Labyrinth: AAR #1.2

Apologies for the delay between the two parts of this AAR, life got in the way of my writing. You can read the first part here. Let's see if I would be able to ride my momentum in the second half of the game.

Turn 4

In previous rounds, I activated the India-Pakistan talks event, which blocked the bot from playing a strong card. It resorted to placing more cells, one in Iraq and in China. I followed with the King Abdullah event, Jordan moves to a Fair Ally stance in addition to raising my prestige by 1 and reducing the Jihadist funding by 1. I also finally managed to upgrade Afghanistan governance to Good! It is no longer a regime change, I will be able to remove some troops later in the turn, putting them back on the reserve track. It's also 1 good resource toward our objective of 6.

A plot in China fired, providing funding ( = 3) to the bot, I purposely let it happen to build up my reserves for a bigger impact later. There was an event technically playable by the bot at this point, I am not sure if it was an optimal move, however my interpretation was it should be done anyway; a prestige roll for the US lucky roll which boosted my prestige to the max of 12) and interdiction of recruitment for the rest of the turn.

Another event moved Central Asia to adversary. The bot followed by using influence for Radicalization, a fail-over mechanism if it can't find anything else to do: one cell moved from Pakistan to India, another one from Iraq to Russia (Hard initial stance) and to Thailand (Soft initial stance). Meanwhile, I used my influence to increase governance in Saudi Arabia.

The rest of the turn saw more Radicalization: one cell moved from Pakistan to the Caucasus (Hard initial stance), from Thailand to Kenya (Soft initial stance) and from China to Canada (Soft initial stance). I understand this a way for the bot to roll as many as possible initial stance, trying to further the world from the US stance; however, it's not really working for them. I used my final card to add a cell in the UK (Soft initial stance), a small price to pay to upgrade Pakistan governance to Fair. At this point, my prestige is maxed, while the Jihadists have very little funding (2).

Turn 5

Now that the bot could recruit cells again, it spent Turn 5 doing mostly that. By the end of the turn, there was one more cell in Russia, one in Morocco (initial Poor governance) and one in Egypt (initial Fair governance). I had enough influence to block their two plot attempts. Meanwhile, I used an event to move Yemen to Ally, a later action to improve their governance to Fair, improved the Saudi stance to Ally and Fair governance.

Turn 6

With the Jihadist funding now at the minimum, I started the turn by choosing not to block two plots in Russia. It raised their funding back to 5, and switched Russia to a Soft stance, but I used that time to improve Yemen's governance to Good, another resource for our winning condition, and stashed one influence in my reserves.

The bot continued to move cells around: one from the UK to Scandinavia (Hard initial stance) and one from Italy to Serbia (Soft initial stance). It reduced Egypt's governance to Poor with an event, but let's be honest, I wasn't planning of doing with it. Another influence went to my reserve to finally build up enough power to influence Saudi Arabia... and with success! I now have met one winning condition with more than 6 good resources; I'm at 8. The rest of the game should be played defensively to maintain this.

The rest of the turn saw the bot attempt more plots, it managed to regain 2 funding which I removed with an event. I was able to improve the governance of both Pakistan and Jordan to Good.

Turn 7

I drew a hand of mostly bad events, but at this point in the game, it's no longer consequential. It will not help the bot recoup their losses, nor it will allow it to downgrade any of the Good governances. Them moving more cells around, or recruiting more, is too late, and they managed to fail to set up multiple plots. For good measures, I improved Turkey and Lebanon positions to Good Ally. My very last card was the Saddam event, which set the Jihadist fundings to 9 if Iraq is at poor adversary, but it doesn't matter when it's the last action of the game.

Final Scoring

• 15 Good Resources
• 10 Fair/Good Countries
• 6 Poor/Islamist Countries
• 0 Islamist Resources

Conclusion

I feel luck was on my side in this game, I don't expect future games to go this smoothly. I had good draws early and many die rolled in my favors. Hopefully, I didn't make mistakes with the bot actions. Besides the luck element, understanding that getting rid of Islamist states as soon as possible appeared to be key. Otherwise, it reduces the US prestige each turn and there are few ways to get it back up. With low prestige, it's even harder to improve the governance of any country, you're stuck hoping for 6s in your rolls.

I hope you enjoyed this after-action report. Please leave any comment below, especially if you want to read more of these in the future.