Game of Thrones mod

[unmerged(75409)]

Just some 2 cents worth regarding the province vs barony question:

baronies are there to hold lords, provinces are there to maneuver armies !!!

the number of baronies does NOT make a place rich or poor, it just gives it more room. have the baronies all be devoid of buildings and there you have your poor kingdom. no need to indicate "this is a poor place" by creating provinces with only one barony. Provinces with only one barony is what the north is supposed to be like!! Huge forests that can swallow armies whole, but few castles to resist an invader. Read the account of how the ironmen invaded the north, and there is mention of forests, hills and lots of empty landscape in between the

Do you seriously want a little two bit island realm like the iron islands to have room for a dozen or more armies ??? If you play King Robert and want to smash Balon Greyjoy's rebellion, do you seriously want to manuever across those shitty little islands to track down Balon?? No!! You want to land your host on Pyke, fight a pitched battle and then siege the castle. If you want to put in loads of lords, give them baronies en masse. But if you put in lots of provinces, you make the place look, feel and play like a huge place, and that's really not what the Iron Islands are.

 

[Cabezaestufa]

Keep in mind we have no idea what the political situation was in the Riverlands at the time. If the Riverlands did not have a King-tier character they would have been broken up into a multiple feuding Duchies, and a King-tier Iron Islander with seven provinces could take them.

Indeed, and don't forget that said Iron Islanders weren't limited to the Isles themselves at that time, but had quite a few possessions all over the western Westerosi coast. Also, there's nothing better for a raider than a bunch of disunited, squabbling small kingdoms. It's no coincidence that the Iron Isles started their decline when the Seven Kingdoms got united under a same King...

What's really impressed me about this conversation is that half the people on this thread have a very strong view that the Iron Islands have significant military strength on land, but the other half seem to believe they're useless for anything but raiding. In other words some think the King of the Ironmen should be able to actually conquer territory on the continent, therefore they think he needs dozens of provinces, and they need something like the Warrior Ethic trait or they won't provide enough troops to conquer the Riverlands.

I'm firmly of the conviction the Iron Islands should be unable to conquer any competent Duke-tier Westeroi noble. Most of the Ironmen in the books seem to agree with me, thus when Theon takes Winterfell their reaction is not "wonderful, the Kingdom has grown," or "great, we'll be able to trade this for significant territorial concessions," it's "Theon, you moron, we'll never hold it." And they don't hold it.

My impression wasn't that they thought they would be unable to hold it, but that they never even tried because it was so foreign a concept to them. Most of the Ironmen were old guard, stubborn raiders whose concept of life only included pillage and plunder. That stuff about holding rich lands and growing their own riches was alien to them, a thing for the weaklings from the continent. It was quite clear when they rejected Asha's (quite sensible) proposal.

After thinking and researching a bit about this issue, now I'm convinced that the only thing that the Ironborn possess in abundance is simply a lot of HAX. Despite Martin going out of his way to tell us how their homelands are crappy, unfertile rocks; despite them apparently not having any kind of sensible economy; despite them having their lands and fleet ravaged a few years back in their ill-fated rebellion... they still managed to rebuild an immense fleet and raise an enormous amount of people to man all these ships (100 galleys in the Iron Fleet? A total fleet of about 1000 ships? All this less than 10 years after Robert kicked their asses? etc). So we can either try to portray them realistically (in which case they should be poor and have few men, as I originally thought) or we can try to portray them as they actually are in the books (which means giving them, well... hax. Various special bonuses and beneficial events). I'm finding myself leaning to the latter. It would be unrealistic and a bit cheap, but it should make things more interesting and fun.

BTW, what actually makes you guys think the Riverlands are weak as territory? I can't think of anything in the books that indicates the Riverlands are anything but a fairly rich territory, ruled over by a fairly competent if not very ambitious guy. Since he's not ambitious he doesn't declare himself King, but he does manage to bring all his lords with him when he pledges to the Starks.

Nick

Agreed. I'm sure I read somewhere that they are actually the most densely populated area in all of Westeros, and their lands were amongst the most fertile. It might be more of a land of farmers than of warriors, but they most certainly are not the pushovers some people seem to think they are.

 

[Andrzej I]

Just some 2 cents worth regarding the province vs barony question:

baronies are there to hold lords, provinces are there to maneuver armies !!!

Maneuver armies and allow for playable characters. Anyways, fair enough point about the Iron Islands being a small place, and so I suppose cutting back on counties, forcing them to be closer to their maximum barony limit (seven, if I recall right) would perhaps be for the better. Do you have a suggestion on what counties the Iron Islands should be made up of?

