astarkchoice

Varys: his little bird network cant be unbreakable esp if they are mute but can read and write. What happens when they get too old where do they retire to? If someone grabs or bribes one what secrets they could write down. He may have kidnapped a lannister during the kl riot which tyrion may resent if discovered ,his return to kl to murder kevan etc may be a mistake if hes spotted or if jamie mapped some of the hidden passageways better than we think. Finaly ultimately his plan all centres around his ally and one unstable boy(faegon) who may or may not choose to fight danys + may become injured/killed or even become greyscale stricken soon....there is no plan b for the eunuch!! Littlefinger: his gamble with the knife could have easily backfired if tyrion was vengeful although he did cover himself by saying to the starks to throw it away and that it wasnt proof on its own (as he knew they also recieved letter from lysa which he was pretending he knew nothing about) He could also always say he misremebered or was just bragging and it was ultimately cat etc who overrected minus proof so the knife thing while.risky wasnt a giant misstep at all. Far more risky was his inital ploy with the clearly mentaly unstable lysa that could fall apart at any time or she could have left clues, his obsession with sansa could still undoe him as shes strong and growing cleverer. Killing lysa was clearly a risk that could come.back to haunt him AS is the growing bond between sansa and sweetrobin. Sansa also has formed a fast friendship with miranda royce who seems to be a gossip and info hub not to mention could possibly sway her dad! He has some risks surrounded by mercs esp the newer ones who could be on others pay(varys, bronns pals,tyrells etc) and his most loyal servants are all possibly comprimised. Luthur brune has been his ultra efficent secret muscle and proved at blackwater to be an absolute beast in combat BUT hes smitten with mya stone which could be act against LF plus he may find himself becoming fond of sansa as he watches over her. His other longtime assets the corbrays now have wealth so could turn and most dangerously the once fantastic deal he secured the kettlebacks has soured ....lord kettleback may want his sons back from KL and out of danger! We know much of the inital reistance to his rule of the vale has faded or was deceptively weak..the vale is riddled with corruption hes involved with or there are damaging family secrets he knows, the only true resistance left is bronze royce whos marriage of his son to another powerful house increases the risk he poses. We know harry the heirs ward clearly knows who sansa is thus once harry is happy with her who knows she may see LF as no use anymore (although LF may use the disgruntled rich spice merchant whos daughter harry soiled for another rich marriage/dowry to a poor lord somewhere) Finaly in terms of close quarters LF relies on a handful of mercs so should the truths spill out it could all be decided in a fast brewing fight between few men in a hallway not an all out war. Bronze royce is formidable , harry is clearly being overhyped but could be quite good and of course myas lover mychel redfort is named as one of the best young swordsmen of the vale (also lyn corbrays squire so could end him) We know of the mercs shown up the 'mad mouse' made some sarcastic remarks hinting he knows the story brienne tells about sansa is b.s. All that said his undoing may also be in the finacial books at kl or a disgruntled whore, varys and petyr played the game for years so it seems likely varys would have a endgame/wmd bombshell in mind.....maybe a pre written letter to sansa about how her father was betrayed etc. Of course his deal with the tyrells could also come.back on him too

