Lars said:

Lars, good points...maybe this is just a matter of opinion. I actually dislike that the Fury plots all have the same stats...5 gold isn't really the same amount of gold for every house, and high initiative is more essential for certain houses. Considering how the power levels of the text vary so greatly, it would have made sense to me to vary the stats a bit.

In terms of the armies, I think you're absolutely right that some should have been cheaper than others. Not only are some effects much stronger than others, certain houses have better access to kings/queens. (These 8-gold armies came out before the switch to LCG though, right? Maybe with ITE and 5KE in the environment, they were more balanced? Certainly the extra gold from the kingdom locations made them more playable.)

Also, if you're looking for precedent for varying the stats/costs of cycle cards, the bannerman characters have different costs/stats.

Twn2dn said:

yup, but even within the cycle certain things got assigned the same cost. Standing = 3 gold 3 STR and 1 icon no matter if its for vigiliant or vengful without thought to which one was better. If you wanted to play a bannerman that gave you standing you paid the same for it no matter what kind of standing it was. I'm sure the same arguments and conversations can be made about which should be costed more, standing after winning a challenge or standing after losing a challenge, that are being made about which challenge is better to win. Imagine if they had made vengeful cheaper, does To the Spears! get put into Princes of the Sun?

Once they assigned a cost to canceling and winning a challenge, they needed to keep the cost consisteint for all challenges. The bannermen would be a good precedent for having out of challenges have no cost and in challenges have a cost.

Lars said:

I don't necessarily agree with this. The designers and developers strive for balance, not consistency. They are not the same things.

Nate obviously had a reason for making Feigned Retreat with an influence cost and Misinformation without. Whether he feels the need to explain it or not, I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt. In fact, I'd bet that they started with the same cost, but through the process of development and playtesting, they diverged.

Through all of this, it's not like anyone has claimed the three challenges are created equal. Virtually no one takes a "one-size-fits-all" approach to the three challenge types, either in deck-building or during game play (there have been many discussions on the board that confirm this). So why would we expect FFG to always take a "one-size-fits-all" approach to challenge-based effects?

Lars said:

That was my initial reaction, but now I'm thinking it's not necessarily so. Compare it to Fishing Net. Fishing Net costs one less gold (even more of a consideration given both have the Condition trait and thus are more fragile than other attachments might be), immediately cripples the character it is attached to wiping their STR off the board for most practical purposes, and has the Weapon trait which allows it to attach to more characters. Furthermore, Fishing Net keeps the character on the board, so if it is a unique another copy of that character can't be played (of course, choosing it for military claim is easy enough, but now it's in your dead pile so blocks you playing another copy of that unique). Pulled Under's advantages are it deals with triggered and passive effects that characters has, albeit in a delayed manner, that Fishing Net can't touch, and would remove a character that has power built up while Fishing Net leaves it on the board so that it continues to help your opponent reach the win condition. I think Pulled Under is very good, but I don't think it is necessarily the auto-choice b/w it and Fishing Net, so that tells me it's not off the chart.

Plus its three gold. Not an auto icnlude in a Greyjoy iwnter deck.

And not getting the flap about the events at all. Not all effects are equal and competitive Lannister is never going to play this event anyway.

I wasn't saying it was an auto choice. I happen to like it because its actually harder to get rid of despite its condition trait. go second (hope cressen isn't out ) play it, character is gone from the baord at end of turn, plus you get a chance to get it back (so 1 in your deck could be 2 or 3, and 2 copies could be like 3 or 4 etc).

imagine having 1x of this and 2x fishing net....

its funny one of the things i was going to use as an example for intrigue challenges was the Small Council agenda and war of the five kings....but then I was like nah they won't be bringing that back anytime soon........we'll see how much lannister doesn't play it when the have an agenda that keys off of intrigue challenges....

