Here are my thoughts on your explanations:
1. If GJ wins early and you helped him out in ties and with other actions, you definitely 'share' the blame. Cool example, though it doesn't tell me anything, since it's specific to that game. We're talking about general trends here, whereas you give a specific example with unlikely occurrences as to why the general trend is not true. I'd say the case you make is a bit 'thin' . Similar idea regarding your example about stark losing winterfel in turn 2 due to clash and web of lies (and Mustering I would assume?).

2. Greyjoy being very strong and aggressive early is basically every game . You can look for whatever you want in the data set (stark winning early, Martell winning early, Baratheon losing early etc) and you'll probably find those happen in most cases with a strong and aggressive early game Greyjoy .

Edit: on this note, I'd be willing to bet that the biggest discriminator to an early Baratheon win is whether or not the south is fighting

3. How about, you only stand to lose from the bid? Greyjoy can push against stark just fine without a bid, and I'd argue you want stark to put up a bit of a fight. You're also strengthening Tyrell and Baratheon - which you share borders with are most likely your 2 direct enemies. So let's see, you've risked your good position on the tracks, and you're probably going to end up in a worse position, you've most likely helped your two direct enemies, but you've helped your ally have an easier time north. Something doesn't fit here . With a western alliance, GJ and Lanni control 2 of the 3 special tokens in the game... The main reason why I think choosing clash early on is very bad though is this: you are giving Tyrell stars. Even if you have an understanding with him ... why give him this huge boost? Alliances are fine and dandy but in the end this is not a team sport .

4. OK... I'll admit I'm a bit confused here. You're arguing in favor of CP in WH for Stark because of the risk of a CoK, which could be disastrous if the stars align against stark... but you're perfectly fine coin flipping the game with Baratheon... because you have a slightly higher than average win-rate... ??? I may be missing something here.

Last edited by Zsa on 2018-Mar-31 23:03, edited 1x in total

I think Zsa is definitely right about Lanni picking Clash on the first turn; it really only gives you the opening to gain ground against Greyjoy, and even that is far from a sure thing.  It's definitely not worth giving your other neighbors the opportunity to improve their positions on you.

There was a mistake in the statistics before, my apologies for that. You find the updated statistics via the old links.

There was a mistake in the statistics before, my apologies for that. You find the updated statistics via the old links. Ah, well then, we can throw everything out the window I guess .

To be fair, not much has changed:
1) Bad and terrible starting orders lead to bad win-rates.
2) Lannister is still a mess.
3) Stark A&B order sets (CP or M+0 in White Harbor) have very similar win-rates and they are both good starting orders.

Here are the two things of note in my opinion:
1) The Baratheon dilemma about taking KL first turn has been "solved". I'd say taking KL 1st turn is still a decent alternative - slightly inferior yes, but viable.
2) Martell starting with a CP in salt shore is better than a march. The march is a good alternative, but the CP move is safer.

lani & gj files are missing

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My kung fu is the best

yes.. all are missing atm i restructure my drive folder. will be back in the next days.

I was thinking about something with the stats, and that is the difference between the standard settings and the 2nd Ed. tiebreaker.  I would think that with that rule, you would see a shift away from Stark (and to a lesser extent Martell), and toward Greyjoy (and to a lesser extent Lannister), to reflect the cluster of strongholds in the West and lack of them in the North/Dorne.

I'm not sure how much this would change for openings, however.  It might favor a more risky opening for Martell - since their chances of winning on a 5 castles tiebreak are minimized, they would need to take more chances in the hopes of conquering an enemy completely.  Greyjoy may be less inclined to ally with Lanni, when they are holding all that primo real estate.  And while Stark's general strategy is still the same, they may be incentivized to get involved with a Lanni/GJ war more quickly, since controlling the entire West is an even more dominant position for a single house.