finitesquarewell said:

I can understand where you're coming from here, & may even agree with the sentiment about not creating cards that target agendas/anti-agenda cards (I think a few are fine, but they shouldn't be commonplace).

You may very well be right that the problem with agendas has been their design; however, your thesis seems to assume that it's possible to design all of these agendas well. I'm not so sure that it's just not possible to - that agendas, by their nature, are more difficult to balance/design well (which is actually what I believe). I'm just skeptical of the ability of designers to pull this off/balance everything if agendas actually were ubiquitous.

rings said:

Agreed. And those are the kinds of cards/characters/abilities I'd also like to see targeting excess draw, or out of house characters ( you draw a card, but I kneel a character or location to claim a power; or stand a characters, etc)

baragwin said:

So, isn't the problem really Lost Spearman (and auto-include cards like it)? Just seems to me like flooding the environment with agendas in order to fix this problem is a huge risk. If the problem is auto-includes, which are cards that probably weren't optimally designed/balanced - what confidence do we really have that trying to create agendas - which are probably the hardest card to balance - are going to fix this?

Just seems to me like a scenario would be set up similar to introducing a new predator species into the environment to fix one problem/species, where it kills everything off and destroys the ecosystem.

IF the purpose is really greater diversity - I think agendas are just going to create other problems, and maybe to change which cards are auto-includes, but I don't think they are the best way to address the problem.

Wrecking Ball: I agree with you that chapter pack space is precious, but for me, that's an argument in favor of printing more agendas. A non-agenda card has a limited ability to affect the competitive environment, but a new agenda can make a bunch of old cards more playable. So from a perspective of wanting to increase the number of competitive decks, I think agendas are the way to go. There is a likely a saturation point at which we could have too many agendas and not enough cards to play with them, but we are nowhere near that point. On the contrary, we have hundreds of unplayable cards (including entire block-long themes that aren't remotely competitive).

LordofBrewtown: You say that agenda card effects can be just as easily implemented using unique characters and locations. Can you elaborate on this? It seems pretty clear that the guaranteed nature of agendas allows for game effects that would otherwise be impossible (maester's path and city of shadows, for instance). And even those agendas that could be implemented using non-agenda cards would be much less likely to see play (for instance, how much less playable would summer be if the agenda text were implemented on a location?). So the result of implementing that game text using non-agendas would be to reduce the incentive to play the cards that work with them. And that would result in less deck diversity. Do you disagree with this?

On your comments about trying to balance agendas: I talked about this issue in a couple of my previous posts, but I think the most important point is: over the past two years, as we've seen more agendas introduced into the game, the balance of the game (the number of different competitive decks) has risen. Even when the completely overpowered wildling agenda was legal, there was still more diversity than there had been previously. I attribute much of this rise in diversity to the increasing number of agendas. Look at the current competitive environment: summer, maesters, city of lies, winter, wildlings, brotherhood. Do you think we would have this much diversity without those agendas? I contend that, without the agendas, we'd all still be playing lannister.

The problem with Lost Spearman isn't the card itself. There will always be cards that are the best (or better than most other cards)... that's just the nature of any game. But agendas can change that rule. An agenda can guarantee a changed game state such that a card that is normally great becomes mediocre (my example above about all refuges being +2 cost). An agenda can force a deck builder to evaluate a card in a completely different context. The result is more options about what cards to play with.

Hmm, without specific examples of what these new agendas would look like, this discussion feels a bit too theoretical for me. The diversity of viable decks is more a matter of balancing the power level of various strategies. The reason why all the Martell decks look the same despite agenda is not because the current set of agendas is not diverse. It's because those Martell cards already form one of the most powerful strategies before the agenda is tacked on.

Looking at the progression of themes that FFG has supported in the LCG (Seasons, Shadows, Wildlings/NW, Brotherhood, Maesters) it seems like the agenda card type is already being used to support different strategies. I think it's just hard to keep more than a few strategies balanced at a time (this goes for all card games, not just AGoT). If FFG came out with 30+ new agendas, why wouldn't it be the case that three or four of them (probably the most control oriented ones) would rise to the top and most of the others would lapse into unplayability?

