Suggestions

[daddytorgo]

However, if Tyrion is in Joffrey’s faction, I would like to make a several suggestions about that:

1. I would like Joanna and “dead” Tywin to be added to Joffrey’s family tree, so that Cersei and Tyrion could be properly listed as brother and sister, and Tyrion would be Joffrey’s uncle and on the family tree, not a mere general.

this makes a lot of sense.

[Arthur Artorius]

I'm not sure its possible. Besides, AI protectorates and allies declare war on each other all the time, so it might make gameplay too chaotic.

[Tywin Lannister]

I'm not sure its possible. Besides, AI protectorates and allies declare war on each other all the time, so it might make gameplay too chaotic.

Agreed: vassals shouldn't come into claiming the crown.

Some players may find gathering a number of vassals difficult, and will have an important part of gameplay closed to them because of that. And AI are more prone to destroying factions then making them their vassals, which will make it unlikely that AI factions will be actively claiming crowns.

[Harpsichord]

The whole vassal system is largely buggered anyway, so creating a game mechanic that relies on it seems kinda unwise. And like Tywin said, it would make it unlikely for the AI to ever succeed

[stormbringer951]

Welcome to the forums, Harpsichord. I pretty much agree there.

[JonDarkstar]

No idea if this would be possible but if a faction is destroyed but some prominent members are still alive could those characters join their original factions allies?

e.g... If House Lannister was destroyed but Jaime was still alive could he join Joffrey? Or the Blackfish join House Arryn or Stark?

probably impossible but just a thought...

[Harpsichord]

lol "storm", no need to be so formal baby with my limited knowledge Jon it sounds like what you're suggesting, while good, is likely impossible

[Darkstar]

No idea if this would be possible but if a faction is destroyed but some prominent members are still alive could those characters join their original factions allies?

e.g... If House Lannister was destroyed but Jaime was still alive could he join Joffrey? Or the Blackfish join House Arryn or Stark?

probably impossible but just a thought...

If the House is destroyed those characters would be killed off as well. If there are no family members available to be faction leader/heir the game starts picking generals.

[JonDarkstar]

I just fought a Greyjoy campaign and even though the Lannisters were destroyed i still had both Tywin and Jaime roaming around with large rebel armies. Just thought it would be an interesting addition. Probably is impossible

[Samael]

House Hightower should absolutely be included as a separate faction. Oldtown is almost as large as King's Landing, much larger than any other city in Westeros, and its population's standard of living is higher than in King's Landing as well, as evidenced by the paved streets of the city. Oldtown and its vassals are more powerful than Dragonstone and its vassals, and might even be stronger than Pyke and the Iron Islands. The greatest center of learning on the continent, the Citadel, is situated in Oldtown, and somehow including inventions and discoveries of the maesters as a benefit to the Hightower faction would be a cool way to make it a unique faction. It would also serve to balance the game. Even though they are supposed to be the most powerful house in Westeros, the Tyrell faction is way overpowered in W:TW, especially with the Oldtown Knights.

The only other house I could see being an independent faction is Frey, due to the number of family members and their deviation from the will of their Tully and Stark overlords. Bolton maybe, but Florent, in my opinion, is too divided and relatively weak to warrant their own faction. And because Highgarden is supposed to be the most powerful, removing more than one of their vassals from their direct control would make them too weak, and the Tyrell vassal given their own faction should undoubtably be Hightower.

The Night's Watch and Wildlings could possibly be added as playable factions after 1.0, in a new campaign including the far north, and set in autumn when the Night's Watch marches north, Stannis has taken possession of most of Renly's lands (and removing that faction), and Robb's armies are already in the south, moving against the Lannisters. Perhaps even later (like, after ADwD and maybe TWoW are published), another campaign set at the start of winter could feature the Others invading from the north, House Stark and Tully destroyed, Mace Tyrell marching on King's Landing, the Free Cities, and a Targaryen invasion. But that's just my wishful thinking.

