Express PBEM mode

Share big alternative variants (similar to and expansion), or maybe just talk/discuss small alternations to the official rules for better balance!
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Brizna
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Posts: 3
Joined: 17 May 2020, 17:43
Favorite AGOT House: Tyrell

Another great board game that has been adapted to computers and smart-phones and can be played in PBEM mode implemented an optional rule set that stream lines player interaction to have games moving faster than with the regular rule that require a lot more player input, obviously this is not without effects in game balance though in that game they are pretty acceptable given the benefits and almost anyone playing PBEM uses the DIGITAL rule set. I think AGOT could benefit in a similar way from a few small tweaks that wouldn't change too much the experience:

Simultaneous mustering
: instead of a Mustering phase lasting the sum of everybody's time to respond it would only last the time taken but the last player. It would obviously improve the Iron Throne track but if you ask me this is actually a good thing since I consider it to be the weakest influence track in general.
Simultaneous Clash of Kings: Whenever players bid on the influence tracks they put their bids for each track at the same time. Ties could be revolved in two go, with the previous holder of the Iron Throne resolving the first track and the next holder the 2nd and 3rd, or simply allow the 1st holder to resolve all 3 tracks.
Automatic Self Support: There are situations when you want to lose a fight but they are rare, implementing this would save time at an acceptable cost, imo.
Valirian Steel Blade: When the holder of the sword picks a battle card he is also given the choice to say whether he wishes to allow or not the use of the blade in the fight, after battle cards are revealed the sword is spent only if it is necessary to win the battle.

What do you guys think? I think most of those have an acceptable cost to time saving ratios but undeniably they do change the game slightly. Would you like to be able to play with this rules??

* I was talking about Through the Ages, btw, another great board game.
Niemi
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Posts: 22
Joined: 14 May 2020, 14:54
Location: Russia
Favorite AGOT House: Lannister

Simultaneous mustering and Simultaneous Clash of Kings - agree, it saves time without influencing on balance

Automatic Self Support - not, usually you choose yuor support at the time when attacking or choosing house card when defending and don' spend additional time. But it can break a game if you use Asha or Roose or in fake battle with ally to refresh your cards

Valyrian Steel Blade - some time it's better to lose little fight and use The Blade next important battle. It can be used fo bait the blade. The same in fake battles for deck refreshing
geekosa
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Joined: 15 May 2020, 11:43

For the 1st part, I entirely aggree with you. It makes a lot of sense.
Non-simultaneous mustering is quite strange because it may cause some disadvantage for people who are on top of the 1st track.
It would speed up the game a lot.

For the 2nd rule, no clearly. Sometimes you need not to be supported. Or maybe you want to loose.
But, a checkbox allowing auto self-support for players would be great. He can check or uncheck the box xhenever he wants.

For the last rule, I think the game may ask to the player to use VSB only if he is loosing by 1, and not asking in the other cases. It would speed up the game.
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Tex
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Joined: 30 Apr 2020, 14:05
Location: Norway
Favorite AGOT House: Arryn

Have to agree on the mustering part, it's a big time-saver to just to it simultaneously. We usually do this in our home games unless there is a very special situation.
Niemi
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Joined: 14 May 2020, 14:54
Location: Russia
Favorite AGOT House: Lannister

simultaneous mustering has the only disadvantage in rare case when 2 houses can muster in the same sea
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Tex
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Joined: 30 Apr 2020, 14:05
Location: Norway
Favorite AGOT House: Arryn

Niemi wrote: 20 Jun 2020, 21:27 simultaneous mustering has the only disadvantage in rare case when 2 houses can muster in the same sea
True.. That can make a huge difference!
Niemi
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Joined: 14 May 2020, 14:54
Location: Russia
Favorite AGOT House: Lannister

geekosa wrote: 17 Jun 2020, 22:15 For the 2nd rule, no clearly. Sometimes you need not to be supported. Or maybe you want to loose.
But, a checkbox allowing auto self-support for players would be great. He can check or uncheck the box xhenever he wants.
problem touches mainly Roose and Asha, so another way is to turn off autosupport for these cards only
Gereon
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Posts: 52
Joined: 13 May 2020, 09:23
Favorite AGOT House: Stark

Hi,

here are my thoughts about the ideas:

Simultaneous mustering: I definitely would not allow to make that possible because of several reasons. I sometimes prefer later positions on Iron Throne track to react instead of acting. Therefore I would always wait until every else mustered before I do my mustering. If someone else has the same idea, the game takes even longer! The rule to do such things in a defined order has its reasons. Mustering to same sea, e.g. as mentioned earlier!

Simultaneous CoK: Same here. I never would define and split my biddings before I have seen the result of the previous ones. Why should I bid 5 for Kings Court when everyone else has just 1 left because they spent everything for fiefdom?

Automatic Self Support: That is already implemented and satisfies Roose and Asha: https://github.com/Longwelwind/swords-a ... s/pull/482 The idea came from Delgado and is quite brillant. The flow would be: Auto support always. When it comes to "Choose House Card" allow "Refuse granted support". If that is chosen, battle strength is recalculated and possible already chosen house card by opponent is reset. Based on the new calculation he can choose a new one. 95% of battles won't use this button so it will speed up the game drastically. Another benefit is by this you can refuse neutral support also which should be possible, but isn't atm. Long just had not the time yet to review and publish it.

Valyrian Steel Blade: I agree here. We could only show the question if it would make a difference to use it. It was not implemented that way to be prepared for MoD as there are cards which give you Power Tokens based on the final battle strength difference. So you might wanna use the sword to increase your battle even if you already won to get one more from the opponent. So the goal would be to show the Valyrian Steel Blade question only if it makes a difference on battle outcome or if one of these mentioned cards is used. I create an issue on github for that.


Regards,

Gereon
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