Lars said:

But interestingly enough, don't the 3 Reign of Kings challenge agendas kind of argue against "consistency" for the challenge types? By the "once they set a cost for canceling the challenge, it should be consistent for all of them" reasoning, shouldn't the 3 Agendas - that have the same drawback (cannot claim power for the House outside of the respective challenge) - all have the same benefit?

The Agendas are not consistent between challenge types. Why isn't that a problem?

the cost is still the same. focus on 1 challenge type at the cost of claiming power in the other two.

each ran varitions of risks and rewards for focusing on a challgne but it didn't change the cost, the cost remained he same on all three.

Lars said:

You're expanding your use of the word, and concept, of "cost." The fact that you cannot claim power during the other challenges is not a "cost" the way that influence is. It is an additional, associated effect. Each Agenda has 2 effects, one beneficial and one detrimental. If consistency is so important, why is it consistent to have the same detrimental effect associated with such radically different beneficial ones? They all have the "same" risk... with different rewards?

I'm not trying to make a direct comparison here because the structure is different. (If I were trying to make a direct comparison, I'd ask why it's "consistent" for the 6 Heralds or the 7 Refugees to have different icons.) All I'm trying to figure out here is what the limit of "there should be consistency" is - and what the working definition of "consistency" actually is.

ktom said:

the refugees are consistent because its 0 2 str 2 icons no matter the icons. if we decided that a mil and pow icon were better then a pow and intrigue icon would we want the refugess with mil and power to be 1 gold 2 str 2 icons? no thats inconsistently adding a cost to one challenge (or challenge participation) over the others.

If the argument is that military needed a cost because of the agenda, blackfish, whatever, than why aren't we adding a cost to bolton refugee? because it makes the other refugees have a disparate cost for the same effect and creates a situation where you have to continually undermine any effect that could be triggered off of a refugee or a challenge in which that refugee could partake. I'll go back to the language of the events, yes we had a rash of Military effects coming down the pipes, if this was indeed the reason for adding the cost to the event, fine [even though they could have focused on a different aspect of the game for starks event, i bet they would have loved the intrigue challenge one...but anyway] once they did that they needed to add the influence to all challenge cancel and win, why because any win an intrigue challenge to do x that comes out in the future is now going to be severely undercosted as when it comes out, it will be two influence cheaper then any win a military effect.

and to be clear i'm not arguing for the removal of the cost, just to continue that cost to the other 2 challenges.

Lars said:

See, this is what I'm getting at. You seem to be saying that an icon is an icon is an icon - and by extension, that a challenge is a challenge is a challenge. If the icons are really interchangeable and ultimately don't matter in terms of making cards consistent, why put different icons on the Refugees at all? And why have people said that the Stark Refugee is probably the best in the bunch because of the MIL/INT combo? Or why was the Lannisport Weaponsmith seen as such a different card, filling a different hole, than the Lannisport Moneylender. Why do people talk about Carrion Bird (1/1, Stealth, MIL) as being a solid weenie whether its ability is ever used, but Bastard of Robert (1/1, Stealth, POW) doesn't get the same kind of awed admiration? Is a Deadly MIL monocon really the same as a Deadly POW monocon, even if they have the same cost and STR?

Point being that there are a lot of examples that indicate consistency of form is not the same thing as consistency of function (aka, balance). Sometimes, things that are consistent in form end up behaving very differently (and with different usefulness) in the game, while some things that are consistent in function look fairly different in structure. Given the depth and richness of the AGoT metagame, that really isn't surprising.

Lars said:

Of course, not all of the Refugees are 0 cost, 2 STR, and 2 icons....

Kennon said:

~split hairs much. the house ones are, the nuertal one is 1 less str for 1 icon more. fine whatever hair split, point still remains there is a set up cost to function ratio that doesn't change based on one challenge over the other.

