It might best as a house card not locked to strength 0. Just a few more text abilities that at least offset sea support.

Look at lannister if they lose golden sound and lannisport to the Vic balon brothers. It's almost impossible to recover from that while attacking 'uphill' against sea support.

Same for martell if they can't take wss or shipbreaker Bay. Most of the time they struggle to get as far as Kingswood

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Not today.

Look at lannister if they lose golden sound and lannisport to the Vic balon brothers. It's almost impossible to recover from that while attacking 'uphill' against sea support.

Same for martell if they can't take wss or shipbreaker Bay. Most of the time they struggle to get as far as Kingswood
I agree that it is really tough to fight against sea support, even if you make the most of ports and Web of Lies. Still, with a bit of diplomacy you can achieve a lot!

For instance, if Tyrell attacks Greyjoy in Sunset Sea Lanni might be able to repel Greyjoy after a while. Alternatively, using the Queen of Thorns to remove sea support in Sea of Dorne or Blackwater Bay can be devastating. With the help of an ally you might annihilate a house quite easily, then split the castles of this common enemy.

All in all I feel like special abilities like QoT or Cersei reach their full potential when they are used in coordination with an ally.

Last edited by _LoGo_ on 2021-Apr-10 14:38, edited 1x in total

I really enjoyed reading this discussion Necrarch

I agree with ser hodor, if you make many changes at once it is difficult to work out what effect each change has had on the final outcome, each may have far reaching consequences which may be impossible to predict. Making one small change, playing this out in many games (100 or more) to see the effect, then consider another tweak if necessary, would be a more controlled way of doing it. My suggestion would be as simple as just switching the sword to Tyrell from GJ at the start. Then see how this plays out.

Ser Hodor (and others) have suggested than rebalancing GJ/Lannister (as this would do) would be to Stark's disadvantage as GJ pushed to go north. I'm not sure if there is evidence that this is true (i'm not saying it isn't true either, just that I don't know). My hypothesis would be that actually stark would be relatively unaffected, though it may even increase his winrate (clearly an unintended consequence of the change), and so at a later date making another small change such as the one you suggested by making widow's watch impassable, could be an option.

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Swift as a deer. Quiet as a shadow.

Hi Hitflash,

Honestly, from my point of view it is really disrputive to move the sword to Tyrell, as Grey, the usual agressor that triggers the game of thrones to move and not be static, would not have that invitation to attack quickly. Besides, removing the sword could be terrible for Lannister early game attacks - remember that a GJ that loses IMB is basically dead, while a Lannister can recover better.

But that IS an option - not sure it has been written down anywhere, but probably not the one I would go as a first pick.

Interestingly, for example, the Lannister win rates at the current World Cup are far better than usually... since the addition of wildlings, as the Raven has more value than before.

Let's wait for the end of the rebalancing test games that are still ongoing, even if most of it is knows already:

> Tyrell 2nd ship is not disruptive, and decreases the "turn 2 attack from Martell" probability.
> Kevan's up has never been used (!). still believe as Nomaris played that the new standard for Stoney Sept Support Center will be KN+FM to have a Balon protection of 1 in your bubble.
> Tyrell extra barrel in Reach is completely fluff and does not seem to be an issue up to now.

But two games is too small to test : we will have to find out with an option implementation.

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Judge
LoI&F: Seasons 10 and 11 King
France WCup team
2021: Bronze
2022: Silver

I suspect that moving the sword to tyrell would benefit stark more than anyone else. It'd be interesting to see what happens if tyrell start with even a single star order as they do in 5 player games but it's hard to say who should go down to 5th place instead?

Mayyyyybe baratheon?

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Not today.

You don't like Bara, we know that ^^, but Bara is probably the best balanced house right now (in victory stats and in castle stats for tournaments). Changing what works is not exactly the right way to go.

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Judge
LoI&F: Seasons 10 and 11 King
France WCup team
2021: Bronze
2022: Silver

Interestingly enough, the top two houses in World Cup 2021 right now are Martell and Bara, then GJ and Stark, and finally as expected Lanni and Tyrell

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MAESTER OF TOURNAMENTS
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Baratheon is practically dead without a star in the beginning. In Mother of Dragons only the Iron Bank and (ironically) the presence of Targaryen can rebalance the loss of the star a bit. In vanilla 2nd ed., Baratheon would almost always be attacked by Martell in round 2. And unlike Tyrell, Bara has no strong counters in his housecard deck (except Patchface), is below Martell on fiefdoms AND can't support his main castle since it is an island.

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“The only way to treat disease is to understand disease.“

Removing the blade from Greyjoy would shift them drastically from the most powerful house to a complete pushover, surrounded by three opponents with major advantages they are free to press on them at will.

Greyjoy sucks at defense, and that is because their defense is supposed to be a strong offense.  If they have no offense, they just suck.

Yeah I don’t think taking the star from bara to Tyrell solves anything. Just makes bara very weak, and does address lanni/Greyjoy at all.

The appeal of just switching fiefdoms from Tyrell/GJ is that it is only a temporary measure, which on average would last two rounds (more than 50% chance of clash after two Westeros card draws), and is within the normal architecture of the game rather than a permanent change such as adjusting card values or text abilities etc.

