A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (2nd Ed.

A Strategy Guide

By T.J. Perry (perrytom @ BGG, AKA The Political GAmer)

Originally appeared on BGG forums in three parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Posted: June 2014. Last updated: July 2015.

I thought I'd write down some of my thoughts about A Game of Thrones: The Boardgame 2nd

Edition under the pretentious title 'A Strategic Guide' because I've been slightly obsessed with

the game in the past year or two. As my enthusiasm for the game is receding and I turn to other

games - I thought I'd sit down to write some of my thoughts about how to think about your

moves in the game. Or at least - how I think you should think about your moves in the game.

My first caveat is that I am not at all sure that this will help you play better, or win. Though I like

to win like the next game addict, the games I enjoy most are not necessarily the games I win. The

games I enjoy most are those where I (and others) had interesting decisions to make: strategic

maneuvering of opponents, correct guessing of other people's motives/plans, fun gambles that

did or didn't work and so forth. As a fan of game theory, and decision theory more generally, I

believe that results is not really a good way to evaluate a decision - you may take a good gamble

and lose. Still, if the odds were in your favor, you should have taken the gamble. Perhaps I'll get

to discuss different strategies of risk taking below. For now, let's get to it.

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Another caveat. This guide assumes you not only know the rules of the game, but have also

played a couple of games, preferably with different houses. You don't have to be an expert or an

all-time winner (I'm not), but you need to be familiar with some of the common opening moves

of each houses, the frequency of Westeros cards, the house cards of each faction and so forth. I

don't review these things and take them for granted. If I make any mistakes, I appreciate

correcting me.

Part I: The Geography (or: the board)

Control

The first thing to think about when approaching the game, is the board. AGoT is a very territorial

game – as appropriate for an area control/dudes on a map game. Many players tend to ignore the

larger territorial aspect in favor of focusing on castles. True, castles are the game’s winning

condition. They also are a valuable resources throughout the game, providing you with

reinforcements when mustering comes up. But the game doesn't typically end in turn 3. In order

to get the point where you can control 7 castles, you need to have control of sufficient areas that

support them and/or allow you to move into them. Given the importance of support, and even

more of unraidable support, in order to control a specific castle it is not enough to control the

territory itself - one needs adjacent territories to support it, other territories to raid potential

raiders and so forth. It is therefore very important to control areas of the board, and even

more important to control central areas. Blackwater, for example, is one of the most

important territories on the board – it touches no less than four castles (one of which is a

stronghold) and three other territories, one of them a crucial support area (more on this later). For

some reason, it is not the territory most players run to as soon as the game begins. Most often,

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my first moves are aimed at establishing control of the important areas around my territories, not

necessarily grabbing castles.

For whatever reason, sea territories do get more of the respect they deserve – players tend to note

the importance of those. I therefore won’t belabor the point and discuss the importance of the

Narrow Sea or Sunset Sea but I will mention Greywater Watch, The Twins, Mountains of the

Moon, the Reach, Prince’s Pass and Searoad Marches as other territories whose control seems

underappreciated to me. Note, when I say control I don’t just mean establishing control with a

PT (as many players do with Searoad Marches and then leave) but actual physical presence of

units that allow you to act from that territory. When looking at an opponent, one needs not only

look at what he or she holds but more importantly – where are his or her troops. Where can they

move? What can they raid? What can they support?

The Setup

AGoT’s initial setup is carefully crafted. The game is designed to create friction – and already on

the board one may find features that incite trouble. In addition, there are incentives to attack

(most notably Siege Engines). It is important to understand and note these sources of friction and

realize that they are unavoidable. That is, they are only avoidable at a great cost. Because this

game is very diplomatic (in fact, much of the mechanics is based on the eternal game

Diplomacy), anything really is possible (and I’ll discuss Diplomacy later) as long as players

accept it. Nonetheless, with players that are fairly strategic, sufficiently motivated, moderately

self-centered and modestly responsive to notions of fairness - these few features of the board are

likely to create the inevitable conflict.

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Here’s what I have in mind. Each house has a number of territories, and particularly

castles/strongholds, that are in ‘his’ or ‘her’ natural area of influence. In my experience, players

(beginners and veterans alike) tend to be cautious. Most people, for whatever reason, don’t want

to start out by fighting unless they know what they’re doing. Moreover, first movers are often

dubbed as aggressors and collectively punished. I use here fairness-based terms because I think

they play a role in many people’s motivation. But if you prefer to see it as thinly veiled

opportunism, that’s fine with me.

More experienced and dedicated, not to say fanatic, gamers understand that there is an incentive

to attack and are happy to engage offensively. Yet even without a sense of fairness around the

table, there’s a price for being the first aggressor. First, each player has at least two fronts and

using your troops/leaders for attacking one you are necessarily exposing yourself to an attack

from the other. So long as that player on the other front aren’t themselves engaged, there’s a

threat. Unless you have a very trusting diplomatic relationship, you will be wary about it.

Second, even if you have enough troops to attack one front and defend the other, it is a well-

known fact of Diplomacy style Dudes-on-a-Map games that when someone gets too strong,

there’s a strong urge to gang up on them. Leader-bashing is one of the game’s internal balancing

mechanisms and experienced players are well aware of it. While leader-bashing is limited in

AGoT (since usually only your neighbors can attack you once you destroyed the other), an early

leader attracts the wrath of the tie-breaking holder of the Iron Throne and may find themselves

without stars or at the wrong end of a wildings attack.

In a world of cautious and defensive players, nobody wants to attack first and use their strong

cards before others do. Therefore, people tend to go and grab the territories that are

unequivocally theirs, without bothering their neighbors or making any trouble. The irony is that

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the thought ‘I am weak now, so I have to grow strong before I do anything’ is a poor strategy

when others have exactly the same thought – it ignores one’s position in relation to other

players. Sometimes, when you are weak is also when you have to attack – as others are also

weak and you are relatively strong (ahem ahem Greyjoy). However, I digress.

In any case, often people try to take over ‘their’ territory and not bother other players. I have

played games where no battles were fought in the first 3 or 5 turns. Dividing the board ‘equally’

doesn’t only speak to people’s conception of fairness (which makes it easier to agree on such

truce) but they also make sense (though, as I’ve said, there’s a flaw in this reasoning). They

make sense because players are biding their time, waiting for an opportunity to strike and gaining

resources. If there is such a tense waiting period, where players are watching each other and

looking for missteps, it can only last while players feel that it doesn’t serve the interests of their

opponents. That is, players would live through a truce only if they think that they think they are

gaining just as much as their opponents from the truce. Such a state is actually impossible on the

board but players often feel that if they have as many mustering points, supply tokens and such –

they are not losing much by losing time.

The board works actively against this. Let’s think about this. Each player has 5 mustering points

within ‘their’ natural area of influence that he or she can usually take without challenge. Stark

has Winterfell, White Harbor, Moat Cailin and The Eyrie; Greyjoy has Pyke, Seagard and Flint’s

Finger; Lannister has Lannisport, Riverrun and Harrenhal; Tyrell has Highgarden, Oldtown and

The Reach; Martell has Sunspear, Yronwood, Starfall and Storm’s End; Baratheon has

Dragonstone, King’s Landing and Crackclaw Point. Looking at it, we can see that we already

have instability: Stark and Martell need four castles/strongholds to get their mustering points

while all the others only need three. The implication is that if no one fights, Stark or Martell wins

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by default just because they have more castles. However, Stark and Martell have 3 castles and

only one stronghold – which means that if Lannister, Greyjoy or Baratheon grabs one more

castle, they take over the lead with a stronghold tiebreaker. The status quo is always biased in

favor of someone and the peace cannot last. Nonetheless, this division of castles/strongholds tend

to manifest itself in the early stages of the game.

More importantly, between each two houses there is one castle/stronghold that they can both

reach relatively easily. Therefore, even in the most boring and peaceful game, there’s always

tension because Tyrell threatens Starfall, Baratheon yearns for his ancestral home of Storm’s

End, Stark threatens Crackcalw Point and Flint’s Finger, and Greyjoy thirsts for the riches of

Riverrun and the riverlands. You can already see why Lannister and Martell are typically in a

tough spot and how Stark and Tyrell enjoy a geographic advantage (especially Stark). The only

one of Stark’s castles that is under threat when players stick to their respective areas is Moat

Calin – which is hard to conquer and even harder to hold without support from the Narrow Sea.

This is, of course, very thematic, but compare it to poor Lannister – who doesn’t only lose 2

mustering points if he loses Riverrun, but also a supply and a power (though it’s one he rarely

uses for power generation). Greyjoy and Baratheon can only position themselves to threaten

Stark by taking one of his seas (either the Bay of Ice or the Narrow Sea) but that is usually

considered a declaration of total war because it threatens either Winterfell or three other Stark

Castles. In contrast, if Stark tries to steal a win with Flint’s Finger or Crackclaw Point, Tyrell

marches surprisingly into Starfall with Loras or Greyjoy backstabs and takes Riverrun – they can

plan and execute these moves under conditions of total and stable peace until the very last

moment (at least as stable as it gets).

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Let’s look at Supply. Most players have 3 supply within their ‘natural’ area of influence.

Lannister has 2 in Lannisport and 1 in Riverrun; Greyjoy has 1 in Pyke, Seagard and Greywater

Watch; Tyrell has 2 in Highgarden and 1 in Three Towers; Martell has 1 in Sunspear, Salt Shores

and Starfall. This is one of the reasons Tyrell and Martell often agree to leave Prince’s Pass

empty – it breaks the balance of power in the South. However, PP is a very important territory –

adjacent to 5 territories (2 of which are Castles) and has both supply and power. But it has this

indivisible supply that breaks the equality in the South (in a similar manner, Lannister and Tyrell

often agree to keep Searoad Marches empty).

Baratheon has a problem of supply. He starts with only 2 in Dragonstone and Kingswood, and

has no obvious alternative for a 3rd supply. One option is to go to the Mountain of the Moon; as a

move it makes sense, as long as Stark doesn’t see it as an encroachment of the North and a

declaration of war (which they often do). Thus, Baratheon needs Blackwater. In my opinion,

Baratheon cannot survive without Blackwater – it is adjacent to two of his ‘natural’ castles,

threatens to raid his power generating advantage in KL and has the supply he badly needs to

keep up with the others. However, by taking Blackwater Baratheon breaks the balance of supply

and jumps to 4. Moreover, he is moving away into the heart of the board and starts spreading his

troops (though notice that we are often victims of an illusion – blackwater takes up more space

on the board than other territories, but it’s only one territory).

Stark has a more complicated situation with supply – he starts lowest but actually has the most

number of supplies in his natural area of influence. Only the Mountain of the Moon is directly

threatened when players stay in and around their areas; though Stark has to spend troops,

movements and power tokens to take these supplies, he is usually capable of doing it, especially

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when the first few turns are cautious and peaceful. Time and peace work in Stark’s favor.

Thematic? You decide.

Last thing to note about the setup is that it is highly asymmetrical. I have already mentioned

some ways in which things aren’t equally distributed. But beyond resources, the positions of the

players on the board are such that most players will only interact with their neighbors. This is an

issue with AGoT which also plagues other games, including most notably AGoT’s inspiration

and predecessor, Diplomacy. In AGoT this problem is addressed to a degree with the bidding and

the influence tracks, where all players directly engage each other. However, in terms of troops on

the board, it is very unlikely for Greyjoy to meet Baratheon and it’s virtually impossible for

Stark to meet Tyrell (other than at sea). Thus, Stark, Greyjoy and Martell have better positions

because they only need to worry about two neighbors each (Martell’s position is weaker for other

reasons). When Greyjoy occupies the Sunset Sea he can expect some friction from Tyrell and on

rare occasions a visit from Doran Martell, but other than that he can focus on Lannister and

Stark. Stark’s position is very secluded, which is thematically appropriate. Only very late in the

game will he have to worry about Lannister, and that’s typically because Lannister took over

Greyjoy.

In contrast, Lannister has 3 neighbors and Barathoen has 4. This obviously impact the amount

and kind of diplomacy that each of them has to do, but even without it – it increase the

complexity considerably. The permutation of options rises with each player that has another set

of march orders, a different hand of cards and different incentive structure. Lannister and

Baratheon are much harder to play for that reason.

Sea Areas

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Sea areas are especially important to control, because they have two important advantages: first,

they convoy troops around the board; second, they provide support that ground troops cannot

raid. I will discuss Support and Raid areas soon, so let’s focus for a moment on the first

advantage.

