I was in a 4-player game of "A Game of Thrones" this weekend, and witnessed a fascinating bit of deal-making. Here's the situation: Towards the end of the game Red and Green (I'm going to use the piece colors and not the house or player names, just to keep it simple) were the strongest forces in the game, and were both very close to winning. However, neither of them had enough strength to expand and take any more cities, and thus were deadlocked. Meanwhile, Yellow and White were badly weakened, with absolutely no hope of winning. White had his hands full just trying to stave off Red's attacks, while Yellow had devoted most of his resources to defend against any further incursions by Green. With only 2 turns left in the game, Red suddenly had a flash of insight, and asked White to have an out-of-room discussion with him. When they returned to the table, they were grinning like Cheshire cats. On turn 9 they began to execute their plan. Red withdrew his forces from White's border and proceeded to throw everything he had at Green, while White moved south and at-tacked several weak Yellow positions that were barely cling-ing to some cities. Then on turn 10, Red was able to take his 7th city from Green to win the game, while White came in 2nd with 6 cities, thanks to his attacks on Yellow. So what was so special about all this? Well, when Red took White out of the room to talk, he basically offered White a guaranteed 2nd place finish, as long as White would help him win the game. Red offered to pull his forces away from White's borders, so Red could attack Green, freeing up White to attack Yellow. Given White's weakened position, White gladly accepted this offer. Sure enough, when Red made his initial move on turn 9, he left several of his cities that bordered White's territory completely vacant. When it was White's turn, I pointed out that White could win the game right now simply by walking across the border and claiming the cities for himself. But instead, White honored his deal with Red and proceeded to come after my Yellow forces, much to my chagrin. Thus it all went according to Red's devious plan: he won the game, while enabling White to elevate himself to a 2nd place finish. The questions: If you were in White's shoes, would you accept Red's deal? If you did, would you then honor it, or would you be tempted to break your word and grab the win for yourself after Red withdrew his forces? If you were in Red's shoes, would you even think to propose a deal where the difference between your winning or losing was entirely dependent on the honorable actions of another player? I should explain that my group maintains player rankings that are based on finishing position in a game (we use the PLOPS system), so a 2nd place result is definitely better than last place, which is why Red figured his deal would be so appealing to White. I've played tons of negotiation/deal-making games (it's my favorite kind of game), but I don't think I've ever seen a situation where two players openly agreed to help one player win, at the expense of the other player's chances for victory. And rarely have I seen such a level of trust as Red demonstrated when he vacated his cities, giving White a clear op-portunity to win the game for himself. What were the Green and Yellow responses? Well, it wasn't quite so simple, unfortunately. Yellow (that was me) and White had a game-long peace agreement that White stringently maintained - so I trusted him to some degree. But more importantly, due to his severely weakened position, I wasn't really worried about being attacked by him. Meanwhile, Green and I were not on speaking terms by this point in the game. Yes, we saw that Red and White were up to something, but it never occurred to either of us that White would willingly give the win to Red. Certainly, I wasn't about to agree to a similar deal with Green and support a victory for him. I knew I had no shot at winning, but I wasn't about to make it easy for anyone else. I suppose I was hoping that Red and Green would wear themselves out fighting each other, and I could make a quick land grab for some additional cities. Hah! Looking back at the whole situation, I think my best ploy would've been to somehow entice White out of his deal with Red. I'm not exactly sure what I would've been able to offer, but I know that I would've at least had White's ear. Ultimately, it really depends on the people involved, I suppose. Some folks can be trusted not to pull the rug out from under you, while others definitely can't! Back to Table of Contents -- Game! # 2 To Game! List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by George Phillies. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com