Theodore Flooseveltproud parent of eight beautiful girls and shalmelodorne (which is currently being ruled by a woman (awesome role model for my daughters)) #dornedadRegistered Userregular
House Hoare and Targaryen have the single longest sequence of a stable alliance of any two houses for the entire game.
Did we? Ah, I suppose Martell and Gardener did have a break that one turn. How purple was your bloodline by the end game?
Bit of pot/kettle with the moralizing about how we should break our alliance eh Boom? :P
The difference was, mainly I didn't want my alliance. I wanted to invade the Trident for ages, but had to deal with the unbreakable Southerners and Northerners. The Northerners ended, and then I hoped I could play a normal, scheming house, but I still had to play the White Knight and deal with 2.5 Kingdoms curbstomping Durrandon. Seriously, if either of you had taken me up on betraying the other, I was happy to go attack Lannister, bide some time, then re-invade the Trident and Cracklaw and Gulltown. I was honest with House Gardener that I wouldn't mind if that meant them winning in the endgame if they just dumped all their armies on your west (this was before the Hoare raids, which I actually, briefly, warned against...but then realized the alliance probably wasn't going to break anyways.)
Seriously, my House chats are full of me ruing the fact I can't invade anyone around me because Martell and Gardener won't kill each other, even just a little.
The problem was, I could trust that you would go elsewhere, I couldn't trust that Durrandon would not just immediately attack. Plus, every time I tried to negotiate peace with Durrandon they wouldn't budge from "give us all our land back and go fuck yourself." as a negotiating position. Contrary to what it might have looked like, our war goal was to take Mistwood and one of either Blackhaven or Greenstone, but they would never accept peace on those terms. Sooo, without being able to secure peace on one front, we were never going to open a second war front against Gardner, such is life.
There's nowhere else for Durradon to go.
So you could absolutely trust we were going to attack you forever and a day.
And if that didn't appeal, maybe you shouldn't have attacked.
durrandon begins the game bordering 4 houses. martell borders 2.
How long did that take to change?
And I believe we were pushing against another house until your invasion cut off that front.
So we either attack you, or attack Targ for no reason and get completely wiped out as every border becomes hostile.
it changed when we razed summerhall, meaning you were no longer actually sharing a territory with lannister for the moment, after which I believe you immediately quit. which was like turn 5 or 6 I think
i'm not sure how you can talk about your starting position as an unwinnable, wretched hand, tell martell that there would never be peace if we ever attacked you, and claim that you're justified in this because even with peace (and us ceding land or land(s) back to you) you had nowhere else to go. you have everywhere else to go! that's what a ceasefire lets you do! if you wanted to fight us, try and make peace with gardner; if you wanted to fight gardner, try and make peace with us
House Hoare and Targaryen have the single longest sequence of a stable alliance of any two houses for the entire game.
Did we? Ah, I suppose Martell and Gardener did have a break that one turn. How purple was your bloodline by the end game?
Bit of pot/kettle with the moralizing about how we should break our alliance eh Boom? :P
The difference was, mainly I didn't want my alliance. I wanted to invade the Trident for ages, but had to deal with the unbreakable Southerners and Northerners. The Northerners ended, and then I hoped I could play a normal, scheming house, but I still had to play the White Knight and deal with 2.5 Kingdoms curbstomping Durrandon. Seriously, if either of you had taken me up on betraying the other, I was happy to go attack Lannister, bide some time, then re-invade the Trident and Cracklaw and Gulltown. I was honest with House Gardener that I wouldn't mind if that meant them winning in the endgame if they just dumped all their armies on your west (this was before the Hoare raids, which I actually, briefly, warned against...but then realized the alliance probably wasn't going to break anyways.)
Seriously, my House chats are full of me ruing the fact I can't invade anyone around me because Martell and Gardener won't kill each other, even just a little.
The problem was, I could trust that you would go elsewhere, I couldn't trust that Durrandon would not just immediately attack. Plus, every time I tried to negotiate peace with Durrandon they wouldn't budge from "give us all our land back and go fuck yourself." as a negotiating position. Contrary to what it might have looked like, our war goal was to take Mistwood and one of either Blackhaven or Greenstone, but they would never accept peace on those terms. Sooo, without being able to secure peace on one front, we were never going to open a second war front against Gardner, such is life.
There's nowhere else for Durradon to go.
So you could absolutely trust we were going to attack you forever and a day.
And if that didn't appeal, maybe you shouldn't have attacked.
durrandon begins the game bordering 4 houses. martell borders 2.
How long did that take to change?
And I believe we were pushing against another house until your invasion cut off that front.
So we either attack you, or attack Targ for no reason and get completely wiped out as every border becomes hostile.
it changed when we razed summerhall, meaning you were no longer actually sharing a territory with lannister for the moment, after which I believe you immediately quit. which was like turn 5 or 6 I think
i'm not sure how you can talk about your starting position as an unwinnable, wretched hand, tell martell that there would never be peace if we ever attacked you, and claim that you're justified in this because even with peace (and us ceding land or land(s) back to you) you had nowhere else to go. you have everywhere else to go! that's what a ceasefire lets you do! if you wanted to fight us, try and make peace with gardner; if you wanted to fight gardner, try and make peace with us
We tried to make peace with Gardner, as we had no choice against your assault.
And there were no overtures of peace made to us by Martell until (presumably, I was not party to anything) after you razed Summerhall.
And again, Summerhall should not have burned, but things were lost in the conversion to a forum game.
Theodore Flooseveltproud parent of eight beautiful girls and shalmelodorne (which is currently being ruled by a woman (awesome role model for my daughters)) #dornedadRegistered Userregular
My biggest change for future metagames like this would be the removal of the contingency system for combat.
I think it added too much and it certainly dragged a level of discomfort into House Hoare's approach to the game.
i definitely enjoyed the contingency system a lot (too much) as a player, but felt bad every time i sent those orders to matev and austin
i think losing it entirely would've taken a lot my own enjoyment of the game away, though. I wonder if a PBP version where knights in-thread do banner-order march orders one day, and banner-order action orders the next to comprise a full turn would be doable. Give each house a window of time to get them in. Definitely a lot of potential failure points there... but I really would've enjoyed reacting to orders in pseudo-realtime, even if it slowed the overall game down. I, however, am no megagame GM.
Like pluto said, though, losing the banter and cajoling of the knights was a bit of a bummer for me. The only knight I had a PM thread with was @jdarksun (actually I did talk to Schuss a couple times too, now that I'm thinking about it), but that absolutely impacted the way I was thinking about our actions against/alongside them, even if I wasn't the one making the alliances. I did message vagrant_winds when I thought they were still playing in hopes of some sort of dialog with Durrandon, but obviously got no response and didn't know that it was their maester doing everything at a certain point. definitely would've treated them a little differently if I knew they'd become a 1-player house, even though I knew the night's watch and their allies had their back
It's been a couple years since I ran a megagame. Tis Better to Rule In Hell was fun, very regimented, but fun. When Aegon's Conquest was the summer after I demo'ed it, I knew I had to try it out. It hit a lot buttons I liked. So I plotted and planned. I had even built a complete pro-board cause I was so sure I'd have no difficulty finding people willing to give this a shot with me. Last summer I started recruiting. Sustained advertising via non-forum channels netted me about 4-6 players. Needless to say I was crushed. The game became my new "Some Day" game as I worked on other stuff. With current events happening, I figured I might try and take another run at the idea, if only to hopefully give people something to do during the day. Again, my attempts only netted a couple more players. Given Tis Better's success, I finally posted the thread to PA, cause hey, can't forget I'm here forever. Immediately Austin volunteered to help and accepting his help was one of the best decisions I made with regards to this game. He was quick to take on tasks, as invested in the fun and well-being of our players as I was, and very much in the same mindset as myself with regards to rulings and game flow from the word go. This game would not have been as successful as it was without his co-hosting abilities and I cannot thank him enough.
After the usual anxious first day or so of waiting for sign ups to catch on, people came in. Some ringers didn't make it, but the forums were ever able to provide. I knew the rules were complex, so I wanted to give people time to look them over and ask questions, but I also knew there was so much that would only demonstrable once we actually got into play. Clarification about contingencies was both a good and awful idea for several reasons. It allowed a simulation of the flexibility of live play but added a lot of stress to Knights and Austin (who pretty much solely ran combat while I dealt with diplomacy, trades, and tech). This had not been a problem in Tis Better as the system it was based on specifically did not allow for contingencies and was far more simple with regards to armies and their effects on the board. If I was to run Aegon's online again, I would need to completely overhaul the combat system to run on much simpler terms, while still retaining the spirit as written in the rules (A fair fight sucks, so work with your house to make it an unfair fight). This was the first of many lessons learned with this game.
Everyone finally got to their places and the game got started. There the usual feeling out of things, necessary clarifications, but people were talking, learning, and scheming. Sure, some dice went bad on some sides, but that happens, and the system is built to be tough going at first. Once you get some breaks, hunt around and pull up some relics, or soften your enemy up with secrets, things start to escalate. Some people had to sub out, that absolutely happens every game, and thankfully reserves were there.