As with land territories, there are certain sea territories that players naturally take. Most Stark

players quickly notice that without the Narrow Sea they will have a really hard time getting

anywhere. It is not a coincidence that a standard opening for Stark involves a M+1 in the

Shivering Sea, with the goal of ensuring that Baratheon doesn’t try to sneak a first turn attack on

the Narrow Sea. The Bay of Ice is not as important but it threatens Winterfell and Stark typically

want to prevent Greyjoy from making a sneak attacks on his capital. Here what makes a sea area

fall ‘naturally’ under the influence of one player or another is the fact that it is required for

access to that players ‘natural’ castles or because it is an important support area. Thus, Baratheon

needs Shipbreaker Bay to get out of Dragonstone and Greyjoy needs Ironmen’s Bay if he is to

get anywhere other than Pyke. Martell and Tyrell must control West and East Summer Sea

respectively because if they don’t, others will have an easy access to their castles.

Despite the fact that most sea areas naturally tend to fall within the area of influence of a specific

house, they typically border at least one area outside of that player’s natural influence. Hence the

board is working against your nice little peace – the opportunistic player will always be talking

peace but planning war. Thus Martell needs to worry about Starfall falling to Tyrell and

Baratheon taking his ancestral home seat at Storm’s End. Baratheon, in turn, is concerned about

a Stark sneak attack in Crackcalw Point and will therefore be inclined to raid that support in the

Narrow Sea which Stark needs to defend Moat Cailin and take The Eyrie. And of course,

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Lannister will never have security in the holding of Riverrun as long as there’s a Greyjoy in the

world.

Given the fact that they are essential for mobility and exceptionally costly to lose, sea areas are

really important. In a cautious game where players spend the first few turns building and then

wake up on turn 5 to the reality that the game is almost over and they haven’t engaged in any

battles – I recommend securing sea areas as early and robustly as possible. I also recommend

getting 6 ships on the board ahead of the full complement of Knights, and definitely before Siege

Engines (though anything can change in a particular setting with particular players). The fact that

Lannister can’t really do that speaks volumes to his geographical inferiority.

Support Areas

Each region of Westeros has a few key areas that ‘reign’ over adjacent territories, and is

therefore a good place to situate support orders. A good support area is not only adjacent to many

castles you may control (as Blackwater to Baratheon) but is typically one where it can rarely be

raided, or can be covered by a raid of your own. Let’s go around the board, house by house, and

discuss their support areas.

Tyrell has two important support areas. The first is Redwyne Straights, which is pretty much a

consensus. The second is Dornish Marches.

Redwyne Straights is a protected sea area that many Tyrells leave empty. I believe that’s a

mistake; use it to hold the majority of Tyrell ships until the time is right. WSS is surely the most

important sea area for Tyrell, the losing of which is quite catastrophic. However, the best way to

hold WSS is to have a good fleet that supports it at RS. Furthermore, it provides what is typically

unraidable support for Highgarden, which is a relatively exposed capital – Lannisport and

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Highgarden are the only capitals that are one territory away from each other, which makes each

of them relatively vulnerable to a surprised move from the other. Also, if you lose WSS for

whatever reason, Highgarden becomes an easy target. You can never have enough support for

Highgarden that should dissuade any leader from attacking it.

Dornish Marches is a less common choice for support orders, though I believe it is one of the

best choices. The main reason for that is, of course, that it provides support for all three ‘natural’

Tyrell castles as well as Three Towers, Prince’s Pass and the Boneway. It is most definitely the

heart of the Roseland. It’s pretty much the only way you can defend the Reach, especially once

you’ve moved your Siege Engines up there to take an aim at King’s Landing. The problem with

Dornish Marches is that it can be raided by Martell who typically control the Boneway.

However, it’s important to note that DM doesn’t threaten any Martell castles and it’s quite a

defensive support. If you have even moderately good relations with Martell, and he doesn’t aim

to get the Reach (which he usually doesn’t – it’s really hard to conquer and hold, and is quite a

pitiable prize) – you should be able to persuade him not to raid that support (if he even has a raid

in the boneway). The alternative is, of course, to be ahead of Martell and raid his raid from either

the Reach or Prince’s Pass. Since many Tyrell/Martell alliances are built on the demilitarization

of PP, the latter option will be hard. I’ve seen many a war start over the occupation of PP.

Another alternative for a support territory is Highgarden itself. Since Searoad Marches often

stays empty, Highgarden is a good spot to place a support that protects the Reach. However,

overall that’s not as a good of an option. First, because it doesn’t support Highgarden itself.

Second, Highgarden should be free for a special consolidate order as well as a gateway for troops

moving from the heartlands to the East and back. Finally, sometimes Oldtown is used to support

Highgarden when Searoad Marches is breached and Dornish Marches is also under attack.

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Desperate times call for desperate measures but if you’re supporting from Oldtown, you should

know you’re not in the greatest position.

Martell’s natural support area is of course the Sea of Dorne. This is one of the main reasons he

can typically secure Storm’s End without much trouble. The problem is that other than that,

Martell doesn’t have much room to maneuver with support. There is no territory that support

both Storm’s End and Starfall, Martell’s vulnerable points, except for ESS; and ESS will

typically be raided by Tyrell, Baratheon or both. Or Martell will need it to raid Baratheon.

Furthermore, because of the danger of losing ESS, Martell typically turtles most his ships in the

Sea of Dorne, which makes the support from ESS weaker.

Thus, Martell tends to place support orders in Yronwood or the Boneway, or both. Yronwood is

better, but blocks Martell’s ability to muster troops with a special consolidate near any of his

borders. Moreover, supporting from Yronwood requires keeping Prince’s Pass under control or

at least empty. That’s way Martell will usually go to war over Tyrell’s invasion into PP. But as

we saw, Tyrell really needs to hold PP so that he can ensure his support in Dornish is firm. Not

much peace there.

Baratheon also has only one natural defense areas. There is not much to say about Blackwater

Bay, it’s a no brainer to keep enough ships there to keep the hold over the prized King’s Landing

and the bloodline that is Shipbreaker Bay. Besides, Baratheon is often left without much room to

maneuver. Many Baratheon players use Kingswood for support, especially if they are planning

an attacak on Storm’s End, but that’s a pretty weak position – can and often is raided by The

Reach or Storm’s End itself. Moreover, it only supports KL for defense and The Reach for

offense.

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Nonetheless, Baratheon’s position is so strong with his hold of Blackwater Bay that many

Baratheons are content to bide their time within this restricted area. I think that’s a mistake. I

already made it clear in the discussion of supplies that if Baratheon allows himself to stay with 2

supply when everyone else has at least 3 will be severely disadvantaged later in the game. For

that reason alone Baratheon needs either Blackwater or the Mountain of the Moon. From the

perspective of Support, Blackwater is so much better. Taking Blackwater typically allows

Baratheon to use KL as a support area which fortifies his hold over Crackclaw against that Stark

sneak attack and also really helps holding the ever important supplies of the Blackwater.

Lannister is often too busy with Greyjoy to notice, Tyrell often wants Prince’s Pass more than he

wants Blackwater and so as long as Baratheon stays ahead on the IT track (as he usually does) –

Kingswood can raid The Reach and the support in KL remains secure. I don’t know why

Baratheon players don’t go for Blackwater more often, except to say that having lots of supply

early on can raise the suspicion of other players, and Baratheon has no less than four neighbors

to worry about.

Stark has the most support areas of all of them. In fact, Stark has so many support areas he has

more than a few options to place support. The most obvious choice for support is White Harbor –

the only place from which Stark can support both Winterfell and Moat Cailin. However, if Stark

loses one of his all-important sea areas (The Narrow Sea or the Bay of Ice), his interests shift. If

he loses the Bay of Ice, White Harbor would probably always have a support order as the war

with Greyjoy will mean Moat Cailin will always be threatened. If the Narrow Sea is lost, the

support will typically move to Winterfell.

The Shivering Sea is also a pretty important support are – helps holding the Narrow Sea and adds

to the support of Winterfell, in case Stark doesn’t hold the Bay of Ice. But if Stark can trust

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Baratheon not to raid his support, he will also support from the Narrow Sea, which is almost the

only way to take the Eyrie early on. A stark engaged in a war of attrition against Greyjoy will

have units in the Twins and will use those to either support Moat Cailin (which can be protected

with a raid in Moat Cailin) or to assault Seagard (which can’t be protected, but requires Seagard

to not play a defense/march orders). If there is a battle waging over Winterfell, as Greyjoy tries

to pull a Theon, Karhold and the Stoney Shore become critical support areas for both the sieger

and besieged.

Greyjoy’s most critical area of support is Ironmen’s Bay. It is probably the single most important

area on the board – it borders no less than four castles, three of which are strongholds. The

holder of Ironmen’s Bay is often the victor, and for good reason. Three strongholds and a castle

are often sufficient for victory in turn 10.

Greyjoy may not be able to raid first, but the fear of his attack typically keeps Lannister

defending rather than raiding in the Golden Sound. As long as Lannister holds the Raven and is

ahead of Greyjoy, he can always switch the order in the Golden Sound to raid the all-important

support in the bay. This is why I recommend placing a march order on the bay in turn 1 even if

you end up discarding it. Also, that’s why there’s such a great incentive for Greyjoy to invade

the Golden Sound. Many Greyjoys drool over Riverrun and its spoils; but when I’m Greyjoy I’m

not half as keen on Riverrun as I am on getting the Golden Sound – as soon as you have it, the

support in Ironmen’s Bay is safe and that doesn’t only give you Riverrun, it usually makes sure

you keep holding the Golden Sound as well as raid those pesky special consolidate orders that

Lannister uses to muster more troops.

The other area of support is obviously the Sunset Sea. It is obviously crucial for Greyjoy if he

wants to get anywhere around the board. This is a movement, not a support issue, but it is

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nevertheless crucial to the way the board creates intransigent conflicts. If Greyjoy is to go after

Stark, which is what Lannister wants, he must go through the Sunset Sea. But holding the Sunset

Sea creates a great advantage for Greyjoy who can now attack from it and support from

Ironmen’s Bay or vice versa. A support in the Sunset Sea, under conditions of peace with

Lannister, also protect Flint’s Finger against a Stark sneak attack.

Greyjoy really doesn’t have any other support areas, which is a good reason to believe a war

between Greyjoy and Lannister is close to inevitable. Greywater Watch is the only alternative

but it’s terrible – Stark will almost always raid from either the Bay of Ice or Moat Cailin. Only if

Greyjoy holds Greywater Watch, the Twins and the Bay of ice can he start thinking of other

support orders.

Lastly, though Lannister’s geographic position is pretty squashed, he does have some pretty good

support areas. The best of them is Stoney Sept. The best position a Lannister can find himself is

with a bunch of Knights in Stoney Sept and no foreign armies in either Blackwater or Searoad

Marches. That maintain both Riverrun and Harrenhal and the hold he might have on Blackwater.

Like in KL for Baratheon, the support order maintains its security if you have the adjacent areas.

The inevitable struggle over Blackwater between Lannister and Baratheon is one of the biggest

minefields in the middle of the board. Though Blackwater is strangely neglected by many

unexperienced players.

If you don’t hold Blackwater, because Baratheon rushed to it while you were stabilizing the

situation with Greyjoy or whatever, the best position is to hold Searoad Marches. When

Baratheon is ahead on the IT track, that may not be enough – he could still raid your support in

Stoney Sept if he wants to take Harrenhal or just to spite you and encourage Greyjoy to go after

you. There is another danger in holding Searoad Marches – Tyrell can use Loras to get to

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Lannisport with one turn only if you have troops there. It is therefore always better to let Tyrell

take Searoad Marches on the condition that he leaves it (after establishing control, of course) and

go after Blackwater.

Another possible territory is Sunset Sea – holding it strangles Greyjoy and offers the only way to

defend the Golden Sound by either supporting it or just preventing from Greyjoy to attack it.

Few Greyjoys would allow Lannister to hold the sunset sea for long, since it doesn’t allow them

to go anywhere but into Lannister’s lands but in some situations Lannister can get away with it

for a couple of turns.

Another important option is Riverrun. Though Riverrun is often under attack, it is a very central

piece of Lannister territory. Even if Lannister loses his seas, he may still be able to push Greyjoy

out of Seagard, especially with some Siege Engines. If he does so, he can use Riverrun as a

support area that secures his hold on Seagard as well as Lannisport and Harrenhal. This gives

Lannister a huge incentive to attack Seagard, which is something that most Lannisters are often

reluctant to do, especially if they have peace with Greyjoy. A commentator pointed out that if

Lannister loses his seas, it’s unlikely that he will be able to support from Riverrun. That’s true, to

have Riverrun as a full-proof support you will need to hold on to the Golden Sound. However,

the Golden Sounded could be raided from Lanisport-port, and I find that Greyjoy will usually

have a support order in Ironmen’s Bay, especially if he knows it’s unraidable (as he also holds

the Sound). It’s as bit of a gamble then, to support from there when Greyjoy holds the bay, but as

audacious and unexpected as it is, it just might work.