Schrecklick: I agree that without specific examples, it's difficult to form an opinion on the idea in general. Off the top of my head, here's an example of what I'm advocating for:

"House Stark only. You may only play characters with the Lord, Lady, or House Tully traits. Your House Tully characters cannot have their strength reduced or be knelt by opponent's card effects. Each time you successfully defend a challenge with a House Tully Character, draw a card."

Is this overpowered? Underpowered? Who knows. But answering that question brings me to your second point: I agree that it is impossible to have a large number of different decks all be equally competitive. And I agree that the amount that new agendas expand the competitive environment is reduced as more agendas are printed. But, even keeping these things in mind, there are two strong arguments in favor of printing more agendas:

1) Although the competitive community may eventually form a concensus about what the best decks are, that is a difficult and time-consuming process (and also a fun one) and is by no means guaranteed. And adding more agendas makes this process more difficult (and more fun), increasing the chances that people will come to different conclusions.

2) As I've said before, there is a point at which printing more agendas would be unlikely to yield more diversity. But there's no evidence that we are close to that point. And given all of the unplayable themes and cards we currently have in the game, there appears to be quite a bit of evidence for the need to make existing cards more playable.

I'm very much torn on the idea of trait-focused agendas, and especially house-specific trait-based agendas. As I mentioned in my post above, I think it's very difficult to balance these...what typically happens is the agenda becomes underpowered (Kingsguard), cards with the trait are neutered (Night's Watch), or both. The Maester's Path is a good example of a combination that could ultimately prove a bit too strong, while the chains themselves may prove too weak to run (at least most of them) without also running the agenda. In my mind, this is pretty much the worst of both worlds...though at least this agenda, unlike the Kingsguard version, is playable.

Despite my objections to trait-based agendas, it's pretty clear that the design team has already wasted a lot of cards on trait-based themes that won't see much play going forward. Night's Watch, Sandsnakes, and Kingsguard are all examples, but I imagine you could add Clansmen, and even non-character cards like reinforcements or bannermen. Even dothraki and House Dayne are ultimately pretty lackluster, considering all the support they've received.

For cards like this that are already printed, I don't have any problem going back and making a trait-specific agenda that will make existing unplayable cards more playable. Going forward though, I'd prefer if trait-based mechanics were strong enough to stand on their own, like direwolves, ironborn, and kings/queens. Then looking forward, agendas would resemble something closer to Knights of the Hollow Hill or Siege of Winterfell, tying together a *strategy* or mechanic rather than a trait.

baragwin said:

baragwin said:

Part of the problem I have with agendas is the 'guaranteed' nature of them. I don't understand why they/certain effects should not be targetable or guaranteed (maybe this is another topic, but by their very nature, Agendas seem to me to be a 100% Jaime type player card - at least as they've been designed). I just get the feel that some players are looking for/want that automatic lock/guarantee (I want to be able to draw 5 cards per round and have certain effects guaranteed). To me, what makes/made this game great/fun is that nothing is guaranteed (in that respect - house balance aside - I honestly preferred much of the game feel during the beginning/Westeros block). Furthermore, my personal opinion is that things like Agendas and Shadows put a lot more emphasis on the deck building than the actual playing of the deck (I'd much prefer the other way around).

baragwin said:

I don't agree that the release of the agendas is what has led to/the 'cause' of more deck diversification. The card pool itself has grown considerably in this time period - it's a tremendous leap (IMO) to pick out those agendas as the reason for more diversification. I'm not ruling them out as a factor; but, I'd need a lot more convincing that they are the main cause.

Dan: I think the problems with trait agendas that you highlight are largely solved by putting a restriction on the agenda. In my example above, the fact that you can't play non-lord/lady/tully characters means the designers can still print a good House Tully character (that is playable in other decks) without worrying about it being overpowered in a Tully agenda deck. A player then has to decide whether they'd rather get the benefits of the agenda or the benefits of the additional characters. The problem with existing trait agendas is that they don't force this decision... they just let you play with characters having that trait along with all the other good cards you'd normally play with (see maesters). The result is the underpowered agendas (kingsguard) and cards (chains) that you describe.

