Labyrinth, Turn 1

It is the first time that I (Titokiza) play as Yihadist so i do not have any clear idea yet of the strategy to follow. For the first cards Yihadist approach was trying tohurt American prestige by moving some cells from Afganistan to Central Asia and Pakistan and playing Schroeder&Chirac event. With this play France and Germany went to soft posture, reducing US prestige by 1. Unfortunally, testing for Central Asia resulted in fair which did not helped muslim.

As in our last play American succeeded to win by playing from a soft posture, this time US (Molina) decided to keep and give a try to the hard approach. American played two events: Abbas and Saleh. With Abbas US hurted Yihadist funding to 7 and increased prestige by 1. With Saleh, it could shift Yemen to Ally, place 1 Aid but Yemen at poor.

Now Yihadist played two 1-ops cards (not a very good initial hand): Uyghur Jihad for the event to get a cell in soft China and another cell moving from Afghanistan to Pakistan.

Quiet Yihadist play had invited US to being aggresive and he launched the invasion of Afghanistan by playing Wahhabism (and giving Yihadists  funding to 9). In spite of this, the invasion has been well received in the media and US prestige is increased by 3 !!!! Next, he played Hijab for the event, leading to a Fair Turkey and reducing again funding.

After losing Islamic Rule in Afghanistan, Yihadist needs to block American troops there as long as possible. For this he recruits three cells in Afghanistan. Then two plots attempts are rolled in Pakistan with one of them succesful.

Wisely ignoring the plots, US decides to make War of Ideas in Gulf States and Arabia. With drm of +1 and +3  both attempts are succesful and Gulf States shifted to goond and arabia to Fair. However Martyrdom operation was activated at China giving two more plots. Solving the three living plots leads to China at soft posture and funding to 9 but Yihadist failed both yihad attempts at Pakistan.

Then, Yihadist continues with his yihads in Pakistan and finally he succeeded (after 4 attempts) and Pakistan went to Poor. Second card allows one more cell in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Systematically, US pursues his War of Ideas using the +2 bonus of his prestige. Arabia is now Good and Central Asia shifts to Ally at the expenses of applying Benazir Bhutto at Pakistan.

To end this hard turn for him, Yihadist travels a cell from Afghanistan to Lybia.

End of Turn: Poor Countries:5, Good Countries: 5. Prestige : 10. Funding: 9. Good Resources: 6, no Islamic Rule Country.

Here is the map:

Analysis: Hard turn for the Yihadists. US invasion on Afghanistan not only removed Islamic Rule but hugely increased American prestige. US took advantage of this and begun a race of WoI with high drm.