The Coldest War of All Wars that are Cold

Susie and I bought a game called Cold War: CIA vs KGB. It's a two-player game, and we've heard a lot of good things, and we decided to try it. One player takes the role of, well, the CIA, and the other takes the KGB. Each turn, you send out a spy and try to influence a variety of countries and events using the people and organizations in those countries, trying to make them lean one way or another in the Cold War.

It's an interesting game because there is a strong element of bluffing and double-bluffing. The spy you send out could be sent to kill your opponent's spy, or cause your opponent to think he's winning when he's not, or score a bunch of secret, unexpected points. And you have to constantly guess which spy your opponent has played, and then guess as to whether they know you know, to determine if you need to play a different spy. It's ends up with a "going against a Sicilian when death is on the line" feel.

The main mechanic for influencing countries is a quite a lot like blackjack. The players alternate drawing group cards on their turns, trying to get the total as close to the "stability" rating of the country without going over. In other words, if you screw around too much in a country, you are going to cause all kinds of problems in the citizenry. Cards also have special powers that let you do things like swap groups with your opponent, or see what cards are coming up. Overall, this allows for some really interesting options, but after several plays, it remains highly unpredictable.

That unpredictability is a real disappointment; Susie and I are always on the lookout for really great two player games that are quick but deep. Cold War feels deeper than it is at first, but it's really a light filler game. It's a great filler game, but the combination of guessing about your opponent's spy having a pretty significant effect on play, and the core of the game being a press your luck mechanic, it's too unpredictable to be a huge success.

That said, we have enjoyed it. It's fun, and the back and forth of sending out spies and influencing nations is cool. The only real issue is a set of cards in the country cards called "events" that more or less come down to "both players draw a card and the player with the highest card gets special power X." The rest of the game has high randomness, but this was just too much. Randomly getting the "retrieve a disavowed/dead spy" power is HUGE, and we wanted a little more influence over the result. So we changed it from a card limit of 1 to a card limit of 2 (called population 1 and 2, respectively), and it made the cards much more interesting. And it's not an issue anymore.