Just random (bored thoughts ) about the level of control a house has over their region/vassals with very very rough ranking. 1) lannisters of casterly rock over westerlands. Lets see they are longtime historic rulers of the region , already had richest goldmine with 0 signs of running out , by far strongest keep, multiple smaller intermarried off shoots control major port city , 2 strongest rivals recently exterminated handing over their gold+ silver to the rock , head of household (tywin) established brutaly his dominace and has established not only links to monarchy but a minor house(clegane)with 2 feared brute enforcers!! 2) greyjoys of pyke: balon won kingsmoot and had become a virtual legend as a youth. Married into arguably the only house to rival the greyjoys in power. Damaged his rep.badly with a failed rebelliom costing him.the sons thay could have been married off to seal.their power for centuries. Recovered influence as one brother is considered their finest reaver, another one is still one of their top warriors and controls the iron fleet and yet another is head of their religion sealing up a lot of control and prestige. Daughter has earned respect as both captain and warrior (her lover one of the ironborns fiercest warriors) and their in laws lesser house now has one of the islands finest warriors (the knight). 3)starks of winterfell: lost a lot of power since being forced to surrender the gift and its deterioration and as we know bolton and possibly dusin/ryswll not to be trusted. That said the starks hold.arguably.one of the richest lands and most powerful northern keep, their blood relatives karstarks are one of the most powerful.houses and both houses manderly (the richest house with biggest population centre and only real sea power) and mormont owe them everything!! (one of the 2 house flints only exist on land the starks took back from ironborn too but we dont hear much of them). They have a storried history protecting the wall side by side with house umber vs kings beyond the wall and with many sons joining the watch. They personaly subdued and/or hold he loyalty of the more savage regions (crannogmen, skagos, clansmen) and their current lord ned had large family to marry off ,personaly well loved and respected on top.of links to the king and powerful lords ...even rumours of him personaly killing ser aurthur dayne to add to the baddassry of his storied generalship. Add in a ward of the greyjoys in his grasp thus could in theory have coastal enemies raided. Overall massive hard and soft power over the northern lords 4) tyrell of the reach: upjumped but thanks to various marriages now well tied into the reachs most powerful houses with a new unmarried generation to tie it up further. Loras fame as a knight with his older brother secretly better adds to their image only the powerful florent claim to the reach knocks them down a rank or 2 in terms of utter control 5)martells of dorne: admitedly their rise to power is entirely caused by the rhoynar marring into them and choosing them to be lords of dorne but they have over time established their hold. Recently the houses seeming weakness is actualy strength as we know doran and the viper work in cahoots...one is the seemingly reasonable face of dorne the other the focal point of any rage. Add in hotahs seemingly excellent intel network and the martells have dorne well in hand esp now their sons wardship has cooled the yornwood feud. 5) house baratheon of stormsend: handed to renly by robert its ranked lower than other only as its lord(renly) was handed the role by his older brother. That said over time he has established himself as a competent well.liked leader over the normaly hard to wrangle stormlords. Having his 2 big brothers being who they are doesnt hurt either 6) baratheon of dragonstone: stannis is a hard man and has wrangled the former targ loyalist islands into his power.unquestionably the strongedt keep and has a huge fleet.....only ranked low as such small weak area the celtigars wealth could be used to counter stannis if they were so inclined , with so few men on the islands it wouldnt take much for a challenege to emerge ......if not for big brother on the crown and little brother across the water etc 7)baratheon of crownlands: king we know but this is contested across the water , in financial difficulties and we know many minor lords in the rougher surrounding areas are all targ lovers. 8)tullys of riverrun: never the strongest or richest of roverlands houses undermined by the constant blackwood-bracken feuding and the freys in general. A sickly lord with a too kind hearted heir too. 9)arryns of the vale: seemingly less secure than we assumed due to both the heirs illness and the weakess of the eyrie to simply being starved out. Add in a growing drift between the ruling arryns and the multiple other minor arryns (including the very wealthy one in gulltown) those houses probably helped the main line take control of the vale in the 1st place . Add in the clans contesting control of areas and the sisters being their own virtual fiefdom (with lighthouse dutied being negelected by design too!!)

Yeah its hard to say if she id either a) is manipulating stannis as part of a larger plan by the fire priests same as the large priest and victarion. Or is a maverick whos visions have led her to genuinely believe stannis is the key not dany Now in a sort of twisted way shes been sorta right!!!!! She saves stannis from renly then from a protracted siege on stormsend...had renly wiped him out he probbly would have easily been king and renly seems the sort to take word of demons and goblins from the north and laugh it off Then shes refused to be allowed into the blackwater battle which is literalt decided by fire! Stannis would have been king and in a position to better protect the realm from thw walkers as he actualy listens+ believes Finaly she helps stannos.survive the aftermath of his colossal failure to go on to save the watch and break the wildlings into a force to defend the wall, even hands out good advice to the idiot jon who might also be the key but he ignores it to be stabbed!!!

