13 Days: The Cuban Missile Crisis
A game for 2 players designed by <PERSON> and <PERSON>
"President <PERSON> didn't negotiate out of the Cuban missile crisis simply because he and <PERSON> got along well. <PERSON> didn't have the cards."
― Colin Powell
Introduction
It's no secret thatTwilight Struggleis my favourite game, and as a child of Cold War, I have a particular interest in games of the era. I wasn't even a twinkle in my father's eye when the Cuban Missile Crisis happened, but even growing up in Canada it was something that was a known friction point between the two super powers that had reverberations well into the 1980s.
I backed this game on Kickstarter, but I was also was sent a review copy by the designers.
Components
I have made liberal use of images from the BGG gallery for this game. Credits for photos are noted.
Now, the game was originally launched by , but the company was sold to Ultra Pro after the campaign ended, so you'll see both logos on the box. At the Ultra Pro site there aren't any boardgames mentioned, but given how many sleeves they sell, and that this is a card game, expect more of the same.
Here's what you get in the box:Photo by <PERSON> (SBGrad)
The quality of the components is top notch. Truly. I do have a small complaint though, and that is the box size is about half again as big as it needed to be.
When you compare 13 Days to Twilight Struggle, you get
Photo by <PERSON> (endersgame)
but if you look inside the box, you'll see that the board folded up only takes up this much space
Photo by <PERSON> (endersgame)
Thus, the box could easily have been the size of something like or .
That quibble aside, the components truly are top notch. The cards are as nice as any standard playing card deck, the cubes are cubes, the board is nicely printed and well made, and the box comes from the GMT school of game box design - it'll withstand quite a bit of stacking with other games without harm.
A particular highlight of this game is the addition of a history of the Cuban Missile Crisis. This separate booklet gives an overview of what happened in those days, and how close the two sides came to pressing the red button. 92
It also helps players understand why Turkey and Italy are contested spots on the board.
Rules and Gameplay
The rules for the game are quite simple. There is a DEFCON table with three tracks - military, political, and public opinion, and they track both players as they ply their brinksmanship skills to win the most prestige points while at the same time making sure they don't cause a war.
You can cause a war by having any one of your three tracks at DEFCON 1 at the end of the turn, of if all three of your tracks are at DEFCON 2 at the end of the turn.
There will be three rounds of play, and whoever has the most prestige points at the end, assuming no war is triggered, will be the winner.
The flow of the game is dictated by agenda cards.
Photo by designer <PERSON> (megalomane)
On each turn, players are dealt three agenda cards. Players identify which ones they have by placing their flag on the three spaces. Then they will each secretly choose one and tuck it under the board. Having done so, the remaining two are returned to the agenda deck.
Each player then gets five cards.
Photo by <PERSON> (endersgame)
The cards contain command points (as shown by the number of cubes on the left hand side) and events, which have their text on the bottom.
The cards are much like Twilight Struggle in that there are three kinds - American, Soviet, and UN (neutral). Like Twilight Struggle, if you play a card with your opponent's event on it, the event triggers. Importantly though, the event triggers first, and only then do you get to play the command points.
Events are explained on the card. Command points allow you place or remove cubes from one space (only), and every cube beyond the first will either increase or decrease your DEFCON level on the track of the space you're playing into. So if you remove 3 cubes from a military space, your military DEFCON drops by 2, and if you place 2 cubes on a public opinion space, you increase your public opinion DEFCON by 1. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
The tension arises out of knowing which three agenda spaces your opponent is going for, trying to both guess which one they are going for, while simultaneously not signalling which agenda item you're going for, and the fates help you if you're both going for the same agenda! 597