There are three "stronger" houses in MoD--Targ,Greyjoy and Tyrell,while Baratheon and Stark are espeicially weak.There are indeed some good options for
improving houses in the eastern side of Westeros:
  Baratheon:1 additional ship in port and 1 knight in Storms End;
  Martell:1 additional ship in Sea of Dorne;
  Arryn:1 additional ship in the Narrow Sea;
  Stark:1 additional knight in White Harbor.
  Without these all eastern houses must ally with each other--or it's easy for Targ to win on turn 6-7 when dragons becomes strong.

There are three "stronger" houses in MoD--Targ,Greyjoy and Tyrell,while Baratheon and Stark are espeicially weak.There are indeed some good options for
improving houses in the eastern side of Westeros:
  Baratheon:1 additional ship in port and 1 knight in Storms End;
  Martell:1 additional ship in Sea of Dorne;
  Arryn:1 additional ship in the Narrow Sea;
  Stark:1 additional knight in White Harbor.
  Without these all eastern houses must ally with each other--or it's easy for Targ to win on turn 6-7 when dragons becomes strong.
Waaay too many changes. You are just going to add further instabilities.
Use the fewest possible changes from the official rules as possible. Add one new change (for example to bara), and then test it over several games before considering any further changes/additions.

Stark is fine, they were very strong (with GJ) before MoD.
Martell is also fine. They have new areas in the east to explore, much more fun to play. No reason to touch them either. Both these houses are at the edge of the Targ area, so they are much less likely to be attacked early on (and it will be much more high risk play for Targ, as arryn/bara can cut them off).

The weakest houses (at the start of the game that is) in MoD are baratheon and arryn, due to their close borders to Targaryen (which can attack with 3 ships on turn 1 and muster 2 new at the same turn) and no star orders. So I do agree on those needing a few changes.

For Baratheon, we gave them a new ship in port of Dragonstone. So same setup as the vassal for baratheon. This has worked well for us. Baratheon still struggle with some of the old issues from the base game, for example supply starvation (which is even harder now with Arryn controlling MotM). Still, this extra ship makes them more durable during the early game. Also this is far from overpowered, as they are IMO still the hardest house to play. They have a mediocre house card deck, supply problem and are at the center of the map (and can literally be attacked from 5 different houses on their front lines).

I saw you adding a knight to bara, which I would strongly not recommend.
You do not want to buff the bara land presence, that isn't the core problem (their weak sea presence is). Jason (designer of MoD expansion) agreed with this on me, and he would not touch the land units. (we talked a bit about the bara balance at sea being problematic after MoD launch).

As for arryn, we "solved" them by just giving them a star. We swapped the position of arryn and tyrell on the KC track at the start of the game.
Tyrell doesn't need star orders in MoD, they are very strong even without it. (also much safer borders).

Last edited by Frode789 on 2020-Jan-14 18:05, edited 3x in total

There are three "stronger" houses in MoD--Targ,Greyjoy and Tyrell,while Baratheon and Stark are espeicially weak.There are indeed some good options for
improving houses in the eastern side of Westeros:
  Baratheon:1 additional ship in port and 1 knight in Storms End;
  Martell:1 additional ship in Sea of Dorne;
  Arryn:1 additional ship in the Narrow Sea;
  Stark:1 additional knight in White Harbor.
  Without these all eastern houses must ally with each other--or it's easy for Targ to win on turn 6-7 when dragons becomes strong.
Waaay too many changes. You are just going to add further instabilities.
Use the fewest possible changes from the official rules as possible. Add one new change (for example to bara), and then test it over several games before considering any further changes/additions.

Stark is fine, they were very strong (with GJ) before MoD.
Martell is also fine. They have new areas in the east to explore, much more fun to play. No reason to touch them either. Both these houses are at the edge of the Targ area, so they are much less likely to be attacked early on (and it will be much more high risk play for Targ, as arryn/bara can cut them off).

The weakest houses (at the start of the game that is) in MoD are baratheon and arryn, due to their close borders to Targaryen (which can attack with 3 ships on turn 1 and muster 2 new at the same turn) and no star orders. So I do agree on those needing a few changes.

For Baratheon, we gave them a new ship in port of Dragonstone. So same setup as the vassal for baratheon. This has worked well for us. Baratheon still struggle with some of the old issues from the base game, for example supply starvation (which is even harder now with Arryn controlling MotM). Still, this extra ship makes them more durable during the early game. Also this is far from overpowered, as they are IMO still the hardest house to play. They have a mediocre house card deck, supply problem and are at the center of the map (and can literally be attacked from 5 different houses on their front lines).

I saw you adding a knight to bara, which I would strongly not recommend.
You do not want to buff the bara land presence, that isn't the core problem (their weak sea presence is). Jason (designer of MoD expansion) agreed with this on me, and he would not touch the land units. (we talked a bit about the bara balance at sea being problematic after MoD launch).

As for arryn, we "solved" them by just giving them a star. We swapped the position of arryn and tyrell on the KC track at the start of the game.
Tyrell doesn't need star orders in MoD, they are very strong even without it. (also much safer borders).   Bara and Stark do need HUGE BUFF or no one wants to play them in 8p games,since their winrate is quite low obviously.
  Arryn is strong enough:it has good cards to defend,3 knights,+4 garrison in the Eyrie,least possibility to be attacked by Targ among eastern houses(Stark,Bara,Martell,Arryn),good power consolidation,and weak neighbours(Stark,Bara).In our games Arryn has quite good performance.No need for huge buff.While Stark/Bara lands often get destroyed by Dragons,Arryn can survive and even get straightly benefited.

Bara definitely needs a buff in an 8p game. I’ve played Bara a couple times in 8ps and, while not impossible, their success (or even their survival) relies heavily on diplomacy.

On House Rules: My group hasn’t been able to agree on giving Bara any additional units, as some feel even one unit change upsets the intended balance of the game.

However we’ve allowed Bara to start with a temporary star token in the first turn to give them the opportunity to either take KL, muster, or fortify their position as intended in the original 6p game. It doesn’t buff Bara as much as I would like, but if the Bara player is savvy, they could at least have a backup stronghold in the event they believe Targ will rush Dragonstone. And If they do rush DS, it’s usually the case that other players will be sympathetic to Bara. Still, if a player hates asymmetrical starts, I can see Bara being not fun at all for them. It should definitely be reserved for those who understand the difficulty or enjoy the added stress.

Last edited by stewbr01 on 2020-Mar-03 20:03, edited 1x in total

I own MoD but I've only played it 3 or 4 times, never with 8 players so I don't know how weak Bara is yet. However he did look really weak thanks too Martel, Arryn and Tarag. With out a star, I can't even imagine.