Trashdome - Twilight Struggle VS War Of The Ring

Both are very tense games that capture their themes well, but experiencing the epic of Lord of the Rings > experiencing the history of the cold war.

Vote: War of the Ring

The combination of the fellowship side of the game and the great war side of the game give you a unique experience where you feel like you are controlling the armies of Middle Earth from a zoomed out view, but at the same time going along with the fellowship and each of the main characters.

What can be said of Twilight Struggle that hasn't been already? The theme is great, and the game really captures the one-upmanship and paranoia of that era very well. There are always opportunities for bluffing, feinting, trickery, and "playing" your opponent as well, which is more often than not the first thing I look for when trying a new game.

The components are very cool in an old-school sort of way, too.

WotR, on the other hand, is one pretty overrated game if you ask me. It's pretty fun, I guess, and the "action dice" thing is (dare I say it?) clever, but the actual meat-and-potatoes gameplay is basically Risk with a smattering of chrome. It's a good game, but not one that I ever really find myself wanting to play.

Vote: Twilight Struggle

Twilight Struggle: Terrific, accessible, great theme.


War of the Ring: Purely epic, an instant classic, beautiful to look at, and a tremendous achievement in any gaming medium, no matter how you slice it.



Vote: War of the Ring

Twilight Struggle - played it once, saw the potential, but I'm not a kid of the Cold War at all as I was a kid in the 80s and not really interested in politics, and the theme leaves me kind of...cold, if only because I can't relate to a bunch of the events on the cards.

War of the Ring is the first game that got me hooked on board games all over again. As soon as I saw the box, I knew I wanted this game. And the game play is all that the box promised. I haven't had a boring game of WotR, and I've enjoyed 2-3-4 player games.

The Shadow doesn't have that much of an advantage over the FP, as the luck evens things out somewhat over the course of the game. The 3-player game evens it out even more, as the Shadow can't concentrate on a single part of the battlefield and must divide its resources over a few fronts. The expansion adds lots of cool new bits and helps the FP even more with Galadriel and the Ents. I haven't played it in a long time and hope to remedy this soon.

The 4-player team game is lots of fun, no matter what some might think.

VOTE: WAR OF THE RING

Vote = War of the Ring.

Awesome game. Immersive and thematic. I love the books. The theme of TS just doesn't appeal to me.

Plus, it's easy to set up War of the Ring and leave it set up, play a few rounds and walk away, come back to it etc. This is how my wife and I play - great game!

Cheers,

Giles.

I haven't played either game yet, but I have played 1960: Making of the President a few times and like that... from what I understand of TS that's even better. Still, WOTR, from all I've seen and read about it, seems like it might be a real "grail game" for me. A lot of cool elements and an epic story to it, and I've heard people refer to it as being a more creative version of Axis & Allies (which I loved to pieces back in the day). Of course, expectations may spoil the actual game somewhat when I play it, but in the realm of my mind, at least, WOTR occupies a rarefied place of distinction.

Vote: War of the Ring

Pet hate in TS - getting too many of your opponents cards => Black mark against the game.

Pet hate in WotR - finding opponents to play often => Black mark against gamers in my area.

Both are great immersive games, but both have a few weaknesses.

Twilight Struggle is ultimately unbalanced when two experienced players play against each other. With unbalanced I mean the USSR should win 8 out of 10 games. However, the Chinese Civil War variant levels that and another variant works, too, which gives the USA more influence at start. War of the Ring has one more advantage, namely that it also works well with three players (not with four though).

Twilight Struggle on the other hand side has more variety. The novice WotR player might attempt a military victory with the Free People, but otherwise the game runs more or less on rails. The Free People player rushes the fellowship forward sacrificing everyone to avoid corruption, while the Evil Player tries to conquer first Helm's Deep and then Minas Tirith. In Twilight Struggle each side can attempt to dominate or control the different continents. Seemingly lost games can also end by a sudden defcon drop to 1, when one player makes a mistake.

Both games have great narrative and game play.

Neither the higher play time of War of the Ring, nor the difficulty to learn it influence my vote for Twilight Struggle (I don't mind these two aspects).

Vote: Twilight Struggle.

Erk.

War of the Ring has been gathering dust on my shelf because the people I game with don't like two-player games and my usual 2-player friend took off a few months back. We played the hell out of Twilight Struggle. The last game ended up close until I (as the USSR) snuck into the UK and re-aligned those snooty Brits by way of Canadia to sieze Control of Europe in time for the end-game scoring. Once we both had the hang of the game, all of them were tense and down to the wire. I don't know if WotR can match that - the people I've talked to have said it's nigh impossible for the Free Peoples to win. I hope to find out for myself one day.

But for now, it's Twilight Struggle to continue the trend of voting or the better game that loses because some people cling to the trappings of the decadent past.

I haven't played either game, so I'm voting for the side with the funniest comment.

Vote: War of the Ring

The comment would be Southernman's:

Southernman wrote:

Black Barney wrote:

...Overall though I HAVE to go with Twilight Struggle. It's a MUCH faster game and that's my main knock against War of the Ring is that it is starting to become hard to play on weeknights...

What a shameful, below the belt (even for TrashDome) blow .... I cry FOUL !

If your mama sends you to bed by 8pm don't take it out on a brilliant game like WotR - be a man, stand up to your mama, tell her you are going to play your game even if you're still up at 9.30pm and that she better keep those hot cocoas coming.

mrmarcus wrote:

I don't know if WotR can match that - the people I've talked to have said it's nigh impossible for the Free Peoples to win.

They've probably read that someone reported hearing something to that effect on BGG. It's bullshit.

War of the Ring

I've played Twilight Struggle over sixty times. It's my most-played game and my favourite game. Given that I generally avoid 2-player games in favour of multi-player titles it's really no small feat that it ever got to my #1 slot in the first place. Nothing, not even a game as good as War of the Ring, is going to beat it in a trashdome as far as I'm concerned.

So I vote for Twilight Struggle.

Ouch, toughest matchup for me yet. I have a couple dozen games of TS under my belt, and things have gotten way more balanced after we started using the Chinese Civil War variant.

But I'm going to have to cast my vote for WOTR on the basis of its hordes of figures, terrific theme, and just all-out kickassedness. I've played a 4P game and had a good time, although I would always prefer to play it with 2.

Vote: WAR OF THE RING