No.he offered a cushy officers position to one of the few learned men with command experience who could carry it out and then had a public challenge to his authority in an era and institution where the consequences of doing so are known! As lord commander his word is absolute , people can give their opinions but once he has decided thats it...there is no arguing back nor is there any quitting, your life is the watches to take or spend as it chooses. Slynt was not only handed a decent job but one essential to get the watch back where it needs to be and he abandoned his oath By contrast dany deciding to slaughter randomly picked mereenses nobles for the slaves lives taken was mindless angry revenge!

By level headed i mean she seems to have left them to persue her own visions of who the fire messiah is like a maverick , the rest seem to follow the high fire priests lead.

Ok so looking at various strengths starting far east Yunkai: has supposedly 5k slave troops probably lifelong professionals , walls covered with slingers and crossbowmen (probably 1k or so of the 5k) and the 2nd sieges of meereen hints they can bulk theb5k or so profesdionals up to 8k-20k ish with recently raised former labour slaves. Given yunkai specalizes in bed slaves we can.assume they could if wanted develop littlefinger style network of whore informants and if pushed mix in their whores with assasins. Astopor : fampus for unullied.but it does say it produces other troops types too..the unsullied being the cream of whst they produce. Like yinkai then they can probably bulk up the 7.k unsullied with say 3-20ishk salve troops but a lot more of them will be defent quality as astopor is more geared towards producing infantry. We.know they have elephants wandering the streets too so they can probably be added at a push Main weakess is no serious walls Mereen: largest of the 3 probably able to produce larger slave troops say 7k professionals and bulk it with conscripted labour slaves lile yunkai did to say 25kish. We know some of its nobles still train in armour wih horse and lance so it can probably produce very verysmall batchws of heavy cavalry say a few hundred at most. Finaly it has gladiators .....historicaly poor but if heavily armoured and armed enough could.make excellent light infantry and a training force to rapidly improve the hastily raised slave infantry!

Id estimate based in the golden companys strength (so that hiring them isnt an insta win for whoever lands them) , stannis belief that a few months in bravos would easily get him 20k mercs and the massive scale of the disputed lands that at any one time theres probably around 60-80k sellswords in west essos for sale!

Mel we get the impression had a gift far beyond many of her peers but refused to stay with her org and let them help her hence she can often jump to wrong conclusions more level heads at her firegod temple may take time to get right When it comes to religions it DOES look like dany may become.a messiah to the fire priest religion and raise most of essos slaves to her banner overthrowing the vastly outnumbered slaverd . The free cities ,quarth and slavers bay could all fall her to slaves within and hand her an incredible finabcial and military launch pad for their jihad!! We know things will get rough for the planet with the new winter comming so the northerners may feel.more sacrifices.to the old gods are needed or the growing power of thr faith mitant down south and of course theres whatever the hell euron is doing! So while there may not be gods their followers in their own way could get more extreme as the long winter kicks in! The idea of counterbalancing gods could workbut we dont know how real each one is! The drowned god seems.to be just a bunch of savages that happened to witness the deep/old ones and have been captivated since(other similar things in leng and the baslisk isles and 1000 islands) and took it that the sea made them strong too and they also had a right to take women and men as slaves and birthing units! The horselords fear a world.where there is no grass to feed livestoclk thus they burn citied and towns to leave grass to please theit stupid horsegod.....both these savages (ironborn and dothraki)may feel a compulsion to push harder to please such gods as the world begins to freeze up!!!! As for the gods themselves you may be rigjt about balance. The 5 forts enormous wall may be agaisnt the opposite of the whites walkers ie heat...an ever increasing dessert (we know vast parts of the east are becoming dessert) the former territory of hykroon has been wrecked by it. it could be not enough winter and ice hurts as much as heals! For all we know the huge winters keep the old/deeps ones at bay! Or the nightmares in sothyros or the nightmare fuel aerrea targaryan broght back that only ice water can kill! Or the dragons themselves

Butt the issue is it cpuld be . If you are a few miles from the wall people know they slip over and slip back. Your life goods, livestock , food and women wouldnt be secure.

