A Game of Thrones

This franchise is all the rage nowadays. The books are bestselling, the TV show is universally loved and there is even a board game that has found its way to me. When I first played it, I hadn’t read the book (and so far I still have to read any of them) and hadn’t seen the show. The only thing I knew was that there are medieval families that are fighting over a throne and that there are dragons in it somewhere. I gave it a go with a group of friends who knew what was going on and kept quoting phrases that I didn‘t understand. Well, I thought, at least I can focus on the game itself and abstract from the theme, look into the design.

Each player takes a role of one of several families (there is little difference between them) that occupy a stronghold and each have couple units on the neighbouring tiles. Each turn, the players may move their soldiers to a next tile, conquer citites and fertile lands. Once a tile is occupied, it usually generates something – either gold or food for the army. At the start of every turn, three Westeros cards are turned over that dictate what general events will take place that turn. These events vary – armies may be mustering (creating new units automatically and thus nearing the conflict), or they'll need to be supplied by food (failing to do that leads to disbanding units and leaving you vulnerable), or the Wildlings attack and everybody has to defend together or a new king is decided, etc.

If one wants to be a king or a hand or has to partake in defending the land of Westeros against outer threat, this is done by spending influence point (more or less the currency of the game) in a way that every player secretly chooses how much are they willing to spend and then everyone reveals their bids/offerings at the same time. This of course leads to a lot of deception and diplomacy between the players as there is no rule that spoken agreements must be adhered to.

But playing the game of thrones is not only about bidding, it's mostly about conflict. The game actually pushes you to battles with other dynasties very early on. The tiles are few and soon you will meet a neighbour that might just want those cities you've just captured or the fertile farmlands that could sustain their enormous army. Either way, by round 3, there will be a battle. The battle system is as clear as can be and still retains tactics you'd want from a war game like GoT. The standard unit is footman that has strength 1, then there is horseman with strength 2 and a siege weapon that has strength 3 against cities but 0 against military. The attacker can be supported by friendly, own or foreign units on neighbouring tiles each adding their strength to its. What's more, each player has a set of hero cards with characters from every dynasty. They can choose a character that will aid them in the battle. These heroes work in two ways. Either they add a strength bonus to the army or they have a special ability that gives you an advantage somehow (for example that if you lose, your units cannot be killed in this turn in any way). Eventually, if the attacker has a greater total strength of all the units moving to an occupied tile, the attack is successful, the tile is claimed and the defeated army must retreat to a free neighbouring tile and cannot attack this turn anymore. If it cannot move to a tile for whatever reason or is attacked again after retreating, it is wiped out without a fight and the unit is lost.

The thing is, deep down inside, I like to avoid conflict. I am the guy who aims for the culture/technology victory in Civilization, building only defensive units. I'd be happy to be the count of my own land; the throne of Westeros is really not my dream. But there's no other way to succeed without a fight - just like in the series I guess. To my liking the game would have to have more that two resources as it does now. The "supplies" resource to keep your army proportionate to the land you own and the "currency" resource to make cities matter as sources of power.

Truth be told, the game is reminiscent of Settlers of Catan to a point. It's conversation based as well but it relies more on the diplomacy and even strategy seems deeper. Each player can assign boost orders to their units. These orders can make stronger attackers, better defenders or supporter, they can even make cities produce money/influence. The correct placement of these orders can win a battle or even change the tide of the war so careful planning is a must. No one won a war by a reckless rush (as I have learned as the Greyjoys the hard way).

It certainly is not a gateway game as the rules are somewhat difficult especially when ports come to play. The heavy reliance on combat is not for everyone and I have some doubts that the game itself would exist in this exact form if it wasn't for the theme, which is something I don't think applies to Battlestar Galactica, another game based on an existing universe. While BSG is a game that would work (and I believe it does) with a different setting, A Game of Thrones might be a bit too shallow without its coat of established lore.