My heavy variant for MoD

Share big alternative variants (similar to and expansion), or maybe just talk/discuss small alternations to the official rules for better balance!
geekosa
Reactions: 2
Posts: 21
Joined: 15 May 2020, 11:43

Made another game, with a fun concept :
3 houses (Stark + Lann + Martell)
vs
3 houses (Arryn + Baratheon + Tyrell)
vs
Targaryen

(and 1 vassal : GJ)

The 1st house with 7 VP (or alliance of 3 houses with 14PT) win.

Targaryen won while the 2 alliances were strugling with 9-11 VP.


I made two changes : the vassal does not have support* order anymore but a standard support order.


The small council was very interesting :)
Lighthammer
Reactions: 1
Posts: 26
Joined: 14 Oct 2021, 12:36
Favorite AGOT House: Targaryen

As a person who loves the game mechanics and realism, and who was trying to create his own versions and modes for the game, can't help but to admire your efforts. Here are my thoughts.
Firstly, I will have to say that the variant as a whole is really a bit heavy. I don't know if or when it can be implemented as a whole in a digital platform, but I will point out the things that I see as not so heavy for implementing, would surely improve the experience even more and are in the spirit of realism.
1) Removing support order when used. No need to comment on that, you have made it very clear. I strongly support this.
2) Paying PT for using a star even if you don't have such on KC track. Absolutely love it! For this too you have made a brilliant comment, can't add anything.
3) +3 Strength for Siege Engine for attacking Castle/Stronghold and +1 Bonus when having defense order in such area. I've always found it too much the 4 Strength Siege and not having a bonus for defending such area. I've thought about a 'Siege' variant, when if you lose a battle, you can retreat to your castle/stronghold (instead of other area) where you are 'besieged'. Only then if the enemy has a Siege Engine, he can attack next turn with all of its power, or he can besiege you that next turn, at the end of which (or the next one) if you didn't breaked the siege, you lose that area and units in the castle/stronghold.
4) Changing House card decks after round 5 is also great idea!
5) Replacing vassal orders with the normal House orders is a good one too. But I don't know if giving them permanent stars (like the Defense and CP orders) is a good option. Specially if in this mod they have PT to bid on clashes. Using the normal orders is already giving them huge flexibility which they don't have now. And they start with more units. Adding the normal House cards for vassal is also powerful. I'm just not sure which of all this options would be good for implementing, it's just a matter of trials. On first glance, from all of the normal house cards, i see Roose Bolton as unusable when Starks are vassals. Also, in the DoD expansion, how would be Ramsey implemented? It may have some other situations that I can't think about right now.
6) Flying dragons when they grow in strength is good and probably fly them to up to 4 areas. This gives the Targaryen further incentive to try breaking someone's sea and landing on Westeros. For realism's sake I too wanted to try dragons supporting and fighting sea battles. I know your reducing their strength in these occasions is only for balance and not realism purposes, but still I don't like it. :P Also, for realism's sake I think they should have the option to retreat anywhere (up to 4 areas) after losing a battle and not be slashed by sword icon(s). But I guess that would be way too powerful, sadly.
7) I like taking only 1 Loyalty token and then gaining the remaining ones only if you hold the territory.

That is my comment for now. I will add things later about the other rules, which would cause some discussion. For now it's mainly the things I like and surely want to try implemented in the game. But maybe some comments on 5 and 6, based on your trials.
geekosa
Reactions: 2
Posts: 21
Joined: 15 May 2020, 11:43

