analytic interest in Twilight Struggle, yet,

in a very large part, another over-arching theme of this work is identity13. As a cultural

artifact Twilight Struggle speaks powerfully to the shared experiences Americans

encountered during the Cold War. Historical events and cultural markers, such as the

Cuban Missle Crisis and ‘Flower Power’, comprise one major material component of the

game, the event cards. Taken alone, these cards equate to a modern day keyword

summary of the period, far less potent than a developed novel or film reviewing the same

material. However, while it would be perfectly acceptable to analyze Twilight Struggle as

a static item, its true complexity only becomes apparent when viewed as a kinetic artifact.


8

12 Ibid, 2-3, 9-13

13 Some works that provided background in Cold War Cultural Studies include, but not limited to, Leerom Medovoi, Rebels: Youth and Cold War Origins of Identity. (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2005.), John Fousek, To Lead the Free World: American Nationalism and the Cultural Roots of the Cold War. (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 2000) and Jeremy Suri, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Detante. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2003)



Unlike a novel or film, which is read/viewed and interpreted with more or less zero

change in structure, Twilight Struggle is a limited historical simulator that interprets the

Cold War through the construction of a narrative revealed during play. One must engage

with both the material and the play-mechanic design to fully experience Twilight Struggle

as a cultural artifact. This double nature of boardgames, the ability to present a static and

kinetic self, seen particularly in historical simulators, allows for analysis able to draw

upon several fields of culture studies. It is not enough to simply look at the material

alone, or the rules document alone, one must play and allow the simulator full mobility in

order to achieve full effect of the design. The convergence of so many complex layers

into one artifact further reinforces the understanding of identity to be a multi-faceted

composition and process, far from monolithic and permeable to different influences.

Of course, theory is one thing and evidence is another. Therefore, the next section

of my analysis shifts towards the physical components of Twilight Struggle. Composition

of game materials, such as the board and event cards, yields valuable evidence indicating

the overt characteristics of the game design; here players can easily see how ‘domino

theory’ shaped board design or perhaps wonder why certain historical occurrences failed

to make the cut for representation on event cards. Establishing the nature of the game in

its static state, that is, before the simulator begins operation, is vital to fully

understanding implications of the constructive narrative process engendered by actual

play.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••

The Box


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Looking at the cover of the Twilight Struggle box14 , one is encountered by the

image of twin, opposing and identical concrete walls, lined with barbwire and equipped

with one surveillance camera trained upon a black, featureless figure-silhouette garbed in

what appears to be a trench-coat and standing upon a checkered walkway. The sky in the

horizon is cloudy, further suggesting the dour, dark nature of the content matter within.

The figure-silhouette, shadow cast behind, faces what appears to be the Brandenburg

Gate, casting the location of the box-cover scene on the dividing line between East and

West Berlin, for many Americans the literal and figurative divide between the ‘free’

world and the communist world, the forces of the USA and USSR. The name Twilight

Struggle appears at the top of this scene, underneath a banner region that contains two

sets of missiles facing each other, divided into rectangles of blue and red. Immediately

one is confronted with themes of tension and militarism, with the backdrop of such

themes firmly established in the period of the Cold War.

On the bottom of the box, the top half is dominated by a recreation of the actual

game board contained within. Below this is a quote from Kennedy, stated at the top of

this paper, which supposedly provided the inspiration for the game title. The bottom left

contains a partial list of the event cards with examples of three cards displayed; Korean

War, Cuban Missile Crisis and ‘Pershing II Deployed’, each corresponding to one of

three eras the game divides the Cold War period into, those being the Early War, Middle

War and Late War respectively. Rankings on the bottom right of the box indicate Twilight

Struggle received a four out of ten for complexity and one out of ten in solitaire


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14 Again, the Deluxe version of Twilight Struggle, 2009, provides the material under review.



suitability. This is interesting, as it indicates that the game is of mild to low complexity

compared to other games the publisher, GMT Games, produces and is completely

unsuitable as a one-player game. This is yet another indicator that Twilight Struggle uses

‘game theory’ narrative as one of its central, compositional tenants, as the simulator

cannot be operated alone- it demands a second player. In terms of time progression, the

game scale places one turn of game play to be equated to 3 to 5 years of actual Cold War

history.