Edit: Random little addition, according to the Concordance, Harlaw is apparently the richest of the islands.

 

[Lord Tywin]

Keep in mind we have no idea what the political situation was in the Riverlands at the time. If the Riverlands did not have a King-tier character they would have been broken up into a multiple feuding Duchies, and a King-tier Iron Islander with seven provinces could take them.

What's really impressed me about this conversation is that half the people on this thread have a very strong view that the Iron Islands have significant military strength on land, but the other half seem to believe they're useless for anything but raiding. In other words some think the King of the Ironmen should be able to actually conquer territory on the continent, therefore they think he needs dozens of provinces, and they need something like the Warrior Ethic trait or they won't provide enough troops to conquer the Riverlands.

I'm firmly of the conviction the Iron Islands should be unable to conquer any competent Duke-tier Westeroi noble. Most of the Ironmen in the books seem to agree with me, thus when Theon takes Winterfell their reaction is not "wonderful, the Kingdom has grown," or "great, we'll be able to trade this for significant territorial concessions," it's "Theon, you moron, we'll never hold it." And they don't hold it.

BTW, what actually makes you guys think the Riverlands are weak as territory? I can't think of anything in the books that indicates the Riverlands are anything but a fairly rich territory, ruled over by a fairly competent if not very ambitious guy. Since he's not ambitious he doesn't declare himself King, but he does manage to bring all his lords with him when he pledges to the Starks.

Nick

The Ironmen in the books would easily take on any duke level lord since I doubt anyone except maybe the Hightowers would be able to muster 10-15 thousand man that the Ironmen possess.

 

[FrozenWall]

After thinking and researching a bit about this issue, now I'm convinced that the only thing that the Ironborn possess in abundance is simply a lot of HAX. Despite Martin going out of his way to tell us how their homelands are crappy, unfertile rocks

Sounds like the Norse of our timeline. Didn't stop them from conquering vast swats of lands, but mind you only when their targets were disunited. If they were reasonably united all the Norse did was raid some. And when they'd taken land either they integrated themselves or the locals got their act togewther and drove them out. The important thing about the Ironmen is their ability to attack when and where the mainlanders are the weakest, but lack ability to hold it in the face of prepared resistance. Notice that they did not move untill all of Westeros was aflame. Now if somebody had not sailed of the majority of the fighting men into the horizon the Ironmen would actually had been poised to make some more serious conquests.

 

[Nick B II]

After thinking and researching a bit about this issue, now I'm convinced that the only thing that the Ironborn possess in abundance is simply a lot of HAX. Despite Martin going out of his way to tell us how their homelands are crappy, unfertile rocks; despite them apparently not having any kind of sensible economy; despite them having their lands and fleet ravaged a few years back in their ill-fated rebellion... they still managed to rebuild an immense fleet and raise an enormous amount of people to man all these ships (100 galleys in the Iron Fleet? A total fleet of about 1000 ships? All this less than 10 years after Robert kicked their asses? etc). So we can either try to portray them realistically (in which case they should be poor and have few men, as I originally thought) or we can try to portray them as they actually are in the books (which means giving them, well... hax. Various special bonuses and beneficial events). I'm finding myself leaning to the latter. It would be unrealistic and a bit cheap, but it should make things more interesting and fun.

Keep in mind that the limiting factor with a longship navy isn't generally building the ships, it's sailors. The Saxons, for example, were able to build one pretty much from scratch in the few years between the St. Bryce's day massacre and Aethelred the Unready's deposition. It sucked because the Saxons didn't have many experienced workers in their shipyards, and they had fewer experienced sea-captains. But it did exist.

So if any significant proportion of the Greyjoy navy survived the battle of Fair Isle it's not really a hack for them to have them in 10 years.

That said 1,000 ships is a lot more then I'd thought they'd have. It means they've got 30-50k troops, which is probably below average for a Great House (Stannis brought 30k to the Blackwater, and he was still outnumbered 2-1), but is still 3-4 times what I thought they'd have. Poverty and Warrior's ethic make sense in that context.

@Leviathon:
We'll have to play the game to see how much richer you can make a place by adding loads of improvements/tech, but every indication from the devs is that it'll take a lot for a one-barony lord to have more troops then a three-barony lord.