A really important caveat on this discussion of support (which also applies to raids) is that none

of this applies on a turn when the Web of Lies card comes up (arguably the single most

important Westeros card) and Sea of Storms. When WoL comes up, all incentives change –

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Martell gets his one shot at kicking Baratheon out of Shipbreaker Bay, Greyjoy gets a shot at

Moat Cailin, Baratheon gets a shot at the Narrow Sea and Tyrell gets a shot at ESS (and if he can

take it with Loras, he can wipe out Martell’s fleet in one sweep). It’s really important to prepare

for WoL with a backup plan and not depend on your support so much. It means having an extra

ship in WSS, ESS or Shipbreaker Bay. It means having a way of retaking KL from Dragonstone

or placing a march order on the Sea of Dorne/the Shivering Sea.

Likewise, Sea of Storms changes support order positioning because if you don’t have to worry

about raids, you can use Blackwater as a support, or Riverrun, or Ironmen’s Bay or the Golden

Sound or any other territory that you can’t usually because you’re concerned you would be

raided. Players sometimes think no march +1 orders or no defense orders is a big deal; in my

book, no support and no raid are the most important ones because they provide once in a game

opportunity to go after the weaknesses in your opponent’s position. And usually, they know it

too and so you should expect them to be after your weaknesses as well.

Raid Areas

No less important than support are raid orders. In fact, they are often more important. Many

support positions require a raid order to defend them. Which is why I find the IT track position to

be another undervalued element of the game. Many players think, ‘there are advantages in going

earlier as there are in going later. I’ll just save my money for the star orders.’ That’s true, but as

many players often bid 0 for the IT, one can often get ahead of one’s neighbor’s by paying 1 PT.

I find that it’s especially important for Tyrell, Baratheon and, assuming he holds Wthe Sunset

Sea, Greyjoy.

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In any case, raiding is really an important order that people tend to forget. Players often treat raid

like a default order ‘I’ll use it if I have nothing else to do.’ My default order is defense, which I

find the least useful. Raid is often more helpful that defense for a territory that’s under threat. If

you are expecting an attack, chances are there will be a support involved in it somewhere. If

there is, it is by definition of at least one, so the defense +1 is almost useless. Unless there’s no

support involved, there’s no reason to use it. Moreover, if you’ve deployed your troops correctly,

your raid should protect the very support that holds the raiding territory. Thus the raid in The

Reach protects the support in Dornish Marches, the raid in Blackwater protects the support in

King’s Landing and so forth.

These are not random examples. The best territories for raids are the most central ones. The

Reach and Blackwater are natural candidates, as they both raid important areas that can threaten

their respective support, and both can raid a consolidate power in King’s Landing (which

amounts to a transfer of 5 PTs, a very harmful move). Storm’s End and Storm’s End port are two

good raiding areas, virtually blocking Baratheon’s ability to support an attack on Storm’s End. A

raid in Shipbreaker Bay is a good way to prevent Stark from taking the Eyrie and/or threatening

Crackclaw Point or raid Martell’s raid/support in ESS. ESS and WSS are both used for support

and are therefore also good raid areas since they can raid each other (as you have seen, they are

not my favorite support areas, which is a good reason to raid from them). The Golden Sound

(and Sunset Sea, if held by anyone other than Greyjoy) is a crucial raiding point. The Narrow

Sea is often raided, so one can use it to raid Crackclaw Point or Shipbreaker bay if Martell hasn’t

raided it yet from Storm’s End’s Port. All these raids can be counter-raids and so Stark can raid

Baratheon’s raid which will in turn allow Martell to raid Tyrell’s support. And that’s about the

only way Stark can directly impact Tyrell’s orders (if you can call that directly). The Twins and

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Greywater Watch are both crucial raid points which can also house the special raid that takes

care of defense orders. A Lannister that doesn’t hold Blackwater might find Searoad Marches to

be a good position for raid (though, as mentioned, it opens him up to the danger of Ser Loras).

That’s probably it for raids.

Part II – Diplomacy (or: how not to break up with your spouse over

a game of CubeQuest)

The single most important aspect of the game is the diplomatic web of relationship between the

players. It is no coincidence that the game borrowed many of its mechanics from its predecessor

and inspiration, Diplomacy. A common mistake that players make, I find, is playing the game

rather than playing the players. In AGoT, more than in many other games (like Eclipse or even

Mage Wars) what’s best for you to do is determined primarily by what other players believe

about the situation. It’s less important, often, what’s really ‘best’ for you according to some

abstract utility function that attempts to abstract away from the other players (or worse, assume

they are maximizers of the same function or the worst, assuming they are a maximizer that

doesn’t take into account that you too might be maximizing, but we’ll get to that later).

Playing the Players

Unlike others, I don’t have strong feelings about how people should play the game. I think

people should be allowed to play it whatever way they want it. In general, I think board games

are unique because rules can be broken as well as followed, it’s easy to undo a move and you can

easily create house-rules (which is hard in video games, for example). Though I personally love

rules and playing by them, when I bring a game to a group of people I know that some of them

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will have more fun if they play in their own way, and having fun is typically my goal. If

someone wants to attack Lannister because he is annoyed by the shiny red units, I don’t have a

problem with that (I might have a problem with that if I’m Lannister – but that would only be an

in-the-game problem, not a real one). As long as things stay within the game and do not become

real grudges between people, I have no problem with the vindictive, petty, irritable, extortionist

or even the devoted communist. Whatever floats your boat, my friend, as long as you’re playing

the game.

Your goal is, as a player, to figure out the diplomatic landscape created by the players on

the table.

That’s not to say that I don’t prefer playing with competitive ruthless bastards who are dead set

on winning or die trying. I like a cold-blooded maniac who fights to the last moment even when

he doesn’t stand a chance simply to avenge those who destroyed him as much as the next gamer.

I just think that it’s a reason to pick the right people for the right game, and the right game for the

right people. AGoT is not the best game for every group or for all people. If you’re playing with

people and you’re annoyed with their behavior, don’t blame them for it! It’s not their fault

they’re not playing it as you wanted them to. Either you shouldn’t play this game with them, or

you shouldn’t play this game with them. Not because they are playing it wrong, but because

you’re obviously not having fun playing. Just because you finally bought Cosmic Encounter and

are dying to play it, doesn’t mean Grandpa Alex is the right person to play it with. After all, last

time you broached Memoir 44’, it ended up badly for both your grandpa’s autobiography writing

project and those forest tiles you still have to scrape from the lasagna dish.

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In other words, this guide assumes that your diplomatic goal is to adjust your strategy to the

diplomatic landscape you find yourself in. When you play on the BGG forums, you’ll tend to

find players who belong to the same type: competitive, ambitious, strategically oriented, strict to

anal about the rules and with some training in statistics. In short, you’ll tend to find players like

you (who else would be reading this guide?!). Maybe these are the only people you want to play

with: there’s comfort in the feeling that, after all, you’re not alone. More to the point, knowing

the type of players you’re facing simplifies some of the social aspects of the game but it doesn’t

make it easier to win. The complexity of calculation is enormous and you can never know what

shortcuts and heuristics you’re opponents are using. You don’t know their idiosyncratic

preferences of tactic and their evaluations of the different resources. You don’t know their

attitude towards risk and you don’t know when and how they might miscalculate, or forget the

ability on one of their own cards. The human element is not missing even when facing the most

hardcore experienced AGoT gamers.

But in this guide I don’t assume you are only face the kind of players one may find in the BGG

forums (the other parts of the guide hopefully will help you with that).That’s why I hold that

your first task in a game is to discover what kind of players your opponents are. That means it is

sometimes worth it to spend a turn or a move if it helps reveal to you the nature of your foes (in

the DwD expansion this may not be possible, as the stakes are higher and the game is shorter).

Since the diplomatic landscape is the single most important factor you have to decipher in order

to devise a winning strategy, it is worth spending some resources on it. You need to see it as one

of the game’s objective. If you’re playing Coup with a group of people who hardly bluff

(whether because they don’t feel like or because they’re all grad students who are incapable of

lying without suffering some physical pain) – it becomes really worthwhile to bluff and really

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dangerous to challenge. Playing a statistically optimal strategy in this situation won’t be terrible,

but you can really bluff much more than it would allow you and still get away with it.

So, the Golden Rule of Diplomacy is this: figure out what the other players intend to do so

that you can prepare for it. In the words of an experienced military expert, Robert Strange

McNamara:

“We must try to put ourselves inside their skin and look at us through their eyes, just

to understand the thoughts that lie behind their decisions and their actions.”

Sounds trivial, and it is, but as simple as it is it’s much better than what many gamers tend to do

(search your soul to see if you’re one of them): ‘figure out what is the best move for the other

players, prepare for that and then get mad at them when they don’t do what you expected them.’

Granted, the last part is optional and only appears among the worst kind of gamers, but the

principle remains. You are not playing against a copy of yourself or a computer program. On a

related note, many players prepare themselves for the worst (or what they perceive as the worst)

instead of what’s most likely. In game theory terms, preparing for the worst possible scenario is

called MiniMax. It means you consider the worst case scenario and play the strategy that is best

for that; often, it is the move that guarantees a win (or guarantees that you won’t lose a castle) or

is otherwise a ‘safe bet.’ For example, Stark attacks with Eddard (a 4 card) because in his mind

he is preparing for the possibility that Baratheon defends with Stannis (a 4 card), which can only

be defeated by Eddard. Stark thus guarantees a win. A defender, expecting the attack to be as

overwhelming as possible, will throw away his low card in response. Baratheon will then throw

Brienne under the bus, hoping to block one of the swords. This, of course, is not the only

22
possible scenario. But it is quite common and therefore merits out attention; look for that pattern

next time a player guarantees a win with his high card, which is wasted against the low card

thrown under the bus.

MiniMax is not, technically speaking, a winning strategy. To invoke game theory again, the

situation just described isn’t stable (or, if you will, is not an equilibrium). If Stark knew that

Baratheon intends to play Brienne, he wouldn’t play Eddard; but if Baratheon knew that Stark

wouldn’t play Eddard, he won’t play Brienne. Nonetheless, in an environment of cautious, risk-

averse players, playing MiniMax isn’t uncommon. The key here is to know your environment

and adjust to it – if you believe your opponent will play a low card as a ‘throw-away’, you

shouldn’t play it safe with your high card, you should win with the Greatjon and save Eddard for

a later battle. But unless you know it with a high degree of certainty, it is no longer clear that

playing a low card is the right response. That kind of certainty is hard to come by, but it is what

you are looking for. And if you’re to have any, you have to spend some time and actions getting

it – testing the waters, trying out things and trying to figure out your opponents. Don’t listen to

me, take it from a proven fighter, the legendary Duncan Idaho of Dune:

“Use the first moments in study. You may miss many an opportunity for quick victory

this way, but the moments of study are insurance of success. Take your time and be

sure.” (Frank Herbert, Dune, p. 786)

You have to gather some data about your opponents’ intentions, and actions are better than

words. How does Lannister react to an attack or Riverrun? Does he send the Hound to protect his

precious men or does he send Ser Gregor, expecting a fake with Dagmar? There’s only one way

to find out. How does Stark/Martell respond to a march order in Shipbreaker Bay? There isn’t

much time for such experiments, but they are important. Those early battles, when both hands

23
are full and (typically) neither can guarantee a victory are particularly appropriate for those kinds

of experimentations. Try to have these experiments in relatively low-stakes situations early one

when you can correct your mistakes later on.

I dedicate a separate section to house cards and their management, so I’ll leave it there (as an

aside, I’ll conjecture that defenders who play the high card even though they’re expecting to lose

might be playing what some people call ‘MiniMax regret’; some think this is an even worse

strategy than plan old MaxiMin. I note that because I think there’s a difference between peoples’

behavior as attackers and their behavior as defenders, or to be more precise – when they are

fighting to gain something they don’t perceive as theirs [for example, another player’s ‘natural’

castle or even a capital] versus when they fighting for what is rightly ‘theirs’. This may have

something to do with the different way people appreciate gains and losses, but this isn’t about

making baseless claims about people’s behavior while playing AGoT, this is a strategy guide).

Hide Your Identity

Since we’ve established that one of your major goals in the game is to figure out what kind of

players you are facing, it seems fair to assume that at least some of the other players would be

studying you. You know now that I would. It follows, then, that you should make an effort to

hinder their efforts and avoid being pinned down. That includes avoiding being pinned down as a

player which spends his first few turns studying the other players. Given these thoughts, I rarely

go for an early surprise attack which sometimes gets you an early win or at least a very early

decimation of an opponent. But if you know that about me (as you do now), you can take

advantage of that. I should try to mix things up every now and then. More generally, if you tend

to some kind of behavior – try to avoid it. Mix it up, surprise yourself.

