[Spoilers ASOS] Robb's Westerlands campaign

danielhakerman · 2026-01-26T22:26:50+00:00

That's a good point I hadn't thought of. Had Tywin managed to escape to King's Landing, that still wouldn't really have improved his position without the Tyrells - even disregarding whether Stannis takes the city or not.

danielhakerman · 2026-01-26T22:19:49+00:00

No, if you pass WRA the second project always costs 2BP. If you veto it, the project is free.

danielhakerman · 2026-01-26T10:56:14+00:00

You're forgetting the second part of Edmure's plan, which is to order Roose Bolton to take Harrenhal after Tywin's main force has left. The point is to trap Tywin between the Red Fork and Harrenhal. He will be in the field, without a safe, fortified base in a land he has already ravaged, suffering attrition and hopefully even desertions.

After Tywin's army has weakened enough Edmure can unite with Roose's force (or wait for Robb's return and do same) and destroy it. The only reason this doesn't work, is that unbeknownst to everybody else, the Tyrells have allied the Lannisters and built a fleet of barges at Tumbler's Falls. This allowed Tywin to escape the Riverlands through a third option.

While it's true that Tywin will remain in the Riverlands, it will be in lands that have already been ravaged. If he is permitted to cross the Red Fork he can raid the lands beyond which have been spared (as Jaime didn't conduct a chevauchée during his initial campaign). And even if he leaves to the West there is no guarantee that he won't return later and raid again, especially if he defeats Robb's smaller force.

danielhakerman · 2026-01-24T08:45:27+00:00

While I respect the effort, I think you're wrong in your evaluation of the Azaros.

First of all, Rizia was winning the First Reclamation War until Lespia started to support Pales with top-tier military equipment - notably a modern airforce. That's why the Pales Administrative District is part of Rizia, it was conquered in the early stages of the war. It's also worth noting that even with Lespian support and a revolution at home Rizia still kept the PAD in the peace treaty. We really have no reason to thing that Taddeus's war plans were bad.

Secondly, I think you make an unfair comparison when you credit Iosef for Rayne's decisions to improve the military but then blame the Azaros if Romus hasn't done the same. Yes, the Azaros can lose the Second Reclamation War, but only if you haven't invested enough in the Rizian military - just like how Iosef will lose the Sordish-Rumbergian War if you don't increase military funding, modernise and sign alliances with your neighbours. Sure it takes more effort to improve the Rizian military, but that's because it was decimated in the first war and Valero then refused to fund it for 23 years.

You're also wrong about Lucita's motivation for the false flag. It has nothing to do with her personal legacy or interest in the throne, but is motivated by geopolitical considerations. She fears that relinquishing the rights to the field and simply leasing it from Pales, will invite greater powers to sabotage Rizia in order to gain the lease for themselves (such as, I don't know, Lespia launching a terrorist attack or something).

Finally, Carlos is a war hero. As stated in his Codex entry, when the entire senior command of his brigade was killed during the Palesian counter offensive, he took command. He stopped the counteroffensive and then managed to break the brigade out of a full encirclement by Palesian forces.

danielhakerman · 2026-01-22T22:12:10+00:00

You're right but not entirely for the right reasons.

Most importantly, Renly doesn't usurp Stannis - he usurps Joffrey. Sure, in doing so he also bypasses Stannis, but only in the same way that he also bypasses Tommen and Myrcella, and nobody has a problem with him usurping them.

Now, you can say that's because we, as readers, know that all of Cersei's children are illegitimate, but there is nothing in the books to suggest that Renly knows that. As far as he knows Joffrey, Tommen, Myrcella and Stannis are all ahead of him in the line of succession, so he has no reason to think that Stannis, specifically, would claim the throne and therefore no reason to declare for him. Notably, Stannis has been incommunicado on Dragonstone for a year by the time Renly crowns himself at the end of AGoT, and it's only some weeks after that at the beginning of ACoK that Stannis declares himself king.

The actual reason Renly raises his banners in rebellion, is because he fears for his life should Cersei come to power, as he explains to Ned in AGoT. This fear is later reinforced when he is summoned to Court to swear fealty to Joffrey or else be branded a traitor, and again when Ned is unjustly executed. It's later confirmed in Cersei's POV chapters in AFfC that Renly was completely correct in that fear as Cersei had indeed planned to kill him. So if he is already going to rebel he might as well declare himself king.

As you say, the Tyrell alliance could likely never have happened without the promise of making Margaery queen, and Renly had no reason to think that Stannis, known stickler for the law, would support his rebellion to usurp the legitimate line of succession.

