Haha, after an epic struggle, where I went from positive I was going to win at +15, to positive I was going to lose at -10, I eked out a win in final scoring at +4. Good game @SleepingGiant!
As for the rundown, Sleepinggiant was the US with +1 influence, which he used to take an early lead in the turn 1 headline. After a series of terrible coups, I decolonized into Thailand, Burma, Algeria, and Angola to threaten Western Asia and France. I managed to get domination in Asia with the China card, but I left Pakistan without any protection, as I was hurting for ops trying to take France as well. I tried to score Asia in a headline phase, but sleepinggiant anticipated and headlined Japan.
Going into the Mid war, sleepinggiant had a slight point lead, but his AR7 play into Colombia resulted in a big coup by me, giving me Sout America access, and costing him several coups to try to get back in. The Mid war brought me control of Souh America, and domination in Africa, but he pitched Africa scoring to Ask Not What Your Country. Between South America, SE Asia, and the space track, I had picked up a 15 point lead. But with Central America the last region to score, sleeping giant knocked me out of the region with a series of realignments. Then he had enough ops left over to take Mexico, Cuba, and score for control.
After the turn 7 reshuffle, he scored Central America again, and the game was close to even. I kept control of South America and Africa, but I wasn’t drawing any scoring cards. In the Late wa, I saw my opportunity to pull ahead, when a Brush War in Italy gave me domination of Europe. I had a great plan to draw out all of sleepinggiant’s 3 ops cards trying to match me in country count in Europe, then drop Blockade on him for a shot at European control. But sleepinggiant’s ops were high, and his note taking excellent, and he not only denied me domination of Europe, but used my European focus to steal an undeserved scoring of Asia off a single influence in North Korea!
Round 10 came around, and sleepinggiant’s had a 10 point lead. South America and Africa scoring were still nowhere to be seen, and things were looking bleak. They looked even more bleak when my AR1 coup of Panama still couldn’t get me a foothold in Central America. Most of the round was spent with me shoring up my defences in South America and Asia, preparing for an AR break of battleground countries. My last hope was an ABM treaty I had saved till AR6 to go after Panama again. A big roll took me to 3 influence in Panama, breaking his control, but I didn’t think it would be enough to offset the 10 point lead. So for AR7, I used Wargames to attack both West Germany and South Korea, forcing sleepinggiant to repair these areas instead of attacking South America and Asia. Final scoring came around and it was just enough!
Is the third place match underway?