Finishing out the complement of bottom box design, their exists a description of

Twilight Struggle and its game play. Establishing itself as a Cold War historical

simulation, the description explains that, “this war will not be primarily be waged

soldiers and tanks- but instead by spies and politicians, scientists and intellectuals, artists

and spies”. Lest one think this simulator might allow for varied outcomes beyond that

experienced by participants in the actual Cold War, the text goes on to state that the game,

“begins amidst the ruins of Europe as the two new superpowers scramble over the

wreckage of WWII, and ends in 1989, when only the United States remained standing.”

Players “move units and exert influence” in an attempt to hegimonically dominate their

opponent, while “subsytems capture the prestige laden Space Race as well as nuclear

tensions”. Essentially, players are promised a simulation that allows for Cold War

reconstructive narratives to develop, utilizing not only the popular historical moments of

the actual Cold War period but also popular sub-narratives, such as global thermonuclear

war fears and the space race, as a means to more fully flesh out the themed nature of the

simulation. Implications of this arrangement will be discussed in more depth below.


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Once the box top is removed, a timeline covering major events of the Cold War

line the sides of the box bottom. The majority of events mentioned, however, depict acts

of Soviet aggression with little mention (quite literally- the text box is smaller than

neighboring Soviet events) of Johnson’s escalation of the Vietnam War. This is the only

US themed event that depicts some level of aggressive action on par with the several

other mentioned Soviet actions. Other US events are presented in a much better light,

examples being the normalization of relations between the US and China and the signing

of the Paris Peace Accords to end the Vietnam War. It is also worth noting that the events

covered in the timeline fall, largely, in the category of diplomatic and military history;

there is little to no mention of major social events in the Cold War period, such as détente

or the civil rights movement. Glasnost makes an appearance, one of the few Soviet

events depicted of a neutral to good light, yet phenomena such as the ‘Thaw’ or even

‘Prague Spring’ fail to make the cut. Decisions made on selection of events for the

timeline suggest similar logic ruled in the establishment of ‘event cards’ used in actual

play.

The Rules While a complete break down of the rules would be unnecessary and outside the

scope of this essay, key elements of the play-mechanic design need to be examined.15 As

a cultural artifact, the rulebook is a strictly formalized text that acts a metaphysical

primer for the ‘historical simulator’. It defines not only the rules but also the terms used


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15 All citations for rules derived from the Twilight Struggle rulebook. A copy of the rules are available at the publishers website www.gmtgames.com.



and their impact upon game play. For our examination, the mechanics of seeding

influence, realignments, coup attempts and scoring victory points are of primary concern.

The first three operations are the primary means by which the two players vie for

influence among the scoring regions of the board, while the last measures the sum total of

the previous actions in determining a winner. It is the interworking of these play-

mechanic designs that reinforce the establishment and operation of the ‘game theory’

narrative.

Given that elements of the game board design, discussed below, highlight the

intentional choice of using the ‘Domino Effect’ as a primary design mechanism in the

operation of Twilight Struggle, the actual implementation of this choice comes to the fore

with the rules governing the seeding of influence. Players use operations points, gained

from the play of event cards, to seed influence points among the nations on the game

board. Placement is restricted to nations that are connected to other nations that already

possess a superpowers influence. Thus, the USSR cannot place influence in India

without first having ‘seeded’ Iran which is connected to India, a nation the USSR

possesses influence in at the start of the game. The inability to place influence freely on

the board clearly ties the influence system to the tenets of the ‘Domino Effect’. Nations

succumb, one by one, to the creeping influence exerted by both superpowers, forming, by

the end of the game, a potent looking network of hegimonical power.

