Twilight Struggle Reviews

Will never support Playdek again

Zent15

KS backer here. What Playdek did to their supporters is unbelievable. Total lack of respect whatsoever. The game itself: clunky, slow, poor AI, horrible interface.

Crashes constantly

Operaguy8

Crashes every round. Please fix

Paid for the Kickstarter and still had to buy the app

BioSludge

Shady company kickstarted the project and never received the app or a refund don't back their products

As one of the people who backed the development of this game only to have Playdek fail to deliver I am left with few options other than to use the opportunity to let others know to avoid this group if scammers whenever possible.

Works well, addictive, worth it

AbsolutelyNothtin

Thanks to Playdek for the updates. We appreciate it. No crashes on my Ipad 3.

Serious Bugs Need to Be Worked Out

AppDude44

I was so looking forward to this game. I was a KS backer and was thrilled when it finally came out. However, in the course of playing this game I've discovered serious bugs in the AI and the scoring system. 1. During one game I achieved the "Play two cards on Space Race" first but the AI prevented me from playing the second card in subsequent turns 2. The AI appears to know when you're holding scoring cards or when specific scoring cards are coming up in the next deal of cards for a turn. I've noticed that it tends to focus on specific regions as though it knows that I'm holding that regions scoring card or that it will receive that scoring card in the next deal. 3. In a couple of games I've played I played the Summit card. The AI has twice now dropped the DefCon down to 1, initiated a thermonuclear war as the Soviet player, and then claimed victory. It was ahead by victory points but the rules of the game clearly state that the player that initiates a thermonuclear war is the LOSING player (except in the case of the Olympics card). Along similar lines I played another game in which we were at DefCon 2, the AI - which was ahead in victory points at 10 towards the Soviet side - did a coup in Brazil which triggered DefCon 1 using the CIA Lone Gunman card and then declared that the Soviet side won. The rules for Twilight Struggle specify that at DefCon 1: "Gameover. The player responsible for the status going to 1 (the Phasing Player) loses the game." 4. The AI added influence into Mexico during the course of one game without a coup or realignment and without a neighboring country where it already had influence. It was then able to play the Central America Scoring card to win the game. 5. Another bug I've seen is the use of realignment. The AI conducts realignments according to the rules. However, when the human player tries to do the same the game limits the player to specific countries where they already have influence which is in complete contradiction to the rules. While I'm very excited to see the game finally come out these bugs are serious enough that they make playing the game completely unappealing. I love the board game but PlayDek (which has in the past done great implementations of other games I like as well such as Lords of Waterdeep and Agricola) has really missed the mark on this one. This one could have used some more time in beta testing before being released.

Unstable on iPad 2

aronbc

Well it looks wonderful, but can't run the app on my iPad 2. Tears from this Kickstarter backer.

Looks great .. tutorial keeps crashing

Slainte1861

TS is a wonderful boardgame. I haven't played it in a couple years so I'm looking at the Tutorial. The Tutorial is really well done, but you have to do it in one sitting -- there's no way to save the Tutorial in progress -- I've started it 4 times and haven't made it thru yet, twice because it crashed midstream and so I had to start it all over again. Very tedious. I hope to complete the Tutorial some day.

Impossible to learn and hopelessly rigged against beginning players

Radlman

I am having to delete this from my Ipad because I am about ready to break it with a hammer. I have played many board and strategy games and this one has a steep learning curve and suffers from one difficulty level so you'll find yourself losing over and over and over and over again and not learning anything which is the real frustration. No matter which side I play the other computer controlled side thrashes me. Can any starting player ever win this game against the AI? I have played at least 15 times now and no matter how well you play, the AI will do some last minute maneuver, gain much influence in some region ("dominate" a region because it only controls one "battleground" country in Asia like this could be Thailand in Asia and that somehow connotes domination which is not very intuitive or realistic) and then play a scoring card to get several points. The AI is clearly cheating in some fashion. A lower level AI might help one to learn some more about the game. As it stands now, after devoting 10 hours or so, I feel like I've just spun my wheels and gotten no where. By way of comparison, Victory Games "Cold War" was more enjoyable to play than this ever was. Maybe play against someone else? Or maybe have a tutorial or something that explains the game a little better.

Needs a major patch to fix a broken AI

Trihead2

Several fixes are required to make this a better experience. 1. The Lone Gunman action will cause Defcon 1 loss for US Player if Soviet AI uses it for a coup that decreases Defcon level to 1. 2. Soviet AI can coup any country in the world even with a lack of influence in an adjacent nation. 3. The Destalinization action if played by the US Player will result in a huge decrease in performance cause AI to be unable to perform the action before the iPad defaults to sleep mode. 4. Soviet AI can perform change alignment action in any country even with a Ack of influence in an adjacent nation. 5. AI seems to be able to see players scoring cards and aggressively places actions in that scoring zone.

Twilight Struggle Reviews – Page 6