The game is simple, you play as a major power during the Cold War era, and you win by earning more prestige than your opponent.

You earn prestige by increasing your relationship with other countries and by signing agreements and treaties with them.

Each country has a prestige value depending on its geostrategic importance.
For example, the Panama Canal is worth 50 points for controlling the passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, while landlocked and small Rwanda is worth 5 points.

Each playing country also has a sphere of influence. The sphere of influence is a contentious imperialist concept that shaped the 19th and 20th centuries.
Each player loses or gains twice the point value of a country in their sphere of influence.

The game is turn-based.
If you are in a multiplayer game, the USSR plays first; otherwise, the AI opponent will play after you.
A turn represents 1 month of real time.

You have a fixed budget you can spend on actions each turn.
That budget will refill each turn, but remaining $ will not carry over: each $ not spent is lost.

$ is an abstraction in the game, not representing an exact sum. I could have used action points, but instead, I chose $.

There are no other ways to improve your budget than waiting for positive historical events or freeing up $ tied to fixed expenses like R&D or troop deployments.

During the game, you will have tooltips everywhere, so just read them, and you should never feel lost for long.

Picking your first game

That's easy. Pick a power by clicking on its flag, pick a difficulty level, then a scenario, and press the play button.

The difficulty level changes three things:

1) It gives bonuses or penalties to both the player and the AI opponent for most actions.
2) Countries will react more strongly to the player's hostile actions at higher difficulty levels.
3) The AI itself changes and becomes more advanced.

The Easy difficulty level is deliberately too easy. Think of it as a way to explore the game.

Nobody plays it vanilla

I invite you to read the content of the options menu.
You can select many game mods that will change the way the game plays.

These mods can make the game easier, more challenging, or faster to play, etc.
It’s possible that, with some combinations of options, the AI finds itself outsmarted.
If so, just let me know, and I will adapt the AI to that particular setting.

The main ways to navigate the map are:

-scrolling by putting the cursor on the edge of the screen
-using arrows and WASD keys
-grabing the map and sliding (I admit this last option is not optimized because it is underused)

you can zoom in/out the map using:

-the mouse wheel
-the +/ - buttons on the left of the map
-the +/- keyborad keys

On the left of the map view, you have several buttons to display maps datas.

The most useful in my opinion are: the default view showing blocs and spheres of influence, the threats view, the Hotpots view and the Stability view.

Keys, mouse and tooltips

The left mouse button is used to conduce most of the actions.

The right mouse button is used to close most of the panels and navigate back.

Hovering most of game elements will display a detailed tooltip.

Hovering a country on the map, will open a giant lateral tooltip, displaying most of the useful informations. I know that most of the players find it very useful, but it can also be annoying and distracting to some. You can turn it off from the options menu.

The middle mouse button is used only to display the algorytms of the actions when you hover an action icon.
I am against displaying % of success for actions. You should be able to make an educated guess by reading the tooltip and using your common sense and general understanding of the situation.
So if you are a system maxer focused on numbers, I made the algos accessible to you.
But there will be no middle ground.

Cheat codes

Maestro's Cold War 2 is one of the rare Maestro Cinetik's games without cheat codes.
Instead, you can directly change the way the game plays from the option menu, or modify the Json save files.

Stability: This is the one most important trait to look at. Countries with a higher stability will better resist to subversion, will fight better in wars and counter insurgency operations.
They will also feel stronger and so will be less likely to join your bloc by signing a defence agreement.
Positive actions like economic aid will have more positive effects on stable countries.
If ever the stability fell below "chaos", the government might change.

Government: This is another important trait. It directly influences the reactions of governments to subversive actions. Dictatorships for exemple will rarely tolerate oppositions and be harder to subvert. When the USSR overthrows a government, it installs a People's Republic. When the USA overthrows a government, it installs a Dictatorship.

Wealth: This trait is used to resolve many actions. Wealthy countries tend to produce smaller and less dangerous guerillas. Armies of wealthy countries are also considered as better equiped by the game's algorytms.
Stable countries tend to develop by themselves over long period of time, but this process can be sped up by economic aid actions.

Economy: used for some actions, this trait is the ultimate indicator of integration into one of the two blocs.



they are many secondary traits: just hover long enough this section to display the tooltip explaining the country's traits.

Some traits have a deep impact on the game. For exemple, jungle terrain will make guerillas harder to unroot.


This displays what are the current treaties with this country. The Defence treaty is the most important thing here: once a country has signed such a treaty, it joins the corresponding power's bloc: no other player will be able to sign such a treaty.