That said, I agree with you that trait agendas should only be a small part of the puzzle. I think you'd agree with me that there are plenty of non-trait-related possibilities for new agendas.

LordofBrewtown: I think you're right that much of our disagreement just boils down to personal preference. For me, agendas are a great way to reduce the you-got-your-golden-tooth-mines-and-I-didn't-so-you-won aspect of the game. I'm fine with luck deciding a game here and there, but the randomness of card draw is a real problem in the current environment. I see agendas as the best way to solve that problem.

On your second point, you're definitely right that non-agenda cards have contributed to the expanding diversity. As an example, we've seen an increase in the number of competitive martell decks because martell now has enough good cards to build a deck out of. But now that we have enough good martell cards, how much can a new martell character (for instance) really add to the diversity? In general, a good new martell card will just get slotted into all the decks we already have. Whereas a new agenda can take existing martell cards and force us to re-evaluate and use them in different ways (and for the reasons offered previously, you can do things with agendas that you can't do with non-agendas).

baragwin said:

In theory, I'm not completely opposed to trait-based agendas, but I think you're understating how manageable the balance issues are. Your example of the Tully agenda (+ lords/ladies) sounds great on face. However, swap "Tully" for "ironborn," and I think you suddenly have a potential balance issue...restricting a GJ player to only lords/ladies/ironborn is a lot less restrictive than Tullies. On the other hand, swap "Tully" for "Clansmen," and the agenda is pretty poor.

With these examples, I don't mean to suggest that every trait needs its own agenda. The problem is more fundamental - the traits that would gain the best from this specific agenda are those that already have the best support (for example, ironborn). To put this another way, the agenda would only really remain balanced so long as the designers decide not to significantly expand the number of options for that trait (ie designers avoid making more Tullies). If FFG decides to go and release a whole set based around the Tully trait, suddenly the restriction of "only house Tully" is pretty moot; meanwhile, you still get all the benefits of the agenda. In the long run, I think trait-based agendas thus more often tend to reduce design options rather than expand them. (If you can find a way to avoid this though, then I'll definitely jump on board for a trait-based agenda.)

This is also the problem with existing trait-based agendas. If FFG ever wants to print some extremely powerful Kingsguard, Night's Watch, or Wildlings...the kind we'd hope to see in a tier-1 deck, they are limited by what those cards can do in combination with the trait agenda. I also don't expect to see many "chain" attachments after this block...though it might actually be pretty cool for a World Champion to create his/her own "chain" attachment that can start out attached to the agenda. Similarly, since brotherhood was designed around the agenda, I'm going to guess that there will never be a brotherhood character that has the printed infamy trait...and even printing too many in-house Lanni characters with infamy runs the risk of giving Lanni an unequal advantage to run brotherhood.

Dan: You say it's difficult to balance trait agendas. Then you point out that, while my idea might be fine for Tullies, it is too strong for ironborn and not strong enough for Clansmen. Isn't the fact that you're able to make those declarations an indication that it actually isn't that difficult to balance it?

That point aside, how do you feel about my previous arguments that an expectation that design will maintain a precise balance is both unrealistic and in many ways undesirable?

Your next point (that a trait agenda results in a situation where the designers have to limit the cards they print... a powerful Tully card, for instance) is addressed in my previous post. If the designers want to print a powerful Tully, they are free to do so because, along with the powerful Tully card, they will continue to print powerful non-Tully cards. The choice I mentioned previously (between the benefits of the tully agenda and the benefits of playing non-lord/lady/tully characters) therefore remains essentially the same (if anything, the opposite of your concern will happen: the decision will skew away from choosing the tully agenda over time as more non-tullies are printed than tullies).