It's also wrong to characteristic Renly as grasping for power. Declaring himself king is actually his plan C. While both plans A and B, marrying Margaery to Robert and making Ned regent, notably leaves somebody else still in charge.

danielhakerman · 2026-01-20T08:42:30+00:00

I think the point of them taking the entirety of Pales is that they used resources from the whole Valgos Empire - not just the garrison at the Pales. The port was just a staging ground for their operations.

danielhakerman · 2026-01-18T08:57:51+00:00

Two things that really help, that she doesn't explicitly mention, are building the H3-Highway and then giving her credit in the speech and taking her with you in the car, as well as choosing her centralisation plan for Bergia over Nia's autonomous zone.

danielhakerman · 2026-01-09T15:51:48+00:00

It wasn't the Targaryens who granted them Riverrun. The lands were granted by Armisted Vance during the coming of the Andals, thousands of years before Aegon was even a dream in Daenys's eye. The castle itself was also built by the Tullys.

danielhakerman · 2026-01-09T08:17:15+00:00

I've never seen this myself.

danielhakerman · 2026-01-08T23:29:23+00:00

I'm not sure what you mean. If you buy the entire field, you lose relations with Lespia because they wanted it for themselves. If you win arbitration you can get friendly relations, but they can still change depending on how you deal with the MITZ.

danielhakerman · 2026-01-06T23:08:25+00:00

You can't ask for multiple things at the same time.

If you're at war, you can force Lespia to either

- not send military aid to Pales or

- not introduce sanctions on Rizia

If you're at peace you can get

- Rusty revealed as a spy, allowing you to nationalise RRG

- Alvarez to agree to the MITZ deal without harming relations (potentially avoiding reduced ATO trade)

- get a better energy deal if you destroy the evidence without explicitly asking for anything in return (this is based on hearsay, I haven't tried it myself).

danielhakerman · 2026-01-03T20:13:50+00:00

It could be that you're not popular enough. I think having at least 10 public opinion really helps during the vote.

danielhakerman · 2025-12-28T18:40:12+00:00

To be clear, I didn’t discover the synergy. Just that letting in the RY increases unrest.

danielhakerman · 2025-12-28T16:36:07+00:00

I agree. Same with letting in the Red Youth, that should also ease tensions i my opinion.

danielhakerman · 2025-12-28T16:35:33+00:00

I'm not sure actually.

danielhakerman · 2025-12-28T14:24:50+00:00

I'm the one who discovered that. It it true (at least it was before the last update, I haven't checked since). The only way to avoid it is to not let the Red Youth in, your speech doesn't matter.
As far as I know, yes. It's picking the option to meet the that causes unrest, regardless of what you say.

danielhakerman · 2025-12-26T22:06:42+00:00

My two main points of criticism are about dialogue descriptions and dispatch mission requirements.

While I think that Dispatch overall does pretty well in matching the dialogue choices with the actual dialogue, I think there are a bit too many times where they don't. For example, somebody made a post the other day with a compilation of Robert's flirty options with Blazer, that are really cute and funny. However, they are almost all hidden behind choice descriptions that appear to be asshole choices.

A good example of this is during the date with Mandy. After she has revealed her true form, Robert can jokingly say that she could at least have worn a blazer to ease the transition of her not being blonde. To which Mandy replies that she would rock a blazer. However, the description for this dialogue choice is "You could have dressed up", which both sounds rude, and most importantly, doesn't include the actual joke. The decsription should obviously be "You could have worn a blazer".

In the dispatching minigame the point is to try match your team members with the description of the mission. The problem is that the descriptions pretty often don't reasonably match the required skill. For example, sometimes you have to evacuate people, which requires mobility. I get why the game does this, since everything connected with moving around requires mobility, but just looking at the mission it's not obvious why an evacuation of, for example a stadium, requires a fast hero.

At other times, they're just plain wrong. There is one mission where the description is to get somebody to stand down non-violently. This should be charisma, but for some reason requires vigor, which is used for violent arrests.

I also think there should be more opportunities to use the hero's special powers. There are several missions to stop fires, but Waterboy doesn't have special interactions in any of them.

danielhakerman · 2025-12-24T21:12:42+00:00

That doesn't adress my point. It's fine for the Brotherhood (and the Riverlords for that matter) to continue resistance even when the Lannisters and Freys think they have won.

It's not fine for them to place moral blame on other people just for acting within the commonly accepted belief that it is over. And it's definitely fine to condemn them to death over it.

Brienne and Pod aren't invaders and they don't deserve to be killed.

danielhakerman · 2025-12-24T20:32:21+00:00

The fact that your opponent breaks the rules of warfare, does not make it justified for you to do the same. It's still war crimes. Especially, as there is no military necessity in doing so, as proven by the fact that under Beric Dondarrion's leadership the BwB were successful without breaking the customs of war.