Beyond this effect, the restriction upon seeding influence also demonstrates the

role of ‘game theory’ in the narrative effect of playing the game. Players are confronted,

play by play, turn by turn, with the slow progress on all fronts of their opponents rational


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decisions, manifested in actual form by the placement of influence tokens on the game

board. This in turn, necessitates the rational evaluation of potential strategies and moves

that a player must make in order to respond to the actions of an opponent. It is the threat

of influence on the board that necessitates the use of the next two game mechanics, the

use of realignments and coup attempts.

Realignment is an attempt to use operations points for the purpose of reducing an

opponents influence within target nations. Players roll dice, with the higher roller able to

remove the difference between the rolls from a players influence on the game board.

Bonuses to the roll are granted for possessing more influence in a target nation than an

opponent, having adjacent controlled countries and being next to a superpowers

homeland. This action cannot add influence to a target nation, so this operation, in effect,

represents the use of ‘soft power’ to persuade a nation to reduce their dependence upon a

rival superpower. Of course, players who chose realignment operations may find

themselves on the losing end of a series of dice rolls, increasing their opponent’s

influence. This ‘chance’ effect, with its use of calculated odds modifiable by established

factors, again reinforces the ‘game theory’ narrative, yet it also is one of a few mechanics

that actually indicate agency on the part of the nations involved. ‘Soft Power’ pressure

may have unintended consequences, evidenced in the loss of a dice roll, representing

exacerbation of power elements within the target nation and entrenchment of an enemy

one hoped to dislodge. Should a player find the odds to dicey for realignment, the other

option available is the coup de grace.


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According to the rules, a coup attempt “represents operations short of full-scale

war to change the composition of a target country’s government.”16 It is a means to not

only accumulate military operations points17, needed to satisfy the require military

operations for that turn, but also degrade the Defcon level if the coup is conducted in a

‘battleground nation’. A country must possess an opponent’s influence in order to be

valid as a target for a coup. Unlike realignment operations the opponent cannot roll a

dice in defense, instead, the stability number of the nation involved is doubled and the

attempting player rolls a dice, adding that number to the operations value of the event

card used to conduct the coup. Essentially, this means that nations with a low stability

number, like many of the nations in Africa and Central/South America, are especially

susceptible to coup attempts and require significant investment of a superpowers’

influence in order to guarantee secure control. As discussed in the final section, this

mechanic contains several implications on the perception of other nations involved in the

Cold War.

The ultimate objective of seeding influence, attempting realignments and

conducting coups is to set up favorable conditions for the play of scoring event cards.

When a scoring event card is played, it acts as a ‘snapshot’ of the region in question,

evaluating the hegemonic control of nations by the two superpowers. The three levels of

power- presence, control and domination- correspond to a point value awarded. This

definition of power is determined by the influential control of both battleground and non-


15

16 Rules of the Game. 6.3.1

17 See final paragraph in the section describing the game board.



battleground nations within that region, with preference given to control of battleground

nations. The goal is to accumulate twenty victory points, or possess ‘domination’ of

Europe when that regions scoring card is played. As the game, and thus the Cold War,

progresses, new regions come into play, like Africa and Central/South America, growing

beyond the initial triad of Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Players never know when a

scoring card may be played, necessitating a need to read carefully into an opponents

tactics with regards to influence on the game board. Once again, the play-mechanic

design of scoring, and ultimately winning, the game follows the tropes of ‘game theory’

narrative, providing a coherent understanding to interpreting an opponent’s seemingly

random action.

