HI there,

I (as Stark) was attacked by baratheon in round 1 in a 3p game.  He took narrow sea with 2 ships using stannis and march+1.  I tried to explain to him that this was just ensuring a lannister victory, and to check out the 3p guides on here but he didn't believe me and I couldn't find the guides!  IS there one, or is this just something that us veterans talk about in other threads?

I think he didn't want to listen to me seeing as we were fighting each other but I feel its my duty to share what I consider an objective truth.

Thanks for your help!

There is no guide as far as i can tell.

In 3p-games its generally hard to find a balance between attacking someone without overextending.

However, you shouldnt make it too tempting for another player to invade you, so especially as Stark in round 1 when you KNOW that bara has march on his ships, you should have enough Marchorders ready to react.

---

"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life." , Terry Pratchett

Well, you never KNOW that bara has a march on his ships until the orders are revealed.  Standard Stark orders (at least the way I usually play and what I've seen from others) are March +1 on shivering, CP* on winterfell and march +0 on WH.  All of that is fine unless bara plays 3 marches on round 1 with his march +1 on his 2 ships in shipbreaker.  THen he can take shivering with stannis.  He gets way overextended but also makes me really focus on him, giving lannister a huge advantage on top of his starting advantage.

The guy I'm playing with is open to hearing about the 3 player dynamics, but I guess if there's no guide he'll just have to learn from experience.

Just because something is the common tactic, doesnt mean that you are ensuring somebody else's win by not following it. You may make it easier, but this still requires the 3rd Party being able to react on this Situation.

---

AFFC PBF - #10
You do not need to know everything, but where to read it.-Albert Einstein-

Reading is overrated.-sarcasm off-

Maybe "ensuring" is too strong a word, but baratheon taking narrow sea on turn 1 with 3 movement orders is disastrous for both stark and baratheon.  Stark now has to throw all his resources into retaking narrow, and baratheon has also committed himself to holding it-- at the VERY least waiting till turn 3 to take KL.  Any competent lannister can take over the game, which is exactly what happened.

The balance required of 3p, at least in the first several rounds makes this move by baratheon not just an uncommon tactic, but a terrible one

Since there isn't a concise strategy guide for 3p yet and I faced similar problems several times, here some general ideas:

Balance of 3p:
The balance between the houses is more fragile than in 6p: Right from the start house Lannister is in a very good spot. That means, if he can spread and develop uncontested, he usually will win in the mid-game. So house Lannister can easily profit from any early fights between house Stark and Baratheon. These two houses are responsible for putting right enough pressure on house Lannister, so he can't get away with an easy win. This shouldn't be an alliance or just 2 on 1 bashing, but rather some kind of unspoken truce at least to the mid-game, knowing that house Lannister will just get an explosive advantage, if there are any early fights between house Baratheon & house Stark. So especially in this phase of the game, one should always be aware of not overextending.



Each house has different problems to solve in the early and mid-game:

House Lannister:
Lannister is definetly in the best spot. Sitting on 3 fortresses & enough supply, he pretty much can just defend his homelands, while building up a scary army quite quickly. Support orders in Ironmans Bay and Riverrun can give the other houses headaches when attacking Lannisters position. The main problem Lannister has to solve, when building up his position, is the problem of farming power tokens. Because he needs Riverrun as a support hub in the long run, he won't be able to farm powertokens from there. Other lands are exposed to enemy raid-orders, so he will have a difficult time, to get his power-tokens, as soon as the position closes. The key to solve this problem is to drop a footman at the The Arbor and to keep a ship in the port of Lannisport, so he can safely farm 3 pt per round. For that reason farming some extra pt in the early rounds is crucial & the raven is very useful for that, by it's ability to switch orders and the option to gain extra PT when DWDW shows up.

House Stark:
House Stark is the most difficult to play in 3p. While he has the best opportunity to gain power tokens, more than the other houses he has to spread his troops to build up and at the same time protect his position very cautiously, especially his seas. Once invaded by the seas there's almost no way back into the game for house Stark. The sword but also the raven can be useful for ensuring his safety. Get your supply and PT-farming going (taking the Eyrie early on can be a nice solution to progress in both).
If you have the opportunity, try to disturb Lannister in Sunset Sea early on to delay him establishing his PT-farming (see above). Depending on where you want to put pressure in the late-game nice support hubs are as usual MC, Twins and Mountains of the Moon. Generally it's not bad for Stark to be the last one on the throne-track, especially if he can't turn his defensive position into a attacking one and the game goes over the whole 10 rounds, he often will be able to conquer FF or CCP with the last attacking order as a fifth castle and can win by that, because he will have a higher position in supply than Bara / has more PT than Lanni most of the time.

House Baratheon:
The main problem for house Baratheon is to get a satisfying supply. At all cost he needs to get a strong foothold in Blackwater or he will never be able to get to a strong late-game army. Because the development of army is Bara's main issue, its useful to be first on the Trone-track in this phase, because he can protect his support orders that help him fighting for supply in mid-Westeros and especially because he has the possibilty, when AToB-card shows up, to control the overall speed of development. Generally spoken, he wants to slow down the process of building up, he often wants to choose neither mustering nor supply, because this will help the Lannister player more than himself most of the time. If he has the opportunity, moving a ship to WSS and raiding from there can prevent Lannister to farm PT from The Arbor (see above). For winning with Baratheon it's crucial to conquer at least a 6th castle because of his general lack of supply compared to the other houses. Right timing in the middle-late game to invade Stark in The Narrow Sea or Lanni first in HH and SS then RR/LP will be crucial.

Last edited by consultum on 2018-Jun-04 17:02, edited 2x in total