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Those of you who are interested in Game Theory, and believe in its mystical power to solve

problems, would be interested to know that the ‘solution’ it proposes for the aforementioned

situation between Stark and Baratheon (where Stark can guarantee a win with Eddard but would

prefer to play Greatjon if he knew for sure that Baratheon won’t play Stannis, who beats the

Greatjon), is to play a mixed strategy; that means you should play a high card some of the times,

and a low card some of times. How often? That depends on the relative worth of the different

outcomes, so it depends how much worse is it to lose with Stannis compared to winning with it,

and how much better is it to win with Greatjon compared to winning with Eddard. If, for

example, Stark values winning with Greatjon twice as much as winning as winning Eddard and

Baratheon values losing with losing with Brienne at a quarter of a victory with Stannis (assume

with me that you can compare these things mathematically; not because you can, but because

Game Theory solutions requires it) – then Stark should play Eddard 2/3 of the times and

Baratheon should play Stannis 1/3 of the times. Here’s the way this game would be represented

in Game Theoretic terms:

BARATHEON Stannis (high) Brienne (low)

STARK

Eddard (high) 1,0 ½, ¼

Greatjon (low) 0,1 1,0

(boy, these AGoT colors are really hard to work with… Why didn’t I pick Lannister and Tyrell?!)

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If this isn’t your thing, you’re welcome to just ignore it. The point of this is to say – try to change

things around. Create an uncertainty about your intentions and your plans. Most people think that

the best way to do that is to lie. Indeed, lying is useful. But there are lots of other ways you can

do it – especially with suspicious experienced players who won’t believe anything you say

anyway. What you can do, I think is clear and is not specific to game of thrones. Since I’m not

particularly good at lying and creating false impressions, I will not try to offer any more advice

on that. Instead, I will turn to a make a caveat or two which pertain the issue of lying.

A Caveat

I guess this is a good opportunity to provide here the bigger caveat of the diplomacy section of

this guide. When you’re doing all these things I just recommended – trying to figure out what

people’s intentions are in order to screw them over while hiding you’re real plan by engaging in

misleading behavior and lying – you are manipulating them. Or at least, you are trying to. I raise

this issue because in case you’re not very social, it’s possible you didn’t notice that manipulating

is generally frowned upon in contemporary society. In fact, it’s considered quite rude. It is

therefore important to note that it’s quite alright if you have a general aversion to behaving in

such a way. The tingling sensation in your stomach that tells you that what you’re doing is wrong

is a sign that you are a relatively normal and healthy human being. Sometimes it’s not a good

idea to repress that tingling feeling just so you could win a game. In other words, sometimes

it is preferable give up a game and save an important relationship. This advice is not, strictly

speaking, part of the strategy guide. But then again, maybe it is. There is a reason they say about

Diplomacy, AGoT’s predecessor and inspiration, that it’s been ruining friendships since 1959.

Because it has. AGoT was designed, in the spirit of the novels, to do the same thing. I have

personally seen Diplomacy does this to people, and was therefore older, wiser and balder when I

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got to AGoT. That’s how I was able to avoid taking it personally. For the most part. I love

playing on the BGG forums partly because the partial anonymity allows me to be nastier without

remorse, and people on the forums take it with good humor as intended. For the most part. And if

they don’t, then I’m sorry.

Some people say (over and over and over and over and over again). That their spouse is still

laughing about that Cosmic Encounter betrayal all these years ago – but we never get her

perspective, and for all we know that public display of appreciation hides a deep dark secret of

bitter and bottomless resent. In any case, always remember to check in and see that you and your

friend are on the same page about what the game is about. Never test a relationship beyond its

limits. You may want to learn something about yourself, your spouse, your friends or your

friendships. But for the love of god, this game isn’t a healthy setting to do that. And if you find

yourself doing it, you’re not playing the game – the game is playing you.

Second Caveat – Quinns’s Criticism

Quintin Smith, a game reviewer I appreciate, has recently raised a concern while discussing

AGoT. He says that he heard the complaint from a Richard Garfield, the guy who designed

Magic: The Gathering. I’m too intimated to be arguing with Garfield so I call it Quintin’s

criticism.

The criticism is that ‘you’re playing the same game in all of these games’ –these games being

AGoT, Diplomacy, Risk and so forth. So, if you’ve mastered one, you’ve mastered all of them.

And that puts AGoT off for Quinns, because he knows he’s going to make an alliance on turn 2,

that’s going to fall apart on turn 4, then he’ll make a last minute alliance on game 5 and then the

27
game will end on turn 6. That’s the way these games always work for him. He mentions Rex,

which used to be Dune (which, as you may have noticed, is one I like) because in Dune there are

institutionalized alliances. So, Dune is more interesting because you can form an alliance of 2 or

3 players and then you can win the game together.

I love Dune, and will get back to the different alliances mechanisms in a moment. But first, let’s

take this criticism head on – are all negotiation games the same? Are all games that rely heavily

on diplomacy require the same skill set, those that once you’ve mastered them you will dominate

all of these games?

In short, my answer is no. But before I reject this position, let’s give it some air. Garfield and

Smith are smart people and they don’t just say things. Moreover, when you say their names

together like that it sounds a lot like a law firm and that has to carry some weight. If you look at

the diplomacy part of this strategy guide, you’ll see that most of what is in it is quite general –

it’ll work with most diplomacy based games. So there is definitely something to the claim that

you will use the same skills in all of these games. But I think that this argument is somewhat

unfair, because on some level there are obviously general skills that are used in all games.

Let’s think of a skill set that is used in many games – basic math. Almost all games require some

basic arithmetic or at least the ability to count. In AGoT, the most you come to is addition and

subtraction of sizes that do not exceed 20 which I believe is typically covered in pre-school. So

not much, but other games require pretty complicated mathematical calculations or at least

simple ones but so many of them that your head kinda hurts if you’re not the mathy type. Power

Grid is a good example, I think, of a game that has quite a bit of math. But examples are not

lacking in the EuroGaming sphere, where some games are actually about buying stocks and

managing your holdings in company. Even a simple game like CoinAge has me counting over

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and over all the score of all the different possible end situations a move may lead to. It’s really

basic arithmetic but it can be really tiring.

In addition to basic arithmetic, there’s a little bit of probability theory in almost every game.

Even AGoT has a bit of that, with the Westeros cards or, if you’re attributing some complexity to

your opponents, in battles. Some games have eons more complexity than that, of course. Mage

Wars is a game where I often find myself trying to compute the chances that 6 dice would deal 4

damage to a creature that has 2 armor (not bad, if you’re interested). So there are other sets of

skills that are general enough and are used in every game, to different extents. How are those

skills different than diplomacy?

I bring up the comparison to math because that’s a complaint some people level against

EuroGames. In those games, it is said, you are merely solving a puzzle, not playing a game. A

puzzle! Very derogatory in the gaming world, so use with care. Of course, people who like to

solve puzzles would say that though similar skills are used when you’re solving another puzzle,

the feeling is different: now you’re solving a different puzzle, and that’s the fun of it. For me the

experience with negotiating games is very similar – every game, every group of people presents

a diplomatic puzzle. Sure, you’ll be using the same kinds of skills when you solve that puzzle –

in the same way you’ll be using your math skills every time you deal with the current situation in

Puerto Rico or Power Grid – but the puzzle will be different. And I think that using your

diplomatic skills – figuring out people, forming and destroying relationships and so forth – these

are the most interesting skills to learn and improve through board games. Quinns may be

frustrated by the meta-gaming of his group – he has a reputation of a backstabbing bastard, and

he can’t seem to shake it. But that presents him with an even greater challenge – how does he

persuade his gaming groups he is trustworthy? Maybe he should start being the most loyal

29
bastard in the neighborhood for a while. Given that he plays with the same group of people often,

and that he plays many games that provide opportunities to backstabbing – it can certainly work.

This takes discipline and may hurt some of the fun he’ll be having in some of these games, but

I’m sure that pretty quickly his friends will notice and this’ll blow their minds. What has

happened to the Quinns we know? Has he gone completely mad? Why is he always telling us the

truth? I’ve played some games of Coup with a certain person, who isn’t at all adverse to bluffing,

who decided after a few rounds not to bluff anymore that night. It sounds boring – just playing

the cards as you get them. But to see the faces of the people who challenge you and lose! If they

had just waited patiently and played their cards, they could have won. I obviously lost miserably

to the truth telling opponent, and had to look at her sly confident smile as she said – I told you I

wasn’t going to bluff anymore tonight. ergh. There’s great joy in the greatest deceit of all – not to

lie in a lying game. Of course, a round or two of Coup aren’t going to cut it for Quinns, but he’s

dug himself pretty deep there, it seems.

But there’s a more substantial answer to the Smith-Garfield challenge than the one I just offered,

one that is rooted in game mechanics. The point here is that the diplomatic puzzle is shaped by

the ludological landscape of the game. In other words, the rules of the game shape much of the

diplomatic puzzle in the same that they shape the strategic puzzle you play against the board.

Negotiation in different games is different because what you need from other people is different,

and what they can give you is different. Figuring out what they think they need is half of the fun,

and that really changes from game to game.

Take Dune, for example, that Quinns mentions. The differences between AGoT and Dune are

pretty small in this regard, and both game entertain a reputation of encouraging ruthless

backstabbing and skullduggery. But there are slight differences that make huge changes. One is

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what Quinns mention – that Dune allows, on certain phases that may or may not come up, to

form and break alliances. Once you’re allied, you can’t break the alliance until the next Nexus

phase. Being in alliance is beneficial – you get the special powers of your ally. But it’s also

restrictive – you can’t attack them or move to the areas they control. And if they lose a

stronghold you could have protected, you’re screwed. The institutionalization of alliances is not

so unique – most negotiating games have it in one form or another. It’s actually AGoT that’s

quite distinct in this way: since they wanted to remain loyal to theme of the books and the

reputation of ruthlessness, they made the game exceptionally prone to backstabbing by

eliminating all restrictions. They also added a weird disregard to the order of players on the

victory track (to accommodate that quote from Cersei Lannister, which covers every inch of the

box and rulebook). This creates a very competitive environment, even though most players do

care about the ordering on the victory track on the end of the game. Most other games have some

form of institutionalized collaboration (though even in AGoT, you can support each other’s

attacks). Diplomacy, the granddaddy of AGoT institutionalized alliances with a different twist:

you didn’t form formal alliances during the game, but you can always agree to end the game in

an alliance. Not to mention that you can support somebody else’s attack, but you have to

explicitly note it in your orders or it doesn’t work. That means negotiation around support orders

need to be explicit and if you fail to deliver once, it’s pretty clear what you’re doing. Eclipse

offers a beneficial exchange of ambassadors and punishment to traitors. But in Eclipse, only the

most recent traitor is punished. In Warrior Knights you need the approval of other players when

you are going through their territories or if you want to attack a third player when they are

around. In Cosmic Encounter alliances are institutionalized per attack and are reformed every

phase, but the important part is that the game allows for a multi-player win (as many as

31
everybody except one player). Risk doesn’t have any of that but, as we know, it’s not a very good

game. Each of this games have a different landscape for negotiating and solving the diplomatic

puzzle requires understanding not just the other people – but what you can get from them, what

they’ll be willing to give and what is it that they really want.

The second slight difference between Dune and AGoT is that in Dune, the rulebook says that

agreements that are made public are binding. When I explained the rules to a friend and fellow

AGoT player, he was baffled. You have to comply with the deal? He asked, and what if you

don’t? Well, I said, then you’re not playing by the rules. What keeps you from taking spice from

spice bank when nobody else is looking? Or even when they are? The concept blew his mind.

That simple rule changes the entire way people negotiate deals by the mere possibility that some

deals may be enforced. One of the moves in the negotiation becomes whether to make this deal

public and therefore binding. Both have advantages but also disadvantages. You typically have

good reasons to want to keep the deal secret, but that raises justified suspicion. How can you say

that negotiation games are the same in this setting?

In the same way that a small battle rule, like whether ties go to defender (like Eclipse, Cosmic

Encounter, Kemet), the attacker (Quantum, Dune, DarkStar) or result in stalemate (Diplomacy,

Warrior Knights), these rules about the ways players interact with each change the way people

tend to behave. In Dune players tend to make more alliances and follow through with their

promises even if these are not formal. In fact, they sometimes make an informal alliance that cuts

across their existing formal alliances – which is very interesting. They know that a Nexus phase

can come out, which means they will have a chance to reform their alliance. Or it may not – and

they are limited in their ability to help each other because of the formal restrictions of their

alliances. That NEVER happens in AGoT.

