Westeros Diplomacy V2 - AAR

[attitudes]

game has been declared a DIAS draw between Houses Baratheon (G_Force), Greyjoy (ColesD), Stark (Stanislaw) and Tyrell (Phatality). Congratulations to all of the surviving draw participants.

Feel free to leave any comments about the game or variant.

[G_Force]

Quite an interesting game. I will write an extensive AAR if people are interested in my side of the story; for now I'd like to say I am happy that my first forumgame went so well and though a four-way draw wasn't what I was aiming for in the beginning I am happy I am part of it. Since I have King's Landing I also call the Moral Victory for Baratheon. Booyah!

G_Force Baratheon

[Phatality]

I'll try and post a more in-depth AAR later if requested, but the biggest thing for me was just sticking it out with G-Force after he did me a solid. I'd love to hear more from you as well G-Force. I was always worried he was gonna stab me but we had a good give and take that paid off. Lannister never gave up on my and unfortunately for Martell he didn't have much of a chance on his own. Greyjoy and Stark I kept trying to get to attack each other but they also stuck by one another so I have to respect them for that.

[ColesD]

Finally got around to writing this. Bit of a frustrating game this one, as things were going well for a while, but the board defeated everyone. As Greyjoy, I figured I had too choices - attack Stark from the start to remove the danger at my back, or ally with him to sweep down the board. Encouraging negotiations with him (and a weak Arryn) led me to choose the latter. Although the original Stark then promptly quit, his replacement (Stanislaw) agreed to continue the alliance. We ended up working semi-independently as he dismantled Arryn and I did likewise to Lannister. Meanwhile the Baratheon-Tyrell alliance was dominating the south. The game shifted significantly in one dramatic turn where Arryn, Lannister and Martell were all eliminated, suddenly leaving the two alliances facing each other across the middle of the board. I'd just managed to get into Harrenhal ahead of Baratheon and I figured, as that space seemed to be the pivot point on the board, I'd be able to move on ahead, but I found I couldn't. The board was starting to lock up. Stark was having it even worse, he could make no progress down the east of the board, and so did the only thing he could to give him a chance of improving his position: he stabbed me. I pulled back to defend against him and tried to get Tyrell to come over to my side, figuring that Stark had now allied with Baratheon. That didn't work out - Tyrell stuck with Baratheon, and as it turned out, the potential Baratheon-Stark alliance came to nothing. But at the time, I had everyone against me and was seemingly facing a slow dismantling and elimination. I began making contingency plans and realised that, thanks to a flaw in the map plus the capital rules, I could avoid being eliminated by simply placing three fleets in the Iron Islands and having them support each other (it's unbreakable). But it didn't come to that as fortunately I was able to convince Stark he was going nowhere and to turn back to my side, giving up Harrenhal to him to get him to agree. Sadly though, our renewed alliance didn't help, as the board once again locked up, and permanently this time, leading to the inevitable 4-way draw.

The map has issues, I have to admit. Oddly, it has both too many and too few spaces - by that I mean there are a number of extraneous spaces that add little to the game (WOLF, RILL, SEA, TAR and DISP among others for instance could all be removed without changing much of the game, and in general there are proportionally a lot more non-SCs than other maps), but there could be more flexibility across the centre of the board, to avoid the sort of stalemate we got, particularly in the seas which were easy to block up. These are the sort of issues you probably always get with a long, thin map. Also, Harrenhal becomes too much of a bottleneck. I'm not sure the capital rules add much (and there's the above fact that they mean Greyjoy can't be eliminated!) and I'd drop them, but I'd keep the Free Cities rules, I don't think they were used as fully as they could have been. Still, there's plenty of potential here, and this was far from being a bad game. Thanks to presser84 for introducing and starting the game, and attitudes for taking over as GM.

Oh, and sorry for holding up the draw a bit. I hadn't checked the draw thread and missed that everyone else had already signed up to it.

[presser84]

thanks to a flaw in the map plus the capital rules, I could avoid being eliminated by simply placing three fleets in the Iron Islands and having them support each other (it's unbreakable).

hmmmmm.... solution would be a unit holding in a keep can not offer support (or maybe Just Pyke). It would require three units and a 50/50 shot but that could be broken.... Then again they are the Ironborn and what is dead may never die....