My friends and I played on the Risk of Thrones map, scenario "Home Is Where the House Is." As it came to the final two, I had all of Essos and my opponent had all of Westeros. By the final turn, I was getting 57 units per round, he was getting 191.

Obviously, there was no way for me to win. So I buckled up and started playing entirely defense. The weird trick of this board is that the ocean territories can only hold 10 units at a time -- so he could only attack me with 10s. Now of course, if multiple ocean territories border me, he can double- or triple-up. He can also fortify to keep attacking, but only 5 fortifies per turn, and you can only fortify into the ocean through cities which hold max 20 units (or 25 in capitals). You also can't place units on ocean territories, so foritfying is the only way to replenish (or attacking if I take one).

What we reasoned is that if he could break into Essos and hold it for ONE round, then he could fill up with his 191 units and decimate me. But that's easier said than done. Before the draw, he had finally broken into land... but only had a few units there. With those limited fortifies and capacity limits, he could mathematically only get a max of 20 or so units before ending his turn. This didn't hurt own bonus quite enough to prevent me from easily kicking him back out... and leaving my defenses in the exact same position as before his attack. After some discussion, he said that attack had taken him three turns to prepare, and would take another three turns to prepare again, by which time my defenses would be even stronger and he'd only have a harder time breaking through.

So, is there some tactic we're missing? Or were we right to call this a draw? Is it just a design flaw on the map? (Return to Placement would've changed everything, but it's off; Return to Attack is on.)

https://www.wargear.net/games/view/81401118/

Seems like a design flaw, to me. It's one of the reasons that it's really dangerous, from a board design standpoint, to have unit caps. Unit caps work for territories that are relative dead-ends, or at least aren't chokepoints. They don't work when players have to pass through that territory to get somewhere else on the board (as in the sea tiles on Risk of Thrones).

Very interesting map

What Kjeld said is true.

I know well that map. Unfortunately, it has lots of very interesting details but also many flaws...

Kjeld wrote:Seems like a design flaw, to me. It's one of the reasons that it's really dangerous, from a board design standpoint, to have unit caps. Unit caps work for territories that are relative dead-ends, or at least aren't chokepoints. They don't work when players have to pass through that territory to get somewhere else on the board (as in the sea tiles on Risk of Thrones).

Agree. I think of King of the Mountainss as an example of a map with lots of unit caps that works. The reason is that the dead ends (higher altitude territories that lead to higher bonuses) have unit caps that get lower and lower, despite their favorable defensive dice mods.