True but roose alspushes for a quiet land..ie he keeps his dark shit on the down low so lord eddard never hears. 99% of the people on his lands probably never even met the guy.....by contrast anyone near the wall has gotta be nervous everytime it gets dark!

True But even with the limited men they have chopping back the forrest would create a clear line of sight to prevent wildlings slippiing over...and wood to keep the north warm/sell to bravos! The issue is the northerners have already rejected the gift to settle as it is and voted with their feet!...no one wants to live in lands where someone could rape or kill you at any min!

The issue there is its backwards Fix the watch and the gift is awsome ! Trim back the forrest and fix up all thw towers etc!

The land is fine the sort of people ned etc would settle.on it would be northerners anyway! Plus enough bad land will grow.as as much as a wayy smaller.plots of.good.land

It may be the fact families arent always the same.down the years the freys..current ones are horrible but there have been brave ones, the starks are noble and honourable but previous ones blood thirsty and imperialistic, the hightowers once deeply involved with the afairs of the land (damce of dragons) now insular etc

This maybe the blackwoods moved south with all the wealth they could carry and they upjumped a local family (sorta like the cleganes) who betrayed them later

Dunnon if this fits here but if they developed a total.war for planetos what sort of units would you want to see for each region? For example The north: all northern cavalry will be almost x2 regular cavalry for scouting due to the vastness they regulalry scout far north. Defeat king in the north unlock wargs, direwolves,wildlings and giants+ mammoths Crannogmen , clansmen + wildlings have weak defence but high scout/ambush and high attacks stats. You could set it up that you can pick an easy state to end up dominating the globe with (the reach,bravos, volantis) vs hard (lys,ironborn) or super hard (lorath) etc

wel agree to disagree with here as it feels like anever ending circle

-at this stage iv posted enough videoes from a wider variety of cultures proving you wrong and that before we talk spinning the blade as a warm up or someone showing off and you are still choosing to pick non sabre.videos too where the rotating of the wrist is essential to feint and hide the angle.of slash with -erm yeah the knight culture came from essos originaly or did you forget that? Plus the essosi side has evolved from the feudal model to using professional merc companies. -which is odd as we have already covered while foot archers have an aiming advantage thus are the best counter it doesnt negate the effectiveness of horse.archers at the aiming distance (theres still factors like numbers, how they are deployed and how the othe rinfantey is dwployed around them to factor in) nor does it change the fact an infantry block is a much much easier target for massed ballistic/arc volleys whereas aiming for moving targets over miles of open space for the foot is a nearly impossible shot unless the horse archers stop or dismount thus holding still -soo you think a mass.of archers can time a ballistic volley shot .on targets moving that fast? Are they elves.now ? Do their arrows have AI? Will the arrows self guide now? Get 1000 moden olympic calibre archers and give them drones to help time that and they.STILL wouldnt make that hail mary shot. No sport foot Archers use their advantages over horse archers with aimed volleys when the cavalry get close enough from behind pike or sheild walls or actual.walls not ballistic volleys into massive.open square.miles.hoping theyl randomly get them thats just common sense. And once again the mongols and others had recurve bows useable on horseback that can deal with what most infantry will be wearing just fine, the knights as we.saw.ve longbow( or a recurve bow with similar punch) is another matter yes but the rest of the infantry wont be so lucky -erm no the cataphracts made up barelt 1/10 of the force we are specificaly told the horse archers killed the romans at carrhae, cataphract charges helped but as a.'shaping force '.helpling break up the already arrow saturated leaderless inured legionares....if it has been 100% persian horse archers the romans would still all be as dead. Its actualy kinda bizzare youd say otherwise when we are literaly told in graphic detail how badly the arrows were affecting romans and how the persians had arrnaged their to be no lack of arrow replacements. At agincourt the hail of arrows was unquestionably a deciding factor esp now we've seen the video showing theblongbows effects on contemporary armour from the side angles and its effect on those trying to move forward. . Falkirk was won by the archers dude again the same.english knights failed vs scottish schiltrons before this time the same schiltrons had to stay still and be murdered en mass by ballistic arced volley after.volley Very little of this applies to the dothraki mind you minus armour or any sort of the amazing logistics and coordination we read of sucessful nomad forces and yes combined arms.would be wayy more effective but doesnt mean dothraki victories would be impossible in huge wide.open.fields just insanely insanely costly AND or requiring legolas levels of skill per man