The game continued, and misunderstandings and other issues lead to more people leaving than the system could handle, long term alliances had started to pile up and in conjunction with so much free and open trade for no direct gains (But plenty of proxy wars/buffering) I grew worried about the game collapsing. We briefly debated running the houses directly, but decided not to in the name of balance and game integrity. Instead, Austin and myself wrote simple AI scripts to cover what spots needed to be filled until otherwise needed. The basic scripts we drafted can be found here. This would allow the affected Houses to defend themselves, continue economic function, and maintain diplomacy. (Note that active members could and did override the AIs programming constantly to perform their own strategies)
We were wallowing a bit in doubt as 2 alliances had started early game and never broken up, and because of those alliances, the game was slowly warping. While we didn't want to ruin anyone's fun, seeing the same predictable back and forth was taking it's toll on the back (In addition several smaller side things that needed to play out) This dark mood finally culminated with myself having a breakdown doing a turn a change feeling like I was just going through the motions for nothing worthwhile to happen. I wasn't having fun anymore and we were only about 1/3 of the way through the intended game, and the fact we seemed to be shedding people left and right, and those that remained expressed frustrations with us were taking a toll. I talked to Austin and we decided things needed to be done. We started making new events to shake the board up. Given the timing in the game, I wondered and still wonder how things might have progressed had we stuck to the original game's intent of a 10 round game, there would have been less sweeping maneuvers and slow burn and much more bold play and dramatic reversals. If I run this again, 12 turns, that's it. As it was, we shortened down to 20 from 25 and advised people changes would be coming.
People never figured how many Dark Wings Dark Words got flung around, nor did they realize if they didn't designate a target, random effects would occur. Similarly, a couple key secrets deployed by the new Disgruntled Bannermen event along with some new directions taken by entrenched houses opened new avenues for the game. Some relief was felt, but still some things weren't happening. Hoare wasn't raiding everyone to hell and back despite constantly getting snubbed. Martell wouldn't let go of the Durrandon chewtoy, and Lannister's new knight ceased fire with Gardner when they were in the better position to fight them down. I gave things a turn to change, for people to shift course (I even went so far as to counsel Durrandon to DMZ the Mistwood and accept Blackhaven in a bid for peace and to shift Martell elsewhere, but the fires of resentment burned too hot in that war to ever be quenched) and when they didn't, I started deploying the new events.
We had events for most parts of the realm should people get too comfortable with their position (part of that being my fault on how I ran the economy, more on that later) The Army of the Dead was the obvious one to deploy as Stark had been stacking resources with no true competitiion for ages. Dead were meant to kill armies and raze non-stronghold lands. While they did pull Stark off their borders, bad dice ensured they never multiplied to become a true threat to everyone.
The Faith Militant was our Gardner/Martell 2nd tier icebreaker. They were the opposite of the Dead, in that they would solely raid strongholds (Which, as jdarksun pointed out after the game end, we botched a ruling on conquering raided Strongholds, which is an edge case that can occur with the possession of a certain relic and other weird circumstances) and convert armies left alive in their space at the end of the round. Like the Dead, they were intended to stop the constant advance, get kingdoms to look inward, and give further opportunities for betrayal, rallies, and shaking up the standings. I expected anger from affected parties, what I didn't expect was for the Crusaders to survive several turns as they able to roam the lower part of the map while token forces went to try and handle them, versus the concentrated response Stark had. Martell did try to bat them out of their territory with a secret played on Gardner (Gardner didn't even bat an eyelash at this, btw) but otherwise they caused a nuisance for far longer than I expected them to, and not solely cause of the cruel whims of the Dice Maiden. The events worked somewhat, but I would like to finetune them for an online game (Specific criteria to trigger them, possibly more complex effects). In the real life game, I don't expect they'd be necessary due to shorter turn length and constant proximity not allowing tensions to cool and for more shifting of alliances to occur during the game.
Events deployed and the game cast, Austin asked if we could end on 15, as the game was starting to wear. I agreed, but requested we give things a teensy bit longer to compromise and deliver most of the intended playtime. The last 5 turns had even more reversals, realizations, and my game-favorite maneuver of Targaryen and Arryn sending both their Heirs to the Night's Watch to deny Stark and Martell absolution of their secrets (Had either sent their own Heirs earlier, the endgame would've been completely different!) By this point, I'd realized 2 more things. The way I was running the economy was totally busted. People were trading on resources they harvested that turn, and upkept after harvesting. This lead to crazy warmachines that barely stopped pace once they got going. Loss of armies meant almost nothing when
1. A house could get easy trade for necessary resources, even when in the lead (Stark should've been grain starved some point after they'd stomped down Hoare, for example)
2.They could count on using the resources they got that turn to pay for upkeep.
If I was to run this again, I would run the economy more harshly, with Upkeep being paid for before any trading or harvesting. Harvesting would also be on the territories you had at the end of the turn, not the start. It may not have changed a lot in the macro of the game, but the consideration might have changed how some people approached the economy.
The other realization was that good plans meant almost nothing in the face of dice rolls. This is part of the game design, in that you're supposed to stack advantages, and even then, someone cocking something up on the front line and can lose a battle, it just sucked to see people finally assert things and then fall in the dirt for it. Maybe not so bad over the course of a 10-12 turn day event, but drawn out over a month, it was rough.
Other random observations:
-Conspiracy was not nearly worked as much as it should've been, or at least wasn't attempted. Trading turn order for favors the few times it was done was a difference maker, and lead to 1 powerful bloc dominating the vote for the remainder of the game once it formed.(As noted, lack of in person communication makes this harder, but when bare minimum efforts aren't getting made, it's tough to get the point across).
-The mind boggles as to why you constantly snub the raiding house and then act shocked when you get raided.
-Raid was absolutely not used enough to soften up territory. Especially Hoare, should've been sacking from like turn 1. The game would've been vastly different from that first seed if people had been deprived of resources early on.
-Martell had the most effective use of secrets in the game with it's initial hit on Durrandon and the fact no one seemed to note or try to emulate that made me very sad.
-Durrandon only gained land back because they traded a Dragon Egg to the Targaryens, which they gained because their Heir sent to the Night's Watch plucked it out of territory for them. 2 key deals kept Durrandon alive and a thorn in the side of Martell through end game
-The Night's Watch was criminally underutilized given the amount of resources held in people's coffers at the end of the game.
-Too much trading of Secrets to get the gold, and not enough giving it to enemies to soften people up.
-Heir delves were always fun and Austin did a good job of writing them.
-Everyone got into their roles and I was so happy for that, like the shining part of my day was reading about Drunk Maesters and trashy Hoares contrasting with stuffy but secretly libertine Arryns and Serious Stark constantly reining in the wild child heir. Kept me going some days.
-Targaryen had 2 Dragon Eggs and was one Purple Beauty away from hatching them on at least 1 turn. The Faceless Man ended up being a very good equalizer for them considering their goals.
-I should have implemented the as written events sooner, might have given people more of a jumpstart early on. I just plumb forgot to cause I was trying to make sure I got the turns done in a timely manner.
-Turns out -1 to Citadel rolls is way nastier than you might think at first.
-As things went, it really did come down to the last turn and the dice rolls made, and that was cool.
In the end, I feel like we did ok given the material, but could have done better with more work. I need to speak with the designers about some edge case stuff, but would I run this again? Probably, but as an IRL event (If Unplugged happens this winter, I might try and get the space to make this happen on a Saturday.) Some key elements were lost in translation, and it showed. For those who stuck with through thick and thin, thank you so much for playing. I apologize if things weren't to satisfaction or I got testy with folks during the course of the game.
Next up, I'm going to relax for awhile and assess. Next megagame I run might be lower stakes, and a rules set built for online. Roommate put the bug in my ear about possibly doing something with Hobbits, the Shire, and gardening feuds. We'll see what happens. Hit me up here with questions you might have about the game. Have a good weekend folks.
Matev on
"Go down, kick ass, and set yourselves up as gods, that's our Prime Directive!"
Also to be fair the power balance between Hoare and Targaryen was not the same as Martell Gardener. We needed someone to watch our back, and they help.
With Gardener, it felt like they just gave up trying to win themselves. But, after hearing their side of things I see why they did what they did. Same with Martell.
I think it can be easy to view it that way from your position, but in my eyes as Knight Martell, Gardner was absolutely a regional power until the threefold blow of:
Targaryen coming south to route them from Durrandon lands
The Faith Militant appearing (and sacking strongholds of theirs)
Hoare absolutely mercilessly raiding them
(sorry all i do is post lists now that I can't give knight orders anymore)
That brought them low with a quickness, but we were on fairly equal footing for a long time, and each had enough to gain from stability on our border that it never turned into a hot war, regardless of several times it came close. Why would they attack the only remaining regional power? after that, with the faith and Hoare crawling all over their lands? It's a play sure, but I don't think it's hard to understand why they didn't go that route.
Oh, at that point, attacking you didn't make sense.
I mean before...probably right after they made peace with Lannister, and the Stark army left. Anytime between then and a turn before the Hoare raids would have been good.
Ha ha, it's okay. I'm sending all these messages now because I'm still weaning myself off the game. How was your Knight-Lord relationship?
