Twilight Struggle: South Asian Monsoon

Designer	Jason Carr Jason Matthews
Publisher	GMT Games
Players	1-2
Playtime	75-120 mins
Suggested Age	12 and up
Additional Info	383492/twilight-struggle-south-asian-monsoon http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/383492/twilight-struggle-south-asian-monsoon/forums/63

“I have spoken here today about India's race with Red China. We want India to win that race. We want India to be a free and thriving leader of a free and thriving Asia. But if our interest appears to be purely selfish, anti-Communist and part of the Cold War – if it appears to the Indian people that our motives are purely political – then we shall play into the hands of Communist and neutralist propagandists, cruelly distort America's image abroad, and undo much of the psychological effect that we expect from our generosity.” -- Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy 1959

The year is 1959. The next decade will unleash a cascading series of events that will catapult the Cold War into a new, farther-flung region of the world. Twilight Struggle: South Asian Monsoon is the latest stand-alone two player game in the Twilight Struggle series. This game covers the era from the Tibetan Insurrection in China to the normalization of relations between the People’s Republic and the United States. It is a four turn game, longer than Twilight Struggle: Red Sea, but much shorter than a full game of Twilight Struggle.

Twilight Struggle: South Asian Monsoon is intended to provide experienced players of Twilight Struggle with a new, more nuanced challenge. The nations represented in this game – in South Asia, the Indian Ocean and along China’s Asian periphery - are more remote and independent minded. All of the countries represented joined the Non-Aligned Movement. Unlike other parts of the globe, the United States and the Soviet Union can only project military force into the region with difficulty. In short, this is the region of the Cold War where nations felt emboldened to assert their independence and resist the bi-polar world that the superpowers had created elsewhere.

Twilight Struggle players will be asked to contend with newly independent countries, the relationship between the Non-Aligned Movement and increased tensions along the DEFCON track. The game incorporates a new system called “Engagement Actions” and players must plan with the future of China after Mao. The ability of players to master these new factors will be the key to victory in Twilight Struggle: South Asian Monsoon.

The game also highlights the history of many giants of the Cold War era that receive less attention in other parts of the Twilight Struggle system: Nehru, Mao, the Dali Lama, Zhou Enlai, Indira Gandhi, Khrushchev and more all make their presence felt in this pivotal region of the globe.

This is your chance to answer Chairman Mao’s call and “Be resolute, fear no sacrifice and surmount every difficulty to win victory.”

The game will feature backward and forward compatibility. Cards from South Asian Monsoon will be usable in Twilight Struggle, and cards from Twilight Struggle will be usable in South Asian Monsoon.

-description from designer