I actually disagree ser hodor, GJ still wins ties against lanni and should be able to more than hold his own. Stark really has other priorities than to try an ambush on Greyjoy and Tyrell can’t muster so has no chance of threatening GJ in the sea unless mustering comes up which is good for Greyjoy anyway.

Interestingly I enjoy playing the random start variant. That can definitely bring up some imbalances. Try playing Tyrell in lannisport with Greyjoy on pyke. You have no stars as Tyrell, GJ has the sword (so your 2nd place fiefdoms may as well be 6th for all the good it does you) and raids/moves first, talk about praying for a clash of kings. that really highlighted the imbalance between those two for me

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Swift as a deer. Quiet as a shadow.

In random start, the two worst houses are probably Tyrell due to their slow start - but depends on a Clash - and Bara - due to their weakest card set.

As for the spots, the best spots are certainly Bara's and Grey's, on their islands. And by far, the worst spot to start with is Lannisport.

So if you put one of the lowest houses on the lowest spot and conclude that things do not work well there, well... that's a conclusion that you could have made even before. Even strong cards / tracks like Martell do struggle when starting in LP. Grey is a special case, as their up on sea (Victarion) makes them very dangerous at start as they can threaten Pyke very quickly.

Anyway, referring to random start is fun, but is not the right way to go for rebalancing, that was discussed before : each house has features linked to its position on the map. Of course, the two sea houses have cards that help at sea (Victarion / Salladhor), the most defensive houses have cards that allow them with resilience (Stark with Roose, Martell with Arianne)...

Take care also about the actual level of players. Greyjoy is of course far easier to play than Lannister.

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Judge
LoI&F: Seasons 10 and 11 King
France WCup team
2021: Bronze
2022: Silver

Interssting enough are the current stats from World Cup. Take care, this is Quarter finals so the level is quite good, but not huge neither yet, and many games are not over yet, however, here are the current stats :

House  Total Castles  Average Castles  Rank by Castles  Average Place  Rank by Place  Games Won  Rank by Wins
Stark  319  2,95  5  3,61  4  19  4
Greyjoy  375  3,47  3  3,45  3  21  2
Lannister  328  3,04  4  3,79  5  14  5
Baratheon  398  3,69  2  3,42  2  21  2
Tyrell  298  2,76  6  3,90  6  7  6
Martell  422  3,91  1  2,83  1  26  1

108 games are running, which provides quite nice data.

We are surprised to see that Martell (but games are not finished, and Dorne is not a good finisher) and Bara do a bit over usual stats. But overall, what you see here is a... not too unbalanced game. We do not see Grey, the usual supposedly OP house, overwhelming, and Lannister actually has far better results than usually. I suppose this is linked to wildlings. They have made far better than the poor Tyrells.

Therefore, I think the approach initiated here of very small changes is the right one, as a small change on one side can trigger big effects.

For example, in the WCup, I have seen several Lannisters doing very well until end of mid game. But as they do that well, they get betrayed and end up at the low edge. An ability like Kevan's in defense could help defending against Balon's "I win easily a fight I choose" ability, typically on RR or LP.

And Tyrell do need a bigger boost. The second ship + barrel in Reach are nice stuff, I think.

The extra stuff could be - and the more I think about it, the more I like it - the split of Searoad Marches that has already been evoked. With the meta around Lanni / Grey alliance, Lanni is in peace for ~7 turns and usually does well during that, should they pick as enemy Bara (works well, but you'll never get Dragonstone) or their best prey now, Tyrell. Cersei counters QoT, Tyrion counters Loras, and they are SO close for the slow Lanni troops. From my point of view, that is the big but balanced change that could change all... But after the others are agreed on.

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Judge
LoI&F: Seasons 10 and 11 King
France WCup team
2021: Bronze
2022: Silver

Just to reply to hitflash buffing tyrell could actually be a decent greyjoy nerf. My 7 Castle analysis for tyrell shows them to be one of the best houses to take down the kraken. Greyjoy castles show up a lot more often in tyrell wins than lannister ones...which surprisingly barely show up at all.

There seems to be an 'ecosystem' of sorts with the 6 houses forming predator/prey relationships with each other. You can't change one house without it having a knock on effect on the others.

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Not today.

The triangle Grey / Lanni / Tyrell is especially true to that perspective : Lanni fears Grey, Tyrell fears Lanni, Grey fears Tyrell.

Stark is only Prey to his two neighbours, while Martell has ambiguous relationships with his two.

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Judge
LoI&F: Seasons 10 and 11 King
France WCup team
2021: Bronze
2022: Silver

PMeister do you think that the reason pyke (I assume when you say GJ castles that also means Flints finger and seagard?)  doesn’t show up in Lannister wins that often might be because lanni wins most often when he has a long lasting alliance with GJ?  If GJ doesn’t agree to an alliance, Lannister doesn’t win that often.

Necrarch, wow those stats really are terrible for Tyrell. I guess stark (and to some extend Tyrell) win rates will come up if there are still quite a few unfinished games as they have a tendency to do better in longer running games ie going to round 9/10/tiebreaker

But even so your stats show Tyrell and Lanni at the bottom of the pack. Which is kind of the point I was making

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Swift as a deer. Quiet as a shadow.