So I am just going to say outright: you and Austin took this massive, complex, lumbering beast of a game and turned it into three weeks of ridiculous fun and stress and fun and yelling at the dice maiden and luckily some more fun.
Were there issues with the translation of this to a forum game? Sure. But that was handled well from my opinion.
I would disagree on the point about the upkeep, in that paying for armies before harvest doesn’t make sense to me with the Lord table going before the Knight. Some of the most fun I had was the desperate scramble of arranging myriad trades to somehow keep our armies operating and I think that was by design.
All in all it was a splendid time and I’m glad to have been part of it. I know that any other megagame you run, I will be looking into.
I also know that once it becomes feasible again I want to arrange this as an IRL event here.
People were Hording resources? Makes sense I guess, but our armies were always on the verge of starvation and we struggled to raise and keep 5 at a time. Makes sense why I couldnt KO Martell.
For a few turns after the war with Targaryen, we had to trade and scrounge just to pay the upkeep on two armies. I couldn't comprehend where everyone else pulled them from, really.
And I really though denying grain to the Starks would have had more of an effect over time, since we did that for about five turns running, I think.
Makes sense. I'm glad it finally happened, even if it was imperfect. If we ever play a game in person, I think everyone's learned the value of lighting lands on fire before you attack them.
Yeah, that's what I meant about where the events appeared. Gardener didnt make any moves, Stark took land and then built up a massive war chest, and Martell became almost unstoppable on the battlefield.
Given all that, giving those factions something to fight was proper. Had they sent their heirs to the Wall Stark and Martell would of coasted to an easy victory.
Very proud of how well Targaryen and Arryn finished given I felt we were middle powers most of the game. And Durrandon and especially Hoare punched well above their weight!
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Kane Red RobeMaster of MagicArcanusRegistered Userregular
Other knights, how much input did you have on who you fought? Boomthorkell generally gave me a long leash, always asking my opinion and advice on allies and alliances. Generally I think I got my way, but there were a few times he had reign me in and remind me who worn the crown (I thought we had the Arryns beat, but I also did not know about the double oppose ability their forts had).
Kayne Red Robe generally consulted us all on matters of alliance, but had the final say. I didn't know most of what was going on in the politicking of the lords and I was happy to keep it that way, because I wanted to embrace my role on the team (and because I really like the politicking part and didn't want to horn in, really). I'd say he gave me very general military strategy but left all the tactics up to me, with only occasional requests of army allocations to certain efforts and specific territories to try and keep or hold; I don't think I ever failed to follow through on any of these specific requests, unless I recommended against it
the dynamic of upkeep was absolutely reversed, though. I'd be like "I can disband up to two armies, if I need to, just let me know" and he'd be like NO WE'RE FEEDING THEM ALL AND ALSO A SIXTH ONE AND WE'RE GOING TO MUSTER TO MAX EVERY TURN
Haha, yeah, I had the realization around turn 12 that while we were each doing just fine at the jobs we had, if we ever do this again you should be the Lord and I the Knight. I tried really hard to not step on your toes too much but it was very funny how my first reaction to any problem was a military solution and you would counsel diplomacy.
Apologies again @Matev
I should not have signed up.
Megagames don't agree with me apparently.
I'm sorry for being one of the players that dropped instead.
Theodore Flooseveltproud parent of eight beautiful girls and shalmelodorne (which is currently being ruled by a woman (awesome role model for my daughters)) #dornedadRegistered Userregular
Other knights, how much input did you have on who you fought? Boomthorkell generally gave me a long leash, always asking my opinion and advice on allies and alliances. Generally I think I got my way, but there were a few times he had reign me in and remind me who worn the crown (I thought we had the Arryns beat, but I also did not know about the double oppose ability their forts had).
Kayne Red Robe generally consulted us all on matters of alliance, but had the final say. I didn't know most of what was going on in the politicking of the lords and I was happy to keep it that way, because I wanted to embrace my role on the team (and because I really like the politicking part and didn't want to horn in, really). I'd say he gave me very general military strategy but left all the tactics up to me, with only occasional requests of army allocations to certain efforts and specific territories to try and keep or hold; I don't think I ever failed to follow through on any of these specific requests, unless I recommended against it
the dynamic of upkeep was absolutely reversed, though. I'd be like "I can disband up to two armies, if I need to, just let me know" and he'd be like NO WE'RE FEEDING THEM ALL AND ALSO A SIXTH ONE AND WE'RE GOING TO MUSTER TO MAX EVERY TURN
Haha, yeah, I had the realization around turn 12 that while we were each doing just fine at the jobs we had, if we ever do this again you should be the Lord and I the Knight. I tried really hard to not step on your toes too much but it was very funny how my first reaction to any problem was a military solution and you would counsel diplomacy.
you don’t even wanna know how many conversations with the high sparrow we would’ve had
Ah, I was hoping to find out that was a random short end of the stick type deal.
Though, I'm disappointed, I still appreciate you running this thing. I got no expectations of it going perfectly.
I def wouldn't recommend trying to punish and break player strategy in future games, but I get that it can be hard to be a dispassionate and neutral observer.
I super empathize with that feeling of running a game and feeling like it's breaking, and a bunch of people are going to be disappointed, and it's all going to collapse, etc.
I got no hard feelings to hoare, and I think their invasion was a long time coming. I built that initial alliance as what would be best case scenario for Gardener, and they were def left with one less useful military ally than they could have had. One less stretch of land that wouldn't be likely invaded.
My setup was understanding that with Martell not attacking me, they would be attacking durrandon, that would additionally be one front I can make gains on with our grain oriented attack tech.
Same the hoare and lannister.
but I def disagree with the gm's intent to "stop the constant advance... shaking up the standings."
Like if Stark continued to grow, you need to trust players to account for that and gang up.
If the starks managed to use diplomacy to maintain a lead and turn away foes who ordinarily should be opposing them, that's the skill and work and effort deployed by the starks, and shouldn't have been punished. It should be ok for houses to win.
If Gardener and Martell gain victory over durrandon, I have no doubt our neighbors would look upon us as a threat and invade. Hoare and lannisters and targaryens would have pushed in, unless again, diplomacy, reflecting the work of the players changes the situation.
The ceding of territory was another issue. Not only is it a thing not supported by the game.
Durrandon wouldn't have been able to maintain a fight against Gardener and Martell without territory.
Targaryan absolutely wouldn't have been able to hold that distant grain territory as well as Durrandon could. Not without having to leave themselves open to Arynn.
As it were, it would have been up for grabs by Gardener, Martell, Lannister, Durrandon.
If it wasn't ceded there would be again a clear lead in Targaryen's score, which could be accounted for in the game, by the players.
Yeah, that's what I meant about where the events appeared. Gardener didnt make any moves, Stark took land and then built up a massive war chest, and Martell became almost unstoppable on the battlefield.
Given all that, giving those factions something to fight was proper. Had they sent their heirs to the Wall Stark and Martell would of coasted to an easy victory.
Very proud of how well Targaryen and Arryn finished given I felt we were middle powers most of the game. And Durrandon and especially Hoare punched well above their weight!
I completely disagree.
There are 9 player factions to give battle to those in a lead.
Managing armies was a pain. I'm happy we used the contingency system though, other wise a big part of the turn order would of been wasted.
It seemed like losing armies in the field wasn't as big of a blow as it should of been. Maybe add manpower reserves (total armies raise-able per game), a cool down on how long you can deploy and army (5th slot is lost for two turns) or a limit on how many can be raised per turn. This is also probably a part of extending the game length.
Raiding should of been a bigger part of my strategy, but I was always afraid to lose armies for little gain. Early raids seemed to be reversed easily. I think this was an effect of the extended game time as well. The longer you have to recover, the less potent they were.
I felt there needed to be more sea territories like the Iron Island, for raiding and moving up and down a coast. Stark hitting Gardener was so epic.
A road system to move at faster speeds would also be cool. Basically any system to allow powers like Stark and Martell to slug it out. I wanted to see the Titans clash.
The dice requirements are harsh. Even with two supporting armies taking unfortified land was hard. It was really hard to take land. No idea how Martell took so much.
In addition, with so much of the game being dice base it could lead to turns where you felt you had contributed nothing to the team.
JusticeforPluto on
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Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
I'll say that House Hoare was one group pushing for the in-game events to happen as we saw that the houses on the edge of the continent had gained such a strong lead, and with fewer accessible borders, that we immediately lost any hope that they could be defeated at their current rate.
Like, I understand the frustration of suddenly having a "random" event pop up and force you off your game.
But if you were a house in the center of the board, you were just turbo-fucked in terms of war at the get-go.
I'm ultimately happy the random events happened because 3/4ths of House Hoare's members probably would have quit the game if they hadn't...
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AssuranIs swinging on the SpiralRegistered Userregular
Yeah, the one complaint I have is that I didn't fully understand how complex the army orders needed to be when we first started.
The fact we had to list out a huge if/than block for each army made planning really difficult.
Yeah, that's what I meant about where the events appeared. Gardener didnt make any moves, Stark took land and then built up a massive war chest, and Martell became almost unstoppable on the battlefield.