I'll say I do not like the current pattern of printing one Agenda per cycle and then printing a bunch of cards that key off of that Agenda and would be much more in favor of something more like KL cycle - it had an Agenda but the cards themselves were good enough to stand on their own without it. While Brotherhood *can* be run without the Agenda and Maesters probably can too, NW and Wildlings are pretty unplayable without their respective Agendas, and I do think this detracts from the game. It also makes the Agenda weaker over time as more cards are printed - why are NW Agendas weak? Because there aren't new NW characters being printed to support the build (and yea, a bunch of characters with no icons isn't helping it either). Same for KG, though we finally are getting one new KG character. What I would really like to see in an upcoming cycle is a bunch of support for existing themes and almost no neutral cards; flesh out the existing pieces that are weak and then we can start talking about a bunch of new Agendas.
I do agree with everyone who has said that new Agendas will add more diversity and maybe agree that they have done so in the past, but I think some of us have different definitions of "diversity" than others... I don't consider it "diversity" when the environment consists of Wildling/NW decks being run out of a few different Houses but it is still overwhelmingly saturated with Wildling/NW decks like it was last year.
I'll also have to say that I would be in favor of cards that punish opponents for running an Agenda, and the only argument I feel I need to make for that is the fact that MP can be thrown in almost any deck thats not already running one. The one thing I would think everyone can agree on is that "slots into any deck with virtually no drawback" is not the direction Agendas should be going. This is the only Agenda so far that does not require any actual thought before throwing it in a sleeve and putting it with your plots. Sure, KoS can be used in basically every deck for draw, but it requires you to add at least 3 cards to the deck and you get punished by Winter.
I would honestly like to see more Agendas like Alliance (QoD) - ones that require very careful deckbuilding to make them worth using. Having not seen any decks that use it yet, I can only speculate, but I imagine it does allow some formerly "useless" cards to be played and allows for weird combos that weren't possible in the past. And this doesn't require "silver bullet" cards to be printed as counters to it, I don't really think that argument is valid if the Agenda is designed properly in the first place.

baragwin said:

I think it is pretty easy to target things like this, however. I know it is only one example and you just said it off the top of your head, but there is plenty of location control, and heck location steal for a few houses. (heck, I would say the easier way to control GTM would be a decent location removal plot or more characters that target locations, rather than something MORE powerful) GTM is easily one of the top 3-5 cards it the game, but there is ALWAYS going to be a top 3-5 cards in the game and balancing them through Agendas (how currently printed and ruled) seems counterintuative. *shrug*

Heck, I would love to see an agenda that said 'blank all other agendas'. Heaven help us if we reward balanced deckbuilding that doesn't rely only on a starting-in-play-untargetable card.

rings said:

I like your "blank all other agendas" agenda idea but not sure it would go over very well without some limitations, rings. Could call it "The Nameless Other" agenda or something like that. It would likely become the default agenda for any deck that didn't otherwise want to run an agenda though, thereby forcing everyone to play without an agenda (from a game effect standpoint). That may be a little too powerful and would severely limit the play of any agenda. Would have to find a way your idea could be "turned off" as well. Maybe tie it to having X number of certain cards in play or something.

rings said:

rings said:

Is that really rewarding balanced deckbuilding? Aren't you taking advantage of someone creating a deck based on one thing and then rendering it (potentially) useless so any old deck could then pick it off? Okay I'm just being difficult I see your point about balanced deck building but wanted to take an easy shot at you

rings said:

That would be a terrible thing for AGOT to destroy agendas...what you describe ensures that only the most vanilla agendas would ever see the table.

The notion of balanced deckbuilding is a fallacy to begin with. Basically you are saying what they described before:

Pick a house, pick a draw engine, put in all the best cards.

Creating more cards for that environment is near impossible because you will continue to see power creep at an unsustainable level. So you can get watered down cards, not completely developed themes, occasional helpers and penalizers...yeah!

But unless this game wants to get into more cards that help you get setup (specifically a non-two way location and character grabber plot) building your deck around anything other then "the most efficient cards possible" is stupid and a losing battle. The only way to ensure that those less then efficient cards are worth the card slots is by creating an agenda that makes them not suck as much.

rings said:

Heaven help us if we reward balanced deckbuilding that doesn't rely only on a starting-in-play-untargetable card.

****, then we should immediately design some agenda that blank all currently revealed plots. It's outrageous that player can actually start the game with the plot he likes. And sometimes he can even put a character into play! That's unacceptable. Players should not rely on this.

Rogue30 said:

rings said:

Heaven help us if we reward balanced deckbuilding that doesn't rely only on a starting-in-play-untargetable card.

