[AGOT] Winter is coming... shuffle the deck

TimFiji

So my friends and I have been playing this weekly for the past 5 weeks, each alternating houses so everyone tries each house at least once. We constantly throw "best strategy" theories for each house and they always differ. A lot I guess comes down to how the alliances are made so that is sort of the basis for this thread.


Example: House Tyrell should always try to take the south, ally with Baratheon and move north, but splitting up his units so he has no full army and play for a turn of mustering to really maximize what he can do which is build larger armies early on. The Tyrell player last time did this, but Greyjoy swooped into highgarden and well there was trouble since, for both (Greyjoy lost some territory north to stark.) I think you get the picture

What kind of strategies do you recommend for the houses? Starting out, whom is it better to ally with as each house? End game strategies? Stuff like this. There are obviously a lot of variables every time since there isn't much chance in the game, but any tips would be helpful.

Sometime I don't know which track I want to bid the most on. I really like Fiefdoms but having more stars on King's Court is nice. I am making this for the selfish reason that I am curious about other ways people play their favorite house, but I also just enjoy talking about this game.

Normally we played with 5 players and the following expansions:
-ASOS Westeros decks
-Siege and fortifications
-Ports
-Wilding deck
-ASOS House cards
-One Time Orders

Here's the map for reference. Thanks to Hermenegilde for the link
Also, the OP is kind of sloppy but I can clean it up as we go.

Darian

From the PbP thread:
A Game of Thrones - area control set in George R.R. Martin's fantasy world
Game 1: hosted by Hermenegilde; completed

Was/is there a second game that I forgot to link?

I've only played this once, and we messed up one of the rules which badly slowed down development, so I won't have a lot to say on the strategy front.

(We didn't realize that a single unit is not an army, so does not count toward your army limit.)

TimFiji

Darian wrote: »

From the PbP thread:
A Game of Thrones - area control set in George R.R. Martin's fantasy world
Game 1: hosted by Hermenegilde; completed

Was/is there a second game that I forgot to link?

I've only played this once, and we messed up one of the rules which badly slowed down development, so I won't have a lot to say on the strategy front.

(We didn't realize that a single unit is not an army, so does not count toward your army limit.)

No, I thought I saw another thread for game 2 but nothing apparently happened if I did.

Some of my friends started out playing the game like a Risk-style game. they would throw their armies on cities and turtle but end up doing poorly. It took a game or two to realize that losing units isn't horrible or common, but spreading out so you can use mustering really helps.

Mad Jazz

Yeah, in my experience it's better to think of it like a game of diplomacy rather than a game of risk. I mean, the rules for movement and combat are essentially the same already, so...

Lannister is terrible, imo. Lannisport is so vulnerable and Pyke has such great territories (once they get into the golden sound, they pretty much are guaranteed to take over everything Lannister has) that it's nearly impossible to win without someone else screwing the pooch. I've heard that there's a way that Pyke is guaranteed to eliminate Lannister first turn, no matter what alliances happen, but I haven't looked into it.

Hermenegilde

Darian wrote: »

From the PbP thread:
A Game of Thrones - area control set in George R.R. Martin's fantasy world
Game 1: hosted by Hermenegilde; completed

Was/is there a second game that I forgot to link?

I've only played this once, and we messed up one of the rules which badly slowed down development, so I won't have a lot to say on the strategy front.

(We didn't realize that a single unit is not an army, so does not count toward your army limit.)

There was a second game, but it slowed down to a crawl and then it died when I had to go away for a while.

Teucrian

Mad Jazz wrote: »

Yeah, in my experience it's better to think of it like a game of diplomacy rather than a game of risk. I mean, the rules for movement and combat are essentially the same already, so...

Lannister is terrible, imo. Lannisport is so vulnerable and Pyke has such great territories (once they get into the golden sound, they pretty much are guaranteed to take over everything Lannister has) that it's nearly impossible to win without someone else screwing the pooch. I've heard that there's a way that Pyke is guaranteed to eliminate Lannister first turn, no matter what alliances happen, but I haven't looked into it.