Given all that, giving those factions something to fight was proper. Had they sent their heirs to the Wall Stark and Martell would of coasted to an easy victory.
Very proud of how well Targaryen and Arryn finished given I felt we were middle powers most of the game. And Durrandon and especially Hoare punched well above their weight!
I completely disagree.
There are 9 player factions to give battle to those in a lead.
Okay, but again, you didnt check Martell. You were the only one who could. The fact that you were allied the whole game cause the north to solidify against you. Arryn never moved on us and we never moved on Arryn. Cause we both knew we could fight Stark or Martell alone.
Sorry Gardener, but I still feel like yall played to help Martell win. You say others should realize the facts and adjust, well why not ally Durrandon and fight Martell. Even with 4 turns left you did nothing to slow them down!
Stark I at least understood. Ideally Hoare and Arryn would of allied against them, but there was to much bad blood and they never trusted Lannister or Targaryen to not betray them.
And the rules totally encourage "out of the box thinking" regarding land trades. That's why I suggested it.
Basically, it's no real surprise to me that the two houses with the least fronts dominated for most of the game.
Managing armies was a pain. I'm happy we used the contingency system though, other wise a big part of the turn order would of been wasted.
It seemed like losing armies in the field wasn't as big of a blow as it should of been. Maybe add manpower reserves (total armies raise-able per game), a cool down on how long you can deploy and army (5th slot is lost for two turns) or a limit on how many can be raised per turn. This is also probably a part of extending the game length.
Raiding should of been a bigger part of my strategy, but I was always afraid to lose armies for little gain. Early raids seemed to be reversed easily. I think this was an effect of the extended game time as well. The longer you have to recover, the less potent they were.
I felt there needed to be more seasoned like the Iron Island, for raiding and moving up and down a coast. Stark hitting Gardener was so epic.
A road system to move at faster speeds would also be cool. Basically any system to allow powers like Stark and Martell to slug it out. I wanted to see the Titans clash.
The dice requirements are harsh. Even with two supporting armies taking unfortified land was hard. It was really hard to take land. No idea how Martell took so much.
In addition, with so much of the game being dice base it could lead to turns where you felt you had contributed nothing to the team.
I definitely agree Dice Maiden was harsh, and for online play, that'd be part of the system overhaul (Maesters at least had Ravens and Crystals to offset their dice screw)
We had Summer for a lot of the game, and Lead links let you extra force march (As Hoare was able to demonstrate in the end) but why would Stark fight Martell when they could have other people do it for them? Like, strat wise, no reason it to work.
And army loss should be somewhat impactful, hence my concerns about economy and planning that out.
"Go down, kick ass, and set yourselves up as gods, that's our Prime Directive!"
Managing armies was a pain. I'm happy we used the contingency system though, other wise a big part of the turn order would of been wasted.
It seemed like losing armies in the field wasn't as big of a blow as it should of been. Maybe add manpower reserves (total armies raise-able per game), a cool down on how long you can deploy and army (5th slot is lost for two turns) or a limit on how many can be raised per turn. This is also probably a part of extending the game length.
Raiding should of been a bigger part of my strategy, but I was always afraid to lose armies for little gain. Early raids seemed to be reversed easily. I think this was an effect of the extended game time as well. The longer you have to recover, the less potent they were.
I felt there needed to be more seasoned like the Iron Island, for raiding and moving up and down a coast. Stark hitting Gardener was so epic.
A road system to move at faster speeds would also be cool. Basically any system to allow powers like Stark and Martell to slug it out. I wanted to see the Titans clash.
The dice requirements are harsh. Even with two supporting armies taking unfortified land was hard. It was really hard to take land. No idea how Martell took so much.
In addition, with so much of the game being dice base it could lead to turns where you felt you had contributed nothing to the team.
I definitely agree Dice Maiden was harsh, and for online play, that'd be part of the system overhaul (Maesters at least had Ravens and Crystals to offset their dice screw)
We had Summer for a lot of the game, and Lead links let you extra force march (As Hoare was able to demonstrate in the end) but why would Stark fight Martell when they could have other people do it for them? Like, strat wise, no reason it to work.
And army loss should be somewhat impactful, hence my concerns about economy and planning that out.
Stark and Martell should fight for the cool factor, duh!
People were Hording resources? Makes sense I guess, but our armies were always on the verge of starvation and we struggled to raise and keep 5 at a time. Makes sense why I couldnt KO Martell.
I wouldn't say we boarded reasources, but our lumber and iron production dwarfed our grain and cattle we we always had a huge supply. The original intent was to give a bunch of stuff to the night watch, but the commander was very quiet and opaque about what that would actually provide. Mostly I didn't want them idly throughing digging dirt on us, or if they did atleast blackmail us with it rather than tank our game prospects.
All support stopped after I stopped believing the Martels had revealed our secrets, combined with the lack of contingency that could happen with those actions compared to the staggering cost. I also wasn't aware of the five army rule. The last turn would have gone a lot differently.
Re:The Dead, I get why matev wanted to do this (force the Starks to act) but it ended up having the opposite reaction. We had to lean in harder into our alliances and send everything after them. Since our armies had to contend with this box army we basically removed ourselves from the game for three rounds.
This was also the last straw for my major involvement in the game. I had seen several rules get broken over the course of the game (many for good reasons) but the way the army operated just broke too many of the rules. Popping up without warning, able to act multiple times, completely unknowable goals or movements, able to retreat no matter what unless you can both cut off and get a route. Normal combat is focused on the supply lines as the main concern, either for making your moves or considering your offense, with that gone all you can do is hope for overwhelming force.
We did our best to corral them and eventually get them in a position where multiple kingdoms armies could contain them and thankfully they finally moved into a territory with two Arryn armies. It felt very punative and not very interring. Outside of that, I tried to find ways to get us more involved but constant grain shortages from events pretty much killed our mid game.
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Theodore Flooseveltproud parent of eight beautiful girls and shalmelodorne (which is currently being ruled by a woman (awesome role model for my daughters)) #dornedadRegistered Userregular
as a member of a house affected by one, (and a particularly annoying one that converted our armies and didn’t always move where I thought they would), I thought their intervention was fair game, even if I desperately wanted to RP a non-combat solution to them. finally taking them down was fairly satisfying in the end, at least.
I don’t think disrupting the great power blocs was a bad idea, and I see our GMs’ reasoning for doing so. For whatever it’s worth on my end, I do still agree with virgil about trusting the players to mobilize appropriately against such blocs, though, and allowing for houses who are winning to win. and hey, it may have take a bit, but they did mobilize against the power blocs! just, into a different power bloc!
I get the frustration, but there was a feeling that the powers in the North and South were so overwhelming compared to the Midlands that a win for them was inevitable. Around turn 14 I asked in our discord why we were playing if the results were so obvious.
I'm glad events happened, the game had become stale with the winners a formality. Seriously, we killed three Martell armies in one turn, and they brought them all back. That was mind boggling they had that much. If we lost 3 armies in a turn we would be forced to seek peace. We could deal with fighting and economy on that scale. It wasn't a fun experience to feel you won every battle but were losing the war cause they had more land and no other major enemies.
as a member of a house affected by one, (and a particularly annoying one that converted our armies and didn’t always move where I thought they would), I thought their intervention was fair game, even if I desperately wanted to RP a non-combat solution to them. finally taking them down was fairly satisfying in the end, at least.
I don’t think disrupting the great power blocs was a bad idea, and I see our GMs’ reasoning for doing so. For whatever it’s worth on my end, I do still agree with virgil about trusting the players to mobilize appropriately against such blocs, though, and allowing for houses who are winning to win. and hey, it may have take a bit, but they did mobilize against the power blocs! just, into a different power bloc!
But heres the thing, there's only one winner, and Virgil failed to mobilize against you. They seemed happy with second place helping you win.
I don’t have much to add that Matev didn’t already say.
- Hope folks had fun with Delves. Tried to make them more than just a simple sentence and a roll.
- I was both impressed and distressed with the contingency plans
- Matev and I tried hard to try and provide clarifications in a real time basis but I know there were cases where I didn’t catch stuff in time and I apologize for that.
Overall, the rules were a little funky for a PbP as Matev said, but I hope people were able to get some amount of enjoyment from it as we tried to tweak it as we went to make it fit better.
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Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
Stark I at least understood. Ideally Hoare and Arryn would of allied against them, but there was to much bad blood and they never trusted Lannister or Targaryen to not betray them.
Ehh... At the half-way point Hoare was pretty trusting towards Arryn & the Targaryens.
Our alliance with the Lannisters was entirely defensive though and would have crumbled the moment the Starks lost their lead and decided to join with us in a way we could trust.
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Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
So, will our hosts be distributing superlative awards?
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Theodore Flooseveltproud parent of eight beautiful girls and shalmelodorne (which is currently being ruled by a woman (awesome role model for my daughters)) #dornedadRegistered Userregular
as a member of a house affected by one, (and a particularly annoying one that converted our armies and didn’t always move where I thought they would), I thought their intervention was fair game, even if I desperately wanted to RP a non-combat solution to them. finally taking them down was fairly satisfying in the end, at least.
