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3p live rated up. join

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Host seems to be missing in the cutis game, join ready live!

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Seniyad
Pawn

Posts: 1
Games: 0
Rank Points: 0
Member since: 2025-Jan-25

Topic: A Game of Thrones: House Rule Refinements (2nd Edition)
Posted: 2025-Jun-03 21:26
House Rules: Balancing Castles, Strongholds, and Balon Greyjoy

These rule adjustments aim to improve balance and strategy in A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (2nd Edition) while preserving the original game's core dynamics.

1. Castles & Strongholds Defense

Old:

    Starting strongholds: 2 defense

    All other castles/strongholds: 0 defense

New:

    All strongholds: 4 defense

    All castles: 2 defense

Reason:
Improves defense of key locations. Reduces snowballing and quick takeovers of empty strongholds.
Lannister now starts with a stronghold at 4 defense (Lannisport) and can easier hold Riverrun, providing better early-game resilience vs. Greyjoy, who often strikes quickly in round one.
Also changes alliance dynamics: betrayals require more planning, as castles are no longer easy to overrun without preparation.

2. Balon Greyjoy (House Card)

Old: Reduces opponent’s House card strength to 0.
New: Reduces opponent’s House card strength to 1 (regardless of printed value).

Reason:
Makes Balon less oppressive. Opponent cards remain weaker, but not entirely nullified. Adds mind games and strategic uncertainty.
Strongest_Gallic
King's Councillor

Posts: 594
Games: 409
Rank Points: 3,254
Member since: 2015-Jun-01

Topic: A Game of Thrones: House Rule Refinements (2nd Edition)
Posted: 2025-Jun-04 10:29
No offence, Seniyad, but an anonymous user with wild ideas about game balancing is hard to take seriously. What is your experience that you are basing this on?

1. Some games are so closed already. Quality games with quality players almost never result in a 7 castle win. The game is decided mostly on sea, so I don't see why making the castles stronger is going to make it more balanced. It's just going to slow down the game enormously.

2. Balon is Gj's only defense against Lannister/Stark alliance. Greyjoy House is already the only house that's capable of making war from the start, with a passive Greyjoy almost always resulting in boring games. I don't see how reducing his strength is going to result in better games...

I never understood the need to balance this game further. In my eyes it's already quite balanced and it's up to the players to balance it more (personally I dislike the extra lannister ship implemented on this website, because it resulted in less aggressive greyjoys).
Lack of balance is what makes a game dynamic. If we want more balanced games, we could just as well take out Westeros events end give everyone 2 stars and the possibility to muster in any territory... But it's just that that creates openings, opportunities...

Instead of changing the game, we could also adjust the way we play it. Diplomacy is capable of balancing out practically every situation. Most times a game is stuck is because players aren't willing to betray or to work together. Most times a game ends fast because of lack of balance is because players aren't willing to betray or to work together.
The players make the game. The rules are fine.


Nomaris
Maester without a chain

Posts: 2,611
Games: 410
Rank Points: 2,739
Member since: 2017-May-19

Topic: A Game of Thrones: House Rule Refinements (2nd Edition)
Posted: 2025-Jun-04 13:29
No offence, Seniyad, but an anonymous user with wild ideas about game balancing is hard to take seriously. What is your experience that you are basing this on?
No offense Gallic, but everyones ideas are valid and should be discussed on base of their content (which I notice you do from your 2nd paragraph on), not the perceived experience of community members.

1. Some games are so closed already. Quality games with quality players almost never result in a 7 castle win. The game is decided mostly on sea, so I don't see why making the castles stronger is going to make it more balanced. It's just going to slow down the game enormously.
I mostly agree, even though I must say it does feel kind of odd that castles/strongholds are easier overtook than other regions (due to siege engines).

2. Balon is Gj's only defense against Lannister/Stark alliance. Greyjoy House is already the only house that's capable of making war from the start, with a passive Greyjoy almost always resulting in boring games. I don't see how reducing his strength is going to result in better games...
For games with experienced players you are probably right, but in those games gj normally plays more defensively at the start anyways. Balon is a very good card and would still be pretty good with the suggested adaption. I'd say this could be a possible house rule.

I never understood the need to balance this game further. In my eyes it's already quite balanced and it's up to the players to balance it more (personally I dislike the extra lannister ship implemented on this website, because it resulted in less aggressive greyjoys).
Well, experienced players can balance out some of the imbalance, but still, even in top-notch games Lannister and Tyrell fare much worse than other houses. Everybody is free to like or dislike this fact.

As for the additional Lannister ship: this comes from the official 2019 errata of Fantasy Flight Games, hence it is default here on thronemaster, but you can easily turn it off when creating a game.

Lack of balance is what makes a game dynamic. If we want more balanced games, we could just as well take out Westeros events end give everyone 2 stars and the possibility to muster in any territory... But it's just that that creates openings, opportunities...
I mostly agree, even though I also understand the frustration when playing Tyrell against an aggressive Martell, without any musterings or clashes in the first 6 rounds (been there multiple times).

Instead of changing the game, we could also adjust the way we play it. Diplomacy is capable of balancing out practically every situation. Most times a game is stuck is because players aren't willing to betray or to work together. Most times a game ends fast because of lack of balance is because players aren't willing to betray or to work together.
The players make the game. The rules are fine.

I agree, but for diplomacy you need others to cooperate with you and this is often not the case (especially with newer players who think they shouldn't backstab in any case and simply can outrun their winning ally, even if they have no chance to do so).

In my opinion, there is no reason to rigorously decline all house rulings, even though they house rules can lead to better results for a specific play group.


Strongest_Gallic
King's Councillor

Posts: 594
Games: 409
Rank Points: 3,254
Member since: 2015-Jun-01

Topic: A Game of Thrones: House Rule Refinements (2nd Edition)
Posted: 2025-Jun-04 21:02
No offense Gallic, but everyones ideas are valid and should be discussed on base of their content (which I notice you do from your 2nd paragraph on), not the perceived experience of community members.
I really didn’t mean this in an offensive way. Rather wondering why someone would come to thronemaster, not play any game, but immediately start posting game balancing options. That just makes me a bit suspicious. But I didn’t in any way want to put it as if a lack of experience makes anyone’s ideas less valid. I am sorry if it came across as such.

As for the rest of your comments: I believe we mostly agree on things, but you took more time to nuance, which I generally also agree to.

It would be great if someone could come up with a way to make risk free play less rewarding and make people play more “you win or you die”. Without becoming nihilistic about things


Strongest_Gallic
King's Councillor

Posts: 594
Games: 409
Rank Points: 3,254
Member since: 2015-Jun-01

Topic: A Game of Thrones: House Rule Refinements (2nd Edition)
Posted: 2025-Jun-04 21:09
I mean: a member since January. 0 games. First post. Completely anonymous profile. And then this post. I did not mean to be rude. But it does raise my eyebrows.

Edit: you know me, Nomaris. I’m paranoid as hell



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