Just had my first partial playthrough of A Game of Thrones, and let me first say that the game is a lot of fun. The minute complexities of the game are fantastic.

That being said, our first attempt at playing the game ran into a bit of an issue due to differing interpretations of how the process of bidding for positions on the dominance track and obtaining the dominance tokens. It ended with some sore feelings and a few people walking away from the game.

The snag occurred when the card that clears the influence track and initiates bidding for positions on the influence track was drawn and, due to the circumstances of the game, only 1 person at that time had any power tokens, and they only had 1. My interpretation of the rules was that that one person wins the bidding on the iron throne track, they get first place, and the former owner of the throne gets to resolve the ties that result from remaining bidders failing to place a bid. The power of the throne then transfers to the player who bid their final (and only) remaining power. After that, since no players control any power, they all are considered a bid of zero, which results in a tie amongst them all, and the new owner of the throne gets to resolve the tie breaker however he or she sees fit. This could result in a player controlling all three dominance tokens for the price of their 1 remaining power.

My compatriots believed one of two things. If nobody bid, (what they called a "no-bid"), either the balance of power remained unchanged, or the first position on the track, and thus, the owner(s) of the remaining two dominance tokens, remained unchanged, and the owner of the throne can choose the order for the remaining players.

My question for the forum here is: Is my interpretation, the first one, a correct interpretation of the rules? And if it isn't, how does the game resolve bidding situations in which either nobody chooses to bid, or nobody is capable of bidding?

I'd agree with your interpretation, actually.

A bid of zero is just as much of a bid, as is a bid of 1 or more. Regardless of how many power tokens they actually have. So if a number of players bid zero tokens, they tie. There's no reason to assume that the tracks remain the same. The holder of the Iron Throne will determine how ties are resolved.

So you are right, that if nobody has any power tokens with which to bid, the holder of the Iron Throne wields a lot of power.

Valdearg said:

I don't believe the former owner of the throne should get to decide the positions of everyone else unless there's a tie for first place. If your example, there's no tie for first place, so the player that bid 1 power immediately takes the iron throne and decides the positions for everyone else. If the former owner bid 1 and two other players bid 2, he would decide who gets the iron throne and then that player would decide the positions for the remaining three players (assuming you have six players total and the last three bid 0).

asphaltcowboy said:

Rules say otherwise:

"The outcome of all ties in bidding is decided by the player holding the Iron Throne token. This player places the Influence tokens of tied players on the highest (i.e., left-most) available positions on the track, in the order of his choice.

After all Influence tokens have been placed on the track undergoing bidding, the player occupying the track’s “1” position is awarded its Dominance token, then players proceed to bid on the next Influence track."

Winner of bid doesn't get the Iron Throne until AFTER all ties are decided and tokens placed.

kauai1964 said:

You sir, are absolutely right! My apologies!