already?

Not exactly. I want to build Riverrun 2 here:

That’s a good bit west and north of Lord Harroway’s Town. This location would allow a castle to have rivers on three flanks and a moat on its western flank would give it the same capability to withstand sieges as Riverrun.

Moreover, two drawbridges anchored on that center spit of land could allow land traffic to cross from the south bank of the Red Fork to the north bank, and then from the north bank of the Red Fork to the northern bank of the Green Fork, at the castle’s discretion. At the same time, lowering the drawbridges would allow the castle to intercept river traffic on all three forks of the Trident.

about the economic development plans, was diverting half of rippledown rill to trident and deepening it enough to form a canal from trident to god’s eye included? if not, that might be a nice feat to be able to navigate all the way from neck to KL inlands.

I don’t think the geography of that quite works out.

From my reading of the text, the Rippledown Rill would have to be to the west of Harrenhal (on a rough northwest to southeast loop), which would substantially extend the length of a Trident-Godseye canal compared to just building north from Harrenhal (where the Godseye is about 50 miles closer to to the Trident compared to the eastern or western sides) to the nearest point on the Trident.

I was surprised by your answer to a previous question, that Harrenhall would’ve made a good capital location for a Targaryen dynasty (sans curses) Can you elaborate on why? Were you suggesting it’s better spot than Kings Landing? Or just a good alternative? The only negative that came to me comparing the two is lack of ocean trade at Harrenhall.

My main issue with King’s Landing has to do more with Aegon’s decision to keep the Crownlands small, only absorbing a small part of the Riverlands and Stormlands, which had massive ramifications for the strength of the monarchy once the dragons died. To be fair, this involves a heavy dose of presentism, as Aegon had no idea that the dragons would die out.

However, Harrenhal does have some benefits:

It’s an already extant castle that’s big enough to hold the entire political class of the nation, and we know that there’s enough space there to hold “the fourth largest city of the kingdom.”
It still has ocean trade via the Blackwater Rush, and if you built a relatively short canal, you could have access via the Trident as well.
It’s more centrally located, which means travel and communication between the capital city and major centers of power out in the provinces would be faster for the more northwestern half of the kingdom. That should also cut down on inter-kingdom conflict more, because it would be impossible to attack another Great House without going through them first.
If the Riverlands plus Crownlands was the personal fiefdom of the monarchy, you’d deal with the weak monarchy and weak Riverlands problem, since royal government could ensure that the abundant natural resources of the region were fully utilized.

If you were Aegon the Conqueror, would you have included House Lefford of the Golden Tooth into the Riverlands under House Tully’s Lord Paramouncy or kept them as part of the Westerlands? (P.S. I’m asking Attewell, SLAL and the Good Queen, having huge respect for all y’all’s differing POVs, TY)

Well, it sort of depends on how, as King, you view the loyalty of the Westerlands and the Riverlands. After all, the whole point of Aegon’s Conquest was to assert the unity of Westeros and establish a scenario where wars between kingdoms don’t happen, and given that the only purpose of the Golden Tooth is to ensure that the Westerlands can’t be invaded by the Riverlands but can invade with impunity, the King’s rule should make the Golden Tooth irrelevant.

So the only scenario where I would see Aegon giving the Golden Tooth to the Riverlands is a scenario in which the new king sees the Riverlands as more loyal than the Westerlands, and needs to forestall any future rebellion which might involve an invasion of the Riverlands.

Indeed, if it wasn’t for Aegon’s dracocracy leading him to make minimal changes to pre-existing conditions, it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to annex the fortress to the crown to prevent either kingdom from invading the other without openly rebelling.

Simon Rumble Asks: Daemon’s Riverlands strategy

So Daemon invaded the Riverlands with the force of two kingdoms behind him and most likely dangled the Lord Paramountcy of the Riverlands in front of rebellious and powerful lords like the Freys, Lothstons, Brakens, etc. How badly did the Riverlands get crushed?

How did his invasion differ from the Lannisters in OTL?

Well, we know almost nothing about Daemon’s strategy in this theater, so it’s hard to say how it differed. Although I’m guessing that, with those rebellious lords in his coalition, he didn’t go with Tywin’s reaving.

But to me, the main difference is that the Riverlands were divided during the Blackfyre Rebellions. And, as we see with the various invasions of the Riverlands – the invasion by the Stormlanders where the Blackwoods invited in the Stormlanders to help them overthrow the Teagues, the invasion by the Ironborn where the Brackens sided with the Hoares to revenge themselves on the Brackens – when the Riverlands are divided, they lose badly.

how many ships / of what type would you expect the riverlands brown water navy to have? would it be organized with each lord having a small fleet, or would it be more like the vikings where every river town has a few ships for community use that the lord would then draft into a fleet as needed?

Well, we don’t see anyone but House Tully itself with a riverrine navy, so I’m guessing they’re the only one with one.

And in terms of type, according to Jaime I they are “river galley[s]…nine oars on each side, which means eighteen men.” More, if they crowded on fighters as well as rowers. And larger sails than ours…” These are pretty small vessels, even by Ironborn standards, but against ground forces trying to ford a river, they’d be incredibly potent.

How should Edmure have handled the Lannister invasion of the Riverlands?

I addressed this in Cat VII of AGOT, but basically he should have done the opposite of what he did – rather than trying to defend every square inch of Riverlands territory, he should have relied on the rivers as defensive multipliers and in general, traded space for time while he was still mobilizing.

Vance and Piper’s 4,000 men were never going to be able to stop Jaime’s army in the open field – but they could have shadowed Jaime’s advance and slowed it down, giving Edmure time to rally and drill his troops, and then gotten across the river ahead of Jaime. With these 4,000 men still in hand, Edmure would have been at least numerically equal and most likely numerically superior to Jaime’s army – but he likely still would have been outnumbered by both Jaime and Tywin’s armies, so I would not have advised going on the offensive at this point.

However, as we saw in the OTL Battle of the Fords, the rivers give significant defensive advantages – they funnel the enemy into a limited number of crossing points, negating the advantage of the Lannisters’ bigger armies and allowing Edmure to establish local superiority of numbers, and the crossing itself leaves their forces exposed to missile fire and in danger of being wiped out when counter-attacked. The Tully river-navy could have been used here to great effect, both as siege platforms and essentially mini-castles that you can use to block crossing points.

Essentially, Edmure should have done the Battle of the Fords in reverse. This may well have meant a siege of Riverrun – so be it, that’s what Riverrun was for. Potentially, he could have stopped the Lannisters there, allowing Robb to link up with the Riverlander army and fight a weakened Lannister opponent. But at the very least, it would have prevented the Riverlanders from being routed and allowing the Lannisters to run rampant with no one there to stop them.

Even if Jaime and/or Tywin had managed to force a crossing, you leave a garrison at Riverrun to hold the castle, and pull back to the next defensive line – the Blue Fork (and then the Green Fork) in the north and/or various castles in the hills country in the south (ultimately, you’re going to be using Harrenhal as the place to stop any southern thrust). Keep making the Lannisters charge headlong at strong defenses, use your cavalry to attack the Lannisters guerrilla-style along the way just like the Riverlanders did in the Dance of the Dragons when the Lannisters tried marching through the Riverlands, and again, buy yourself time.