Home · Guides · Seats of Power
Seats of Power
Quick answers
- What is a Seat of Power in Iron Realms?
- A Seat of Power is a named holdfast on the world map that a lord captures and holds. There are 142 of them. A seat grants a realm-wide bonus, pays hourly tribute that doubles over the first day you hold it, and counts toward the Iron Throne — but it is lost to neglect if the garrison goes unmanned for 24 hours.
- How do you capture a Seat of Power?
- Grind its garrison durability to zero inside a war window. Both the seat's star rating (+8% defense per star) and its terrain (up to +20%) favour the defender, so a seat falls to a rally of up to eight waves rather than a single march. Bring siege troops — trap losses are permanent.
- Is Iron Realms free to play?
- Yes. Iron Realms is free to play in any browser with no download and no account required. Every building, troop tier and Seat of Power is reachable without spending money — purchases buy speed and cosmetics, never a higher ceiling.
- Does spending money make you stronger in Iron Realms?
- No. Nothing purchasable raises your power ceiling. A charter audit runs on every build and fails it if any offer would sell power. Spending compresses time: the summit takes about 24 months free, or 18 months with the $9.99 monthly Warden's Charter held throughout.
- How long does it take to max a keep in Iron Realms?
- About 24 months of free play at roughly half an hour a day, or 18 months with the $9.99 Warden's Charter. Keeps cap at level 45 and troops at tier 13 — the same summit for everyone.
Seats of Power are the reason the world map matters. There are 142 of them across Westeros — named holds, every one, from the Iron Throne at King's Landing down to the smallest holdfast — and each one you take pays you tribute every hour, grants a realm-wide buff, and moves you closer to the throne itself. They are also the single hardest content in the game, and they are meant to be.
The three tiers
| Tier | How many | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| The Iron Throne | 1 | King's Landing. Whoever holds it rules the realm and appoints the Small Council. |
| Great Castle | 14 | The great houses' capitals. Ten seats in the register carry the Lord Paramount badge. |
| Holdfast | 127 | The realm's ordinary strongholds — and where every conquering banner starts. |
The register groups them by region: the North 22, the Reach 21, Dorne 17, the Riverlands 16, the Westerlands 16, the Stormlands 15, the Crownlands 13, the Vale 13, and the Iron Islands 9.
Stars: what they actually cost you
Every seat carries a rating from ★ to ★★★★★, and it is not decoration — it is the difficulty dial.
- ★★★★★ — the Iron Throne. One only.
- ★★★★ — a Lord Paramount's capital.
- ★★★ — any other great castle.
- ★★ — a holdfast flying a real house's colours.
- ★ — a generic holdfast.
The defender gains +8% per star. A four-star paramount fights you at +32% from behind its walls; the Iron Throne at +40%. On the other side, your own held stars grant an attacker's momentum of +1% per star — but hard-capped at +15%, deliberately, so that a dominant alliance can never snowball the map into a lockout.
The garrisons scale far harder than the bonus does:
| ★ | Garrison | Infirmary |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 260 infantry, 120 archers (T1) | 80 |
| 2 | 520 infantry, 260 archers, 160 cavalry | 160 |
| 3 | 1,300 infantry, 750 archers, 500 cavalry (T2) | 500 |
| 4 | 3,200 infantry, 1,900 archers, 1,400 cavalry, 500 siege (T3) | 1,200 |
| 5 | 6,500 infantry, 4,200 archers, 3,200 cavalry, 1,100 siege (T4) | 2,600 |
A seat that is already held multiplies every one of those counts by 1.4 and adds a flat +10% defense. Taking a seat off a living lord is a materially different job from taking an empty one.
Durability — no seat falls in one blow
This is the mechanic that makes seat warfare a campaign rather than a click. Each seat has a wall durability pool — 100 for a holdfast, 300 for a great castle, 1,000 for the Iron Throne — and it only changes hands when that pool reaches zero.
Worse for the attacker, the pool grows with tenure. A seat held for thirty days sits at 2.5× its base durability, and the panel says so: walls dug in +N% by tenure. Entrenched holders are genuinely entrenched.
Each won assault takes off surviving troops ÷ 20, with a floor of 50 (holdfast), 60 (great castle) or 80 (the Throne) — and siege troops add up to +50% to that damage. On capture the pool resets to full for the new holder, so the moment you win is also the moment you start being besieged.
Terrain
Stars are not the whole defensive story. Where a seat sits adds a second bonus, and the same ground slows your approach:
| Terrain | Defense | March speed |
|---|---|---|
| Mountains | +20% | ×0.60 |
| Hills | +15% | ×0.80 |
| Forest | +12% | ×0.85 |
| Marsh | +8% | ×0.70 |
| Frozen Waste | +5% | ×0.75 |
| Coast | +5% | ×1.00 |
| Desert | +5% | ×0.85 |
| Plains | 0% | ×1.10 |
A three-star castle in the mountains defends at +44% before a single reinforcement arrives. A three-star castle on the plains defends at +24%. Choose your war accordingly.
Taking one
Scout first — it is free
🦅 Scout costs nothing. A high scout level returns exact garrison counts; a low one returns an estimate. There is no excuse for opening an assault blind.