I don’t think disrupting the great power blocs was a bad idea, and I see our GMs’ reasoning for doing so. For whatever it’s worth on my end, I do still agree with virgil about trusting the players to mobilize appropriately against such blocs, though, and allowing for houses who are winning to win. and hey, it may have take a bit, but they did mobilize against the power blocs! just, into a different power bloc!
But heres the thing, there's only one winner, and Virgil failed to mobilize against you. They seemed happy with second place helping you win.
That's not really the spirt of the game.
We were equal powers until the three factors I mentioned earlier; at that point, they benefited at least as much as we did from our arrangements
After they were hit, they weren’t in second place to hold off the rabble below us. Both our houses fell in the rankings, and I’m not sure how they acted any differently toward our chances than the actions of Hoare and Durrandon did toward yours. Gardner continued their attempts to reconquer their raided land, they didn’t throw themselves into some self-destructive effort to seat us on the throne
Yeah, that's what I meant about where the events appeared. Gardener didnt make any moves, Stark took land and then built up a massive war chest, and Martell became almost unstoppable on the battlefield.
Given all that, giving those factions something to fight was proper. Had they sent their heirs to the Wall Stark and Martell would of coasted to an easy victory.
Very proud of how well Targaryen and Arryn finished given I felt we were middle powers most of the game. And Durrandon and especially Hoare punched well above their weight!
I completely disagree.
There are 9 player factions to give battle to those in a lead.
Okay, but again, you didnt check Martell. You were the only one who could. The fact that you were allied the whole game cause the north to solidify against you. Arryn never moved on us and we never moved on Arryn. Cause we both knew we could fight Stark or Martell alone.
Sorry Gardener, but I still feel like yall played to help Martell win. You say others should realize the facts and adjust, well why not ally Durrandon and fight Martell. Even with 4 turns left you did nothing to slow them down!
Stark I at least understood. Ideally Hoare and Arryn would of allied against them, but there was to much bad blood and they never trusted Lannister or Targaryen to not betray them.
And the rules totally encourage "out of the box thinking" regarding land trades. That's why I suggested it.
Basically, it's no real surprise to me that the two houses with the least fronts dominated for most of the game.
So again, this is questioning the intent of the players. I played to win, using Martell to gain a lead, as they used Gardener.
If I failed to check Martell and Martell won, that would be my failing, my agency in playing a competitive game, and Martell's victory. Likewise with any other house.
If Martell had 3 points on the rest of the field, I could take those points for the lead, I absolutely would have stepped in.
Nothing remotely similar to that happened.
Why would I destroy one of my very few access point to trade check them after both houses were knocked out of the running? With a broken shared NPC army spawned by the GM on our borders?
And I want to emphasis that I forgive the hosts for the mistake made here. I love Matev and AustinP, and will likely play with them again.
But it should be a learning experience.
I wouldn't play any game knowing the scales will be tipped against those who find advantages and progress early.
I wouldn't have recommended the game to other players knowing that would be a thing.
That the hosts will shake up the standings is a giant breaking of trust. I stayed in the game because of that trust and a hope for impartiality.
I probably wouldn't have been annoyed if it was just a regular army spawned back there, and would have dealt with it.
My response was, oh dang they are spawning armies. I hope it's a random thing everyone has to deal with. I doubt the hosts would do otherwise.
Oh hey these armies are special armies that break the mechanics of the game, and can't be normally dealt with, and have only spawned in the Starks and Gardeners?
Like really? Maybe they only have two events written up and we rolled on the 1d8
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Theodore Flooseveltproud parent of eight beautiful girls and shalmelodorne (which is currently being ruled by a woman (awesome role model for my daughters)) #dornedadRegistered Userregular
Managing armies was a pain. I'm happy we used the contingency system though, other wise a big part of the turn order would of been wasted.
It seemed like losing armies in the field wasn't as big of a blow as it should of been. Maybe add manpower reserves (total armies raise-able per game), a cool down on how long you can deploy and army (5th slot is lost for two turns) or a limit on how many can be raised per turn. This is also probably a part of extending the game length.
Raiding should of been a bigger part of my strategy, but I was always afraid to lose armies for little gain. Early raids seemed to be reversed easily. I think this was an effect of the extended game time as well. The longer you have to recover, the less potent they were.
I felt there needed to be more seasoned like the Iron Island, for raiding and moving up and down a coast. Stark hitting Gardener was so epic.
A road system to move at faster speeds would also be cool. Basically any system to allow powers like Stark and Martell to slug it out. I wanted to see the Titans clash.
The dice requirements are harsh. Even with two supporting armies taking unfortified land was hard. It was really hard to take land. No idea how Martell took so much.
In addition, with so much of the game being dice base it could lead to turns where you felt you had contributed nothing to the team.
I definitely agree Dice Maiden was harsh, and for online play, that'd be part of the system overhaul (Maesters at least had Ravens and Crystals to offset their dice screw)
re: the cruel dice maiden, we had three conquer attempts against lands on the last turn, with purple brawn to ignore stronghold opposition and with:
one double supported (raided land, sellswords)
one double supported (Martell support, raided land)
And one single supported (martell support)
and we didn’t outright succeed at any 😭
I bring it up less as a criticism of anything and more because it haunts me
I am def feeling furious and betrayed and regret at the current moment.
I know people don't want to hear it, but my outlook on this game has completely soured.
And not in the matter of in-game betrayal, like that of Hoare's invasion, or martell's secret.
Winning or losing isn't remotely the end all be all for me here.
facetiousa wit so dryit shits sandRegistered Userregular
For what it's worth, from Stark's perspective everyone being like "well something had to be done or they'd roll over the game"
I, at least, never felt like we had any kind of commanding lead. I was constantly paranoid it could all collapse imminently. We were CHRONICALLY short on grain, which was part of why we were trying to build up our resources. And while I don't disagree that only bordering two other houses had some advantages, we also had a huge border that was very difficult to protect fully, trying to predict where enemies might try to attack.
And honestly, given how rapidly we fell toward the end I think that kinda proves it, too.
Some of the other commentary has helped me work my way through my feelings; I don't obviously hold anything against other houses teaming up against us, that's just the game. I do wish Hoare hadn't felt like they were totally screwed and given up trying to win themselves and instead just set out to ruin us, but that's partially our fault.
-- as an aside, when I went to @Zonugal looking for peace, I was in part hoping to offer to trade/give them resources to help build them back up. It wasn't entirely altruistic - it was partly to have an extra buffer from other enemies, but even moreso it was me trying to avoid this exact eventuality. I wanted them to remain a contender so they didn't just make it their mission to screw us over at cost of their own strategy.
But even if we HAD maintained a "strong" position, it was inevitable that what happened with several other houses allying against us would have happened. That was my main frustration with the Dead coming in to fuck us up, is it just left us in no position - both literally and figuratively, since we'd abandoned our borders to fight them - to contend against the other houses in their wake.
"I am not young enough to know everything." - Oscar Wilde
I'll have to chime in here real quick to point out two things.
Firstly, the ceding of territories is absolutely supported by the game - it's even mentioned in the FAQ that yes, this is something that can totally be done if you present it in such a way that the GMs like it enough to allow it.
Secondly, to Stark - the grain shortages were actually in large part due to us sending constant Dark Wings your way and always specifying grain loss as the effect. That wasn't events, that was your fellow players being underhanded bastages.
If the dice hadn't been so cruel to House Hoare and their attempts at conquering raided land succeeded more, they could well have been nudging the top of the leaderboard too. Might even have gotten there but for bad chance.
-Conspiracy was not nearly worked as much as it should've been, or at least wasn't attempted. Trading turn order for favors the few times it was done was a difference maker, and lead to 1 powerful bloc dominating the vote for the remainder of the game once it formed.(As noted, lack of in person communication makes this harder, but when bare minimum efforts aren't getting made, it's tough to get the point across).
Eh, speaking as someone who spent the first half of the game desperately trying to finesse the banner order to keep us ahead of both Targaryen and Hoare, I'd say there actually was a fair amount of conspiracy being attempted behind the scenes. How much it worked is anyone's guess, though it seems like we managed to do fairly well in that regard. (Though the mods may not have been privy to this - the Maesters were communicating with each other in large part through Discord PMs, and idk how much everyone else told their respective teams about what was going on in those channels.)
My biggest change for future metagames like this would be the removal of the contingency system for combat.
I think it added too much and it certainly dragged a level of discomfort into House Hoare's approach to the game.
i definitely enjoyed the contingency system a lot (too much) as a player, but felt bad every time i sent those orders to matev and austin
i think losing it entirely would've taken a lot my own enjoyment of the game away, though. I wonder if a PBP version where knights in-thread do banner-order march orders one day, and banner-order action orders the next to comprise a full turn would be doable. Give each house a window of time to get them in. Definitely a lot of potential failure points there... but I really would've enjoyed reacting to orders in pseudo-realtime, even if it slowed the overall game down. I, however, am no megagame GM.