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Have I done anything to counter Quinns’s criticism? After all, he makes it about AGoT while

mentioning Dune (or the Rex reprint) as a game he is now interested over AGoT. I think it’s

helpful to see that AGoT is a particularly extreme version of the backstabbing encouraging

genre, exceeding even Diplomacy in its adversarial environment. Moreover, even in that

environment I see no reason why Quinn should work harder to salvage his meta-gaming

reputation in his gaming group. He simply has become too predictable. He says that he will

always form an alliance on turn 2 and then break it on turn 4 – well, that hasn’t been my

experience in AGoT. I’ve played a Greyjoy and stayed loyal to my Lannister until the end of the

game, despite various thoughts and tempting opportunities. I’ve played a Lannister and kept my

word until turn 8, when I successfully backstabbed. I also played a game where the Greyjoy-

Lannister alliance broke up before we even began, in the Quintin Smith fashion. And all these

games were with pretty astute and ruthless gamers, so I see no reason why it has to be this way.

Different negotiation games have different rules that raise or lower the stakes, and change the

way people tend to make deals and live up to them. New game designs have started tweaking

with rule to produce all sorts of semi-cooperative games, where players work together and also

against each other. I’m particularly interested in Dead of Winter but it’s not the first or only

game that has interactions of that kind. In any case, the rest of this already too long piece about

diplomacy will discuss some of the tactics that are particularly relevant in AGoT because of its

rules.

Specific Tactics

The two most important mechanics that influence the diplomatic landscape of AGoT are the

simultaneous blind order placing and the absolute lack of institutionalized alliances. Blind order

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placing, like in Diplomacy, is fertile ground to treachery. However, unlike Diplomacy, the orders

are executed sequentially in turn order. That changes much of the game, as you can place the

orders you’ve promised and then fail to support an attack. Diplomacy’s rules allow for much

more collaboration because of that, while in AGoT everything is always tentative – but that’s an

issue to be discussed later. In any case, some order placements will be unequivocally aggressive

while others can be ambiguous. Blind placing means you don’t know what other players are

doing, but interesting negotiating often starts after the orders have been placed. Let’s look at

some specific tactics.

Deterrence

Since AGoT produces a low trust environment, and no player can fight a war on two fronts,

players tend to be very cautious with their moves. The implication is that the best way to play a

card is often not to play it. House Cards like Doran Martell and Patchface are awesome partly

because they discourage others from attacking you. It’s often better to hold on those cards even if

you’ve threatened to use them. Martell can just sit there with 6 castles and nobody will attack

him because they will be punished severely by Doran. Now, in that case, as Martell – you want

to keep Doran in your hand at almost all costs, and make sure people remember that you do.

Threaten to use Doran punitively and don’t follow through – keep him in your hand so that you

can keep threatening. You can’t do it forever, you’ll have to use him at some point – but that’s

true anyway, because of how the hand works.

For example, you threaten Tyrell you’ll Doran him if he attacks. Then he does, despite your

threat. Most people feel the need to follow through with their threat, either to prove the reliability

of their threat or just to punish the aggressor that made them mad. I’ve seen this dynamics

between Stark and Baratheon countless times – Baratheon says, if you attack me I’ll Patchface

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your Roose. Stark is either deterred or he attacks and Baratheon Patchfaces. But if you are

Baratheon, you want to save Patchface. Once you’ve used him, your threat loses its power. Sure,

if you don’t play Doran/Patchface, the other player may think you made empty threats. But at the

same time, not punishing facilitates a better relationship. If you lost all your stars to Doran,

you’re pretty committed to fighting Martell. If you still have your stars and Martell still has

Doran, how likely are you attack again?

The same applies to march orders. Often the best defense is to have an attack order in place to

retake the position that is being threatened. SE are particularly useful for that, especially if you

have stars and are behind on the IT track. Most likely, you will never be attacked and your SE

will never need to relocate to the ever-so-dangerous Riverrun. This may seem like a waste of

March order, but I think it’s often very useful. You can avoid being attacked for multiple turns

with the right kind of deterrence in place.

Backstabbing

Much has been said about backstabbing and how important it is in games like AGoT, so I won’t

spend much time on it. I do think there are two things critical with regard to backstabbing that

don’t get sufficient attention and those are TnT: trust and timing.

Trust? Yes trust. If you are to backstab someone, you have to first gain their trust. If nobody

trusts anyone, you lied to them about forming an alliance and they lied to you and neither of you

believed it – it’s not backstabbing, it’s merely failed cooperation. Backstabbing can only occur

when you’ve established some trust and then you brake it. It’s awfully hard among suspicious

players, but without trust don’t delude yourself that you’re backstabbing; in the best case, you’re

merely stabbing. Real backstabbing requires creating real trust, or at least creating an expectation

of collaboration (for example by convincing the other players that it’s in your best interest to

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follow through), and then breaking it. It’s actually pretty hard to do and it’s very nasty when it’s

successful. I’ve already give the caveat about relationships so I feel I can say that. It’s no

surprise that most people prefer not to trust anyone since they know backstabbing is an option. It

really feels terrible when someone backstabs you.

Timing is more often discussed as important for backstabbing, yet I find that most players tend to

be impatient. It’s no surprise to me that Quinns forms an alliance on turn 2 and then breaks it on

turn 4. But if you really want to backstab, you have to wait until turn 8! You have to brew on it,

you have to really invest and build that sense of security. Let them entangle themselves in other

adventures while you’re growing stronger playing defensively. And then, when the fates of

Westeros are right (because Web of Lies) – then you stab. It’s really hard to do and it doesn’t

happen often. Usually players become impatient and are just driven to backstabbing by the theme

and the temptations. But if you didn’t really build trust and awaited the right opportunity, you’ll

just be slightly hurting your unsurprised neighbor instead of taking over. No cigar.

Alliances

As I said before, AGoT doesn’t see many stable alliances. Even Diplomacy sees more, since the

need to submit all your orders at the same time doesn’t allow you to change your mind. So does

Warrior Knights, since there are lots of court favors to exchange and good ol’ money. When you

can bribe someone, you can rely on them. To a certain extent, and if you have more money to

give.

In AGoT there’s really very little you can do for someone, except not attack them. Most

agreement that I’ve seen made are of non-aggression for a limited time. Tyrell and Martell often

agree on a three turn moratorium on violence. That typically allows both these houses to grow

slowly while the others start killing each other. In my opinion this agreement is bad for Tyrell –

36
who starts with no stars and a Fiefdom advantage that he will not be using unless there’s

aggression. Martell can build himself with special consolidate orders and get ahead on the

muster. But in any case, that’s a pretty typical agreement and it stems from the fear that whoever

stars fighting a war on one front first, will lose it on the other.

There are some rare occasions where people offer elaborate collaborations. These are really nice

in theory but I have rarely seen them work. Though many of the conditions play against it, in

person I have seen people cooperate quite effectively. People’s desire to work together can

sometimes override the theme and mechanics, especially if these are not super competitive

gamers. That goes back to knowing your opponents – people who collaborate in the face of

uncertainty and incentives to backstab are not stupid, they are just playing differently. It’s you

who needs to adjust, not them. Or you can try to persuade them to adjust, but that’s a different

story.

In any case, I will just say here that despite all the hindrances, the game offers strategic potential

of collaboration. Any pair of a player’s neighbors can usually collaborate against him. They

often don’t as both are afraid the other will get more out of it. But I’m not sure this fear is

justified – when playing with experienced players, the game often ends in a tie-breaker rather

than a seven castle win. I guess what I’m saying is – the challenge of collaborating in this game

is out there, and I have yet to see it fulfilled. If Greyjoy can take Winterfell on turn 2, that would

be awesome. But he can’t do it on his own and most Lannister players wouldn’t want their

neighbor to get so strong so early. Yet I have seen a Greyjoy obliterate a Stark (me) beyond

belief and still lose the game because the North proved too tough to hold. Then why wouldn’t

Lannister be happy to send Greyjoy up north searching for fortunes? Risky, but not entirely

stupid. There’s room for collaboration here, but you have to be really creative about it.

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Leader Bashing

Like other games, most notably Diplomacy (but many others, like Condottiere and even Settlers

of Catan), AGoT relies on Leader Bashing for balance. That means that the game designers

assume that players will collaborate to stop an early leader from winning, restoring the balance to

the game. It is crucial for the game, because without it, a lucky player who got good fortunes on

Westeros cards or get a good run of bidding on the influence tracks can roll over the board. I’ve

seen cases where a single player held all three tokens or even just two of them, and they typically

do quite a bit of damage. Players regularly collaborate to stop such a player from winning. AGoT

design accommodates leader bashing as it is capped with the turn limit – so leader bashing

doesn’t lead to endless battles and a neverending game (like in Risk or Diplomacy) but rather to

more tie-breaker results. I think that makes the game less exciting but at least it doesn’t last

forever. Thematically, the turn cap makes sense as we all know that Winter is Coming, it’s pretty

fun that there is a point where Winter finally comes. From a game design perspective it makes

sense since the game is sufficiently long as it is (in real life I have played an 11 hour game and

rarely got to finish a game in less than 4 hours). Strategically, that means that with experienced

players who could be counted to do some effective leader bashing, I typically play the long game

and aim for a victory with a tie-breaker. I agree, that’s less than exciting, but I see no other

option.

Last turn tie-breaker don’t only make for a less exciting victory, but they also make for an anti-

climatic last turn. Most players end up discarding their marches, as they can’t do anything to

alter the game and typically there’s quite a bit of kingmaking (which is really important, and I’ll

be talking about it separately soon). That means that you need to prepare for that last turn,

diplomatically, by, for example, making sure you’ve done your part in leader bashing early on or

38
you might be punished near the end. You should try to avoid being hated by everybody or at

least all your neighbors, or they will turn their efforts to making you sure you don’t win once

they realize they can’t win themselves.

But there are two issues that make leader bashing quite difficult. The biggest issue is that most

players can’t really do much about a runaway leader. Aside from Lannister and Baratheon, who

rarely get an early advantage, only Tyrell has more than 2 neighbors. That means that aside from

the player who just got run over, only one other player can effectively threaten the backside of

the attacker. Compare that to Diplomacy, where each player has at least three neighbors to deal

with before any player is eliminated – which typically makes for very effective leader bashing.

There’s obviously an opportunity for impact through bidding and wildlings attacks, but for the

most part, leader bashing requires pretty quick response by specific players or it doesn’t work.

These players are required to make sacrifices that often hurt their own prospects quite severely,

and they sometimes won’t do it. That’s probably a mark against the game but that’s just how the

game goes.

The second impediment to leader bashing is that there’s an obvious collective action problem

there. Often there’s a leader which can be hurt by any number of players, none of which want to

make the sacrifice of hurting it. This happened to me when playing against a Martell who

effectively held on to his Doran as a deterrent. He ran over Tyrell and was on his way to victory

– Baratheon, Lannister and even Greyjoy could have hurt him, but neither wanted to lose their

prized position on the tracks. He kept Doran as his last card, and won though he had a terrible

position on all 3 tracks. Martell’s gameplay was brilliant, using his position effectively and

focusing on the elimination of just one player, but his victory, in the end, is an ode to the

inability of the other player to collaborate against him when the first mover would suffer some

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significant personal lost. Keeping Doran at hand and using it last (very atypical behavior)

sustained the deterrent and successfully countered players’ attempt to do some leader bashing.

Kingmaking

The last thing I’ll mention is kingmaking. It is sometimes used in a derogatory manner around

game design forums and it’s certainly not my favorite feature of games, but it is a reality in

AGoT and you have to prepare for it if you want to do well. AGoT deals with the problem of

player elimination in a peculiar way, which I’m not sure is the best. On the one hand, it has

similar dynamics to Diplomacy – players can get wiped out completely, when they lose all their

units. And like Diplomacy, it is quite common to lose all but one or two units, effectively losing

any influence on the game but dragging on and one while no one wants to spare the resources

and actions to wipe you out. On the other end, the official rules don’t allow for complete player

elimination as they require a player whose units were eliminate to still participate in bidding and

wildlings attacks, and even allow for an unlikely comeback if the conqueror leaves their

conquered capital without leaving a PT (which can happen if, for example, a wildlings attack

kills all troops in that capital). Regardless of what I think of this mechanic in terms of game

design, it typically means that by the end of a 10 turn game there quite a few angry players still

sitting around the table, with a desire for revenge.

Many times, these players still have game-deciding powers. I’ve seen a player with close to

nothing on the board snatch the throne with some PTs he kept from days of old and deciding

some crucial ties that really hurt his detractor.