Not eliminate, but remove any possibility of them having ships for the whole game. Essentially if they attack with maximum strength against Lannister's starting ship they are guaranteed to destroy it no matter what Lannister does. Since, it's extremely unlikely that any coastal ocean territory will be unoccupied for the rest of the game, mustering a navy won't be possible. Since the game is better called "A Game of Ships" this is pretty devastating.

This can be mitigated by using port rules or by changing the starting lead on the fiefdom track to Stark (which makes more sense thematically anyway) but in general Lannister has the worst starting position.

Mad Jazz

Ah, that makes sense. I got stuck with Lannister the first time we played and that's pretty much what happened to me. Once Pyke has a stranglehold on that whole coastline, it's pretty much game over.

TimFiji

Teucrian wrote: »

Mad Jazz wrote: »

Yeah, in my experience it's better to think of it like a game of diplomacy rather than a game of risk. I mean, the rules for movement and combat are essentially the same already, so...

Lannister is terrible, imo. Lannisport is so vulnerable and Pyke has such great territories (once they get into the golden sound, they pretty much are guaranteed to take over everything Lannister has) that it's nearly impossible to win without someone else screwing the pooch. I've heard that there's a way that Pyke is guaranteed to eliminate Lannister first turn, no matter what alliances happen, but I haven't looked into it.

Not eliminate, but remove any possibility of them having ships for the whole game. Essentially if they attack with maximum strength against Lannister's starting ship they are guaranteed to destroy it no matter what Lannister does. Since, it's extremely unlikely that any coastal ocean territory will be unoccupied for the rest of the game, mustering a navy won't be possible. Since the game is better called "A Game of Ships" this is pretty devastating.

This can be mitigated by using port rules or by changing the starting lead on the fiefdom track to Stark (which makes more sense thematically anyway) but in general Lannister has the worst starting position.

This is why we started to play with ports. They get blockaded too easily. same with start if Baratheon and pyke both take northern seas. Lannister is rough, but it can be fun to play with the right alliance. Maybe ally with Pyke and go after tyrell? the 6th player of house Martell really changes the dynamic of Baratheon too.

TimFiji

TimFiji wrote: »

This is why we started to play with ports. They get blockaded too easily. same with start if Baratheon and pyke both take northern seas. Lannister is rough, but it can be fun to play with the right alliance. Maybe ally with Pyke and go after tyrell? the 6th player of house Martell really changes the dynamic of Baratheon too.

Actually I am curious about 6 players. We have yet to play 6, but I am curious about how Martell is in the East with Baratheon. Does this make stark more powerful as it pulls attention from Stark to Martell for Baratheon?

Hermenegilde

Mad Jazz wrote: »

Yeah, in my experience it's better to think of it like a game of diplomacy rather than a game of risk. I mean, the rules for movement and combat are essentially the same already, so...

Lannister is terrible, imo. Lannisport is so vulnerable and Pyke has such great territories (once they get into the golden sound, they pretty much are guaranteed to take over everything Lannister has) that it's nearly impossible to win without someone else screwing the pooch. I've heard that there's a way that Pyke is guaranteed to eliminate Lannister first turn, no matter what alliances happen, but I haven't looked into it.

With Greyjoy you can take out Golden Sound on the first turn, but you have to commit both ships, his move +0 (best he has), Balon (ASOS) and the Sword to beat Lannister's defense +2 and Balon has no swords. It means that there are no more ships in the Bay and Lannister can retreat in the Golden Sound.
On the next turn, if Stark comes down from Moat Cailin (as he should) Greyjoy is going to be in trouble.

TimFiji

How do you guys handle Alliances? We've been toying with that. Sometimes we text each others' mobile. We've try pieces of paper too, but sometimes I just draw dirty pictures and hand them to the player so other players think we're doing something. Anyone got better ideas?

Hermenegilde

Open talk over the table. No sneakiness, but it keeps people honest :P

TimFiji

Hermenegilde wrote: »

Open talk over the table. No sneakiness, but it keeps people honest :P

Sometimes I would prefer this. Although other times, I ally with one just to get his guard down and drive right into the middle of their territory.

e: I wouldn't want Greyjoy to know that I was allying with Stark (if I am Lannister, for instance) or something like that.