Like pluto said, though, losing the banter and cajoling of the knights was a bit of a bummer for me. The only knight I had a PM thread with was @jdarksun (actually I did talk to Schuss a couple times too, now that I'm thinking about it), but that absolutely impacted the way I was thinking about our actions against/alongside them, even if I wasn't the one making the alliances. I did message vagrant_winds when I thought they were still playing in hopes of some sort of dialog with Durrandon, but obviously got no response and didn't know that it was their maester doing everything at a certain point. definitely would've treated them a little differently if I knew they'd become a 1-player house, even though I knew the night's watch and their allies had their back
Not being able to react to the orders in time killed it for me. I spent so much time and energy stressing about what to move where and how and the depth of contingency I should give. But, like, at the table it would have been zero stress. A day/night cycle of trading and army movement might work better for online.
I also siloed hard, and maybe having dialog open with the other knights may have changed some of my opinions, but that's the nature of online games. Maybe a Westeros Map discord channel?
I also really hate dice rolling for these sorts of games. The GoT board game is brilliant in its simplicity to combat.
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it changed when we razed summerhall, meaning you were no longer actually sharing a territory with lannister for the moment, after which I believe you immediately quit. which was like turn 5 or 6 I think
i'm not sure how you can talk about your starting position as an unwinnable, wretched hand, tell martell that there would never be peace if we ever attacked you, and claim that you're justified in this because even with peace (and us ceding land or land(s) back to you) you had nowhere else to go. you have everywhere else to go! that's what a ceasefire lets you do! if you wanted to fight us, try and make peace with gardner; if you wanted to fight gardner, try and make peace with us
We tried to make peace with Gardner, as we had no choice against your assault.
And there were no overtures of peace made to us by Martell until (presumably, I was not party to anything) after you razed Summerhall.
And again, Summerhall should not have burned, but things were lost in the conversion to a forum game.
i definitely enjoyed the contingency system a lot (too much) as a player, but felt bad every time i sent those orders to matev and austin
i think losing it entirely would've taken a lot my own enjoyment of the game away, though. I wonder if a PBP version where knights in-thread do banner-order march orders one day, and banner-order action orders the next to comprise a full turn would be doable. Give each house a window of time to get them in. Definitely a lot of potential failure points there... but I really would've enjoyed reacting to orders in pseudo-realtime, even if it slowed the overall game down. I, however, am no megagame GM.
Like pluto said, though, losing the banter and cajoling of the knights was a bit of a bummer for me. The only knight I had a PM thread with was @jdarksun (actually I did talk to Schuss a couple times too, now that I'm thinking about it), but that absolutely impacted the way I was thinking about our actions against/alongside them, even if I wasn't the one making the alliances. I did message vagrant_winds when I thought they were still playing in hopes of some sort of dialog with Durrandon, but obviously got no response and didn't know that it was their maester doing everything at a certain point. definitely would've treated them a little differently if I knew they'd become a 1-player house, even though I knew the night's watch and their allies had their back
It's been a couple years since I ran a megagame. Tis Better to Rule In Hell was fun, very regimented, but fun. When Aegon's Conquest was the summer after I demo'ed it, I knew I had to try it out. It hit a lot buttons I liked. So I plotted and planned. I had even built a complete pro-board cause I was so sure I'd have no difficulty finding people willing to give this a shot with me. Last summer I started recruiting. Sustained advertising via non-forum channels netted me about 4-6 players. Needless to say I was crushed. The game became my new "Some Day" game as I worked on other stuff. With current events happening, I figured I might try and take another run at the idea, if only to hopefully give people something to do during the day. Again, my attempts only netted a couple more players. Given Tis Better's success, I finally posted the thread to PA, cause hey, can't forget I'm here forever. Immediately Austin volunteered to help and accepting his help was one of the best decisions I made with regards to this game. He was quick to take on tasks, as invested in the fun and well-being of our players as I was, and very much in the same mindset as myself with regards to rulings and game flow from the word go. This game would not have been as successful as it was without his co-hosting abilities and I cannot thank him enough.
After the usual anxious first day or so of waiting for sign ups to catch on, people came in. Some ringers didn't make it, but the forums were ever able to provide. I knew the rules were complex, so I wanted to give people time to look them over and ask questions, but I also knew there was so much that would only demonstrable once we actually got into play. Clarification about contingencies was both a good and awful idea for several reasons. It allowed a simulation of the flexibility of live play but added a lot of stress to Knights and Austin (who pretty much solely ran combat while I dealt with diplomacy, trades, and tech). This had not been a problem in Tis Better as the system it was based on specifically did not allow for contingencies and was far more simple with regards to armies and their effects on the board. If I was to run Aegon's online again, I would need to completely overhaul the combat system to run on much simpler terms, while still retaining the spirit as written in the rules (A fair fight sucks, so work with your house to make it an unfair fight). This was the first of many lessons learned with this game.
Everyone finally got to their places and the game got started. There the usual feeling out of things, necessary clarifications, but people were talking, learning, and scheming. Sure, some dice went bad on some sides, but that happens, and the system is built to be tough going at first. Once you get some breaks, hunt around and pull up some relics, or soften your enemy up with secrets, things start to escalate. Some people had to sub out, that absolutely happens every game, and thankfully reserves were there.
The game continued, and misunderstandings and other issues lead to more people leaving than the system could handle, long term alliances had started to pile up and in conjunction with so much free and open trade for no direct gains (But plenty of proxy wars/buffering) I grew worried about the game collapsing. We briefly debated running the houses directly, but decided not to in the name of balance and game integrity. Instead, Austin and myself wrote simple AI scripts to cover what spots needed to be filled until otherwise needed. The basic scripts we drafted can be found here. This would allow the affected Houses to defend themselves, continue economic function, and maintain diplomacy. (Note that active members could and did override the AIs programming constantly to perform their own strategies)
We were wallowing a bit in doubt as 2 alliances had started early game and never broken up, and because of those alliances, the game was slowly warping. While we didn't want to ruin anyone's fun, seeing the same predictable back and forth was taking it's toll on the back (In addition several smaller side things that needed to play out) This dark mood finally culminated with myself having a breakdown doing a turn a change feeling like I was just going through the motions for nothing worthwhile to happen. I wasn't having fun anymore and we were only about 1/3 of the way through the intended game, and the fact we seemed to be shedding people left and right, and those that remained expressed frustrations with us were taking a toll. I talked to Austin and we decided things needed to be done. We started making new events to shake the board up. Given the timing in the game, I wondered and still wonder how things might have progressed had we stuck to the original game's intent of a 10 round game, there would have been less sweeping maneuvers and slow burn and much more bold play and dramatic reversals. If I run this again, 12 turns, that's it. As it was, we shortened down to 20 from 25 and advised people changes would be coming.
People never figured how many Dark Wings Dark Words got flung around, nor did they realize if they didn't designate a target, random effects would occur. Similarly, a couple key secrets deployed by the new Disgruntled Bannermen event along with some new directions taken by entrenched houses opened new avenues for the game. Some relief was felt, but still some things weren't happening. Hoare wasn't raiding everyone to hell and back despite constantly getting snubbed. Martell wouldn't let go of the Durrandon chewtoy, and Lannister's new knight ceased fire with Gardner when they were in the better position to fight them down. I gave things a turn to change, for people to shift course (I even went so far as to counsel Durrandon to DMZ the Mistwood and accept Blackhaven in a bid for peace and to shift Martell elsewhere, but the fires of resentment burned too hot in that war to ever be quenched) and when they didn't, I started deploying the new events.
We had events for most parts of the realm should people get too comfortable with their position (part of that being my fault on how I ran the economy, more on that later) The Army of the Dead was the obvious one to deploy as Stark had been stacking resources with no true competitiion for ages. Dead were meant to kill armies and raze non-stronghold lands. While they did pull Stark off their borders, bad dice ensured they never multiplied to become a true threat to everyone.
The Faith Militant was our Gardner/Martell 2nd tier icebreaker. They were the opposite of the Dead, in that they would solely raid strongholds (Which, as jdarksun pointed out after the game end, we botched a ruling on conquering raided Strongholds, which is an edge case that can occur with the possession of a certain relic and other weird circumstances) and convert armies left alive in their space at the end of the round. Like the Dead, they were intended to stop the constant advance, get kingdoms to look inward, and give further opportunities for betrayal, rallies, and shaking up the standings. I expected anger from affected parties, what I didn't expect was for the Crusaders to survive several turns as they able to roam the lower part of the map while token forces went to try and handle them, versus the concentrated response Stark had. Martell did try to bat them out of their territory with a secret played on Gardner (Gardner didn't even bat an eyelash at this, btw) but otherwise they caused a nuisance for far longer than I expected them to, and not solely cause of the cruel whims of the Dice Maiden. The events worked somewhat, but I would like to finetune them for an online game (Specific criteria to trigger them, possibly more complex effects). In the real life game, I don't expect they'd be necessary due to shorter turn length and constant proximity not allowing tensions to cool and for more shifting of alliances to occur during the game.
Events deployed and the game cast, Austin asked if we could end on 15, as the game was starting to wear. I agreed, but requested we give things a teensy bit longer to compromise and deliver most of the intended playtime. The last 5 turns had even more reversals, realizations, and my game-favorite maneuver of Targaryen and Arryn sending both their Heirs to the Night's Watch to deny Stark and Martell absolution of their secrets (Had either sent their own Heirs earlier, the endgame would've been completely different!) By this point, I'd realized 2 more things. The way I was running the economy was totally busted. People were trading on resources they harvested that turn, and upkept after harvesting. This lead to crazy warmachines that barely stopped pace once they got going. Loss of armies meant almost nothing when
1. A house could get easy trade for necessary resources, even when in the lead (Stark should've been grain starved some point after they'd stomped down Hoare, for example)
2.They could count on using the resources they got that turn to pay for upkeep.