This will show you if the country is at war, or has active guerillas on its territory.
It is possible to inspect guerillas or interact with them: just click on their flag.



Available from the right part of the screen, are the actions a player can conduct in this country.
Only available actions will be displayed.
If an action is not there, it is either because you don't have the budget, either you already have done this actions and don't play with the "unlimited actions" mod, or its conditions are not met.
You will read more about that in the "Actions" section.


Clicking on the newspaper icon will display the list of recent events that occured in this country.
That is the easy way to understand what is happening here.

Guerillas are an important feature in the game.

just like countries, they have
A) relationship with playing countries
B) and traits

you can interract with them D) and inspect them C)

Guerillas are one of the main ways to overthrow a government.
But most of them will just be annoying forces sticking around forever to ruin a country's stability.

The traits of a guerilla are what makes them very hard to erradicate.
A player financing a guerilla has good chances to make them last forever.

To take the power, a guerilla will need not only to feel strong enough to go on the offensive, and the government must be weak enough to be overthrown.

Sometimes, you may want to create or finance a guerilla just to pin your opponent's attention away from your real objective.



Guerillas have their own agenda: they may decide to fight another guerilla rather than the government, carve their domain and live quietly from drug or diamnds trafficking, or lay down their weapons to reach a negociated solution.

You can influence a guerilla by infiltrating it, then suggest it strategies.

They are two kind of guerillas:

-historical guerillas, which usually appear by event
-guerillas created by players

There is a limit to the number of guerillas a player can create in one country (around 3).
The intesrest of creating your own guerillas, is that they will be aligned with your bloc policy.
Such created guerillas will have traits strongly influenced by the country they belong to.

Events are an important part of the game.
They will offer you choices that will shape your game in the long term.

When a choice button is green, it means that this was the historical choice.
If several buttons are green, it means that multiple choices are historical. These may have been grouped to provide a more clear-cut policy for the player, or they may have been historical at different times, or for other reasons.

If you need to study a situation in more depth before deciding, you can access some special insights just below the event's image.
(And often even a link to a Wikipedia page, if you don’t consider that a spoiler.)

Most of the time, I tried to write the events as a contemporary would have perceived them.
So, the event texts won’t include unforeseen future consequences.

Hovering over a choice will display tooltip comments, but long-term hidden effects will rarely be mentioned.

In this game, a choice you make in the 1950s may have an impact 10 or more years later, and this is most often not stated in the event’s tooltips or descriptions.

One last important note: if a choice has a small nuclear mushroom icon next to it, it means that this choice could lead to a nuclear showdown. (More on this in the showdown section of the rules.)

You can access the R&D section by clicking on the country you are playing as on the map.
Then, find the microscope icon and click on it.

It will display a list of technologies—some that you have already developed, others that you can research, and some that are still locked.

Developing a technology gives you prestige points and an advantage during nuclear showdowns.
As with everything else in the game, just hover over a technology to display its tooltip.

From there, you will be able to allocate an amount of investment in each technology.
However, the efficiency of each new $ invested decreases.
For example, investing $50 per turn in the H-bomb will not develop it five times faster than investing $10 per turn.

Additionally, technological development progresses more slowly for technologies that are far ahead of their historical timeline.

The more powers that have already developed a particular technology, the faster your progress will be.

R&D can earn you a significant number of prestige points, but would the $ spent on research have earned you more points if used for other actions?
Maybe.
Think carefully before over-investing.

Nuclear Showdowns are critical events in the game.
They may force your opponent to change their policy, allow you to gain (or lose) a lot of prestige points... or prematurely end your game in a nuclear holocaust.

You will know you are in a Nuclear Showdown because the music will change, and a window like this one will appear:



A showdown is a confrontation, like the Cuban Missile Crisis, that is resolved either by one player yielding or by the end of the world.

It is played in rounds:

At each round, you will have to choose one of the three possible stances:

1) Concede: This will immediately end the confrontation. You will probably lose (unless your opponent picks the same stance).
You will lose some prestige, but only half as much as you would by choosing another stance.

2) Negotiate: This is the stance you will use most often. However, your opponent may see it as a sign of weakness, and the crisis may drag on.

3) Threaten!: This stance shows you are serious and raises the showdown's stakes (in terms of prestige points).
It’s a good way to either provoke a nuclear apocalypse or win the showdown quickly.

The important concepts in a showdown are:

The DEFCON level: The lower it is on a scale from 1 to 5, the closer the world is to nuclear war.
Needless to say, choosing the "Threaten" stance when DEFCON is 2 or below is extremely risky.