Lighthammer wrote: 02 Nov 2021, 13:26 As a person who loves the game mechanics and realism, and who was trying to create his own versions and modes for the game, can't help but to admire your efforts. Here are my thoughts.
Firstly, I will have to say that the variant as a whole is really a bit heavy. I don't know if or when it can be implemented as a whole in a digital platform, but I will point out the things that I see as not so heavy for implementing, would surely improve the experience even more and are in the spirit of realism.
1) Removing support order when used. No need to comment on that, you have made it very clear. I strongly support this.
2) Paying PT for using a star even if you don't have such on KC track. Absolutely love it! For this too you have made a brilliant comment, can't add anything.
3) +3 Strength for Siege Engine for attacking Castle/Stronghold and +1 Bonus when having defense order in such area. I've always found it too much the 4 Strength Siege and not having a bonus for defending such area. I've thought about a 'Siege' variant, when if you lose a battle, you can retreat to your castle/stronghold (instead of other area) where you are 'besieged'. Only then if the enemy has a Siege Engine, he can attack next turn with all of its power, or he can besiege you that next turn, at the end of which (or the next one) if you didn't breaked the siege, you lose that area and units in the castle/stronghold.
4) Changing House card decks after round 5 is also great idea!
5) Replacing vassal orders with the normal House orders is a good one too. But I don't know if giving them permanent stars (like the Defense and CP orders) is a good option. Specially if in this mod they have PT to bid on clashes. Using the normal orders is already giving them huge flexibility which they don't have now. And they start with more units. Adding the normal House cards for vassal is also powerful. I'm just not sure which of all this options would be good for implementing, it's just a matter of trials. On first glance, from all of the normal house cards, i see Roose Bolton as unusable when Starks are vassals. Also, in the DoD expansion, how would be Ramsey implemented? It may have some other situations that I can't think about right now.
6) Flying dragons when they grow in strength is good and probably fly them to up to 4 areas. This gives the Targaryen further incentive to try breaking someone's sea and landing on Westeros. For realism's sake I too wanted to try dragons supporting and fighting sea battles. I know your reducing their strength in these occasions is only for balance and not realism purposes, but still I don't like it. :P Also, for realism's sake I think they should have the option to retreat anywhere (up to 4 areas) after losing a battle and not be slashed by sword icon(s). But I guess that would be way too powerful, sadly.
7) I like taking only 1 Loyalty token and then gaining the remaining ones only if you hold the territory.

That is my comment for now. I will add things later about the other rules, which would cause some discussion. For now it's mainly the things I like and surely want to try implemented in the game. But maybe some comments on 5 and 6, based on your trials.
Thanks for your message.
#1 : yes indeed, as Diplomacy game, your army cannot be at several places at the same time.
#2 : yes it makes the court track not as punishing than before. You are not blocked with no stars at all anymore. But you need to spend your PTs carefully, because you could be in a bad position for the next CoK.
#3 : You are describing a War of the Ring siege battle (you can retreat inside...). Interesting. But GoT has a limited number of turns to play, and the game is already very slow.
#4 : Yes the DeckB create a change, very important for people who love thematic. And it add some strategy about if you prefer ending your deck slowly or fast depending on your preferences between Deck A & B.
#5 : the replacement from vassal card into base cards are in test for now. I try several games with it to make sure it does not break anything.
But the only star orders they have is the defense order (to make it almost as powerful as the def+3 in the base game) and the CP order, allowing them to recruit something as in the base game. I don't add any stars from the base game, it's the reason why those orders are in star version but the other orders are not.
#6 : I will explain the upgrades/nerfs on the dragons.
Upgrades : the main idea is to make dragons land units which can attack or support sea territories, but they are still land units.
Dragons can also be very violent in battle if you use a Daenerys card.
Nerfs :
Dragons fly now only at turn 4 instead of turn 2.
Dragons do not TP anymore, they fly only on 4 territories, which make their physical position very important.
Targaryen star number based on controlled dragons make a dragon loss very harsh.
As a result, dragons are more useful, more efficient in battle, but not as easy to deploy, are deployed later in the game and you don't want to loose more than 1 dragon to avoid to loose to much stars.
The dragons are not broken in these rules.
#7 : Yes it's for decrease the points gained with the "take and leave" strategy. The Westerosis players now can take back the area to avoid Targ to take all the LTs.



I have created the cards for the Small Council (Master of coins, master of ships...) if you are interested, I can share it.
geekosa
Reactions: 2
Posts: 21
Joined: 15 May 2020, 11:43

I updated some rules since my lastest game.

I can also update png for cards of the small Council if needed.
Gereon
Reactions: 11
Posts: 52
Joined: 13 May 2020, 09:23
Favorite AGOT House: Stark

Hi together,

about "Removing support order when used."
I as well really like this idea and opened a GitHub issue for this long ago. The thing is, simply removing the support after used wouldn't be that difficult at all but the problem is, when we implement that we would have to change the support mechanic so you really can choose which support you want to give and which not. Consider a battle where you are supported from 2 different areas. Right now you can just decide to completely refuse all support or accept all support, despite the fact that you could accept support from one area but refrain from another. That makes it difficult because for this feature it is a must have. If support from one area is enough to win the current battle you don't want to use the other support order which otherwise would be removed as well after the battle.
Implementing this will be a bigger change as you might imagine and that's why I haven't done it yet...


Cheers
Post Reply