Id say it was a mix of things Roberts regime looked stronger and stronger and viserys grew older he came across as less a kjng in exile but an amusing beggar Ilyrio and varys may have sabotaged visery rep among the elite in essos Dorans wife forbidding him makimg his daughter a ward in essos so viserys and her could be publicly seen linked pretty much ended any serious chance it had

1) nope a little spin can also help you warm up, show off as well as helping feint 2)thats all we know of current and historic..many stsrted by a few westerosi but the bulk of those companies will be essos born and bred, even the golden comlany with its unique qlmsot 100%, westerosi officers will be majority essosi at the foot level! 3) nope a mass of foot thats been saturated with arrows and gaps created can still be charged , heavy kr light it is still essentialy the mass and momentum of loads of men om horses doing the work then plain butchery with whatever they have as weapons.....its jsut minus armour or spears they will def lose a much much higher %, of men. 4)yes thata called arc or balistic shooting (most famous from the braveheart opening battle start) your archers fire volleys high at masses of men. In a large open field thats essentialy worthless vs a galloping block of horses ...no amount of training will let you time that one so the arrows land just where the horses will be mind gallop and that assumes they will ride tight together. It is essentialy what most longbowmen did. No they must wait til they get close enough for individual fire targetted from behind.pike/spear men ir at least a sheildwall to avoid being ran down. Now foot archers have an advantage over cavalry at aiming range yes but again thats a light year away from an 5)im actualy awestruck that you would cite those battles and not say the archers were not the decisive factor! Carrhae? Like 90% of the non roman force were horse archers they did the bulk of the killing esp as the had camels bring them.arrows all day, agincourt the hail of incomming arrows as much as the mud took the french advantage in knights away and turned it into a disadvantage they were literaly what saved the english that day. crecy etc Falkirk was another before we even get to multiple persian, hun, mongol battles. Han forces could be up to 1/3 crossbow and archers , indian forces a large % of archers too, archers on foot and horseback shape battles yes but they also 'decisively 'kill a fuckton of people too! Now they arent a 'superunit' by any means but i think your desire to mick the dothraki is seriously warping yout opinion of a highly sucessful and adaptable historical war unit