If I was to run this again, I would run the economy more harshly, with Upkeep being paid for before any trading or harvesting. Harvesting would also be on the territories you had at the end of the turn, not the start. It may not have changed a lot in the macro of the game, but the consideration might have changed how some people approached the economy.
The other realization was that good plans meant almost nothing in the face of dice rolls. This is part of the game design, in that you're supposed to stack advantages, and even then, someone cocking something up on the front line and can lose a battle, it just sucked to see people finally assert things and then fall in the dirt for it. Maybe not so bad over the course of a 10-12 turn day event, but drawn out over a month, it was rough.
Other random observations:
-Conspiracy was not nearly worked as much as it should've been, or at least wasn't attempted. Trading turn order for favors the few times it was done was a difference maker, and lead to 1 powerful bloc dominating the vote for the remainder of the game once it formed.(As noted, lack of in person communication makes this harder, but when bare minimum efforts aren't getting made, it's tough to get the point across).
-The mind boggles as to why you constantly snub the raiding house and then act shocked when you get raided.
-Raid was absolutely not used enough to soften up territory. Especially Hoare, should've been sacking from like turn 1. The game would've been vastly different from that first seed if people had been deprived of resources early on.
-Martell had the most effective use of secrets in the game with it's initial hit on Durrandon and the fact no one seemed to note or try to emulate that made me very sad.
-Durrandon only gained land back because they traded a Dragon Egg to the Targaryens, which they gained because their Heir sent to the Night's Watch plucked it out of territory for them. 2 key deals kept Durrandon alive and a thorn in the side of Martell through end game
-The Night's Watch was criminally underutilized given the amount of resources held in people's coffers at the end of the game.
-Too much trading of Secrets to get the gold, and not enough giving it to enemies to soften people up.
-Heir delves were always fun and Austin did a good job of writing them.
-Everyone got into their roles and I was so happy for that, like the shining part of my day was reading about Drunk Maesters and trashy Hoares contrasting with stuffy but secretly libertine Arryns and Serious Stark constantly reining in the wild child heir. Kept me going some days.
-Targaryen had 2 Dragon Eggs and was one Purple Beauty away from hatching them on at least 1 turn. The Faceless Man ended up being a very good equalizer for them considering their goals.
-I should have implemented the as written events sooner, might have given people more of a jumpstart early on. I just plumb forgot to cause I was trying to make sure I got the turns done in a timely manner.
-Turns out -1 to Citadel rolls is way nastier than you might think at first.
-As things went, it really did come down to the last turn and the dice rolls made, and that was cool.
In the end, I feel like we did ok given the material, but could have done better with more work. I need to speak with the designers about some edge case stuff, but would I run this again? Probably, but as an IRL event (If Unplugged happens this winter, I might try and get the space to make this happen on a Saturday.) Some key elements were lost in translation, and it showed. For those who stuck with through thick and thin, thank you so much for playing. I apologize if things weren't to satisfaction or I got testy with folks during the course of the game.
Next up, I'm going to relax for awhile and assess. Next megagame I run might be lower stakes, and a rules set built for online. Roommate put the bug in my ear about possibly doing something with Hobbits, the Shire, and gardening feuds. We'll see what happens. Hit me up here with questions you might have about the game. Have a good weekend folks.
Oh, at that point, attacking you didn't make sense.
I mean before...probably right after they made peace with Lannister, and the Stark army left. Anytime between then and a turn before the Hoare raids would have been good.
Ha ha, it's okay. I'm sending all these messages now because I'm still weaning myself off the game. How was your Knight-Lord relationship?
Were there issues with the translation of this to a forum game? Sure. But that was handled well from my opinion.
I would disagree on the point about the upkeep, in that paying for armies before harvest doesn’t make sense to me with the Lord table going before the Knight. Some of the most fun I had was the desperate scramble of arranging myriad trades to somehow keep our armies operating and I think that was by design.
All in all it was a splendid time and I’m glad to have been part of it. I know that any other megagame you run, I will be looking into.
I also know that once it becomes feasible again I want to arrange this as an IRL event here.
And I really though denying grain to the Starks would have had more of an effect over time, since we did that for about five turns running, I think.
Makes sense. I'm glad it finally happened, even if it was imperfect. If we ever play a game in person, I think everyone's learned the value of lighting lands on fire before you attack them.
Given all that, giving those factions something to fight was proper. Had they sent their heirs to the Wall Stark and Martell would of coasted to an easy victory.
Very proud of how well Targaryen and Arryn finished given I felt we were middle powers most of the game. And Durrandon and especially Hoare punched well above their weight!
Haha, yeah, I had the realization around turn 12 that while we were each doing just fine at the jobs we had, if we ever do this again you should be the Lord and I the Knight. I tried really hard to not step on your toes too much but it was very funny how my first reaction to any problem was a military solution and you would counsel diplomacy.
I should not have signed up.
Megagames don't agree with me apparently.
I'm sorry for being one of the players that dropped instead.
you don’t even wanna know how many conversations with the high sparrow we would’ve had
Though, I'm disappointed, I still appreciate you running this thing. I got no expectations of it going perfectly.
I def wouldn't recommend trying to punish and break player strategy in future games, but I get that it can be hard to be a dispassionate and neutral observer.
I super empathize with that feeling of running a game and feeling like it's breaking, and a bunch of people are going to be disappointed, and it's all going to collapse, etc.
I got no hard feelings to hoare, and I think their invasion was a long time coming. I built that initial alliance as what would be best case scenario for Gardener, and they were def left with one less useful military ally than they could have had. One less stretch of land that wouldn't be likely invaded.
My setup was understanding that with Martell not attacking me, they would be attacking durrandon, that would additionally be one front I can make gains on with our grain oriented attack tech.
Same the hoare and lannister.
but I def disagree with the gm's intent to "stop the constant advance... shaking up the standings."
Like if Stark continued to grow, you need to trust players to account for that and gang up.
If the starks managed to use diplomacy to maintain a lead and turn away foes who ordinarily should be opposing them, that's the skill and work and effort deployed by the starks, and shouldn't have been punished. It should be ok for houses to win.
If Gardener and Martell gain victory over durrandon, I have no doubt our neighbors would look upon us as a threat and invade. Hoare and lannisters and targaryens would have pushed in, unless again, diplomacy, reflecting the work of the players changes the situation.
The ceding of territory was another issue. Not only is it a thing not supported by the game.
Durrandon wouldn't have been able to maintain a fight against Gardener and Martell without territory.
Targaryan absolutely wouldn't have been able to hold that distant grain territory as well as Durrandon could. Not without having to leave themselves open to Arynn.
As it were, it would have been up for grabs by Gardener, Martell, Lannister, Durrandon.
If it wasn't ceded there would be again a clear lead in Targaryen's score, which could be accounted for in the game, by the players.
I completely disagree.
There are 9 player factions to give battle to those in a lead.
Managing armies was a pain. I'm happy we used the contingency system though, other wise a big part of the turn order would of been wasted.
It seemed like losing armies in the field wasn't as big of a blow as it should of been. Maybe add manpower reserves (total armies raise-able per game), a cool down on how long you can deploy and army (5th slot is lost for two turns) or a limit on how many can be raised per turn. This is also probably a part of extending the game length.
Raiding should of been a bigger part of my strategy, but I was always afraid to lose armies for little gain. Early raids seemed to be reversed easily. I think this was an effect of the extended game time as well. The longer you have to recover, the less potent they were.
I felt there needed to be more sea territories like the Iron Island, for raiding and moving up and down a coast. Stark hitting Gardener was so epic.
A road system to move at faster speeds would also be cool. Basically any system to allow powers like Stark and Martell to slug it out. I wanted to see the Titans clash.
The dice requirements are harsh. Even with two supporting armies taking unfortified land was hard. It was really hard to take land. No idea how Martell took so much.
In addition, with so much of the game being dice base it could lead to turns where you felt you had contributed nothing to the team.
Like, I understand the frustration of suddenly having a "random" event pop up and force you off your game.
But if you were a house in the center of the board, you were just turbo-fucked in terms of war at the get-go.
I'm ultimately happy the random events happened because 3/4ths of House Hoare's members probably would have quit the game if they hadn't...
The fact we had to list out a huge if/than block for each army made planning really difficult.
Okay, but again, you didnt check Martell. You were the only one who could. The fact that you were allied the whole game cause the north to solidify against you. Arryn never moved on us and we never moved on Arryn. Cause we both knew we could fight Stark or Martell alone.
Sorry Gardener, but I still feel like yall played to help Martell win. You say others should realize the facts and adjust, well why not ally Durrandon and fight Martell. Even with 4 turns left you did nothing to slow them down!
Stark I at least understood. Ideally Hoare and Arryn would of allied against them, but there was to much bad blood and they never trusted Lannister or Targaryen to not betray them.