[stormbringer951]

But House Hightower is 100% loyal. That would be like saying House Manderly should have it's own faction because it's the biggest city in the North. Hightower is more loyal, if you want to have division in Tyrell ranks, House Florent would be more logical (although a lot more weak). I personally am not too keen on protectorates, as it seems to be an integral part of the (stupid) game AI that protectorates and their overlords attack each other on a regular basis. I seem to find that you're more likely to fight a protectorate than a neutral nation.

House Tyrell is supposed to be overpowered, it is overpowered in the books. They have 60,000 men roughly, while most Houses can call half of that number. For the same reason (sticking to the book) we have Tywin Lannister bearing down on weakened House Tully with roughly 2-3 stacks worth of troops, which House Tully clearly cannot match.

The Night's Watch and Wildings, in my opinion, would be more suited to a territorial campaign, but that may be slightly boring (with just 2 factions). Campaigns with further time displacement would be nice, but then we'd ride up against the question of how to portray dragons and how to portray Others in-game. I'd rather leave them out than put in a crappy contrived dragon of some description, and making Others merely super-powerful normal soldiers.

My 0.02 USD

[Aranistar]

Hi, didn't post anything here before, but I really love this mod (played it way to much) and I think you're doing a great job.

I don't think creating a whole bunch of new tiny factions will improve the game. A Bolton/Florent/Hightower faction just takes away manpower and income from its overlord, constructs a few buildings and sits in its only castle. They will be completely useless if your playing with a big faction. Sure it would be fun to play with Roose, but if you're a Stark marching South while the Lord of the Dreadfort decides he'd rather build some farms than go kill Lannisters, your game is pretty much screwed, no? If the AI was any good, all those micro-factions might be wonderful, but since it's not, they would just be very frustrating.

The Freys do deserve their own faction, it's stupid that you always need to attack the Twins because they're rebels. (And for once the AI behaviour would probably be similar to that of Walder Frey himself, sitting in his castle, waiting for an opportunity to grab whatever he can.) It would also be cool if you could adopt some generals called Frey if you're a allied to them and have an army in the Twins region.

Maybe you could replicate the backstabbing aspect of Westeros style politics more accurately by making superdiplomats or incredibly unloyal generals (or both)? So you would actually have a good chance to negotiate yourself into a strategic stronghold and at the same time be very carefull to keep your generals happy. Now most diplomatic manoeuvres end with "Just Rejected" and that's it. Very frustrating and not at all like the books.

Finally, a bit off topic. Did anyone ever consider making an expansion after v1.0 about Robert's Rebellion? Because I would love to see that and it enables you to play with a Targaryen faction without all the dragon complications.

[stormbringer951]

I was thinking about implementing Robert's Rebellion as a series of historical battles...

[Arthur Artorius]

Wouldn't it be easier to do this instead of making all these little factions.

Say we take one of the great house factions, in this case House Stark. Now within House Stark there are named generals for each smaller house, Bolton, Karstark, Umber, Cerwyn, Manderly, etc. These characters (from the book) all have the "Lord of such and such keep, castle, city" ancillary with the little coat of arms picture. Their heirs should inherit this title, since the heir ends up in the father's current city. It leaves you the ability to appoint people to different titles as well, something that happens a lot in the book and not something we can match, so its better to leave it open to however the game flows. Each of these generals ought to be loyal to the faction they are currently in, doesn't mean they can't be bribed though. You can easily make Frey, Bolton, or Florent easily bribed and not very loyal, inceasing their chance of switching allegiance. Do this with every lesser house that figures prominently in the books. It would mean the inclusion of their seats as small castles, although I think we already have most of that in place on the current map. I would like to see permanent named forts representing the little keeps and castles as well, but that's not really related. Creating lesser house factions also opens up the possibly of the house being eliminated by the bigger great houses around it. It wouldn't do to have Frey or Florent or Bolton wiped out. This keeps the house alive, although possibly under new management This also means that, for instance, the Twins will turn out troops for Robb (they turned out something like 4000 in the books) otherwise, were they independent, the Frey AI isn't going to feel obligated to go marching all its troops off with the Starks or Tullys. In this case they'll have to, since the settlement is controlled by the great house in question. It's really up to the quality of the character, they might break away for somebody else they might not, its totally up to how the game pans out. I'm also pretty sure this is about what we have now, so it only requires a little tweaking, and maybe the inclusion of more settlements should we decide to add more houses/detail to the mix.

