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In my last game the US player headlined de-stalinization on AR1. The USSR player had done a fairly standard setup adding 4 to Poland, 1 E. Germany and 1 Austria. USSR headline was Olympic games, if I remember correctly. How should the USSR player relocate influence in this situation? Sure, much is dependent on the USSR hand, but generally speaking.
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Derek Gillam
United Kingdom
Bridgwater
Somerset
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Hi
I (personally) would keep E Germany & Poland at 3 inf each & relocate the 4 inf from these above this,plus Finland etc to whichever area you feel is best, depending on your hand/scoring cards etc.
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Derry Salewski
United States
Augusta
Maine
. . . give a ship.
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Is that sort of headline a common one? I haven't played a lot, but it seems like the US is setting themselves up to get hit by a scoring card with no effort on the ussr part.
What happened, OP?
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Conor Hickey
Ireland
Dublin
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Pertus wrote: In my last game the US player headlined de-stalinization on AR1. The USSR player had done a fairly standard setup adding 4 to Poland, 1 E. Germany and 1 Austria. USSR headline was Olympic games, if I remember correctly. How should the USSR player relocate influence in this situation? Sure, much is dependent on the USSR hand, but generally speaking.
It would be unusual to see this headlined on turn 1 or 2, as the USSR usually wants the protection of low DEFCON so that he won't get couped out of battlegrounds he places into.
The strength of this card is usually getting into areas he may find it hard to reach otherwise e.g. Africa and South America but by playing it on turn 1 he neither has much 'spare' influence to relocate, nor many safe areas to place it.
So, if I had to headline it on turn 1 I would set up E Germany, Poland 0/4*, Yugoslavia 0/1 (just to force US to defend Italy), then take 1 each out of E Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia and Finland, and probably place in Chile, France, maybe India and South Africa - certainly avoid 1 stability BGs in Africa etc. and the 1 inf in France will usually force the US player to react to it.
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Derek Gillam
United Kingdom
Bridgwater
Somerset
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I agree it is very strange for the USA to headline a very strong USSR card, unless there was nothing else, which I find very unlikely!
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Conor Hickey
Ireland
Dublin
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Derek999950 wrote: I agree it is very strange for the USA to headline a very strong USSR card, unless there was nothing else, which I find very unlikely!
I'm sorry I actually missed in the op that the US headlined it!! OK it now goes from 'unusual' to 'extraordinary' 
This card is one that needs to be kept from the USSR if at all possible, i.e. hold until turn 3 and then Space it, or use it with UN if possible.
The only possible advantage to headlining it is that the USSR doesn't have much spare influence to move, but he still has enough to retain control of his European Battlegrounds and he can get into France with this play as I mentioned. USSR would normally prefer to have a bit more influence in Europe from Warsaw Pact or COMECON (assuming US player uses one or both for ops on turn 1), but it still quite manageable.
Without knowledge of his hand it's hard to say further but there has to have been something, anything, that would have been a better headline for US.
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Derek Gillam
United Kingdom
Bridgwater
Somerset
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Have to agree with Connor!
There must have been another card that was 'worse' than this? As Connor pointed out, 'De-Stal' is a key early USSR card , enabling him to jump to places he would not normally be able to.If the USA played this, he must have been looking to Control/Dominate Europe early, I can't think of any other possisble ways why else he would have played this card.
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Edward
United States
New York City
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No, I think the US made a very strong play.
With a poor US hand, e.g., if you're holding Blockade/Decol/De-Stal, you aren't going to be able to hold everything to Turn 3. In that case, De-Stal is extremely ineffective for the USSR on the headline, one because he doesn't have spare influence, and two because there isn't anywhere the USSR wants to go with De-Stal that can't be couped out. Headline De-Stal, space Decol, and trigger Blockade.
As USSR, your options are limited. I would remove one from Syria, 1 each from EGER/POL, and 1 from Austria, and put it into South America/Africa as usual. But unlike the typical game, where you can move in there under cover of DEFCON, you're now going to be vulnerable to being couped in those areas.
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Philip Thomas
United Kingdom
London
London
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This is a dream headline for USSR, who always has spare influence at this point.
USSR had 6 influence to place in Eastern Europe. 3 of that influence goes to control Poland. The other 3 (it doesn't matter where you actually put it) goes to De-Stalinisation, along with the 1 influence from Finland.
Many options for where to place the influence but places like Chile, South Africa, India are worth considering.
If USA had Blockade and De-Stalinsation then there's a fairly obvious move he can make
Even if he had to play De-Stalinisation (maybe he's also holding Fidel and Decolonisation, though even then I would probably play Fidel instead of DE-S), he shouldn't headline it, he's effectively wasting 3 CPs there.
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Conor Hickey
Ireland
Dublin
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theory wrote: No, I think the US made a very strong play.
With a poor US hand, e.g., if you're holding Blockade/Decol/De-Stal, you aren't going to be able to hold everything to Turn 3. In that case, De-Stal is extremely ineffective for the USSR on the headline, one because he doesn't have spare influence, and two because there isn't anywhere the USSR wants to go with De-Stal that can't be couped out. Headline De-Stal, space Decol, and trigger Blockade.
As USSR, your options are limited. I would remove one from Syria, 1 each from EGER/POL, and 1 from Austria, and put it into South America/Africa as usual. But unlike the typical game, where you can move in there under cover of DEFCON, you're now going to be vulnerable to being couped in those areas.
Need to know the rest of the US hand really but if I had those three card on turn 1 I'd discard Destalinisation with Blockade and space Decolonisation.
Headlining Destal means US is getting no benefit from it's Headline, spacing Decol is another round where no influence is put down and Blockade will be a round with only 1 op placed where another 3 ops event would have to be discarded - Socialist Governments is the main candidate as that comes back anyway, but I'd really rather keep and play the likes of COMECON, Warsaw Pact, DeGaulle, Suez Crisis etc.
This hand could be a good opportunity to go with the 'empty W Germany' US set up - now Blockade can be played with no adverse effect and one of Destal/Decol held, with the other Spaced. The one you hold you can Space on turn 3.
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Kaiwen Zhang
Canada
Toronto
Ontario
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by moving influence early, you're setting yourself up for the cia trap, which might be what the us player wants
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Sam Carroll
United States
Champaign
Illinois
Soli Deo Gloria!
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Well, the "CIA trap" is dependent on the USSR playing the card, so it's not really possible for the US to plan it.
Also note that in this situation, the USSR should seek out high-stability countries to place his influence in, to make coups unlikely to succeed. Chile, Costa Rica, and S. Africa seem like good possibilities.
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Железный комиссар
United States
Madison
Wisconsin
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The reasoning behind Destal as a US headline on AR1 is that it is weaker at that moment than at any other through the midwar. The USSR has the least influence available, and DEFCON makes traditional Destal targets wide open for US counter-attack. That being said, if the USSR player plays it conservatively, it's still going to hurt, a lot.
I actually tried this once and IIRC, my opponent moved two into S. Korea and two into France. It ended up being pretty painful.
Veteran US players headline USSR events occasionally in order to best neutralize them. I'm not sure it works in this example but it's easy to see the theory behind it.
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Riku Riekkinen
Finland
Jyväskylä
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This is absolutely terrible idea. Now I'm a player who likes to test unusual stategies and make them work. Unfortunately this is an idea that has popped to almost all experienced players minds at some point of their playing. So far I haven't met anyone that has been satisfied with the result, quite contrary.
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