The Board

The first impression is the folded up thickness of the game board, a necessity

considering the large footprint this game requires.18 Once deployed, the board reveals a

standard Mercator projection of the globe, minus the polar caps. In terms of geography,

the continents are divided into smaller sub-units with colors to demonstrate regional

separation. For example, Turkey is shaded darker purple than its lighter purple neighbor,

Bulgaria, as the former is located in the geo-political orbit of Western Europe while the

latter lies within Eastern Europe. All told there are eight regions defined on the board. In

contrast to the defined regions, both the USA and the USSR are represented as their own

entities, the background of US territory covered in the Stars and Stripes while the USSR


16

18 A copy of the actual game board can be viewed at the publishers website: http://www.gmtgames.com/nnts/TSMap11.jpg accessed 12 June 2010.



http://www.gmtgames.com/nnts/TSMap11.jpg




is clad in its stark red flag with one white star. Each region also has a ‘point-value’

worth, awarding varying amounts of victory points for presence, control and domination

of the nations within when that regions scoring card is played. Based on these values,

Europe is worth the most, followed by the Middle East and Asia, with Africa and Central/

Southern America rounding out the bottom. One region, SE Asia, exists as a special sub-

region for scoring yet this occurs only once in the game and is meant to be representative

of the importance that region held to the two superpowers in the 60’s and 70’s.

Each region is comprised of a varied number of nations; Africa totals eighteen

nations while Eastern Europe holds only nine. Each nation is represented on the board

with the same rectangle shape, noting the country’s name and flag in the ‘header’ while

splitting the remaining space below in two. The effect is literally the visual creation of a

domino, seemingly waiting for a push from either player. In this manner, each nation

appears exactly the same in relation to each other- except for the US and USSR, whose

homelands appear as a solid monolith of their respective flag colors. While all nations on

the game board are represented in the same shape (in contrast to the geo-political map in

the background), three characteristics provide difference. One such difference is a

nation’s assigned stability number. Since this number is related, in game terms, to the

susceptibility of a nation to coup attempts launched by the two players, this number

quickly identifies the perceived strength game designers believed the nations to possess.

For example, the UK is the only nation on the board to receive a ‘5’ stability making it

impervious to coup attempts, whereas several nations in Africa received a rating of ‘1’.

(South Africa, with a value of ‘3’, is the most stable on the continent) Another difference


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is the ‘connection’ lines between one nation and its neighbors. Close proximity does not

equate to connection, as demonstrated by lack of line between Israel and Iraq. In this

manner, the design of the game board takes into account some measure of historical

reality, as nations that share a connection do so because of their interconnected

relationships developed before the Cold War. The last difference comes in the

designation of a nation to be a ‘battleground’ country. Controls of these nations are the

defining measure of a superpowers influence in a region and thus, play a big role in the

scoring of those regions. Due to their ‘lynchpin’ status vis a vis other nations in the

region, coup attempts in ‘battleground’ countries lower the Defcon level, reducing the

potential for coups and realignment operations in other regions as well as bringing the

possibility for nuclear war, and consequently the end of the game, ever closer.

The Defcon level is one example of the other defining aspects of the game board-

the element of sub-systems. Besides the global map and rectangle nations depicted, there

are varied tracks around the edges that measure the progress of sub-systems player

modify through their actions during play. The top left of the board contains the track for

measuring the action round, or, more precisely, the number of cards a player has left to

play from their hand. Situated on the opposite side is the turn track, separating the ten

turns of a complete game into three periods, early, middle and late war, with a picture

depicting either an American president or Soviet premier for each turn. Just below that

lies the ‘Space Race’ track with eight designations for the various achievements of space

flight. Bonuses mark every step, with alternating victory point and game ‘power’

bonuses available to the first (and sometimes, second) player to reach them. For


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example, the first player to reach the ‘Earth Satellite’ space receives two victory points,

while the subsequent step, ‘Animal in Space’, allows the player to use two cards from

their hand for opportunities to advance on the Space Race track. The Defcon level and

‘Required Military Operations’ tracks, located on the bottom left-third of the board, sit

opposite of the larger rectangle box situated on the right side, designated for marking

victory points accumulated by the two players during the course of play.