The stakes score: This represents the prestige you will earn and your opponent will lose if you win the showdown.
The longer the showdown lasts, the higher the stakes will rise. The more threatening the participants, the higher the score will climb.

The nerves score: Each player has a nerve gauge. When it reaches 0, the player automatically loses the confrontation.
Unless a special option or event enables it, you will not know the level of your opponent’s gauge!

The starting level of the nerve gauge depends on a leader's personality, the atomic technologies owned by the player, and the importance of the current crisis to each player.
(You can bet that the USA would not back down if the Red Army were to invade Mexico.)

This is why you should not engage in nuclear showdowns over countries you don’t care about, with a weak leader, or when you are lagging behind in the R&D nuclear race.

In this section I will make a quick sum up of the main actions.
Remember that you can access the algos of the actions by clicking the middle mouse button.

They are few possible actions, but when playing you will find creative and vicious ways to use everyone of them.



Trade Agreement:
Signing a trade agreement with a country increases the prestige score. Trade agreements provide bonuses to the "economic aid" action.
And, No!, signing trade agreements does not directly increase the budget of the CIA, the KGB or the Army. this action will have no impact on your budget.

Defence treaty:
Signing a defense treaty with a country increases the prestige score. A country with a defense agreement with you is considered a member of your political bloc: no other player will be able to sign a defense agreement with this country. Defense treaties provide bonuses to the "military aid" action and unlock additional actions like "military bases" and the possibility to send troops in the country.

Military base:
Bases give prestige points when you open them. Bases also give bonuses to military aid actions and fightings in the country. The use of Napalm in this country is also unlocked for the USA.
Bases have a 5$ upkeep cost

Nuclear missiles:
When you have a base and developped the missile technology, you will be able to place medium range missiles near your opponent's country.
Missiles grant prestige points and provide a bonus in the event of a nuclear confrontation with neighboring superpowers.

Align:
You leverage your influence to compel a country to adopt your economic and political model. For example, the USSR can employ this action to transform countries into people's republics with collectivist economies.
Brutal political and economical changes may affect stability.
This action is also a great way to increase your relation with a country while decreasing its relations with the other powers. It is probably one of the most useful actions of the game.

Threaten:
Threatening a country will significantly deteriorate your relationship (recall that a decrease in relationship level results in the loss of prestige points).
This action is beneficial if you aim to invade a country, as a player can only invade countries with which they have the lowest level of relationship.
Threats may also "Finlandize" a country, effectively preventing your opponent from drawing that country into their bloc.



Embargoes:
Embargoes impose penalties on Military and Economic Aid actions. Over the long term, they can affect a country's stability and economic development.

Economic Aid:
Economic aid is an action primarily aimed at enhancing your relationship with a country.
While it can also contribute to increasing its stability and developing its economy over time, these are considered secondary outcomes.
However, channeling excessive aid into a fragile country may elevate its corruption level.
Therefore, it's prudent to act judiciously to prevent adverse impacts on the local economy.
This action tends to be more effective if you have a trade agreement with the recipient country.



Military advisors:
Military advisors enhance the country's capability to fight wars and guerrillas.
Military advisors will also train the country's army in the use of new weapons, thereby granting a bonus to the military aid action. Sending military advisors will not trigger a nuclear showdown. Advisors have an upkeep cost.

Military aid
This action will directly bolster the country's armed forces. The army score of a country considers not only the weaponry but also the training, maintenance, supply chain, and more. Hence, the presence of your military advisors, military bases, and defense agreements all positively influence this action's outcome.

Mercenaries:
Mercenaries will fight on behalf of the government. This is a method to strengthen a country without directly involving your own military.
However, if this action is utilized too frequently, its cost will quickly increase.
It's important to remember that mercenaries might have their own agendas, potentially leading to complications such as staging coups, seizing local resources, or brutalizing the population.

Send troops/Invade:
Troops will be deployed to defend a country if there is a defense treaty in place, or to invade it if relations are execrable.
Deploying troops incurs an upkeep cost of $1 per troop point. Sending and withdrawing troops sends a strong signal to other countries.
Threatening the interests of other players may even trigger a nuclear showdown.

Bombing:
Will destroy the target country's infrastructure, reducing its wealth and stability.
Underdeveloped countries are more resilient to strategic bombing.
Bombing campaigns may also impact the country's military forces and can result in significant destruction if the country has steppe or desert terrains.

Napalm:
Napalm is the ideal method for dislodging guerrillas entrenched in jungles or in otherwise inaccessible hideouts. Be prepared for some backlash in terms of prestige as your population discovers the use of such controversial weapons.



Oppositions:
Will create an opposition you controll. Controlling the opposition is a prerequisite for using most subversion actions.

