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.

---

‘Cause Caesar said so…

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.

---

“The only way to treat disease is to understand disease.“

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

---

‘Cause Caesar said so…

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

Last edited by Strongest_Gallic on 2025-Jun-04 21:12, edited 1x in total

---

‘Cause Caesar said so…

I don't think those changes are needed nor that they would help the balance of the game. I suppose it would slightly nerf stark R10, because stealing flints or CCP on last move of R10 would sometimes be harder, but it would also make it much easier to defend moat cailin as well as winterfell from GJ. I doubt GJ players would attempt GJ-Lanni allaince after that change. Overall a buff imo.

It would probably hurt Lannister and Tyrell more than help. GJ can go a lot higher in terms of maximum strength he can muster to take rivverun or Lannisport, so it wouldn't matter much to him, but Lannister often takes those areas back by a small margin. Defence bonus would favor GJ.

For Tyrell it would be a Loras nerf which often is their trick to victory. Also when martell takes their sea, then land path is their only counterplay. For Baratheon it's mostly a nerf because all their core castles tend to be well defended and R10 is not their strong suit.

So overall I suspect it would help GJ, Stark and Martell, which are 3 best houses anyway. I think that to buff Lannister and Tyrell we would need to somehow buff land strength to make sea support less impactful.