The Defcon level, beginning at five and descending to one, or, thermonuclear war,

is the primary mechanism by which the two players feel ‘tension’ in their decision

making process. It is reduced by only two means; either a player engages in a coup

attempt in a ‘battleground’ nation or they play an event card that modifies the current

level up or down. Reduction of the Defcon level in turn places certain regions off limits

to future coup and realignment attempts. For example, when the level is at four neither

player may realign or coup any nation in Europe. At three, Asia is off limits with the

Middle East becoming prohibited at level two. While this leaves Africa, Central and

South America as the only regions not affected by Defcon status, this essentially means

that both players may constantly engage in coups and realignments in these areas,

including ‘battleground’ nations that always threaten the Defcon level. While the Defcon

improves by one at the start of every new turn, players must still balance their needs to

tactically take ‘battleground’ nations via coups in potential scoring areas versus the

reduced opportunity to engage in further attempts in other areas due to the limitations a

reduced Defcon level enforces.


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Closely tied to the workings of Defcon is the final sub-system mechanic, the

Required Military Operations track. Players are required to perform a certain number of

‘military ops’ every turn, determined wholly by the current Defcon level. Thus, if the

Defcon level was at five then the two players must both execute combined military ops

equal to five points. Players earn military points by playing war event cards or engaging

in coup attempts. Failure to engage in the required number of military ops yields one

victory point to the opponent for every point unfulfilled. Given that there are only a set

number of war event cards, players are thus encouraged to use the coup option to accrue

the necessary points. Combined with the other tracks on the board, the Required Military

Operations track rounds out a complex game surface that gives both players a means of

instantly evaluating the several pressure points of the ‘historical simulator’, an aid in the

cold rationality of evaluating needs versus costs. The board represents the known, the

result of calculated moves. Contrast this to event cards, held in hand and drawn from a

facedown deck, that represent the unknown, unpredictable nature of the Cold War itself.

The Event Cards

Perhaps no other element establishes the feel of the Cold War in Twilight Struggle

more than the event cards. Totaling 108 in number, the cards cover the historical

spectrum of, mostly, popular events occurring between 1945-1989. Divided into three

periods, the early, middle and late war, the event cards are the engine of seeding influence

and promoting conflict on the game board. Beyond period separation, event cards are

also marked by their affiliation to either the USA or USSR, with some cards marked as

applicable to both. For example, the card ‘Warsaw Pact Formed’ is a Soviet themed


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event while ‘Truman Doctrine’ is for the USA. The card ‘Salt Negotiations’ or ‘Olympic

Games’ are examples of events affiliated with both superpowers. All event cards are also

assigned an ‘operations’ point value. Players may opt to play the card as an event, in

which case the text of the card is carried out, or they may use the event cards operation

value to engage in seeding influence, space race advancement, or realignment/coup

attempts. The only restriction occurs when a USA player plays a USSR event and vice

versa; in this case, the card is played as though the event happened with the player given

the ability to use the operations value for actions described above. This play-mechanic

design of affiliations and dual event/operations value use for each card further reinforces

a central tenant of the ‘game theory’ narrative, that a player can mitigate the threat of

nuclear war and ‘win’ the superpower conflict though careful management of chance.

Each card also contains a design aesthetic that enriches Twilight Struggle as a

rich-text cultural object. Various black and white photographs, film scenes, and even

cartoons create a media landscape that further enhances nostalgia and connects the title

and text of the cards effects to a larger cultural meaning. The ‘Iron Lady’ contains a

picture of Margaret Thatcher and removes all USSR influence from the UK, among other

things, while ‘Shuttle Diplomacy’ depicts Henry Kissinger and aide sitting in a jet cabin

and allows the USA player to disregard USSR control of one battleground country when

scoring the Middle East or Asia. These cards do not mention these people specifically, as

viewer is supposed to come equipped with the cultural knowledge to interpret the image

associated with the card. Even without background, the cards convey an easily read

meaning that enhances the ‘feel’ of the period simulator. Overall, the cards add


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complexity to the map created by their play; players not only reconstruct a physical

representation of the superpower struggle, they also create a unique historical narrative

that gives contextual shape to the act of playing. Thus engaged, the ‘historical simulator’

allows for the players to actively create and process a periods events with regards to the

impact those events held upon the larger themes of culture and identity of the nation in

question. For older players, Twilight Struggle allows for interpretation of a period lived,

while younger players can investigate the foundations of their contemporary society

through the acting out of the conflict that largely defined its current mission and scope.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••