Ktom, a question, if seductive promise got turned into a military and intrigue challenge event also would it be balanced if it was win by 2 STR for military challenges and win for intrigue challenges(no STR requirement) for the same exact effect?

and if peoples opinion is that the bolton refugee is the best one, fine but it didn't have a cost added to it because of that. I actually think the bara refugee is just as good if not better then the stark one...but hey i approach the game differently. Now had the playtesters decided that stark deserved to have an extra costs because it was better then I would have an advantage by focus on a refugee that the playtesters didn't and finding a way to make use of its lesser cost in a way the playtesters ignored, now instead of blancing the game (by adding a cost) they've unbalanced it by ignoring what they feel is weaker. This speaks a lot to your admiration for bird question (a card I hardly use) over bastard of robert (use it all the time).

Was the Greyjoy location that turned into a character playtested in a environment that included character-lite/less decks or did someone find a way to switch around a percieved weakness into a strength? Now i'm not saying that play testers have to be ominipotent, but if they see a cycle of exact same effects (cancle challenge automatically win) and they see a situation where winning one challenge needs a cost, then two things need to happen, remove the situation (i.e. take military event away from stark) or add a cost to the effect regardless of challenge type to prevent unbalancing the costs later on.

Lars said:

You are approaching this exactly backwards from the way I am. You are saying that because the a cycle or cards (like the Refugees) are consistent in form, they fill exactly the same game space for different Houses and/or challenge types. The Bolton Refugee fills exactly the same space for Stark that the Tyrell Refugee fills for Baratheon. I really, really don't see that.

Remember that when Seductive Promise first came out, there were two other events, a "win an intrigue challenge by 4" (Wars are Won with Quills) and a "win a military challenge by 4" (Bragging Rights). If consistency for form is so important and all challenges are ultimately equal (in that icon distribution doesn't matter in a cycle like the Refugees), why didn't all three of these events that had the same play restrictions not have the same effect? Because the different challenge types fill different game space maybe? And if that were not true, and all three filled the same game space within the various challenges despite the different effects, why were they never played equally and why weren't they all reprinted in the Core Set?

The point, and the answer to your Seductive Promise question, is that the designers realized that because the POW challenge occupies a different game space than the MIL or INT challenge, the effect of Seductive Promise was inappropriate for the other challenge types even with the same play restrictions. Whether for thematic, House "flavor" or other reasons, the conscious choice was made to NOT create consistency of form through the entire cycle. No one questions that there isn't a "Seductive Promise" for MIL or INT, or that there are different icons on the Refugees. The cost differential on the two "cancel the challenge winner determination" is certainly looking weird, but why are we so quick to call it "wrong" in the name of consistency when we don't even think twice about inconsistency in other places?

It comes down to this: why does every effect that cancels a challenge have to have the same cost? The only answer to that I have seen so far is "because it looks weird and winning any challenge is pretty much the same under the right circumstances." To me, that assertion is based on the assumption that all three challenge types fill the same game space and that the "right circumstances" are pursued with equal fervor in the metagame - something I very much disagree with. If all that were true, why would there be three different challenge types with three different claim effects in the first place? By the "everything with the same effect should have the same cost" reasoning, every cancel or save effect should have the same cost. Bodyguard and Iron Mines are not consistent because one is neutral and saves only Lords/Ladies and the other is House specific and saves anything - and that is a mistake?

I'm fine with filling a different game space, i get what you are saying about the seductive cycle, but you are still missing my point. In that cycle they didn't say, oh well winning a military challenge is already better then winning an intrigue challenge, so we should make Bragging Rights win by 5 STR. They didn't say, plus War of the 5 Kings is still around and could come back so its even better when and then adding 2 power (i believe) on top of that is really good so coupled with this card lets make it 6 STR. They created effects that were felt appropriate for winning a challenge by 4 STR and then let the players decide if and where that cost had the most use (i.e. let you determine which game space you want to focus on and decide for yourself which is better without having to factor in costs). Its like they did the opposite here, instead of costing the effect appropriatly they decided for the deckbuilder that Military is a stronger game space then Intrigue and as such should be costed more, especially in stark. Now, any further intrigue effect in lanni has to be inherently weaker then winning a military challenge in stark because of the costs assigned to them. Like i said it really starts to restrict future design and game space and even current design and game space is effected.

