I don’t remember 1974. I also only really have a vague memory of the latter part of the Cold War. I do remember Hasselhoff singing on the Berlin Wall.

Yes, these are both relevant to board gaming and relevant to two-player gaming. Why? Well, 1974 was the year President Nixon resigned because of the Watergate scandal and the Cold War and his speech on the long Twilight Struggle. Both a two-player only card-driven games.

Now I have owned and enjoyed Twilight Struggle and as of writing this I own Watergate but have not yet played it.

Twilight Struggle does a really good job of the push and pull of the USA and Russia during the Cold War. The history is there, the terror of pushing the world over the edge into global thermonuclear war is there - anyone for a nice game of chess? But, and it’s a very big but, a game of Twilight Struggle is long. Too long. Oh and some of the rules just didn’t stick in my head and so lots of games involved pausing to read up on the rules and that breaks the immersion.

In the end, the length and the fact we didn’t play it enough killed the game for us. I replaced it with Fort Sumter, a great game that takes 20 minutes to play. But thematically the start of the American Civil war isn’t the best fit for me.

Now whilst I was somewhat young in 1974, the Watergate scandal is interesting and getting the chance to play a recreation of it in board game form was a difficult thing to pass up. Yes, I am late to this Watergate game party but better late than never.

Everyone says it’s good and of course I’ll be playing Nixon for my first few games…

(The Long, Twilight Struggle being one of the greatest, if not the greatest, espisodes of Babylon 5)