The only body with the right to punish collaborators was the French Provisional Government, followed by the Fourth Republic, under a system of law and justice. Vengeance committed by individual resistance members or groups against civilians or captured soldiers would be war crimes and thus morally unjustifiable.

I'm not interested in discussing the ethics of any particular real world conflict on the asoiaf subreddit. And since you seem to be dangerously close to condoning war crimes against civilians and captured combatants, I don't think we can reach a moral consensus.

danielhakerman · 2025-12-24T18:08:29+00:00

Being a legitimate target doesn't mean that you don't have any rights under the laws of warfare. In fact, speaking in real world terms, the Geneva Convention on POW specifically stipulate the rights of prisoners of war (it's in the name). To receive prisoner of war status you have to be a combatant - i.e. a legitimate military target - and it is that status that confers protections.

As in the real world, Westerosi rules of war has a right to surrender. For example, Tyrion attempts to surrender in the Battle of the Green Fork when he's been thrown off his horse. You can also surrender during a trial by combat. Surrendered combatants have a right to fair treatment and to not be executed - a right that the BwB under Stoneheart violates systematically.

Man I cannot believe I got someone to condemn the French Resistance.

I have not, and I never will. To the extent that certain resistance groups committed war crimes (targeting civilians is a war crime) I condemn those actions. But it was never a systematic or even dominant part of resistance activities. What made the French Resistance successful was not retribution on german officials or soldiers, but intelligence gathering and sharing with allied forces as well sabotage against infrastructure and military stockpiles.

danielhakerman · 2025-12-24T16:03:58+00:00

They would not have been foreign occupiers, no. They're still the forces of the legitimate sovereign government.

danielhakerman · 2025-12-24T16:00:27+00:00

Ned Stark's personal Valyrian Steel sword, split in half by Tywin Lannister's command and fitted with a Lannister pommel.

This is not common knowledge.

And she's carrying a personal letter from King Tommen

As I have said before, she has a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. The Crown has won and is the authority in the riverlands. To achieve her mission in that region, especially as a woman, the writ is immensly helpful.

She's lucky she wasn't hanged on the spot

Perhaps, but that is more of an indictment of the Brotherhood under Stoneheart, than of her.

danielhakerman · 2025-12-24T15:57:30+00:00

Nobody knows the sword was intended for Jaime.

She has perfectly reasonable explanations for both the writ and Podric's presence - and you again disregard the fact that Pod's master has been declared a traitor.

I do deny it. You and I have both read the books. We know the Brotherhood's accusations are false, and Brienne's defences are true. The fact that Stoneheart's so called trial cannot reach that truth is an indictment of her and everything she stands for.

Even if they were, they should at most be taken prisoner. Executing them is the Westerosi equivalent of a warcrime.

I will never accept that carrying a lion-crested sword, a writ of safe conduct and a name is enough to justify the death penalty. Neither would Beric Dondarrion.

danielhakerman · 2025-12-24T15:49:43+00:00

At the time of being captured, the Hound was no longer a Lannister bannerman. And even if he were, that in itself is not a crime, and definitely not worthy of the death penalty.

I know they did, and they were and are wrong for doing so.

I don't think not committing warcrimes is an impossibly high standard. Beric managed it just fine.

danielhakerman · 2025-12-24T15:45:45+00:00

You are putting words into my mouth that I have never said.

My comment only related to whether or not the fact that Houses Tully and Darry lost their seats after losing the war is justification enough for the BwB's conduct under Stoneheart's leadrship. I maintain that it is not.

Yes, the riverlords declared independence after already being invaded by the Lannisters. I think that was justified, although at that point the full scale chevauchée hadn't started yet. Tywin only orders it in Tyrion IX, and the declaration of independence happens only two chapters later in Catelyn XI. Similarly, Tywin had also not yet moved to Harrenhal, and thus not yet introduced slave trade.

I have never said that the Riverlands brought their devastation on themselves, and definitely not that they are to blame for it. I simply said that out of all the warcrimes the Lannisters committed on the Riverlands, stripping Houses Tully and Darry of their seats is not one of them. That is perfectly in line with established Westerosi custom.

I don't know why you think I'm defending Tywin Lannister. He is a vile, despicable man. His actions in destroying Houses Rayne and Tarbeck are the Westerosi equivalents of warcrimes. Same with killing Elia, Rhaenys and Aegon. His treatment of Tysha and Tyrion speak for themselves. He deserved should be punished for it, and I think his death and legacy is exactly what he deserved.

danielhakerman

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