An incomplete game of AGoT [now complete]
Apr. 21st, 2013 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sniffnoy[Originally posted as a friends-locked entry on 3/30/2013 -- locked because I didn't want to post this before the game was done. We eventually did complete it the following week, though Gamble had to step in for Marquise. Short version of what happened: Gamble tried to fix Marquise's mistakes, turning and attacking Nick -- this seriously hurt Nick, but ultimately couldn't do enough; Marc behaved erratically and almost threw the game to Mike; Nick and I stopped fighting; I lost the West Summer Sea to Dan and my homelands got sacked; Mike almost won; and though I did start to reclaim my territorty, I couldn't do enough and Dan won.]
So last night Dan organized a game of AGoT. Playing were him (Martell), me (Tyrell), Nick (Lannister), Marquise (Greyjoy), Mike Milligan (Stark), and Marc (Baratheon).
OK, I'm not going to do any sort of whole writeup. But I thought it was worth noting, this was a game that actually had people supporting each other a lot. Usually I find most fights in AGoT don't actually involve support from other players.
As often happens I spent much of the game sitting around not getting anywhere. Now usually this is because I'm holed up and being defensive, but this time I didn't have to spend a lot of the game defending. I was Tyrell, as I said, so there was the buffer zone of Searoad Marches between me and Nick, and Dan and I had a pretty defined border as well. I could have easily hit him at Starfall, but he couldn't have so easily hit me, because I controlled the West Summer Sea.
So why didn't I get anywhere? Well, Nick and Marquise had something of an alliance for much of the game, so going north would have been a huge pain. And as for going south, well, Doran Martell is quite the rattlesnake. Indeed I had the strength to attack Dan multiple times -- I just wanted someone else to eat the rattlesnake first.
Now the thing was, Clash of Kings came up on each of turns 2 through 4, and due to heavy use of consolidate power on my part, I came out ahead on the King's Court track (each time! Though I was only in second on turn 3.) And after that there weren't any (at least, as far as we played -- the game was tentatively left unfinished), so I had the raven for a lot of the game.
So I in particular did not want to get hit by Doran. So I start suggesting to Marc, hey, maybe we should take on Dan together. But to a large extent this was less because I needed Marc's help, and more because I wanted someone else to eat the rattlesnake! But the problem was that Marc didn't have good positions on any of the tracks, so there was no way that was going to happen to him.
Anyway the result of all this was that I expanded east into the Reach, so yay, a lot of fights with 3 people involved. Also, early on, I proposed to Nick that we take on Marquise together -- I'd get the Sunset Sea. Of course, Nick had an alliance with Marquise, so that didn't happen. (Which was probably for the best for Nick -- I'd have been a big threat to him had he let me do that.)
Finally Nick shows up in the Searoad Marches with a bunch of siege engines. Well, there's only one possible defense against that: Strike first! But my forces weren't *quite* enough; I just had to hope that maybe Nick woudln't do everything he could to defend them. (Aside from putting a defense order there, which would defeat the point of the siege engines.) As it turned out, he did. OK -- maybe I can get Marquise to my side instead of Nick's. I suggest to Marquise that his alliance with Nick has only gained him the things he would have had anyway, and we could crush Nick between us instead.
Finally, Marquise decides to support... neither of us. A decision neither of us are happy with, unsurprisingly. Nick can still squeak out a victory against me without Marquise, so he's still handing the battle to Nick. But now Nick's annoyed at him -- especially because this means Nick had to spend his high card in order to win. And without his high card, Nick decided not to attack Highgarden, going for the Reach instead.
I think this it was shortly after this that basically all the alliances broke down and we just got to a point where it was "sure, I'll support you, because you're fighting someone who's also next to me". People would be largely honest, but, y'know, not loyal for more than a turn (or a march).
As for Dan and Doran -- ultimately I ended up losing the Raven (which Dan then got) and all my stars after getting tired and forgetting why I'd been avoiding attacking Dan, and attacking him in the Reach late in the game. Not even that great a prize...
Unrelated but interesting: There was a Stark/Baratheon fight early on, and Roose Bolton got Patchfaced. Stark sure has to play differently without that card, huh? Later though he got it back after a wildling attack.
After the beginning of turn 8 we were all really tired[0] -- and Marc had just kind of disappeared (we assumed he bid 0 for the wildling attack that turn) -- but we weren't comfortable declaring Mike the winner (since we hadn't had a declared last turn, as we'd done sometimes in the past when the game had gone too long), so we recorded it and packed it up. We'll see if we actually get back to it, though.
