Deviations from the Official Rules

Swords and Ravens of course tries to follow the official rules of the game as closely as possible. However, we have decided to make exceptions in a few cases where we deliberately deviate from the official rules. If you think that Swords and Ravens does not follow the rules, except for the following situations, please report it through the known channels.

Deviations

  1. The Mother of Dragons rules state that the expansion elements cannot be used in a modular way. We have decided to make the changes modular and optional and allow them in all other scenarios to be played as well to give players more freedom in game creation.
  2. Even though the official FAQ v2 does not directly address this issue, we have decided to grant the additional ship in the port of Lannisport only if House Greyjoy is in the game. From our point of view, this ship was added precisely to defuse the Greyjoy/Lannister conflict a bit, so that Greyjoy can no longer overrun Lannister that easily. If Greyjoy is not in the game, we believe that the original starting position from the 2nd edition should be used, since Lannister is the strongest house in the 3P game anyway and the additional ship would also allow capturing Seagard in round 1.
  3. Furthermore, it is theoretically possible to provide support from only one area, even if there are support orders in several adjacent areas. In Swords and Ravens this is not possible for the sake of simplicity and you can only grant or deny support completely.

  4. Massing on the Milkwater - Wildling Victory: According to FAQv2, the situation is clarified as follows:

    Q: When resolving the penalty on the “Massing on the Milkwater” wildling card, if the lowest bidder only has two cards in their hand and both are the same strength, when and how should they retrieve their hand of discarded cards?

    A: The lowest bidder first chooses and discards one card. Then, they discard their last card, leaving it in the discard pile while they retrieve their other six (including the card they chose to discard first).

    However, we consider this more of a reward than a penalty (only 1s and 2s are doubled), so we decided to treat this case as if there were only one card left in the hand, and therefore no card is discarded.

  5. By definition, the raven phase is part of the planning phase. Since it was easier to implement, S&R took the liberty of integrating the raven phase into the action phase.
  6. According to the rules, Targaryen can never be a vassal. Nevertheless, it is possible to replace Targaryen with a vassal to continue and finish games if Targaryen needs to leave. (Remember, a replaced vassal can be turned back into a player house if you find a player replacement later.)
  7. The 2nd Edition rules state that once a player owns more territories with units than he has orders available, the planning phase occurs in turn order. Since Swords and Ravens is an online adaptation, this rule is not strictly necessary and would also unnecessarily drag out the planning phase. Instead, Swords and Ravens allows you to play forbidden orders, which are automatically removed before resolution. This still allows placed orders to be displayed in real time and solves the problem of “which areas did the opponent not order” quite well so far.
  8. Replacing a player by a vassal in-game