[DarkCrawler]

More generals.

I'm not sure about how it would work with the game mechanics, but ASOIAF is all about the different noble houses. I hate when I have to leave some castle empty because there isn't a general with that name in there and I have to appoint some random patsy as the Lord of some major castle. Of course every minor Lord shouldn't be included, but all of the major ones should defenitely be in place. Some of the houses may already have this, Arryns for example have most of their major war leaders in place. But Stannis for example could use having all the Lords of the Narrow Sea as his generals - Celtigar, Velaryon, Bar Emmon and Sunglass (maybe not him since he rebelled due to Stannis adopting the Red God). Maybe something in the game mechanics stops this from happening, but it would be cool. Also, where the hell is Davos Seaworth.

Also, can the rebel factions be completely taken off? I'm not sure what sense they make. Boltons weren't rebellious against Starks in the beginning of the war, for example. If you want to conquer new territory, you should take it from the other factions.

Wish there was a way to, if you defeat a general in battle and take him as a hostage to have him join your side (swear fealty) much in the same way as bribing them.

[JonDarkstar]

Ye having other generals swear fealty would be nice, or being able to hold them for longer, rather than releasing them ransoming them or executing them.

One thing on claiming Kingship. If for example Stannis dies and he has no male heirs, House Stannis shouldn't be able to claim Kingship anymore. It would make no sense to have Axell Florent as the King of Westeros (He is Stannis' heir)

Maybe you guys could throw in Driftmark and House Velaryon or some other House for Stannis since he starts with only 1 region and is seriously underpowered.

[stormbringer951]

I'm considering more generals for Stannis's faction, but not more troops. He's supposed to be seriously underpowered. That's what he has shadows and all them nice traits for.

[DarkCrawler]

He also should have most ships after Iron Men and Reach. Iron Fleet and Arbor Fleet respectively were probably bigger then Stannis's Fleet. But his sea power should be a lot more formidable then the other houses besides those two - he has experience as Master of the Ships and the Lords of the Narrow Sea probably rank there with Iron Men when it comes to skill in sea battles. Though he might already have that number of ships, haven't counted them in-game. But yeah, more generals for him would be nice, especially when there is only four Lords who swear fealty to him in the beginning in the book. Velaryon at the least, he was cool.

But yeah, as far as manpower goes he should be underpowered. I think all in all he had around 5000 men compared to say, Renly + Reach's 120,000 or something or Robb's 30,000-50,000.

"There are four kings in the realm, and three of them have more men and more gold then I do. I have ships...and I have her."

[Arthur Artorius]

A good third of Stannis's fleet was Salladhor Saan's. He doesn't have nearly as much native sea power as the Arbor, and the Greyjoy's trump anyone in number of ships, but their longships are smaller than the war galleys the other houses use. I've never played Stannis, but if he doesn't already he ought to have a deal of his fleet as mercenary galleys.

Also, going off what I said earlier, every settlement ought to have a named character to go with it with the proper lordship ancillary attached. They don't have to be in the settlement, but they should still have the lordship ancillary for the settlement attached i.e. Lord Jason Mallister will get "Lord of Seagaurd". It'd be nice if there were a way to code those ancillary titles to move from the father to the son but then that leaves out the option of the player appointing other characters and filling in for dead heirs.

[JonDarkstar]

Put a in Small stone castle as Driftmark and garrison it with Lord Velaryon and 1 unit of spear levies or something. That way Stannis isnt much more powerful and that faction gets another general and somewhere to put him.

Id also love to see A "Goldcloak" unit that is only recruitable in Kings Landing