New Cold War is a game about geopolitics that takes place from 1989 to 2019. It begins with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and ends with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic. Players (from 1 to 4) take the role of the great powers fighting for the new world order: Russia, China (forming the Red Bloc), the United States and the European Union (Blue Bloc). The allied powers will have to cooperate with each other (exchange of cards, media marker…), but victory will be individual. There are two victory conditions: a power must declare two of the hidden objectives on its agenda during the game or lead the victory point score at the end of the last turn of the game. The game consists of nine turns divided into three decades with a game duration of 150-180 minutes.

In this series of Event Card Spoilers, we will cover several different types of cards included in the game and from the different Decade Decks and give their details so that you can understand how the game works and how it incorporates the historical narrative of the new Cold War struggle between super powers from the end of the first Cold War through 2019.

New Cold War is a Card Driven Game (CDG) featuring the 135 most important events of the 30 year period covered by the game. Your power’s cards can be played as an event or as operations, while opponents’ cards and your own negative cards are played as OPS and the event is executed for or against the power to which it belongs. OPS can be played in five different ways: 1) placing or removing influence on countries on the map (based on their stability, geopolitical value and initial alignment), 2) stabilizing or destabilizing countries to protect or favor access to them, 3) advancing on the prestige marker, 4) advancing on the media marker, either alone or in cooperation with your ally (it is a track that is contested by blocks) or 5) creating a reserve of OPS to play in later rounds or game turns.

Card #105: 3rd Decade Deck – Annexation of Crimea

Annexation of Crimea is a Russian card from the 3rd Decade Deck showing the events that took place in 2014 when Putin made official the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of the Crimea to the Russian Federation. In addition to guaranteeing its territorial dominance, the event grants advantages to the Russian President’s Prestige and Image in domestic terms. This event is Russia’s response to the protest movements against endemic corruption and for openness towards the EU, which had occurred in Ukraine previously and are present in the game: for example the Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Euromaidan in 2013.

In both cases the figure of the former pro-Russian President Yanukovych was at the center of the unrest of a significant part of Ukrainian society. Other related events (increased NATO presence in the Baltics, Nord Stream Pipeline) complete New Cold War‘s comprehensive analysis of a conflict that has led to the events of the recent Russo-Ukrainian War.

The next card up in the series will be Card #1st Decade Deck – Warsaw Pact Dissolved.

You can catch up on the series to date by following these links:

Card #7: 1st Decade Deck – The Tibetan Conflict

Also, if you are interested in learning more about New Cold War, you can visit the Board Game Geek game page at the following link: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/405994/new-cold-war

The game is not yet ready for pre-order but should be sometime in the next several months.

-Grant