I think you're overreacting Lars. Even if you feel this is a mistake to cost them differently, that doesn't necessarily set an absolute precedent for all future card design. You're reading too much into it, as if it definitely reflects some sort of new design rule when it could just as easily be an anomaly.

To use an example from a couple of much older cards: Grizzled Shiphand from the Throne of Blades set was basically a crippled Hedge Knight for Greyjoy. Both are basic 1/1 M/P weenies, except the Shiphand has a big drawback (discard if you don't have a warship) and arguably worse traits (Hedge Knight may be an ally, but it's also a knight, which is better than Ironborn). Does this mean that they had set some sort of definite design precedent that Greyjoy weenies have to be worse than everyone else's, to the point that they're penalized compared to neutral ones? Not really, because Greyjoy got plenty of strong weenies after that, even in the next couple sets.

The problem that I see, Lars, is that you're considering this on a strict card= other card basis. Unfortunately, AGOT is not a game where two cards interact against each other in a vacuum, there are many other factors and synergies to consider. One that I think is pertinent to this discussion is of course, the relative power equity of the cards each house gets in the set. The Lannister event in question is the first card that I've seen this cycle that looks worth playing, on the other hand, Stark seems to be getting quite a few solid cards. In the larger scheme of the entire set, where's the consistency? Not that I think it's that big of a deal. I understand that everyone else is glad to see the Lannister cards lay off for a whole cycle. I would have wished for interesting cards that just didn't kneel for a set, but alas, we deal with that we're given.

i'd just like to chime in here to say that the difference in the way these two cards were costed is a complete and total non-issue, lol. i haven't read half the discussion, as i want to avoid getting a headache on a homework day, but winning MIL in stark is by far more important than willing INT in lanni. i'm sure the multifaceted arguments for this line of thinking have already been made up above, but i think it should be pretty intuitive/obvious as to why this is anyway. not only does stark have far more large-impact effects that trigger off of winning MIL, to say nothing of the fact that it's *very, very good* to be able to automatically remove multiple characters from the table (in joust, this often will see play when a two-claim plot is out) or to kneel two influence to auto-win a MIL against an attacking opponent, thus protecting your characters and triggering effects that key off winning MIL (like the new agenda). on average, it's simply not the case that a card in a player's hand is worth a character already in play, especially not if we're talking a two-claim situation. and in the house-to-house comparison, lanni just has far fewer worthwhile effects that key off of winning intrigue. how is the differential costing even being debated?

My 2 cents...

I have no problem with Feigned Retreat or Misinformation as the stand now. There are far more large impact cards that trigger off of military than there are that trigger off of intrigue at the moment. BUT, are we locked in to that now? Will we never see a large impact cards that trigger off of winning intrigue because they would be considered too powerful due to the low cost of Misinformation? If so, that sucks, and we've basically limited future card design.

We're not designing cards for just the current card pool. We're designing them for an infinite card pool, which causes me to give a little more consideration to Lars' argument, even if his hockey team did just get done humiliating mine.

Of course, I may be biased as I have issues with the idea of an infinite card pool. This is one of the reasons why...

Deathjester26 said:

I'm still not sure why people think a card today locks anything in the future. FFG has always shown a pretty determined and creative tendency to "design around it" if something becomes an issue.