What are the implications of kingmaking? There are many possible ones, but the summary of

them is that you need to be aware of who you anger during the game. Sure, you cannot win

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without running over at least one neighbor, but there are others to think about. What that means

will obviously change in different settings and groups, but that’s something to keep in mind.

I personally am of the opinion that it’s up to the players to decide what to do with their

kingmaking powers, and that it it’s up to individual to decide when is it that they believe they’ve

lost all chances to win the game. Some people think gaming etiquette requires players to keep

trying to get more castles, not matter what. I wouldn’t assume that all players around the table

share this etiquette, especially in a game that states that only the first player wins and all the

others lose. I would also expect my neighbor, who I effectively backstabbed, to haunt me to the

end of his days with a vengeance, even if that means he’ll finish with one castle instead of two.

After all, I’ve done the same. Some people justify this as metagaming, which I think is fine, but I

also accept it as fulfilling the desire for pure revenge. Achieving revenge can be very satisfying,

as we all know, and I see no reason why board games shouldn’t be a good way to produce such

satisfaction.

Bidding

Bidding is pretty big subject that probably deserves a part of its own but one crucial components

of bidding, is knowing what players around the table value. In many of the games I played in the

forums, the IT track is undervalued (many players think that other than getting the throne, the

order doesn’t matter much since they can use later positions for their own advantage) and the

King’s Court is overvalued (people love their star orders). Using this knowledge correctly can be

very beneficial – for example, with just 3 PTs (and while two other players had 2), Baratheon

was able to get the three tokens.. There are other things to think about when bidding, of course,

but the diplomatic aspect is really one of the most important ones, and like all the other

dimensions – it’s often beneficial to ‘sit out’ of a bidding (by bidding 0s and saving your PTs)

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and observe how the other players bid, especially if it’s an early game bid which can be reversed

quickly. That’s a risky move, but hey – this game is not for the faint of heart.

Part III – BATTLE! (Or: the all-important hand

management)

The Battle System

AGoT’s battle system includes a combination of the troops on the ground and battle cards. You

count the troops on the ground, add the number of your leader card and the total sum is your

strength for this battle. This is a familiar system – it is virtually the same as that of Dune, which

came out many years ago, which is also somewhat similar to that of Cosmic Encounter (a game

by the same designers). More recently, two brilliant games that I love have employed similar

mechanisms: Kemet and City of Remnants (Kemet’s much more similar, not surprisingly it was

inspired by Dune, but as the discussion below will reveal, CoR falls in the same category in my

book). The upcoming game Impulse employs a battle mechanism that bears some similarity to

the one I discuss, and I’m sure there are a lot more games that use a variant of this idea. The

cards are different in each game – in Kemet every player has the same cards but you can ‘buy’

some cards to change your hands a bit; in Dune and AGoT the cards correspond to characters

from the book and their strength and abilities vary by faction; in Cosmic Encounter you draw

random cards and have to make wise use of them because you won’t be able to draw new cards

until you run out of all your encounter cards. The idea is basically similar, and it’s one of my

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favorite mechanisms ever in boardgaming so I want to say something general about the way you

handle it.

Boardgamegeek doesn’t have one category for this specific battle system. On BGG, Kemet is

listed under the ‘Campaign/Battle Card Driven’ mechanic (which seems a mistake), Dune,

Cosmic Encounter and City of Remnants under ‘Hand Management’ and finally, AGoT under

‘Simultaneous Action Selection.’ Curiously, none of these games are listed under the Rock-

Paper-Scissors (RPS) mechanic, though the logic of the mechanism has great affinity to it. A

glimpse at that page on BGG shows that the RPS’s defining feature is its ‘non-transitive’ or, in

people’s language, circular hierarchy, which can be done without simultaneous action selection

as is clear by the games in this category, like Balance of Power and the Ares Project.

So what do we have in AGoT? What’s the defining feature of the battle mechanics? Let us start

by ruling out some of the categories mentioned above. First, it seems to me that the association

with battle card driven is confusion. People who talk about Battle Card Driven games think about

games like Twilight Struggle and Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage. Though Twilight Struggle has a

headline event card played simultaneously, which has some relevant elements to it, the bulk of

the game that people refer to when they talk about this mechanic is the need to employ cards

strategically either for their historical event or for their value in operation points. I find it

uninteresting to argue whether or not this is a ‘subcategory’ of hand management or not, it seems

to me that it is has its own distinct flavor and that hand-management is a pretty wide category to

begin with. In any case, Kemet is not a member of that species – the cards in Kemet have no

historical events or operation values, and you can’t use them for multiple purposes. Instead they

are only used in battle, exactly like in AGoT, and the way to manage your hand is to make sure

you have the right cards at hand for the right battle.

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What about hand management? Isn’t that really the mechanism that we are talking about?

Certainly Cosmic Encounter has an element of hand management as you don’t get to draw a new

hand until you’ve exhausted your hand. But that’s not how the battles are resolved, isn’t it? The

battles are resolved by separate choice of battle cards that are the revealed simultaneously,

adding to the power of the troops that are participating in that specific battle. Sounds familiar? In

any case, hand management is not helpful category. It includes so many different kinds of hand

management, that it really says very little about the game. Descent is listed in BGG under hand

management – and though there is definitely an element of that in the Overlord’s role, the game

has really very little with the kind of games we are talking about here. Certainly the battles are

resolved differently – with a lot of dice.

Now, we turn to simultaneous action selection. That’s most definitely a really important

component of the battle system in AGoT, which it inherited from its predecessor and inspiration,

Diplomacy. But here it is important to notice that Diplomacy doesn’t have any hand management

aspect to it; in fact, there are no hands at all as there aren’t any cards. Orders are written on

pieces of paper (old school!) and are submitted to be revealed and resolved simultaneously. In

fact, it’s striking that in AGoT the orders are not resolved simultaneously, as in Diplomacy –

they are chosen and revealed simultaneously, but are then resolved in turn order. The main

reason is probably that simultaneously resolution creates too many complications and possible

paradoxes that drove diplomacy players to write technical guides of this sort. Christian Peterson

probably didn’t want people writing computer programs just so they would be able to play the

game. Nonetheless, it’s important that simultaneity is not such a defining feature of AGoT as it is

in Diplomacy, though it certainly adds to the distrust and tension.

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Next we have Rock-Paper-Scissors (RPS). None of these games are categorized under this

heading, and as I said, the games that are categorized under it do not have to have the same

features (thus, in Balance of Power, the units have different shapes on the board and there is no

secret selection of cards). However, I think Klaude Thomas was right to categorize his game

DarkStar, under the heading of RPS. DarkStar also employs the same battle mechanic (and is

explicitly inspired by Dune) – you have a hand of cards that you have to manage carefully, and

in battle you and your opponent will secretly select one to be revealed simultaneously; the cards

have numeric values on them that add to the number of troops you have participating in the

battle.

However, DarkStar is labeled RPS not because of the values on the cards and how they relate,

but because the cards themselves are divided into three categories that operate in circular

hierarchy: lightning cancels darkness, which cancels entropy, which cancels lightning.

Nonetheless, I think the battle mechanics – the numerical values on cards chosen simultaneously

added to troop numbers – have a RPS feature to it as well. In AGoT, ties are broken by the

Fiefdom track. That means that two powers facing each other with equal strength and with a full

house set at hand, basically face a RPS type of choice. I have simplified this situation as the low

card/high card game discussed in the previous section. In this case that hierarchy is not entirely

circular: if the first player plays a high card, there is nothing that would defeat him. But always

playing the high card and guarantying a victory is not a great strategy, as I discussed before.

Game theory, with its assumption that both players are robotic calculators, would recommend a

mixed strategy according to which you would randomize, playing the high card every now and

then but not always. It’s important to note that in AGoT, specifically, non-circularity is typical

but not necessary. Some of the cards’ special ability change the strength of the initial forces or

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battle cards (Balon, Catelyn, Mace, Ser Kevan, etc.) and create a situation of circular hierarchy, a

genuine Rock-Paper-Scissors. Thus, in the perennial attack of Greyjoy on the Bay of Ice when it

has the special defense order, Catelyn loses to anybody but defeats Balon – while Balon defeats

everybody but loses to Catelyn.

In any case, this element of non-circularity, where (usually) one player can guarantee a win have

caused some people to dub the battle system in AGoT as ‘deterministic,’ even sadly by the

designer himself, merely because it doesn’t use dice (or other randomizers) for resolution of

battles. This is common parlor, so I shouldn’t really complain – but I think it’s a very weird

notion that chucks anything that has no dice into the category of ‘deterministic.’ Even the

calculating robots of game theory would not play ‘deterministically’ in a situation that they can

guarantee a win, let alone if there is circular hierarchy. Just because we’re not rolling dice on the

table, it doesn’t mean that there is no chance involved. In this case, the die is simply rolled in

people’s heads.

To sum up this discussion, the battle system of AGoT is a combination of hand management,

simultaneous action selection and RPS dynamics. You might call it ‘Simultaneous-Card-

Selection’ or something. The important point is that the resolution of the battle combines

thinking of these three elements. First, you have to manage your hand. I will discuss this at

greater length shortly but the gist is obvious – the order in which you play your cards and what

you have in hand is really important, and often you’ll attack simply to get a new hand. Second,

you will have to pick your battle card without knowing what your opponent picks. I discussed

this in the previous part, but the essence there is that you need to be prepared to what they

actually choose to do, not what you think they should do. Third, though you don’t know what

card your opponent chooses, you know what his options are. This RPS element is central to

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playing the game well, and that’s where game theoretic analysis can be really helpful if you’re

into that kind of a thing (with the caveat that you have to be prepared to opponents that aren’t).

The idea here is simple – you want to use your low cards whenever possible and make your

opponent use his high cards when he doesn’t need to. With that introduction in place, let’s get

into the details.

Hand Management

As I said before, hand management is probably the most important strategic factor of the game.

Though often people describe the game as primarily an area control one, because all paths to

victory go through the control of the board, the real heart of the game is in hand management.

Quintin Smith, that esteemed reviewer from Shut Up and Sit Down, is fond of saying that AGoT

forces you into making alliances because you can’t fight a war on two fronts (he actually likes

saying both when he’s praising the game and when he’s dissing it). But the main reason you

can’t fight a war on two fronts is not, as in Diplomacy, that you don’t have enough troops for it

(because you can) but rather it’s because you don’t have enough house cards at hand to run over

one of your neighbors and then still survive the attack of another who has a fresh hand. You

can’t overstate the importance of hand management.

At the center of the hand management puzzle is the fact that you have only a limited set of cards

and you only get them back once you’ve spent all of them. This means you have to be very

careful about when you use which of them. This does NOT mean ‘playing carefully’ so that you

keep your cards at hand for the longest time often. In fact, it’s a major reason to use your cards

often so that you’ll be able to refresh them and hold on to as many of them as possible. It also

encourages attacking, since using your cards while you’re attacking allows you to use them on

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your terms. When you don’t have a card in your hand, you’re not only vulnerable because you

can’t play it – you’re also not enjoying the deterrent effect that comes with it. That’s particularly

true about vicious cards like Doran Martell, but it’s true in general about all cards – when you

have fewer options, you have less space for maneuvering and you’re more predictable. At the

limit, when you have one card, there is no uncertainty about what you’ll play and that’s a very

dangerous situation.

Another problem of the very common cautious and defensive play style that many people like is

that it tends to underestimate the importance of refreshing your hand. I’ve seen some people play

a whole game without refreshing their hand once or playing the last card in their hand at the last

turn of the game. As a general matter, that’s not a good idea. Here’s my thought about refreshing

your hand: you want to play the last card in your hand on your terms. That means, you want

to be able to use it beneficially and not just to throw it away so you could you’re your hand back.

When you have just one card in your hand, you’re basically a sitting target. The one case of the

game where battle actually is deterministic occurs when you have one card in your hand (which

is why in Kemet they eliminated that problem by making you discard a card every time you play

one). The attitude to adopt in face of such determinism is not ‘oh well, there’s nothing I can do

about it and it’ll happen anyway,’ but rather ‘how do I make this last card play to my benefit?’

This is a challenge. Partly it’s a challenge because other players will take advantage of your last

card and attack you on their terms. But more importantly, it’s a challenge because there’s a real

trade-off between keeping a strong card at hand for a victory in that deterministic battle, and not

having that card in your hand for six battles. There’s no good solution to this problem, which is

really the genius of the design of this game. Keep your Doran, Gregor or Balon at hand and

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you’ll be in a good position to impose a victory and get your hand back. However, you’ll have to

kiss them goodbye for a little while.

