Hello,

I'm a beginner who's just played AGOT a handful of times. My questions may be due to a lack of experience, but it is based on what I've seen in every match thus far: it seems the King's Court raven is the most unbalanced part of the game:

- Everyone is so concerned and so dependent on the special orders that when the Clash of Kings comes up, no one bids more than 1 or 2 tokens in the Iron Throne or the Fiefdom, they save it all for the King's Court

- It doesn't really matter if you hold Iron Throne or the Fiefdom, if you don't have a good position in the King's Court, you depend purely on luck to be able to advance (that is, mustering cards showing up)

Note that I'm not even mentioning the other two abilities the holder of the raven has: exchange an order and see the top card in the wildlings deck.

It seems to me that if we put numbers on it, we would have:

- The Iron Throne = 15% importance

- The Fiefdom sword = 15% of importance

- The Raven = 70% of importance

My three questions are:

1) Is it only me or has anyone else had the same perception?

2) Is it because I'm still inexperienced, or is it really such a vital advantage to possess a good position in the King's Court?

3) What do you guys do to turn that around?

Thanks a lot, my ladies and my lords,

D.

I agree, the raven is too powerful. I have the same experience from my games.. (which is boring as so few bid on the two first tracks) Maybe if the wildling deck peek ability was removed, that would balance it a bit.

I agree with you that special orders are really useful, but I find more often than not that it is the Iron Throne the one that defines the winner (the first attack that gives you the 7th castle for example)

In my group we started fighting for the court but then realised that the trone is game defining

some players spend all their power tokens on the court, another on the throne and a few try to get mid-level everywhere untill they need something specific, ussually they win

when bidding during turn 4-5 the Throne is usually what I go for. The Feifdoms is also really important depending on what house cards you and your opponent has left.

That said, to not have starts at the game start sure is a handicap.
At the start of the game it hurts not being able to muster or triple-move, but you just gotta even it out with making alliances and stuff against the ones who gets out to a good start, usually Baratheon and Greyjoy.

Controling Iron Throne gives you more options during all lenght of game then controling the Raven - you can bid less tokens if you hold the Throne or you can decide new bid for influence tracks if certain Westeros card shows up (rarely player with Raven looks Wildling card - he ll switch order in 90% cases) plus you decide every non-combat tide situation - and in last 1-2 turns Throne it s lot better then Raven.

I would say that Raven is most important (that s why everyone bids most for it) but don t bid all tokens on it - grab 1-2 stars on Raven and that will be just enough for cruising in the game.

Importance : Iron Throne : 30% - Fiefdom: 20% - Raven (King s Court) 50%

N.B. I would gladly trade Raven first 2-3 turns when playing with Lannister for Greyjoy s Valyrian steel blade.