****, then we should immediately design some agenda that blank all currently revealed plots. It's outrageous that player can actually start the game with the plot he likes. And sometimes he can even put a character into play! That's unacceptable. Players should not rely on this.

Isn't there plots that blank plots? Seems like I have seen them before...hmmm...

So, we have had cards that blank characters (that I have to draw and play) and locations (that I have to draw and play) and the text or income of plots (usually using a plot that doesn't have great stats as a negative for me playing it). And that is cool. But blanking a card you don't have to draw or pay for? Blasphamy!!!

And on balancing (goshdarnstud) I would still have to build a deck that wins. Just running an agenda should never win a game for you...or lose a game for you if you are a good deckbuilder *shrug* But I get what you are saying

rings said:

Hmm... You can only blank one of the plots and only those which work outside plot phase, ****!

Hmmm... Brienne can stop Siege... She should be banned immediately!

Seriously dude, all plots should be banned or at least should be picked randomly. You can't just pick the one you like. That's stupid.

At the end of the day, I think the goal of more agendas is about more choice. Does a "blanking agenda" or card mechanic create more choice? I doubt it. Sounds like it's meant to penalize someone for leaning too heavily on a perceived crutch...but then, those crutches already tend to have downsides right?

Think about it this way, do cards that restrict an opponent like Fear of Winter really add creativity/variety? I don't think so. I prefer cards like KotHH...unfortunately the Fears of this game often make it difficult to play the KotHHs.

Rather than focus on specific mechanics, which is usually a bad idea, every agenda should be able to pass a certain test: "Does the agenda open up more game variety/decision making without also making the game overly complex or creating NPE moments?" If the answer to that question is yes, then really, why wouldn't we want it?

An agenda that blanks other agendas would only make a large portion of already printed cards largely unplayable, and serve to further limit options in deck construction and playstyle. No one in their right mind would run Alliance, Siege, or City of Shadows if they knew there was a possibility their entire strategy would be ruined. Martell/Summer is certainly powerful in the current environment, but I don't think anyone will say that it's because of Kings of Summer, it's because at the current moment, Martell has the largest toolbox with the most versatile tools.

Agenda are certainly a tricky card to balance, and they require a great deal more forethought and a deft hand to get right. However, I do believe the more agendas are created the more diversity will be seen in deck types (hell, some agendas that I would consider pretty unplayable *cough White Book* have seen quite a bit of play recently due creativity in deck construction).

rings said:

True. And I guess we do have one card that blanks agendas Mance. Granted if you run one you are probably running another, so it doesn't completely eliminate it.

I was really just making a point on the agenda that blanked agendas. I think having something controllable would work (character most likely, the most easily controlled card in the game), but something uncontrollable would make many agendas totally unplayable which I understand.

This kind of proves the point though, when you can't control a card with another card of the same type...doesn't that seem off a little? I can't think of another type of card that has that issue *shrug*

And Rogue, are you seriously comparing Brienne to an agenda? If so, I don't think you have read a word of my posts. My issue is that agendas start in play, and are untargetable. Fairly different than the approximately 900 ways to deal with Brienne. Unless you want an agenda that doesn't allow actions during challenges...that would be fun!

And that is the basic difference in the power levels of agendas, vs. plots (the 2nd hardest card to balance in the game, since as you said you choose it and don't pay for it), vs. perm cards you have to draw and pay for.

rings said:

You don't seem to understand game concepts very well. One of the best things about AGOT is that the plots are pre-selected but then they come out at exactly the time you want them to be played. It expands the options you have to know that you can start "At the Gates" or "Building Season" to get that critical piece. Need that reset? Time to go for the throat? Need to stall a turn? This is an amazing part of AGOT...and agendas are similar in their ability to guide you through the deck building process and gameplay.

I would strongly suggest that these are not the hardest cards to balance at all because you know precisely when they are going to be played (start of game) and what can stop them (nothing). It's much harder to balance out a location and get it right. Is it good enough to put three in your deck? What is the appropriate cost? Should it be limited? The value of those things changes dramatically if you get it in your opening hand versus turn 4. Is it good enough to grab with building season? It's always easy to make a card that isn't quite good enough to see play...but when you want that location to see play its tougher. What if you want the location to be good? great? so much harder.