The Larger Connections

As the above material description above implies, Twilight Struggle, as a static

artifact, contains many themes immediately available to multi-faceted inquiry.

Construction of identity, views of the ‘other’, etc… all of these approaches find grist for

their mill in the isolated presentation of the games materials. While these analyses may

yield valuable insight, the findings themselves would not escape the odors of stasis and

isolation so long as the board game is viewed as an inert object. Once one goes beyond

the static and views the material in the full operation of its mobility, only then can the full

effect of the play-mechanic design bring to light covert and overt game narratives, their

implications upon the meta-narrative the game constructs, and the greater implications

this process brings upon the players of the game.

This takes us back to the larger connections between Twilight Struggle and

American culture of the Cold War. Whereas previous generations used dissected maps as


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a means of acting out the process of colonization and imagination of empire19, Twilight

Struggle, as a historical simulator, allows the present generation to put together their own

map, using familiar historical events as the pieces. Yet the historical simulator differs

from the dissected map in one significant fact- the dissected map has only one

configuration of pieces while the historical simulator possesses, potentially, an endless

array of configurations. The chaos of potentiality engendered by the operation of the

historical simulator necessitates the creation of rules to govern the scope of action

permitted by the player. These arbitrary limitations on the potential of play would, in

themselves, render the simulator moot were it not for the role narratives play in the

construction of the play-mechanic design. In the case of Twilight Struggle, the ‘game

theory’ narrative provides not only justification for the reduction of play-mobility in the

name of taming chaotic potentiality, but also provides a cogent framework for the player

to frame and interpret their process of ‘assembling the map’. By restricting the mobility

of the simulation, narratives allow the remaining realm of possibility to be channeled into

a more comprehensible whole20.

There is a danger to this reduction, however, and that comes chiefly in the form of

giving false authority to a model that precludes the influence of notable factors outside

the interpretative purview, or gaze, of the narrative structured within the play-mechanic

design. Specifically, Twilight Struggle largely ignores social forces in its hegemony

calculus. Zero event cards reflect the internal crisis and debate the civil rights movement


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19 Norcia, 9

20 Opel and Smith noted similar effects with the construction of Zootycoon. 108-113



sparked in the United States, nor do they take into account the pressure brought upon the

USSR with the introduction of ‘goulash socialism’ programs in various Eastern European

nations. Not one card uses the word ‘Détente’, even though the implications of this

period in the relations between the two superpowers proved immense. Those cards that

do reference social events do so obliquely. ‘Flower Power’, a Soviet event card of the

Mid War, continually benefits the USSR by granting them two victory points for various

war events cards if the US player plays those cards. The title of the card, as well as the

picture used in the graphic art, clearly evoke associations with the counter-culture

movement of the 60’s and 70’s. Yet the card does not penalize the US player, per se,

from playing War events; indeed, so long as the US player maintains a comfortable lead

in victory points the effect of ‘Flower Power’ becomes negligible. This stands in stark

contrast with the actual workings of the counter-culture movement and ‘Flower Power’

upon the mindset of the nation to the Vietnam War and military aggression in general. In

this way the use of ‘game theory’ narrative in the play-mechanic design masks the true

nature of social forces and re-routes their effects into a model of hegemonic calculus

suited to the ideas of ‘risk management’ and predictive behavior.