Yeah the issue id say about acting right after roberts rebellion is thus. A few years earlier the viper has killed a yornwood and dorans son hasnt been there long enough as ward to mend those fences, the yornwoods keep being essential to dornes defences. Then as we know the royalist fleet is smashed in a storm and at some point just a few years later wheb robert is securing the realm with 'his issuse' the viper cripples willas estranging their most critical targ loyalist ally !!! AND his wife puts her foot down about his daughter being a ward in the free cities and meeting viserys to grant any attemt to crown him some credibility.! Add in for some other extra unkown reason ( cough varys and ilyrio) the normaly meddlesome free cities arent interested in westeros or a heir to its throne at all. So a)isnt doable unless word reaches me of kl right after its sack. Id send the dornish forced north to reinforce the siege of storms end intermingle mine with the reachs massive host. When ned arrived have the viper kill him to provoke the northern host to attack AND/OR have standing orders for various lords to start duels with the northerner and start escalstong skirmishes! Force a battle 'they are attacking us ' and drve them off hopefully with ned dead..stannis and the onion knight will now starve. Reach out to the new lord of the iron isles balon. Hipefully when robert recoverd hel hear his brother starved to death, ned is dead or attacked, storms end is taken and the reach/dornish targ loyalists won a huge battle! OR have kl watches and when tywin leaves it after settling cersei in have the nost obvious roads set up with an ambush by the viper with hotah and your elite forces, add mumurs and paod essosi assasins to add to the confusion...tywin must die then the mountain later is easy! 2)while.robb is smashing the lannisters in the riverlands ise the cloak of the allaince tyrion set up to march into the westerlands (as " reinforcements") then devestate lannisport! Send word to robb adnedmure we will back you BUT tywin, loch and the mountain is comming and he is ours 3)use the viper AND his daughters . Send the vuper to kill tywin as i suspect doran planned ( then when accused he gets the mountain in trial which he has trained for with spear and prepped posion for!) Tyene is supposedly a master of posions so have her help get tywin and slip it on the wine of any other oppertune targets esp if possible a slow acting one tk put gregor off his game.fight night! Nymeria is supposedly beautiful an charming, and alway has s blade. The prefect woman to emnd cerie!

Excellent post cheers

Its an drill dude the middle ground between sparring and single technique practice. Its from one of the oldest martial arts alive and gets them used to live steel and running through a series of techniques at differing speeds. The spinning and feinting exists in other sword styles too Note the end the spining of the sabre to feint and hinde the true attack I mean i could post these all year but you get the point. For a sword minus a stabby bit you need to get some movement in to hide the angle.of your slash..or to bait someone to attack right into one! Its in swordplay worldwide from chinese dao forms to western sabres to indian martial arts. - theyl be full time professionals so theyl be at least as good. P4p the golden company wipes the floor with literaly any westerosi force of the same numbers.Jorah is clearly better than adverage but not elite. -their solution is the same way proper horse archer forces would try and deal ie create gaps in tbe pike/spear wall with missle fire and flow into them letting the momentum and mass of the horses do the work....but minus armour or spears/lances (and again we are assuming they domt use spears) itl be far far bloodier than a sensibly equipped cavalry force would suffer. Foot archers cold take a toll yes but their most effective technique(arced/ballistic shot) is cancelled out vs moving targets esp if they have space to spread out AND doing direct targetting (tricky with longbows) is hard enounb without needmg to retreat back and forth quickly behind the shields/pike wall -by that measure nothings a decisive weapon. Generaly mixed arms >>> single weapon for sure.

Always

-theres plenty of more stuff that shows their will be more of a feeling out process esp for 2 men fightingnto the death not slapping each other in padded suits, if you look up youtube with sabre stuff where more feints and 'spinny stuff' for want of a better word is required. From polosh sabre stuff to chinese dao forms to kalipayattu Heres live drills from one the worlds oldest martial arts with swordplay involved -hes def not elite no bit you are clearly tryinf to undersell his skills there. Mormonts are clearly raisee toughee than most in westeros and in essos hel be fighting other professional sellswords so if anything hes been on hard mode. -i think we sorta mixedup there overall we agree dothraki DO have a solution to pike and foot archer its just minus heavy cavalry backup or armour its just wayy wayy bloodier for them!! -ooh yeah the dothraki have shown no mixed arms skill agreed . Now the mongol bow is still an amazing weapon it cant be downplayed (or vast series of handmade weapons to be acccurate) with plenty capable being fired from horseback with incredible power. The tests it could be argued also miss the importance what repeated strikes couls potentiay do nor will we ever know what it feels like to be in a suit getting pelted with them or they missed from horseheight aiming down at neck etc but they do show whata longbow or a recurve bow with around the same punching power can do esp if aimed well at certain points or from the sides etc......not that any of that matters for dothraki as minus armour circling.knights/infantry and firing means even glancing arrow/quarrel blows comming back will maim or de-horse.