Nick

 

[Cabezaestufa]

Sounds like the Norse of our timeline. Didn't stop them from conquering vast swats of lands, but mind you only when their targets were disunited. If they were reasonably united all the Norse did was raid some. And when they'd taken land either they integrated themselves or the locals got their act togewther and drove them out. The important thing about the Ironmen is their ability to attack when and where the mainlanders are the weakest, but lack ability to hold it in the face of prepared resistance. Notice that they did not move untill all of Westeros was aflame. Now if somebody had not sailed of the majority of the fighting men into the horizon the Ironmen would actually had been poised to make some more serious conquests.

It's true that Martin made up the Ironmen to have some cool Vikings around, but as he portrays them, they are just full of holes. Just to name one, the Vikings had huge forest that they could use to build their ships, whereas the Iron Islands are small and rocky places (I even think I remember Asha talking about wood as being more valuable than gold for them!). They also got their asses handed to them and a few years later, poof! They are back to full strength as if nothing had happened. Their whole economy and way of life seems to be almost entirely dependent on raiding, which doesn't make any sense, especially after centuries of Targaryen dominance of Westeros. They don't even seem interested on holding land anymore, and much less on integrating with the locals as mentioned.

This normally wouldn't be much of an issue if we were just reading the books (just a bit of suspension of disbelief is all that's needed). But we are trying to actually recreate this world, and we should take things like this into account. In fact, in the part of my post you didn't quote I'm also in favour of giving them this ability to make serious conquests, unrealistic as it may be.

Keep in mind that the limiting factor with a longship navy isn't generally building the ships, it's sailors. The Saxons, for example, were able to build one pretty much from scratch in the few years between the St. Bryce's day massacre and Aethelred the Unready's deposition. It sucked because the Saxons didn't have many experienced workers in their shipyards, and they had fewer experienced sea-captains. But it did exist.

So if any significant proportion of the Greyjoy navy survived the battle of Fair Isle it's not really a hack for them to have them in 10 years.

That said 1,000 ships is a lot more then I'd thought they'd have. It means they've got 30-50k troops, which is probably below average for a Great House (Stannis brought 30k to the Blackwater, and he was still outnumbered 2-1), but is still 3-4 times what I thought they'd have. Poverty and Warrior's ethic make sense in that context.

But that's just the thing. It's not just a longship navy: the Iron Fleet was 100 galleys strong before leaving for Essos! All of recent construction, IIRC. In addition to that, the manpower issue you mentioned is also quite dodgy. That's a lot of sailors for such small and unproductive islands, even more if we take into account that a lot of their more experienced sailors probably went down with their ships when the Iron Throne beat them the first time.

 

[Nick B II]

But that's just the thing. It's not just a longship navy: the Iron Fleet was 100 galleys strong before leaving for Essos! All of recent construction, IIRC. In addition to that, the manpower issue you mentioned is also quite dodgy. That's a lot of sailors for such small and unproductive islands, even more if we take into account that a lot of their more experienced sailors probably went down with their ships when the Iron Throne beat them the first time.

A longship is a kind of galley.

For numerous practical reasons Mediterranean-style galleys just would not work as part of the fleet the Iron Islands sent to the Essos. So I'm choosing to interpret any statement GRRM made that implies the Iron Fleet isn't just slightly bigger longships as exaggeration for dramatic effect.

Nick

 

[FrozenWall]

I think people are staring themselves blind on the islands themselves, we know this;

-Every ironman worth his salt has a boat or serves on one, the strenght of nobles is measured in ships
-The islands are barren rocks, only product worth mentioning is a good supply of iron ore
-The Ironmen have a large and well equipped fighting force

from this we can conclude;

-Their main source of sustainance must be fishing and iron. Trading it is presumably how they gain timber for more boats.
-The sea can feed any number of mouths, this means the Iron Islands can support a much larger population than their size would imply, thanks to their massive fishing fleet.
-There is little to no difference between common folk and warriors, in the way the mainlanders differentiate between peasants and nobles. And longboats work eaqually well for fishing and raiding. This allows for leveraging a much larger percentage of their population for fighting, and maintaining a larger fleet than their richer mainland cousins.

In the mainlands you need x peasants and farms to support your knights, and building and manning a ship means you cant afford a mill. On the Iron Islands there is no difference between breadwinners and fighing men, nor between trading ship, fighting ship and fishing ship. That is why they can have a 1000 ships so soon after defeat, those ships are a necessity for fishing and survival. Thus building and manning ships would be their first and only priority after defeat, lest they all starve.

The nature of their lifestyle style means they needn't worry about opportunity costs in the way the mainlanders must, making the kingdom much more lean and efficient as trade, sustainance and war all require the same investment and specialisation; lots of longships and hardy seafarers. The islands themselves have little to do with the power and numbers of the Ironmen, they are merely a good source of iron and a (strategically protected) mooringplace for ships.