This redirection, accomplished through the use of the ‘game theory’ narrative in

the ‘historical simulator’, operates through the establishment of various elements of the

play-mechanic design. Three links make this relation clear. Use of the ‘Defcon’ level

and degradation based upon the coup attempts tied to battleground nations is the first

link. Points value of the geographic sub-regions and the composition of the their

member-nations, with special focus on the stability number assigned, forms the second


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link. The final linkage of ‘game theory’ lies in the management of a player’s hand,

deciding when to play event cards and how to use ‘operations points’, as a means to

manage the vagrancies of chance. Note that none of these links presupposes the

independent operation and life of the nations both superpowers use as pawns in their

power grab. A nation has no opportunity to improve its government in Twilight Struggle,

thus potentially raising its stability number. The only ‘stability’ to be achieved is the

relative control assured by high levels of influence seeding by the two players. In fact,

while the game board changes in terms of hegemonic influence through the course of

play, the individual nations themselves undergo zero change. These fixed points,

represented by unchanging stability numbers, undercut the volatility and flux the plans of

superpowers bring upon the nations of the game board. In this way, Twilight Struggle

once again leaves the players with a false representation of the power politics involved in

the Cold War.

Interestingly, while the game itself contains elements and meanings encoded

within the rules and design structure, these material elements undergo change when

transmuted by outside parties. In much the same way that Polish citizens re-appropriated

symbols of Communist power for their own use21, players across the world have adapted

Twilight Struggle to suit their own needs. Event cards, using new images beyond those

introduced in the game, find translation in several languages; Chinese, Russian, Spanish,

etc… Since the event cards themselves are multi-layered artifacts, the re-creation of these


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21 Jan Kubrik, The Power of Symbols Against the Symbols of Power: The Rise of Solidarity and the fall of state socialism in Poland. (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania University Press, 1994)



materials represents an act of cultural discourse meant to bring the context of the game’s

cards into a culture beyond that of the original, American creator. This transformation of

materials goes beyond cards- even the game board itself has undergone change. Two

designs, found on the fan forums of the popular boardgamegeek.com site, echo different

needs the new designers needed from their game22. The first, a travel board, strips away

all the graphical pomp in favor of strict game playing efficiency. Separated into two

standard printer pages, the condensed size of the normally large game board allows the

game to be carried beyond the table and into the realm of travel. The second, a modified

full-size game board, brings a few new elements into the original design; most notably

the varied sub-systems have a more aesthetically pleasing look that sometimes further

plays into the Cold War setting of the game. For example, the Required Military

Operations track on the new board is represented by large bombs, and the combination of

Victory Point and Turn tracks into one resemble a complex clock, with the two tracks

forming ‘hands’ of the face that gyrate based upon the progression of the game.

These two modifications of the original materials are just one example of the

broad audience Twilight Struggle enjoys among international players. The appeal of the

‘historical simulator’ becomes readily apparent upon realization that the game itself

allows players to engage in their own reconstruction of the Cold War period. Using

historical events in tandem with play-mechanic designs that foster ‘tension’ and promote

conflict, however, ultimately compels the individual player to construct a narrative with


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22 To view these modifications visit: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/28818/revised-custom-ts-map and http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/16990/tstravelboard_v1-pdf for the modified game board and travel version, respectively. Accessed 12 June 2010.



http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/28818/revised-custom-ts-map




http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/16990/tstravelboard_v1-pdf




the core tenets of ‘game theory’ firmly embedded. When a player finishes a game, they

are left with the impression that the end of the Cold War left both powers, but America

mainly, in control and operation of sophisticated networks of power. Despite the

simplistic view, this idea carries significant weight for citizens today that look at current

conflicts American is engaged in today. In many ways, the thinking and beliefs inherent

in the Cold War, exemplified in the operation of Twilight Struggle, hold resonance today,

even among an increasing audience born after its forty-five year conclusion. With such

importance, especially in the construction of identity through play, the evaluation of

‘historical simulators’ holds fertile ground for retrospective interpretation of a shared

experience.


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Documents

Twilight Struggle Draft Essay