The year is 1959 and world has descended into madness. A Capitalist Empire, lead from Washington D.C., is locked in mortal conflict with the Communist Bloc, controlled by an iron fisted Kremlin. For how eagerly the two sides have rattled their sabers, neither power is truly prepared for total war in the nuclear age. Tanks and missile cruisers, jet fighters and Kalashnikovs, roll off assembly lines and straight into one of a dozen charred wastelands strewn across the globe. Each side prays for a quick victory, as neither can sustain the horrors of the nuclear age for long.
DEFCON 1 is a diceless wargame meant to loosely simulate a nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union. The game supposes that neither nation’s economy is prepared for nuclear conflict. Production represents the sole random chance element in the game. Each turn, players draw random units according to the size of their economy, and strategically deploy them across the globe, each side struggling to achieve victory by taking their opponent’s homeland before their economy suffers total collapse.