 

[Nick B II]

-The sea can feed any number of mouths, this means the Iron Islands can support a much larger population than their size would imply, thanks to their massive fishing fleet.

If that was true Medieval Norway would have been the population center of Europe, not France.

Nick

EDIT: What's your source for saying the Iron Islands have Iron Ore?

 

[the_hdk]

If that was true Medieval Norway would have been the population center of Europe, not France.

Nick

EDIT: What's your source for saying the Iron Islands have Iron Ore?

I think the name?

seriously though maybe we should make a chart of how rich we want each region and also how many soldiers each region should have.
(first on Duchy level (Hightowers) and Wardens (Lannisters) than Kings)

 

[Hroppa]

Sources for Iron Islands' iron mines: http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/Concordance/Section/4./ (search "mine")

I think Frozen Wall's point that it's the Iron islanders' ships that give them their strength, rather than their land, is the right way to look at things. This may justify their hax/cultural bonuses.

Edit: This should be accompanied by penalties to city income for provinces with the Iron islands' culture. If you want to go about building a bunch of town holdings on the iron islands, you shouldn't expect to be treated as if you're following your forefathers' traditions.

 

[FrozenWall]

If that was true Medieval Norway would have been the population center of Europe, not France.

Nick

EDIT: What's your source for saying the Iron Islands have Iron Ore?

The seas do, it is simply a question of having the tools and skills to get at it, and clearly the Ironmen do. I am simply looking at the "facts" as laid out by Martin, namely that the Ironmen have the ability to field and man fleets of a size not sustainable by the barren islands, and deducing the reason they can feed and afford said fleets and men must be a sizeable intake of fish. Clearly the seas around there must be quite rich, how else do we explain these "facts"?

As for the Iron, I believe that is how they got their name. I can't remember any pagenumbers, but on http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Iron_Islands they mention it under 'economy'.

(also, I seem to remember France having quite a bit of coastline themselves)

 

[Cabezaestufa]

A longship is a kind of galley.

For numerous practical reasons Mediterranean-style galleys just would not work as part of the fleet the Iron Islands sent to the Essos. So I'm choosing to interpret any statement GRRM made that implies the Iron Fleet isn't just slightly bigger longships as exaggeration for dramatic effect.

Nick

"He had set sail from the Shields with ninety-three, of the hundred that had once made up the Iron Fleet, a fleet belonging not to a single lord but to the Seastone Chair itself, captained and crewed by men from all the islands. Ships smaller than the great war dromonds of the green lands, aye, but thrice the size of any common longship, with deep hulls and savage rams, fit to meet the king’s own fleets in battle."

Not exactly your average longship

I think people are staring themselves blind on the islands themselves, we know this;

-Every ironman worth his salt has a boat or serves on one, the strenght of nobles is measured in ships
-The islands are barren rocks, only product worth mentioning is a good supply of iron ore
-The Ironmen have a large and well equipped fighting force

from this we can conclude;

-Their main source of sustainance must be fishing and iron. Trading it is presumably how they gain timber for more boats.
-The sea can feed any number of mouths, this means the Iron Islands can support a much larger population than their size would imply, thanks to their massive fishing fleet.
-There is little to no difference between common folk and warriors, in the way the mainlanders differentiate between peasants and nobles. And longboats work eaqually well for fishing and raiding. This allows for leveraging a much larger percentage of their population for fighting, and maintaining a larger fleet than their richer mainland cousins.

In the mainlands you need x peasants and farms to support your knights, and building and manning a ship means you cant afford a mill. On the Iron Islands there is no difference between breadwinners and fighing men, nor between trading ship, fighting ship and fishing ship. That is why they can have a 1000 ships so soon after defeat, those ships are a necessity for fishing and survival. Thus building and manning ships would be their first and only priority after defeat, lest they all starve.

The nature of their lifestyle style means they needn't worry about opportunity costs in the way the mainlanders must, making the kingdom much more lean and efficient as trade, sustainance and war all require the same investment and specialisation; lots of longships and hardy seafarers. The islands themselves have little to do with the power and numbers of the Ironmen, they are merely a good source of iron and a (strategically protected) mooringplace for ships.

The fact that most of their people are also raiders works both ways: Unless their defeat in Balon's first rebellion was a relatively painless affair (and their whining on their POV chapters doesn't seem to suggest so), they would have suffered a much higher amount of losses relative to their total population. Hard to see how they could have recovered so easily. Also, on the subject of wood... what are they going to pay it with right after losing a very costly war, when they were forbidden from raiding? And who would sell the wood they so desperately need to these assholes who are just going to use it to build ships to raid you?