And the rules totally encourage "out of the box thinking" regarding land trades. That's why I suggested it.
Basically, it's no real surprise to me that the two houses with the least fronts dominated for most of the game.
I definitely agree Dice Maiden was harsh, and for online play, that'd be part of the system overhaul (Maesters at least had Ravens and Crystals to offset their dice screw)
We had Summer for a lot of the game, and Lead links let you extra force march (As Hoare was able to demonstrate in the end) but why would Stark fight Martell when they could have other people do it for them? Like, strat wise, no reason it to work.
And army loss should be somewhat impactful, hence my concerns about economy and planning that out.
Stark and Martell should fight for the cool factor, duh!
I wouldn't say we boarded reasources, but our lumber and iron production dwarfed our grain and cattle we we always had a huge supply. The original intent was to give a bunch of stuff to the night watch, but the commander was very quiet and opaque about what that would actually provide. Mostly I didn't want them idly throughing digging dirt on us, or if they did atleast blackmail us with it rather than tank our game prospects.
All support stopped after I stopped believing the Martels had revealed our secrets, combined with the lack of contingency that could happen with those actions compared to the staggering cost. I also wasn't aware of the five army rule. The last turn would have gone a lot differently.
Re:The Dead, I get why matev wanted to do this (force the Starks to act) but it ended up having the opposite reaction. We had to lean in harder into our alliances and send everything after them. Since our armies had to contend with this box army we basically removed ourselves from the game for three rounds.
This was also the last straw for my major involvement in the game. I had seen several rules get broken over the course of the game (many for good reasons) but the way the army operated just broke too many of the rules. Popping up without warning, able to act multiple times, completely unknowable goals or movements, able to retreat no matter what unless you can both cut off and get a route. Normal combat is focused on the supply lines as the main concern, either for making your moves or considering your offense, with that gone all you can do is hope for overwhelming force.
We did our best to corral them and eventually get them in a position where multiple kingdoms armies could contain them and thankfully they finally moved into a territory with two Arryn armies. It felt very punative and not very interring. Outside of that, I tried to find ways to get us more involved but constant grain shortages from events pretty much killed our mid game.
I don’t think disrupting the great power blocs was a bad idea, and I see our GMs’ reasoning for doing so. For whatever it’s worth on my end, I do still agree with virgil about trusting the players to mobilize appropriately against such blocs, though, and allowing for houses who are winning to win. and hey, it may have take a bit, but they did mobilize against the power blocs! just, into a different power bloc!
I'm glad events happened, the game had become stale with the winners a formality. Seriously, we killed three Martell armies in one turn, and they brought them all back. That was mind boggling they had that much. If we lost 3 armies in a turn we would be forced to seek peace. We could deal with fighting and economy on that scale. It wasn't a fun experience to feel you won every battle but were losing the war cause they had more land and no other major enemies.
But heres the thing, there's only one winner, and Virgil failed to mobilize against you. They seemed happy with second place helping you win.
That's not really the spirt of the game.
- Hope folks had fun with Delves. Tried to make them more than just a simple sentence and a roll.
- I was both impressed and distressed with the contingency plans
- Matev and I tried hard to try and provide clarifications in a real time basis but I know there were cases where I didn’t catch stuff in time and I apologize for that.
Overall, the rules were a little funky for a PbP as Matev said, but I hope people were able to get some amount of enjoyment from it as we tried to tweak it as we went to make it fit better.
Ehh... At the half-way point Hoare was pretty trusting towards Arryn & the Targaryens.
Our alliance with the Lannisters was entirely defensive though and would have crumbled the moment the Starks lost their lead and decided to join with us in a way we could trust.
We were equal powers until the three factors I mentioned earlier; at that point, they benefited at least as much as we did from our arrangements
After they were hit, they weren’t in second place to hold off the rabble below us. Both our houses fell in the rankings, and I’m not sure how they acted any differently toward our chances than the actions of Hoare and Durrandon did toward yours. Gardner continued their attempts to reconquer their raided land, they didn’t throw themselves into some self-destructive effort to seat us on the throne
So again, this is questioning the intent of the players. I played to win, using Martell to gain a lead, as they used Gardener.
If I failed to check Martell and Martell won, that would be my failing, my agency in playing a competitive game, and Martell's victory. Likewise with any other house.
If Martell had 3 points on the rest of the field, I could take those points for the lead, I absolutely would have stepped in.
Nothing remotely similar to that happened.
Why would I destroy one of my very few access point to trade check them after both houses were knocked out of the running? With a broken shared NPC army spawned by the GM on our borders?
And I want to emphasis that I forgive the hosts for the mistake made here. I love Matev and AustinP, and will likely play with them again.
But it should be a learning experience.
I wouldn't play any game knowing the scales will be tipped against those who find advantages and progress early.
I wouldn't have recommended the game to other players knowing that would be a thing.
That the hosts will shake up the standings is a giant breaking of trust. I stayed in the game because of that trust and a hope for impartiality.
I probably wouldn't have been annoyed if it was just a regular army spawned back there, and would have dealt with it.
My response was, oh dang they are spawning armies. I hope it's a random thing everyone has to deal with. I doubt the hosts would do otherwise.
Oh hey these armies are special armies that break the mechanics of the game, and can't be normally dealt with, and have only spawned in the Starks and Gardeners?
Like really? Maybe they only have two events written up and we rolled on the 1d8
re: the cruel dice maiden, we had three conquer attempts against lands on the last turn, with purple brawn to ignore stronghold opposition and with:
one double supported (raided land, sellswords)
one double supported (Martell support, raided land)
And one single supported (martell support)
and we didn’t outright succeed at any 😭
I bring it up less as a criticism of anything and more because it haunts me
I know people don't want to hear it, but my outlook on this game has completely soured.
And not in the matter of in-game betrayal, like that of Hoare's invasion, or martell's secret.
Winning or losing isn't remotely the end all be all for me here.
Absolutely, and here they are!
The "Chaos is a Ladder" award (Most alliance shifts) - Targaryen
The Rip and Tear award (Most Armies destroyed) - Targaryen (8)
Top 10 Anime Betrayals award (The Betrayal that took everyone by surprise) - Stark for Stark checking in on the Gardners
We Do Not Sow (Most Territories Raided) - Hoare (9)
Master of Coin (Most Resources on hand at game end) - Stark (Double digits in multiple categories)
Rampage World Tour Award (Farthest traveled house) - Martell (Saltpans)
Master of Whispers (Most Secrets Played) - Durrandon (5)
Archmaester (Most links completed) - Hoare (10)
Living Legend (Most Relics acquired) - Night's Watch (5)
The Vegeta Memorial Award (Most Surprising flip from War to Allies) - Hoare and Targaryen
Mondo cool
@Zombie Hero High-five!
I, at least, never felt like we had any kind of commanding lead. I was constantly paranoid it could all collapse imminently. We were CHRONICALLY short on grain, which was part of why we were trying to build up our resources. And while I don't disagree that only bordering two other houses had some advantages, we also had a huge border that was very difficult to protect fully, trying to predict where enemies might try to attack.
And honestly, given how rapidly we fell toward the end I think that kinda proves it, too.
Some of the other commentary has helped me work my way through my feelings; I don't obviously hold anything against other houses teaming up against us, that's just the game. I do wish Hoare hadn't felt like they were totally screwed and given up trying to win themselves and instead just set out to ruin us, but that's partially our fault.
-- as an aside, when I went to @Zonugal looking for peace, I was in part hoping to offer to trade/give them resources to help build them back up. It wasn't entirely altruistic - it was partly to have an extra buffer from other enemies, but even moreso it was me trying to avoid this exact eventuality. I wanted them to remain a contender so they didn't just make it their mission to screw us over at cost of their own strategy.
But even if we HAD maintained a "strong" position, it was inevitable that what happened with several other houses allying against us would have happened. That was my main frustration with the Dead coming in to fuck us up, is it just left us in no position - both literally and figuratively, since we'd abandoned our borders to fight them - to contend against the other houses in their wake.
Steam: Chagrin LoL: Bonhomie
Firstly, the ceding of territories is absolutely supported by the game - it's even mentioned in the FAQ that yes, this is something that can totally be done if you present it in such a way that the GMs like it enough to allow it.
Secondly, to Stark - the grain shortages were actually in large part due to us sending constant Dark Wings your way and always specifying grain loss as the effect. That wasn't events, that was your fellow players being underhanded bastages.
Eh, speaking as someone who spent the first half of the game desperately trying to finesse the banner order to keep us ahead of both Targaryen and Hoare, I'd say there actually was a fair amount of conspiracy being attempted behind the scenes. How much it worked is anyone's guess, though it seems like we managed to do fairly well in that regard. (Though the mods may not have been privy to this - the Maesters were communicating with each other in large part through Discord PMs, and idk how much everyone else told their respective teams about what was going on in those channels.)
I also siloed hard, and maybe having dialog open with the other knights may have changed some of my opinions, but that's the nature of online games. Maybe a Westeros Map discord channel?
I also really hate dice rolling for these sorts of games. The GoT board game is brilliant in its simplicity to combat.
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