The flip side of the dilemma is that one of your major goals is to manipulate your opponents so

that they won’t be able to use their cards optimally. That’s a reason I think Tyrion is

underappreciated and should most often be played against the penultimate card instead of against

the last card – it lets you control what card your opponent (say Greyjoy) won’t have in hand for

six battles now (say Balon). If your opponent holding on to their dear Stannis to use in their

penultimate battle (a pretty solid strategy) - attack them in Kingwood, where they don’t want to

use Stannis, forcing them to choose between their plan to use Stannis for Blackwater and keeping

it at hand for the next cycle. Wait until your opponent has their last card, or only two cards, and

then refrain from attacking them. They often expect you to take advantage of their situation but

many times that’s actually a good time to go for the other front, or just sit and CP while your

opponent is uninclined to attack other than lose and recycle their hand.

There’s more than can be said but I think the point is clear – be prepared to shuffle your hand on

your own terms and make sure your opponent never uses his cards optimally. As I will discuss

soon, the real strength of the Houses is the special abilities of their leaders. Mace Tyrell kills a

footman? Make sure you force Tyrell to use him when you have no Footmen involved. Victorian

Greyjoy doubles the strength of ships on the attack? Force Greyjoy to use a 3 card on the

defense. Using Victorian as a 3 takes the edge off of Greyjoy’s comparative advantage, and even

if he uses it and wins a battle, he has lost a major asset and that puts him at a disadvantage.

Having discussed the overall governing thought of your hand management, it’s type to delve into

some specific details about what’s important to play when.

Swords and Forts

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The one generic feature that appears on cards are battle icons, also known as swords and forts.

These symbols are the boring ‘regular’ ones that all factions have on some of their cards. I’ll

review each set of house cards in a moment, but for now let’s talk about the generic battle icons.

Perhaps it’s because everybody has them and they are not as exciting, but battle icons do not

receive the respect they deserve. Yet they are among the most powerful tools in the game, and

using your battle icons correctly is crucial to success in Westeros. Unlike other war games or

‘Dudes-on-a-Map’ style game, in AGoT there’s a dearth of troops. First, supply limitation

severely limit the amount of troops you can recruit and deploy. Supply is a constant pain in the

neck and unless you’re very lucky with Westeros cards or have planned meticulously for any

event, you will encounter times when a muster comes up and you cannot deploy any troops.

Second, mustering is hard to come by and often the tides of Westeros create a draught in

mustering for several turns. Or, alternatively, musters will pile up consecutively without supply

adjustments and you won’t be able to use them. Lastly, the number of troops you can have is

limited by the pieces in the box – only 5 knights, 6 ships and 2 siege engines. That means that

often you won’t be able to upgrade your footmen because you have no more knights. If you’re

Stark and you want to hold to seas in the East and the West, you’re in trouble. Every time you

make a successful sea invasion anywhere you leave your back side exposed simply because there

aren’t enough ships in the game to hold both. To sum, there’s a real shortage of troops in

Westeros.

There are two implications to this fact. First, the special consolidate power order that allows you

to muster is incredible powerful, perhaps even overpowered. I believe it was added to the second

edition as a response to the shortage of troops in the first edition, but it makes the difference

between stars and no stars the same as the difference between heaven and hell. Whenever at all

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possible, you need to muster troops and get ahead in the (somewhat pathetic) arms race. One

major problem Lannister has is that he often cannot afford to muster in Lannisport because he

needs the troops there to mobilize. In contrast, though Greyjoy typically doesn’t have much

space he can typically muster in Pyke with peace without worrying about threats or raids.

But the second, and more important (because less commonly understood) implication of the

shortage in troops on Westeros is that one major goal of participating in battle is to kill your

opponent’s troops. In the earlier stages of the game, your goal is not yet to control as many

castles as possible (though obviously that’s never bad) but rather to decimate your opponent and

put him at a disadvantage. That means you want to be able use your swords wisely and force him

to misuse his forts. One of the reasons I like attacking Lannister as Greyjoy on the first turn is

because it typically forces him to play The Hound. Note that this is Lannister’s only fort card –

after he’s played, he has no way of blocking swords for six battles. Now Greyjoy doesn’t have

many swords – sadly he has only 1 sword cards (Euron and Dagmar) and then Asha’s terrible

ability can let him, sometimes, rarely, if ever – win without support to wield two swords. But

having few swords is not a reason not to think about killing troops, it’s a reason to think more

carefully about how to use your swords.

Stark’s house cards are pretty boring, over all – the strongest special ability (Bolton) is pretty

straightforward in terms of its usage and only Robb Stark offers interesting strategic possibilities.

But Stark has two offensive cards with swords and two defensive cards with forts (I consider the

Blackfish there). It makes it very hard to kill Stark’s troops while Stark almost always kills some

when he wins. That’s the reason Stark is really a difficult match up for Greyjoy, whose cards are

obviously more geared towards dealing with Lannister. Greyjoy will really have a hard time

killing any of Stark’s troops with Dagmar or Euron, and is likely to suffer at least one defeat to

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Eddard’s two swords, one of which is invincible from Greyjoy’s perspective (as he only has one

fort cards).

Baratheon’s deck is probably weaker in terms of Swords/Forts, which is why I find it one of the

hardest houses to play (also, Baratheon has very little space to maneuver and is situated in an

awkward place on the board). That’s partly because one of their offensive swords, Brienne, is

also their only fort which gives them very little flexibility. She is sadly most often used for her

fort and rarely gets to slaughter anybody. Melisandre is hard to win with (and is surprisingly

weak considering her character in the books, as some people say) and you’re left with good Ser

Davos who you can’t always play since you haven’t played your Stannis yet. Martell probably

has the best swords collection but his neighbor, Tyrell, is typically well prepared for that and can

block them pretty easily, and counter with a pretty vicious sword collection of his own that

Martell is much less well prepared for, having only strong cards with forts (except for Nymeria’s

defensive fort). And Lannister has the card with most Swords on it, Ser Gregor, which can

guarantee a kill (or two against anyone but Stark) but is only one card and unless you work really

hard to manipulate your opponents, they will be prepared for Gregor.

In short, a major part of playing cards at the right time is playing swords when you believe

you’ll win the battle and your opponents is unlikely to play enough forts. Sounds simple, but

it complicated the high/low card game we talked about earlier considerably, and makes a bunch

of non-circular hierarchies into circular ones. While you can guarantee a win with your high

card, that will put you a disadvantage since you’ve just wasted your swords on your opponent’s

forts. Playing that Euron against Lannister’s Hound is not a good victory. It means his troops will

retreat and will come back to bite, with Gregor at hand.

The Noble Houses of Westeros

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AGoT is a strongly thematic game, and much of the love people have for this game come from

their dedication to the superb book series that has inspired the game. I too have gotten interested

in this game originally because of how much I enjoyed A Song of Ice and Fire. Partly, the theme

is implemented in the overall atmosphere of the game – the politicking, scheming, tension about

betrayals and so forth. But the bulk of the theme is the work done in the characters, giving life to

the different houses as well as the love and hate to the characters in the book.

I think the choice to use characters as leaders in battle is a brilliant one for such a deeply

thematic game. Like Dune, another game whose appeal is partly due to the way it brings to life a

well-loved novel, AGoT relies greatly on the different powers that the different houses have.

Therefore, using the special powers of your house and its comparative advantage is crucial

for victory in this game. Perhaps it’s not as important as it is in Dune, where the powers are so

strong that each faction’s paths to victory are almost completely dictated by its special powers,

but you cannot win if you don’t exploit the special powers of your house, which are primarily to

be found in your house cards.

Some have already written quite a bit on the different house cards and their strategic uses,

whether ranking all house cards for the efficiency or discussing the sets of specific houses. I

won’t go over each and every card, but instead talk a little bit about each house set and the way it

works, peppered by some of the house card match-ups.

Stark. Stark’s house card set is, as I said before, the most straightforward one to use. It has

Eddard, which is a 4 with two swords. You would want to use it when you win and use it often

so that you can kill as many troops as you can. Luckily you can play Eddard often since he

comes with Roose Bolton, possibly the strongest card in the game, which allows you to take back

all your cards after you lose a battle. The typical dance with House Stark is playing Eddard for

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the kill, losing strategically with Bolton and repeating ad-nauseam. If you face a sword or two in

the middle, you just play Ser Rodrick or the Blackfish until you find an opportunity to lose with

Bolton when your opponent doesn’t have any swords. Since you’ll be facing Greyjoy or

Baratheon, it shouldn’t be too difficult. Baratheon is a particularly convenient foe for Stark in

that regard since he almost has no shields. However, he has that pesky Patchface that he will

typically use to discard Bolton, which means Stark would just sit there and not attack Baratheon

for a while until Bara spends his Patchface vindictively on Martell and the road for an Eastern

conquest is open (unless, by then, you’re already knee deep in the quagmire of defending

Winterfell against an angry and aggressive Greyjoy).

The best way to play against Stark is therefore to let him win when he plays Bolton. Though this

sounds strange, I’ve seen in throw off a Stark many times. He’s spent his Eddard and Robb

earlier and thought he could guarantee his hand by attacking Crackclaw Point. Well, you just let

him have the damn castle and win with his Bolton that has no swords. Next thing you know his

only card above 1 is Greatjon and he’s in deep trouble. The other thing to note is that since Stark

will want to use Bolton to get his hand back, he effectively only has one 2 card in his hand,

which means he has less options when it comes to attack. He has to win with Greatjon, Eddard or

Robb and keep his Bolton for that strategic loss. I sometimes find that if you can discard Eddard

rather than Bolton with Patchface, you can push Stark into a corner where he will be forced to

play Bolton, where you let him win and leave him weak for 3 or 4 battles. If you’re playing

against an experienced Baratheon, that’s what you should worry about.

The other interesting card that Stark has is Robb. It is extremely hard to use effectively and often

is just thrown around for its 3 battle strength. But if you can set up an attack such that you will

push his troops back where you can run them over with a second attack – you can rack up major

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casualties in one turn. Since you only have 2 or 3 marches in one turn, this will require very

careful planning, and even if you pull it off it might be a costly endeavor, as it will restrict your

ability to respond to whatever your opponent is doing. Still, when you have Robb Stark at hand

you should be thinking about routed troops and where you can send them.

Match-ups: Catelyn, a pretty weak card, is there to counter Balon; can be pretty useful in the Bay

of Ice with a special defense order. Patchface was probably added to counter Bolton. The

Blackfish is the only card that can block Gregor but despite the thematic animosity, Stark and

Lannister rarely ever meet and if they do, it’s pretty late in the game and causalities don’t matter

as much.

Greyjoy. Greyjoy’s house cards are really strong, as is often noted, which makes Greyjoy more

inclined to fight and fight often. This is obviously an appropriate thematic choice which ties in

well with Victarian’s ability that encourages Greyjoy to attack as well as rely on ships.

Greyjoy has Balon, which in my opinion is the strongest card in the game. It allows Greyjoy to

win any battle where he can bring to the table as many troops as his opponent and even one or

two less (as long as he is a head on the Fiefdom track, which he is in the beginning of the game).

Balon is not just a tremendously strong card but also a superb deterrent. If Greyjoy takes over the

Bay of Ice, say with Victarian, he can probably be safe in assuming that Stark will not attack it as

long as he still has Balon in his hand. It’s therefore a good idea for Greyjoy to think carefully

about when and how to play Balon, and hope to keep him at hand for the longest period possible.

As soon as you played Balon, you really want to do whatever it takes to refresh your hand. Aeron

can help with that, if you have the money to support it, since his ability lets you refresh your

hand sooner than usual. But, careful! If you plan to keep Balon until the penultimate battle, you

might find yourself facing Tyrion, which you really don’t want.

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The biggest challenge when playing Greyjoy is making use of the few swords the game provides

you. You have Euron, which has only one sword. Against Stark it is rarely effective since he has

not one but two cards that block Euron’s lonely sword. Lannister has only one of these cards, but

if he is smart he can often prevent Euron’s kill with the Hound. Other than that, Greyjoy only has

good old Dagmar, which is also his only fort; and Asha, who only gets swords when she is

attacking without support, which is virtually impossible in Greyjoy’s board position except when

you’re attacking the Golden Sound (and even then, it’s often hard to win with a 1 card). So

Greyjoy needs to be thinking about forcing retreats when there is nowhere to retreat and using

his forts/swords carefully so that he can squeeze a kill every now and then avoid the

Eddard/Gregor slaughters.

Match-ups: Balon needs to be careful about facing Ser Kevan, Catelyn, Mace Tyrell and any

card that changes the battle strength. Tyrion is also a big threat here, for reasons mentioned

above.

Lannister. Lannister’s set of house cards is probably the most difficult one to use effectively.