Demonstrations:
This action is used to reduce a country's stability. Democracies and authoritarian regimes will respond to protests in very different ways: the outcomes of such actions can vary widely, and the stability of a country may even be strengthened, depending on the government's response.

Coup:
Coups are executed to change the government, installing a strongman in power with military backing.
Contrary to initial assumptions players might have, this action is primarily intended for use on allies. Strong ties with the local military are crucial for planning a successful coup: the presence of military bases, advisors, and defense agreements all provide bonuses to this action.
It is advisable to employ this strategy on low-stability allied countries that you fear losing.

Create guerilla:
Inspiring and financing a guerrilla movement is not the quickest path to power, but it is effective and will compel your opponent to allocate resources to defend the country.
The characteristics of guerrillas are heavily shaped by the socio-political and cultural background of the country where they operate.
If a guerrilla movement succeeds in overthrowing the government, it will establish a new government that is friendly to you.

Stay Behind: (USA only)
Stay behind groups are underground groups created to conduce secret sabotage and guerilla operations should this country fell under communist rule.
They can also be activated to conduce a "strategy of tension": opening a period marked by internal conflict, terrorism, and political manipulation, aimed at creating a state of fear and division within the population, often to justify authoritarian measures by the state or to discredit political opponents.

War is risky!
The best configuration for a successful invasion is 25 or more invading troops against 5 or less defending troops in a low stability country with some flat terrain.

Change any of these variables, and there is a possiblity that the swift take over you had in mind turns into a neverending nightmare.

Now that you have been warned, let's learn more about wars:

Wars are resolved automatically each turn.
Even if you are a superpower, do not expect to roll over a country that easily.
(ask the Americans in Vietnam or the Soviets in Afghanistan)

The most important metric to predict the outcome of a war, is the stability of the involved country.

Being a superpower, you will probably never lose a war: isn't that cool?

However, you may end up trapped forever in a conflict provided the other superpower is financing your opponents.
Withdrawing will cost you prestige!

Remember that the game is called "Cold War", not "Hot War" and do what cold warriors do: use proxies!
Or else, bully only low stability countries in deserts or other terrains where they will be helpless against your massive bombings and attack with a 5 to 1 ration in your favor.

They are many variables involved in war resolution, but really, army sizes, terrain and stability is 90% of all the information you need to make a correct guessing.

Understanding what is going on

The situation on the ground can evolve quickly and sometimes you might want to understand exactly what happened.
From the country window, you can access the telexs by using the diary button on the right of the screen.

Supporting minor countries at war

Military aid will help you keep a military power afloat.
Countries invading another one won't use all their military power to invade, but just part of it.

To support an imperial power fighting a guerilla in one of its colonies: just make a military aid to the metropolis: some of it will be used to fight that countries' colonial wars.

I recommend that after your first game, you explore the options menu and review all the available settings to customize the game to your liking.

To play more like the browser game, I recommend you use the "unlimited actions" mode.

These options will replace any cheat codes features.
Their list will probably grow as the game is getting more content, and to include your feedbacks.

Do Your Own Localization

In the options menu, you can select the "Custom" language.
If you choose this, you will notice that the language will still be displayed in English.

Next, use the button in the upper right corner of the Options screen to open the game folder.
Navigate to the "mods" folder, then go to the "custom lang" folder.

Here you will find the dictionary used by the game.
You can change the values as needed.

Example:
Directly replace the text in the files:
$jungle=jungle
$desert=desert
$steppe=steppe
$forest=forest
$arctic=arctic

with:

$jungle=정글
$desert=사막
$steppe=스텝
$forest=숲
$arctic=북극

Once you make these changes, the game will display these texts in Korean when you select the custom language.

The dictionary is divided into several files, so finding a specific key, or sharing a modification work with community team should be easy.

"customen" is the files containing the new texts that are not in the browser version.
(Custom is for customized localization file, and en means the default file was made from the english version)

Tinkering with Json files

An editor is planed for that game, but until that feature is added, you can customize the game by playing with the save files.
Here is an exemple with a few steps you can take to gain an infinite budget (it should take less than 5 minutes):

Open a save file with your Notepad.
Search for "Country":"USA", then look for "budget" and "monthly." Change the value to whatever you like (maybe 1000?).
Voilà!
(You can open the game folder from the options menu so you don't have to search for it.)

Once you’ve made the changes, place the file in the games folder > mods > custom_json.
Rename your file with a creative name, such as "infinite_money."

Now, whenever you launch the game, an option to play your custom scenario will be available in the scenarios list.

Have fun!