Late War Scenario...any success as USSR?

[ttribuzi]

I guess the Late War Scenario is supposed to be a a "training-wheels" game for a noob USA player. When I play the AI as the USA I cream it, but as the USSR I have won once in 11 tries. What generally happens is that the USA headlines Voice of America, Colonial Rearguards, Tear Down this Wall, East European Unrest, or the worst of all, Soviets Shoot Down KAL-007, and then the poor USSR (me), who is waaaaay behind in board position from the start, begins the long slide down to oblivion. There are just too many good USA events to parry. I think the intent of the scenario is a good one..."let's focus on the late war events since they rarely get played"...but the reason they rarely get played is that the full game is either over by then, or the USA is way behind and needs the late war events to catch up. It's a play balance decision which gives the full game a logical rhythm. But this is exactly why the Late War scenario is not very competitive, period.

If any of you have a different experience with this scenario, I would be very interested in your thoughts.

Of course, the USSR will win if dealt OPEC and Wargames right from the start....

[silaskulkarni]

I've had this exact scenario as well. I'm pretty new to TS, but if we start from the beginning I beat the AI 90% of the time (except when I forget that he can cause nuclear war on my turn with some cards I play). But I've played late war at least 7 or 8 times and I got crushed as USSR all of them, while when I played US I won easily. I can't find any strategy for USSR late war that gives me even a mild chance. The only time I won, I dumped everything into gaining control of Europe and just got lucky on cards (eg I drew Pope John Paul instead of AI drawing it and found a way to chuck it thereby retaining Poland and preventing Solidarity plus ALSO getting Socialist Governments before Iron Lady etc). And even still I was just lucky that Europe scoring card came before the last round or else I would have lost by 20 long before then. In any case this isn't a strategy it's a Hail Mary. Anyone have ideas for how to actually have a fighting chance against the AI as USSR late war? Anyone able to consistently beat it? My intuition is that setup is too slanted towards US.

Sent from my iPhone

[Benkyo]

I think 95% of my games against the AI are as the USSR in the Late War, because it's the only way to give the AI a chance of winning.
First, make sure you have the right start - the optional cards should not be used (the scenario was designed before they were).
Second, the changes made to the space race in later editions of the game actually made the game harder for the USSR - the US should actually start at the end of the space race, and therefore not be able to benefit from the 4 VPs that are available from spacing. Those 4 easy US VPs make the scenario a little more unbalanced. Nothing we can do about this though.

I haven't really kept track, but I am sure my win rate is considerably better than 50%, probably 75% or even better, just because the AI is so bad.
Not sure what advice to give though. Play for VPs, obviously. Focus on scoring regions you draw, and don't sink too much into lost causes. Don't give up the China card if at all possible until you either get a DEFCON suicide hand or all but one of the DEFCON suicide possibilities are dealt with.