I am quite new to GoT (only 10 games under the belt), but with my group, we felt during most of our games that the game was often too passive and "locked", with some players only playing 2-3 cards in the whole game. Nobody would dare to make a move before the last round(s), because of :
- king bashing if the move would succeed
- inability to make a successful attack, without getting help from another player
The first point is expected (and enjoyable), as this is fundamental to ffa games.
However, the second point is where I feel more frustrated about. This is mainly due to one main design point in the game, which lies in the support mecanism (and the way the map is designed). Most houses have one specific sea where they can put 3 ships, and support from this point most of their territories. This is also the case with lands, albeit less prevalent.
Combined with the fact that this is almost very hard to push forward in an ennemy sea (because you cannot support the fight, while the defender can), I feel like the game often ends in a locked state where attacking a position is incredibly hard.
Is there something that I am missing, and is this feeling disappearing after more games, or is it a general feeling/issue with the game ?
Following that, the proposed variant that we are currently thinking about (but did not have the time to test it yet) is to remove the support token once its used once. Meaning that you could only support one fight per round. This would allows several things :
- make the player really thinks about which fights he wants to support (especially when supporting another player)
- add the possibility to do multiple attacks on the same territories in one round, knowing that the defender will only be able to support the fight once.
What do you guys think about this variant ? And do you think this would affect the balance of the game, and that some houses would be far more impacted by it than others ?