Maketober Day 20: Making Enemies with Game of Thrones

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I never got round to watching the Game of Thrones TV series. But now I’ve played the board game. It was hilarious. In the game you take control one of the factions fighting for the famous “Iron Throne”. Not sure why, it doesn’t sound very comfortable. The strapline for the game is “win or die”. I was always fairly sure where I was going to end up when we started playing this evening, but I gave it a good go.

The game lets you make alliances. This is great fun. Some players tried to ally with everyone else. I allied with someone and then promptly attacked them. A move that didn’t end well for me. And I now have a reputation for treachery that will take a while to live down.

The game is all about strategy and planning, which put me at a bit of a disadvantage to be honest. But by the end I was starting to figure out how things worked. Unfortunately, by this time I was down to one footman and a single piece of land. Here are what I’m going to try and do next time we play:

  • Make an alliance right at the start and make sure that it is properly mutually advantageous. The game lets you perform supporting moves for other players actions. Use these with your ally as appropriate. There are also “raiding” actions you can use to frustrate opponents moves. Use them too.

  • Remember that you only need to capture a particular number of castles. This is quite easy to do without taking over the whole board. The trick is to pick the right time to ditch the ally and then go for it.

  • You can use ships to move people around very quickly. Discover how to do this and then use it.

  • Remember that you only have 10 moves before the game ends. So no point in playing the long game.

  • Don’t forget that the hand of cards you can use to augment your battles will be restored to you once you have used them all. So don’t be afraid to take people on.

These hints come to you courtesy of a player who finished sixth out of six, but I did have a good time. If you like games like Risk, Campaign and probably poker, you will have a bit of fun with this game.