Mind the traps
Every unheld seat is trapped — Scalding Oil punishes infantry, Bolts punish archers, Spikes punish cavalry. Counts run 8/6/6 at a holdfast, 25/20/20 at a great castle and 80/60/60 at the Iron Throne. Troops lost to traps are gone — they do not go to the infirmary. Bring siege engines to clear them.
The guardian wyrm
Great castles and the Throne keep a wyrm. Your marching dragon duels it in the sky before the siege begins — duel power 180 at a great castle, 340 at the Throne. Winning folds a small attack edge into the assault; losing simply withholds that edge. It is never a penalty, so bring the dragon regardless.
Assault, rally, or muster
- ⚔️ Assault — one solo blow at the walls. Available only while the war window is open.
- 🚩 Rally — up to eight waves launched in sequence until the garrison breaks. One rally at a time, and Recall aborts it if the first waves go badly. This is how seats are actually taken.
- Muster — when the window is shut, pre-stage a rally that fires automatically the instant it opens. The single most useful button on the panel for anyone who cannot be at the keyboard at the right minute.
Seats are assailable only inside a scheduled war window; the panel counts down to it either way — "⚔️ War window OPEN — closes in N" or "🕊️ At peace — war window opens in N".
Intrigue — the cheaper road
Not every seat needs an army. On unheld seats you may 🕊️ Turn its lord (holdfasts only, and no war window required), ☠️ Spoil its stores for a one-time softening of about 40%, 🗡️ Send a Faceless Man to thin the garrison by roughly a quarter for a window, or 🐦 Plant spies for exact intelligence. Each costs gems, carries a success chance, and has a cooldown.
The rebellion window
On a recurring cycle the realm rises, and while the window is open the defenders of high-tier seats are cut by 35%. It is anchored to the shared season clock, identical for every player, and cannot be bought or rerolled. Holdfasts are excluded — this is the door to the seats you could not otherwise touch, and it is the single best moment in the game to swing at a great castle.
Holding one
Upkeep — the seat you lose without a battle
Let a held garrison sit below one fifth of its base durability for 24 hours and the seat is gone. No attacker required: "the smallfolk turned to a new lord, and the seat is lost to neglect." Passive regeneration alone clears the threshold within a couple of hours at every tier, so this only ever bites a seat under sustained pressure that nobody is reinforcing.
There is no gold subscription for holding a seat. "Upkeep" means keeping the walls manned — and the panel warns you well before the deadline.
Reinforcing
You do not need a war window to reinforce. Each point of durability costs:
| Tier | Troops / point | Resources / point | Regen / hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Holdfast | 10 | 25 stone, 18 iron | 20 |
| Great Castle | 18 | 55 stone, 42 iron | 50 |
| Iron Throne | 30 | 110 stone, 85 iron | 140 |
What a seat pays you
Four layers, and they stack.
1. The seat's own buff
Every seat carries a named bonus, and they sum across everything you hold. King's Landing grants realm-wide research +20% and the right to appoint titles. Dragonstone grants dragon XP +20%. Winterfell grants troop training +12%. Holdfasts draw from a pool of +8% to +12% effects across attack, defense, march speed, gathering, scout range, resource cap, training and research.
2. Seat Dominion
Your total stars held grants +2% production and +1.5% keep defense per star, soft-capped at 60 stars. Twenty one-star holdfasts are worth exactly as much dominion as four five-star seats — which is why sweeping the cheap seats is a real strategy and not a consolation prize.
3. Reign tribute — and why you should not trade seats
A held seat pays every hour, split evenly across food, wood, stone and iron: 400 at a holdfast, 1,200 at a great castle, 4,000 at the Iron Throne, which alone also mints 20 gems an hour.
Then the multiplier: tribute climbs steadily from 1.0× to 2.0× over the first 24 hours you hold the seat, and caps there. Losing a seat and retaking it resets that climb to zero. A seat held for a day is worth twice a seat captured this morning, and that single rule does more to shape alliance behaviour than any other number in the game.
4. Throne Points
King's Landing is worth 100, Dragonstone 40, a paramount capital 35, another great castle 22, a holdfast 10 — and 100 is the target. You can reach the throne by taking King's Landing outright, or by assembling the realm around it.
Bestowing titles
Every seat you hold except the Throne lets you name one subordinate title: a 🗝️ Castellan at a holdfast (+3% defense) or a 📜 Seneschal at a great castle (+4% gathering yield). Name a flavour lord and it is pure roleplay; name yourself and the bonus is yours. Stacked subordinate bonuses are capped at +15% per stat, so self-appointing across the map cannot be turned into real power. The Iron Throne is the exception, because it has the Small Council instead — see Titles, Prestige & Ascension.
Seat Monuments
Every seat you have ever held keeps a ledger of your reigns there — "🗿 Seat Monument — claimed N times", with the five most recent listed as held 3d, lost 12 March or still held, 6d and counting. It grants nothing. It is simply the world remembering, and it is worth opening on a seat you have fought over for a season.
Where to go next
- Creating & Managing an Alliance — seats are won by banners, not by lone lords.
- Combat Guide — the troop triangle you will need at the walls.
- Anatomy of a Seat Siege — one capture, start to finish.
- Rally Coordination — timing eight waves with fifty lords.
- The Lord Profile — where the Valyrian steel and named blades you win here end up.