Anyway, we are probably getting a bit OT. Regardless of how they can get and support them, plothax or not, I suppose that we are in agreement that the Ironborn should be able to raise about 15-25k men and a crapload of ships, is that right?. I gave them a few more provinces, I'm reluctant to give them any more because they would have to be too small for my taste. I think this could be a nice compromise:

The Shield Islands are now separate, too.

 

[unmerged(189717)]

In case you haven't done it yet, you might to check out Green Ronin's ASoIaF RPG. Contains quite some information.

 

[Hroppa]

Some thoughts on the map, in the interest of providing constructive feedback to Cabezaestufa:

- The larger iron islands' splitting as you suggest sounds good, but their military strength is probably best represented by many castle holdings and some cultural bonuses.
- It would make sense to make the shield islands a single county with four holdings (in the interests of simplicity and ease of map movement), except that this will mean one of the islands will have a count while the others will have barons; they should have equal level rulers.
- If possible, it looks like consolidating some of the Riverlands provinces would make things cleaner and clearer
- I'm loving how much can be done with impassible borders too; it'd be great to get a few more screenshots of the map to see the rest of the map.
- If the shield islands are split, and the iron islands are split, it seems inconsistent not to split up the Arbor, give how wealthy it's meant to be. Then again, depending on how holdings are distributed, city holdings might also represent the arbor's wealth.

Edit: Ooh, yep, those Iron Islands look good.

 

[FrozenWall]

The fact that most of their people are also raiders works both ways: Unless their defeat in Balon's first rebellion was a relatively painless affair (and their whining on their POV chapters doesn't seem to suggest so

The defeat may have been a heavy blow to their ambitions and dreams of returning to past glory, but was not a wholesale slaughter of their able bodied populance, as evidenced by their ability to try again. Presumably Ned was too lenient and goody after victory, leaving the Greyjoys around certainly would suggest so, as per usual...

Regardless, the plausibility of how they came back and how they maintain a level of military power with that little base is not not entirely relevant. The point is they apparently did and can, alls we can do is come up with some guesses and then base mechanics on that in a way that captures the feel of the Ironmen as best the engine allows.

map

I like it.

- I'm loving how much can be done with impassible borders too; it'd be great to get a few more screenshots of the map to see the rest of the map.
- If the shield islands are split, and the iron islands are split, it seems inconsistent not to split up the Arbor, give how wealthy it's meant to be. Then again, depending on how holdings are distributed, city holdings might also represent the arbor's wealth.

What borders needs to be partly or fully impassable?
-Wall
-Moat Cailin
-Twins
-Reach
-Dorne passes
-any more?

The number of provs depend on us wanting
-room to maneuver
-playable houses (cant play barons)
-management of conquerable land
The Arbors riches can be represented by more baronies, cities especially, and higher base tax, no need to clutter the map. The IIslands and shields are split because we can only have playable houses on county level.

 

[Nick B II]

Sources for Iron Islands' iron mines: http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/Concordance/Section/4./ (search "mine")

This says there are mines on the islands. It doesn't specify what is being mined, or indicate that the mines are more important on the islands then they are anywhere else. And it should be noted that IRL just about every region has iron.

FrozenWall implied that mining Iron is a major industry, and a source of strength. That's a pretty big difference.

As for hax/cultural bonuses, what exactly do you guys mean?

The Warrior Ethic one doesn't make much sense to me. We seem to be shooting for an Ironborn military of ~40k, so if we use that trait that doubles levy size we'll only have room for ~20k worth of troops before we've unbalanced the mod. And we've got 31 Ironborn Houses that appear in-game. In other words I'd rather Make the Harlaws Counts and barons of Harlaw with a vassal House Humble, which means two regiments; rather then not include the Humbles and give the Harlaws one double-sized regiment.

A province-trait Old Ways which increases ship-levies does make sense to me.

Other bonuses that make sense mostly apply to Naval Combat, and that's not gonna be relevant in CK2.

Nick

 

[the_hdk]

40k? everyone has been mentioning 15-20k

 

[Nick B II]

Anyway, we are probably getting a bit OT. Regardless of how they can get and support them, plothax or not, I suppose that we are in agreement that the Ironborn should be able to raise about 15-25k men and a crapload of ships, is that right?

I was thinking more like 40k, because 1,000 longships would have 40k men. It's up to 44k or so if the Great Longships of the Iron Fleet are included.

Where do you get the lower numbers from?

Nick