I actually totally sympathize with Lars' point about the different costs in this cycle adjusting the relative strengths of the different challenge types and thus affecting future card design. The place where I differ though is that I don't think the challenge types are equal in a vacuum. I think military is the strongest, then intrigue, then power. Of course, AGoT is not a vacuum but an environment filled with a ton of different moving parts. The presence of cards like Misinformation and Feigned Retreat (as well as stuff like Condemned by the Council, Seductive Promise, Support of the Kingdom, etc.) serve to adjust the relative strengths of the challenges and balance them out. It's because of this fact that I have no problem with different costs on Feigned Retreat and Misinformation. They are fulfilling different roles in the greater scheme of balancing the three challenge types.

finitesquarewell said:

well to save you time from reading, since you decided to share an opinion that others have i'll readdress it. If stark in military was soooooooo good then give them win a power challenge instead. If military in stark is 2 influence greater then intrigue in lanni (which i don't agree with), then you have to carry that precendent through every time you make an intrigue winning effect for lanni. Furthermore, I'm not just focused on claim even though which type of claim is better is not a given from game to game and situation to situation.

schrecklich said:

see I approach (and a lot of other people do as well) the game from a completely different, and in fact opposite, starting point. When I build a deck (no matter the house) i build Power, intrigue, Military when looking at challenges (its one of the reason I like highgarden refugee a lot more then Bolton Refugee and am not that much of a fan of hungry mob). I guess I should be thanking FFG for undercosting a challenge I value.

.....you have to carry that precendent through every time you make an intrigue winning effect for lanni.

Why are you asserting this? It isn't necessarily true, and even if future effects were costed similarly, as Ktom observes = R&D has always been pretty good about edging around design constarints. (not that i think this constarins design too much).

As to your observation thta maybe Stark should have gotten a POW effect instead - I would submit that MIL is their strength, and it is very thematic that the auto win works from that challenge. That being said: the effect would need to be costed correctly - and gues what? With the new event, Qhorin, Core set Robb, the location kill event , Winter has come - and any other effects they get for an auto win MI that I can't think of off the top of my head: I am **** GLAD this thing costs two influence.

I can work around Lannister hitting me with Misinformation for 0 INF. Its going to be a lot harder to work around a one sided board reset at 2 INF.

Stag Lord said:

If you print a character that has an effect similar to the blackfish (win an intrigue challenge -> do something) it is now 2 influence cheaper then blackfish's. If this means that lanni gets no more intrigue effects well as I've said above that is kind of a crappy design area to move into, but hey lanni can just stay as the house that kneels anything and doesn't like one challenge over any other if need be, right?

Stag Lord said:

once again i'm not arguing against the military event having a cost.

Stag Lord said:

you appraoch the situation that stark's event will always be maxed out that and that 2 influence isn't that big of a deal becuase the board situation will be so brutal that 2 influence won't be that high of a cost or even that hard to get. meanwhile lanni's event is more of a flea everytime it is played. This ignores that lanni already can pretty much ignore influence, focus its resources on a better location base, has the gold to play whatever it wants when it wants and now has an effect that can maximize different versions of its kneel so it can focus on other things (wasn't that what kennon just asked for?). Misinformation can protect lanni's hand before it drops its 1st 2nd or 3rd reset on you (Twn2nd calls it discarding your worst card instead of randomly discarding, that is a great effect right there for me, protect the good cards in my hand from fickle randomness), makes cersei a one women kneeling machine (pun intended) makes Jaimie's deadly much more deadly add in distinct mastery and you wash rinse and repeat (especially if the house only agenda trend continues and lanni gets an intrigue based one, if it doesn't get the intriguer based one, then see the top of this thread). Yeah lanni doesn't need this to kneel, but it sure opens a lot more deck space up. Jaime and Cersie are probably already in the deck, now instead of having 3x Enemy informer and 3x Killed the wrong Dwarf you can have 3x of Missinformation and 3x of a character that does something else. To me Misinformation breathes some fresh air into lanni I think its a mistake to look at lanni and misinformation and say oh well it doesn't kneel anything so I don't have to worry about it.

also, lets flip the script a little bit. What if bara was given the power challenge cancel and win at 0 cost and lanni was given the dominece one?

would the 2 influence seem more abnormal or strange then?

i'm going to go out on a limb and say that bara getting POW was deemed stronger then stark getting MIL or else why wouldn't they have gotten it for if not at least for 2 INF? if they can make this distinction for bara why couldn't they change what stark was getting instead of adding a cost to it and not to INT?