-Harry
[0]I've actually been trying to keep a consistent bedtime recently -- namely, about 2:30 -- but last night... yeah. It was about 3:00 when we finally packed it up. We'd started sometime inbetween 8 and 9, I think.
So last night Dan organized a game of AGoT. Playing were him (Martell), me (Tyrell), Nick (Lannister), Marquise (Greyjoy), Mike Milligan (Stark), and Marc (Baratheon).
OK, I'm not going to do any sort of whole writeup. But I thought it was worth noting, this was a game that actually had people supporting each other a lot. Usually I find most fights in AGoT don't actually involve support from other players.
As often happens I spent much of the game sitting around not getting anywhere. Now usually this is because I'm holed up and being defensive, but this time I didn't have to spend a lot of the game defending. I was Tyrell, as I said, so there was the buffer zone of Searoad Marches between me and Nick, and Dan and I had a pretty defined border as well. I could have easily hit him at Starfall, but he couldn't have so easily hit me, because I controlled the West Summer Sea.
So why didn't I get anywhere? Well, Nick and Marquise had something of an alliance for much of the game, so going north would have been a huge pain. And as for going south, well, Doran Martell is quite the rattlesnake. Indeed I had the strength to attack Dan multiple times -- I just wanted someone else to eat the rattlesnake first.
Now the thing was, Clash of Kings came up on each of turns 2 through 4, and due to heavy use of consolidate power on my part, I came out ahead on the King's Court track (each time! Though I was only in second on turn 3.) And after that there weren't any (at least, as far as we played -- the game was tentatively left unfinished), so I had the raven for a lot of the game.
So I in particular did not want to get hit by Doran. So I start suggesting to Marc, hey, maybe we should take on Dan together. But to a large extent this was less because I needed Marc's help, and more because I wanted someone else to eat the rattlesnake! But the problem was that Marc didn't have good positions on any of the tracks, so there was no way that was going to happen to him.
Anyway the result of all this was that I expanded east into the Reach, so yay, a lot of fights with 3 people involved. Also, early on, I proposed to Nick that we take on Marquise together -- I'd get the Sunset Sea. Of course, Nick had an alliance with Marquise, so that didn't happen. (Which was probably for the best for Nick -- I'd have been a big threat to him had he let me do that.)
Finally Nick shows up in the Searoad Marches with a bunch of siege engines. Well, there's only one possible defense against that: Strike first! But my forces weren't *quite* enough; I just had to hope that maybe Nick woudln't do everything he could to defend them. (Aside from putting a defense order there, which would defeat the point of the siege engines.) As it turned out, he did. OK -- maybe I can get Marquise to my side instead of Nick's. I suggest to Marquise that his alliance with Nick has only gained him the things he would have had anyway, and we could crush Nick between us instead.
Finally, Marquise decides to support... neither of us. A decision neither of us are happy with, unsurprisingly. Nick can still squeak out a victory against me without Marquise, so he's still handing the battle to Nick. But now Nick's annoyed at him -- especially because this means Nick had to spend his high card in order to win. And without his high card, Nick decided not to attack Highgarden, going for the Reach instead.
I think this it was shortly after this that basically all the alliances broke down and we just got to a point where it was "sure, I'll support you, because you're fighting someone who's also next to me". People would be largely honest, but, y'know, not loyal for more than a turn (or a march).
As for Dan and Doran -- ultimately I ended up losing the Raven (which Dan then got) and all my stars after getting tired and forgetting why I'd been avoiding attacking Dan, and attacking him in the Reach late in the game. Not even that great a prize...
Unrelated but interesting: There was a Stark/Baratheon fight early on, and Roose Bolton got Patchfaced. Stark sure has to play differently without that card, huh? Later though he got it back after a wildling attack.
After the beginning of turn 8 we were all really tired[0] -- and Marc had just kind of disappeared (we assumed he bid 0 for the wildling attack that turn) -- but we weren't comfortable declaring Mike the winner (since we hadn't had a declared last turn, as we'd done sometimes in the past when the game had gone too long), so we recorded it and packed it up. We'll see if we actually get back to it, though.
-Harry
[0]I've actually been trying to keep a consistent bedtime recently -- namely, about 2:30 -- but last night... yeah. It was about 3:00 when we finally packed it up. We'd started sometime inbetween 8 and 9, I think.