Much has been said about the match-up between Lannister and Greyjoy, but I guess the most

general comment is that with Lannister you need to be much more thoughtful about what cards

you throw away in the battles you lose. If you throw away Tyrion or Kevan, you’re losing the

edge you have over Greyjoy. If you throw away The Hound, you lose your only fort. For

Lannister it is much more important to guess correctly what his opponent is playing and make

sure he responds correctly. Lannister is probably the only house that can afford to play

defensively, drawing the hand cycle as much as he can to face Greyjoy when he has more

certainty about what Greyjoy is holding. Needless to say, Aeron is a real big challenge since it

lets Greyjoy reacts to Lannister’s chosen card. As Greyjoy, I would often attack early with Aeron

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and if I don’t face The Hound (say because I met Cersei), I will change and have Asha/Dagmar

do some damage for me. It’s very hard to use Lannister’s cards without wasting The Hound or

Kevan or Tyrion.

Cersei is probably a card that’s worth mentioning. In competition with Asha and Catelyn for the

notorious title of ‘worst card in the game,’ it is nonetheless a card you should work hard to

exploit. I have rarely used it but since the ability is so powerful, it’s a real game changer.

Removing your opponent’s march while taking over a castle he now cannot retake is seriously

superb. Cersei becomes more of an option later in the game, when you have lots of troops on the

board and hopefully some of your Siege Engines have already destroyed the garrison in Pyke.

You’re now struggling to keep the empire you’ve built and you may be able to squeeze a victory

over an unimportant territory just to remove that march from the siege engines. Cersei raises the

stakes and often creates one of these circular RPS situations where you could guarantee a win

with any card but Cersei, but if you used her she would really crash your enemy. I was in that

situation once, and have faltered to my opponent’s bluff, almost costing me the victory. Playing

Cersei is risky and when you can guarantee a win, you rarely want to risk losing it (especially if

you have siege engines). But you should always remember that your opponent knows it and will

typically not be expecting to see Cersei leading the fleet.

All of Lannister’s cards have special abilities that are only triggered under special conditions. To

enjoy the benefits of Gregor and Tywin you need to win, to use Ser Kevan effectively you have

to employ more Footmen and have the supply to support them, to use Tyrion’s ability you need

to use it when your opponents have few choices at hand. More than with any house, playing

Lannister requires managing your hand as well as your discard very carefully.

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Match-ups: Ser Kevan can be used to effectively counter Balon but not while Geryjoy still has

Aeron in hand. Gregor can only be stopped by the Blackfish, which Stark sometimes relies on

when he takes Seagard. Tyrion, though useful in many other occasions, is a good response to

Loras when he tries to sneak in through Searoad Marches.

Tyrell. The Roses of the Reach are actually quite powerful in this game, I was always quite

surprised as to how poorly they do on the forums. Tyrell’s board position is quite unfortunate as

they almost always have 4 land neighbors and a Greyjoy at sea next to them, which means it is

very hard for Tyrell to predict what relevant orders will be on the board. But I have talked

enough about geography elsewhere. At least on paper, Tyrell has one of the strongest sets of

cards: Loras Tyrell, another one of these cards contending for the strongest in the game, Queen

of Thorns (QoT) which offers a plethora of strategic possibilities, a really strong 4 card and an

array of swords and forts in between.

Because of that, Tyrell’s hand is probably the most flexible one. You really don’t have to plan as

much because QoT and Loras can be used in so many different combinations. As Tyrell, the

effort is really one to deploy these two cards as best you can: Loras for the win on the attack,

QoT for clearing the way. A classic way to combo these cards is to use QoT in The Boneway to

dismiss the support in Sea of Dorne and then march with Loras to ESS to wipe the entire Martell

fleet in one turn. But QoT is also useful to discard a march that would otherwise be an effective

counter attack, to rob a special consolidate power in Yronwood or Sunspear (when you attack

ESS) or even to remove that pesky defense order in Starfall. QoT is also very useful if you

happen to face Baratheon or Lannister. You can remove Baratheon’s support in Blackwater Bay

to open the road for Martell’s attack on Shipbreaker Bay. The next turn Baratheon would be

making an attempt to retake the seas and you’ll be celebrating the fall of the red god in King’s

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Landing. An attack on Searoad Marches lets you discard the support in Stoney Sept and attack

Blackwater, if Lannister is lucky enough to have it. Of course, the attack on Searoad Marches

can be doubly useful as it’s a great place to win with Loras and continue to celebrate in

Lannisport. Which is why Lannister should never occupy Searoad Marches: better to let Tyrell

come and deal with him when he does. There are various other ways to use QoT, the

opportunities are simply endless.

Loras too has many uses, other than through Martell’s seas. I’ve already mentioned Searoad

Marches; there’s also the obvious attack on Starfall which leads to Yronwood. That’s the famous

Tyrell four castles march in one turn, which any Tyrell would try to pull out on turn 10. I will not

cover more of them, except to say you want to be thinking about the QoT-Loras combo at all

times. Using one without the other is obviously helpful, but both of them have reach beyond the

territories you can attack from the position you are and therefore provide a unique synergy.

Holding on to both of them until the right moment can be a good deterrent, as Tyrell often

struggles to cycle his hand when he needs to and as long as he has Loras in hand, all of his

neighbors need fear him.

Match-ups: Arienne Martell is there to counter Loras and Tyrion can also do it well. Avoiding

those match-ups is not an easy feat, but you will often want to fake an attack on Starfall to draw

out Arienne.

Martell. The snakes of Dorne did not receive enough love in this game, in my humble opinion.

Though they have really good cards, they are not built well to handle their neighbors and actually

have pretty little room to expand. Martell rarely wins because like Italy in Diplomacy, he often

has nowhere to go. That’s not to say I have not seen Martell win and take over Dragonstone or

Highgarden, it’s just not a small task.

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Martell has some pretty great cards, like the Red Viper and Doran, but they almost always put

him in an awkward position, forced to make hard choices. The Red Viper is best used like

Eddard, to destroy enemies with crushing victories; yet he is one of Martell’s two forts. That

added fort on the Red Viper technically makes him better than Eddard, but in fact – it makes the

set over all worse because you’ll be giving up your fort to use him. Areo is also a very awkward

card – a 3 with one fort, which is a fort you really need to use since you’re only other natural one

is the Red Viper, which will almost never be used as a fort. But as your 3, you need it when you

want to win – to when you lose. Then you have Nymeria Sand, that can give you one fort on

defence – not a bad trait, but only useful part of the time. The truth is that Martell has a really

hard time preventing causalities, especially when faced with Tyrell. Playing Martell means

making lots of difficult decisions, trading off the benefits and costs of playing your cards.

Doran is one of the strongest 0 cards in the game and is greatly feared, rightly so. But I’ve seen it

used wrongly more often than not, which makes it harder for Martell to win. First, Doran should

be used as a deterrent, not as a punishment: you should threat using it when someone looks like

they will attack you, not after they have attacked you. True, if you only threat and not use him

ever, people will stop believing you. But typically if you are attacked early on, it’s better to let

your credibility suffer (as if you had any anyway) and save Doran for future deterrence. People

get so mad when they are attacked that they use Doran. Or they think: I will attack him next turn

anyway, so I might as well take away all his starred orders but that’s rarely a good idea. Second,

Doran is best played after the Clash of Kings and not before it. Actually, to be more precise,

Doran is best played when the next CoK is least likely. In the beginning of the game, CoK has

roughly 30% of coming out every turn (ignoring Winter is Coming and the slim chances that the

holder of the Raven will ever call for CoK). Later in the game, as CoK cards come out, these

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odds will be raised or lowered. With Doran in hand, you want to be thinking about these chances

since it’s quite a waste of Doran to kick someone to the bottom of a track just to have them bid

for it anew immediately afterwards.

Lastly, and not least importantly, Doran can be used aggressively during the fight to change the

dynamics of the battle. I have not seen it done often as people typically think it’s best to use

Doran to drop your opponent on the King’s Court track or on whatever track which will advance

them most. But dropping your opponent on the Iron Throne track can sometimes force him to

skip a turn or alternatively, force him to use his last march before yours (if he has already

marched this round). It can also drop your opponent on the Fiefdom track and change the tie-

breaking conditions of a draw later in this round. The reason this is a powerful move is that

players typically make plans according to their position on those tracks, and don’t expect them to

change halfway through the turn. Instead of keeping Doran at hand as punishment, you can use

him aggressively to drop your opponent’s to the bottom of the IT and take away their extra

march advantage.

Match-ups: I’ve already mentioned Arienne’s ability is a response to Loras. Doran and the Red

Viper should be careful of an angry Patchface, as they are typically his targets in the South.

Baratheon. Sad and lonely at last, Stannis Baratheon has the most miserable crew in Westeros. I

don’t know if that was intentional or supposed to be thematic, but it’s quite telling that other than

Patchface, his crew is a bunch of clowns (PUN!). Though there’s something to it, it’s quite

disappointing (from a thematic point of view) that Melisandre is not more of a badass and that

Stannis doesn’t have a few more pigeons down his trousers, or at least some rabbits on his bald

head.

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There are actually only very few things you can do with the Baratheon set. First, you’re at great

disadvantage being surrounded by swords – Eddard, Gregor and the Red Viper are always at

hand and Baratheon only has 1(!@#!@#) fort, which is also his most offensive sword icon.

Davos is the only decent card in Baratheon’s hand and it’s not very difficult to employ

strategically – you just make sure you play it after you’ve played Stannis, and you have an extra

3 card at hand which also has a sword. Renly’s ability is hard to capitalize on, since it requires

winning with a footman. If you think about it seriously, that should make Baratheon much more

aggressive early on, especially with land battles. If Baratheon has been reading my geography

guide he knows that he really must take Blackwater, which typically means he’ll be engaged in

some land battles and sooner rather than later.

But it is at sea that Baratheon is most vulnerable. True, he has the protection of the supporting

ships in Blackwater Bay, but that is something you can’t always rely on. Sooner or later the Web

of Lies card will come out or Tyrell will remove your support with an attack on King’s Landing.

Sallador Saan’s has a great ability, except it’s only a 1 card and it doesn’t work if your support

has been removed. I find that Sallador is typically more helpful for assaulting Storm’s End,

which you will have to do if Martell has a ship in that port.

Stannis’s ability is probably the only one leading to truly difficult decisions, since it makes you

want to go last on the Iron Throne track and gain that 5 card (though it has no swords, and it’s a

perfect match for a retreat Bolton). But as Baratheon starts on the Iron Throne, he can keep it

more cheaply than anyone else by just winning the tie for the highest bidder on that track. That’s

a real dilemma – holding the throne is a real benefit, but so is having a 5 strength Stannis.

Lastly, Patchface is a very strong card but unlike Doran, it does not allow for any battle time

benefits. While it’s a pretty good deterrent, if you don’t use him early, he’ll have less benefit

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later. After Martell played both his Viper and Doran, he won’t care as much about facing

Patchface – quite the contrary, Patchy can help recycle his hand more quickly. Though Patchface

is often used against Bolton/Doran, I find that it’s often better to discard Eddard/Red Viper, and

beat Bolton by having him win when he wants to lose. Doran will often struggle with how to

punish you, and if he kicks you off of the throne – he’s solved the dilemma for you.

Match-ups: Patchface and all his match ups have been mentioned; I suspect he was inserted to

handle Bolton, though I like to use him differently. Stannis is a really convenient 4/5 card for

Stark who can afford to lose with Bolton as well as for Martell who can afford to lose with

Arienne, not fearing any swords.

Last Thoughts

This guide is already very long, so assuming you didn’t just skip all the way to the

end – you’re either very patient or very interested in A Game of Thrones: The

Board Game 2nd Edition. I can’t blame you. As you may have noticed, I too have

been pretty excited about this game for a while. And though I’ve covered most

aspects of the game, some are still missing – most notably, bidding. I discussed in

passing here and there, and explicitly in the section on diplomacy, but there’s more

to be said about the worth of your position on each track regardless of how other

players appreciate it. Maybe one day I’ll write an addendum about it.

But maybe not. My attention has turned to other games though no other game has

attracted so much of my attention as AGoT did when I played it so much. I play

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many games now but I don’t play any one of them as much and as often as I did

with AGoT to develop a firm grasp on the strategy involved.

I played some AGoT since I wrote this guide, including in one tournament – and I

have proved to myself, again, that my intense involvement with the game didn’t

give me a big edge in playing it. In fact, some players went after me aggressively

and irrationally just because they knew I wrote a strategy guide. Needless to say,

my response was not a good one. I guess it means that I’m better in theory than in

practice, which means that in theory, I’m pretty good. I can live with that, but so

should you – don’t think that if you spent all this time reading the guide, it will

necessarily improve your chances to win the game. It might, but it might not. At

least, I hope you enjoyed the ride, because I find thinking about these strategies is

sometimes more enjoyable than implementing them successfully. Or so I tell

myself.

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