Twilight Struggle – Solitaire Variant

In this variant, you play both the Soviets and the U.S. and try to maximize play for both nations. The purpose of the variant is to avoid the difficulty of playing two hands simultaneously and attempting to ignore one’s knowledge of what the other hand holds when playing cards.

Set-Up

The set-up of this variant is the same as the regular game.

Play

All rules of the regular game apply, except:

1. There are no hands in this game. Cards are drawn off the top of the deck one at a time and played immediately.

2. All Soviet Cards are played by the Soviets. All US Cards are played by the US. Whenever a Soviet or US a card is drawn, the player has the option to play it as an Event or as Ops.

3. All split Red/White star cards are wild cards. They are played by the nation that is behind on the VP track. If the VP track is at 0, the US plays the card in the Early War, and the Soviets play the card in the Mid or Late War. Split cards may be played as events or Ops.

4. Please note that many Event cards have diminished value as Events in this variant. Any Event that affects turn order or hand management, for example, will have no value as Event cards. All such cards should be played as Ops card.

5. When unique event cards (those that are removed if used as events) are played as events, they are removed from the game. If played as Ops, unique event cards are recycled into the next deck, unless the game is in the Late War phase, in which case they are removed from the game.

6. Non-unique event cards (those that are not removed if used as events) are always recycled into the next deck, unless the game is in the Late War phase, in which case they are removed from the game.

7. Scoring Cards are implemented immediately upon drawing them. In the Early and Mid War phases, after implementing scoring cards, place them on the bottom of the deck currently in play. At the end of the Early and Mid War phases, the regions are scored a second time and then the scoring cards are shuffled into the next deck. As a result, the Early War Scoring cards are scored 5 times during the game (during the Early and Mid War and at the conclusion of the Early, Mid and Late War), and the Mid War Scoring cards are scored 3 times during the game (during the Mid War and at the conclusion of the Mid and Late War).

8. Military Operations Scoring. Whenever either nation achieves a +3 military operations advantage over the other nation, the nation

with the advantage immediately scores 1 VP. The military operations levels for both nations are then reduced to 0. If both nations achieve a military operations level of 3 or higher at the same time, their levels are reduced to 0.

9. Defcon Status. The game ends and the player loses if the Defcon status ever reaches 1. The nation that is ahead on the VP track can improve the Defcon level by choosing not to play a card as either an event or Ops. Instead, the player may use the card to improve the Defcon level by the Ops value of the card.

10. The Space Race Track is not used in this variant.11. Victory Conditions. The player wins if he can push either

nation to an automatic victory, while playing both sides as effectively as possible. If the game deck is exhausted and neither player has won an automatic victory, the player wins if the combined best scores of the USSR (treat the score as a positive number) and the USA are 30 or more VPs. Keep track of the highest VP level both nations achieve during the game.

Game Flow

My hope is that these rules will make a Soviet automatic victory possible, but difficult in the Early War, while making a US automatic victory possible but difficult in the Late War.