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.

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 six different ways: 1) placing or removing influence on countries on the map (based on their stability, geopolitical value and initial alignment), 2) by staging a coup d’état, 3) stabilizing or destabilizing countries to protect or favor access to them, 4) advancing on the prestige marker, 5) advancing on the media marker, either alone or in cooperation with your ally (it is a track that is contested by blocks) or 6) creating a reserve of OPS to play in later rounds or game turns.

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.

Card #135: 3rd Decade Deck – Brexit

At the beginning of a game of New Cold War, the EU has access to only two regions of the board: Europe and Africa. Therefore, one of its priority strategies is to take control of the old continent, since in addition to gaining VP’s in the Global Scoring Phases, it will serve to fulfill one of the conditions that appears in several of its objectives. The events of the first (Maastricht Treaty, German Reunification, Schengen) and second decade (Introduction of the Euro, EU Enlargement, Merkel) will contribute decisively to achieve this purpose. On the other hand, during the third decade a series of Negative Events will come into play (Rise of the Far Right, Migration Crisis, Tensions with the US) that will test the solidity of the control over Europe. One of the most prominent is Brexit, a process by which the United Kingdom approved by referendum in 2016 its exit from the European Union, which would become effective in 2020. It was a hard blow for the community project, as it lost its second economy and its third most populated state. It also served to strengthen the Eurosceptic current in several countries of the Union, such as France, the Netherlands and Hungary. All these effects are what the Brexit event, one of the most powerful Negative Cards of New Cold War, tries to show.

The next card up in the series will be Card #90: 2nd Decade Deck – Chávez.

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

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

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

Card #82: 1st Decade Deck – Warsaw Pact Dissolved

Card #134: 3rd Decade Deck – Rise of the Far Right

Card #41: 2nd Decade Deck – Afghanistan and Iraq Wars

Card #25: 3rd Decade Deck – Xi Jinping

Card #61: 1st Decade Deck – UNSC Presidency

Card #30: 1st Decade Deck – Gulf Monarchies

Card #63: 1st Decade Deck – Counter-Insurgency

Card #64: 1st Decade Deck – War Lords

Card #132: 3rd Decade Deck – Trading of Mineral Oil Products

Card #76: 3rd Decade Deck – Erdogan

Card #77: 3rd Decade Deck – Fake News

Card #19: Objective Card – Russia Objective

The game has recently been put up for pre-order and you can secure a copy for $68.00 from the VUCA Simulations website at the following link: https://vucasims.com/products/new-cold-war

-Grant