Clio's Board Games

#OTD 80 years ago, Churchill described the post-war situation in Europe with the metaphor of the Iron Curtain.

👋A BIG addition to wonderfully Rally The Troops‼️
Imperial Struggle is now available! Make sure to check this great implementation of @gmtgames.bsky.social title by @jasondcmatthews.bsky.social & #AnandaGupta.
Great job @ccxvii.bsky.social & team!
Link: rally-the-troops.com/imperial-str...

Thank you to our friends at Rally the Troops (www.rally-the-troops.com) for this superb implementation of Imperial Struggle. I think this will give many of us, myself included, the opportunity to get many, many more plays in.

No other person had as large a share in ending the Cold War as Mikhail Gorbachev. The price: The hegemony in Eastern Europe, and the existence of the Soviet Union. (Images from #1989 @jasondcmatthews.bsky.social @gmtgames.bsky.social) Read more: cliosboardgames.wordpress.com/2026/02/22/g...

Gorbachev's economic reforms were supposed to give the Soviet Union a boost from more market incentives, but clashed with existing structures. (Image from #1989 @jasondcmatthews.bsky.social @gmtgames.bsky.social) Read more: cliosboardgames.wordpress.com/2026/02/22/g...

Contrary to popular belief, it was Frank Sinatra, not David Hasselhoff, who brought down the Berlin Wall. (Image from #1989 @jasondcmatthews.bsky.social @gmtgames.bsky.social) Read more: cliosboardgames.wordpress.com/2026/02/22/g...

Gorbachev's foreign policy dealt with visionary arms reduction as well as the boots-on-the-ground issue of the war in Afghanistan. (Images from #TwilightSquabble @alderaceg.bsky.social, #1989 @jasondcmatthews.bsky.social @gmtgames.bsky.social) Read more: cliosboardgames.wordpress.com/2026/02/22/g...

Happy birthday, @yellowgeekbear.bsky.social! Feiert heute schön🎂

No Retreat! – The Russian Front 1942-1945 – Designers Edition – Sound of Drums GmbH A strategic game for 1 - 2 players The only direction is forward! No Retreat! ~ The Russian Front 1941 - 1945 ~ Designer: Carl Paradis Artist(s): Marc von Marti

Attention! A new edition of Carl Paradis's No Retreat! The Russian Front, 1941-1945 is in the works at @soundofdrumsgames.bsky.social (English, French, and German editions). Pre-orders are open: soundofdrumsgames.com/no-retreat-t...

Weltschmerzkaffeefreudendiskrepanz

Pikachu following the player around was so cute!

Gorbachev and the Soviet Transformation (Reform in the Soviet Union, #2) Two weeks ago, we’ve looked at the first period of Soviet liberalization under Nikita Khrushchev from the 1950s on. While these reforms ended the era of Stalinist totalitarianism, they petered out …

ICYMI: Here's my analysis of Gorbachev's reforms in the 1980s USSR (with games by @gmtgames.bsky.social @jasondcmatthews.bsky.social @peersylvester.bsky.social @alderaceg.bsky.social and others):

#OTD 30 years ago, the first generation of Pokémon games was released in Japan. What's your favorite Pokémon - and what's your favorite Pokémon game?

Gorbachev's sweeping domestic reforms were cut short by the collapse of the USSR. #TwilightSquabble (@alderaceg.bsky.social) envisions them as an alt-hist boost for the USSR at the end of the Cold War. Read more: cliosboardgames.wordpress.com/2026/02/22/g...

Hard to say without a look at the board... but we can be certain he didn't hold the China Card!

Historians still divided on whether Gorbachev should have used the operation points instead.

#OTD 40 years ago, Mikhail Gorbachev announced glasnost (openness) at the 27th CPSU Party Conference. (Image from #TwilightStruggle @jasondcmatthews.bsky.social @gmtgames.bsky.social) Read more: cliosboardgames.wordpress.com/2026/02/22/g...

Khrushchev and the Pivot from Stalinism (Reform in the Soviet Union, #2) The Soviet Union was one of the great dictatorships of the 20th century. It applied an immense amount of coercion on its own citizens as well as many of its neighboring countries. Yet the almost se…

#OTD 70 years ago, Nikita Khrushchev told a stunned audience at the 20th Conference of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that Stalin was, in fact, Bad. Read more:

The early-1980s USSR was ruled by aged, conservative apparatchiks. The contemporary board game Kremlin pokes fun at this gerontocracy: Players support Soviet politicians whose biggest hurdle is that they might die before they reach the top. Read more: cliosboardgames.wordpress.com/2026/02/22/g...

Gorbachev and the Soviet Transformation (Reform in the Soviet Union, #2) Two weeks ago, we’ve looked at the first period of Soviet liberalization under Nikita Khrushchev from the 1950s on. While these reforms ended the era of Stalinist totalitarianism, they petered out …

Gorbachev's reform period transformed the Soviet Union... until it collapsed. Read more (with games by @gmtgames.bsky.social @jasondcmatthews.bsky.social @peersylvester.bsky.social @alderaceg.bsky.social and others):

In case you read German: @peersylvester.bsky.social on Ryan Dancey's assessment that AI is the future of board game design.

Beim ersteren wird's teuer für den Endverbraucher, beim zweiten leidet die Qualität.

...machen mit KI aber nur einige Dutzend Milliarden Dollar Umsatz (nicht Gewinn). Die Investitionswette basiert darauf, jetzt so viele Personen und Unternehmen von KI abhängig zu machen, dass man das Produkt in der näheren Zukunft direkt (Gebühren) oder indirekt (Werbung) monetarisiert.

Leistungsfähige KI wird es nicht für die von ihm angegebenen "few dollars" geben. KI braucht High-End-Chips und viel Energie. Die Techfirmen investieren daher jedes Jahr hunderte von Milliarden Dollar in Rechenzentren und Energieversorgung...

Danke für den Artikel! Zeigt sehr schön das Qualitätsproblem von KI-generiertem Material (insbesondere) bei komplexen und kreativen Aufgaben.
Dass Dancey KI nicht verstanden hat, zeigt sich auch auf der anderen Seite, nämlich den Kosten:

Screenshot of playtest of Churchill. London Conference Card C begins the 5 Turn 1944-45 scenario.

Screenshot of VS Code editor showing examples of Sugarcube code for the Conference cards in Churchill

14,000 lines of code later and a hiatus of at least a year, I'm back trying to finish my web-based version of GMT's "Churchill". A classic case of the last 10% of a project taking 90% of the time.

Twilight Struggle is first and foremost a game about foreign policy, but I love the way it looks at economic and social phenomena from there!

Competition between West and East also included everyday life: In 1959, Khrushchev and Nixon debated the merits of their respective systems surrounded by American household appliances (@jasondcmatthews.bsky.social @gmtgames.bsky.social). Read more: cliosboardgames.wordpress.com/2026/02/08/k...

De-Stalinization, Hungarian revolutionary style. Khrushchev did not like it. Read more: cliosboardgames.wordpress.com/2026/02/08/k...

After Stalin's death, Nikita Khrushchev charted a new path in foreign policy: Peaceful coexistence was the watchword (image from #WirSindDasVolk! @peersylvester.bsky.social). It did not last. Read more: cliosboardgames.wordpress.com/2026/02/08/k...